## Facts

- Inter-Pack Corp. maintained a published policy addressing “excessive absenteeism,” defined as an unexcused absence rate of 5% or more.
- Under the policy, a first offense resulted in a written warning, and a second offense resulted in a disciplinary suspension for a maximum period of two weeks.
- Employee J was hired on June 3, 1985, as a dye-cutter operator.
- In the second half of 1985, J received a written warning for a first offense of excessive absenteeism based on four absences.
- In December 1985, J was out for several days on medical leave and missed three additional days to attend a family funeral; those December absences were not the subject of discipline.
- In the first two months of 1986, J had three unexcused absences, producing an unexcused absence rate of 11%.
- The three unexcused absences were attributed to: a personal court day, a failure-to-report day, and a day J reported to work but then went home sick.
- Inter-Pack treated J’s early-1986 record as a second offense under the policy and imposed a two-week suspension without pay.
- At the time of the suspension, J had approximately eight months’ seniority.
- Two other employees had previously received three-day suspensions for second offenses of excessive absenteeism under the same policy.
- One comparator, employee G, had seniority similar to J’s and had five separate failure-to-report days (16.6% absence rate) and received a three-day suspension for a second offense.
- Another comparator, with greater seniority than J and G, had three failure-to-report days (10% absence rate) and received a three-day suspension for a second offense.
- J’s union filed a grievance challenging the length of J’s suspension, and the dispute was submitted to labor arbitration.

## Issues

1. Whether Inter-Pack had just cause under the collective bargaining agreement and the published absenteeism policy to impose a two-week (maximum) suspension for J’s second offense of excessive absenteeism.
2. Whether the two-week suspension was improper or excessive in light of the shorter (three-day) suspensions imposed on other employees for second offenses involving similar or higher unexcused-absence rates.
3. If the penalty was found excessive, what modification to the suspension and related make-whole relief, if any, should be ordered.

## Decision

- The matter proceeded to labor arbitration (Brown, Arbitrator) on the union’s grievance challenging the length of the suspension.
- Public summaries available without access to the full award report the policy terms, J’s attendance record, the two-week suspension, and the comparator discipline.
- Those summaries do not provide the arbitrator’s final ruling (whether the grievance was sustained or denied) or describe any remedy ordered.

## Legal Principles

- In labor arbitration, discipline commonly must satisfy just-cause requirements, including that the penalty be reasonable in relation to the proven misconduct and the employee’s record.
- Where a policy authorizes suspension up to a stated maximum, an arbitrator may examine whether imposing the maximum penalty was warranted on the facts presented.
- Consistency of discipline can be relevant; materially different penalties for similar offenses may support a claim that discipline was not evenhanded.
- A union may challenge only the severity of discipline while not disputing that some discipline was warranted under the employer’s rules.

## Conclusion

In *Inter-Pack Corp.*, 87 Lab. Arb. Rep. 1232 (1986), the union grieved a two-week unpaid suspension imposed on employee J as a second offense under the employer’s 5% unexcused-absence policy after J incurred three unexcused absences (11%) in early 1986 following a prior written warning, and the union pointed to other second-offense cases that resulted in three-day suspensions; however, publicly accessible case summaries do not report the arbitrator’s ultimate disposition or remedy.


Inter-Pack Corp., 87 Lab. Arb. Rep. 1232 (1986)