## Facts

- The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, Success Lodge No. 56 (the Union) represented bargaining-unit employees of Vulcan Iron Works, Inc. (Vulcan).
- For at least 20 years, Vulcan gave employees Thanksgiving turkeys as an annual holiday benefit.
- In 1981, Vulcan discontinued the Thanksgiving turkey distribution.
- The parties were operating under a collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) that stated it was the “entire agreement” between the parties.
- The CBA did not contain an express provision requiring Vulcan to provide Thanksgiving turkeys.
- The Union filed a grievance (Grievance No. 2-81), claiming Vulcan’s discontinuance violated the CBA because the turkey benefit had become a binding condition of employment through long-standing practice.
- The Union also filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB; the charges were administratively deferred to arbitration.
- The dispute proceeded to arbitration under FMCS auspices (FMCS Arbn. No. 82K-05094), with a hearing held June 8, 1982, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

## Issues

1. Did Vulcan violate the CBA by discontinuing the long-standing Thanksgiving turkey distribution in 1981?
2. Can a clear and long-running holiday-gift practice become an implied, enforceable term of a CBA when the written agreement is silent on the subject?
3. Does an “entire agreement” clause prevent the arbitrator from enforcing an established past practice as part of the parties’ bargained-for relationship?

## Decision

- The arbitrator sustained the grievance.
- The arbitrator found that Vulcan’s long-running, consistent Thanksgiving turkey distribution had become a binding past practice and an implied condition of employment.
- The arbitrator rejected Vulcan’s argument that the CBA’s “entire agreement” clause barred recognition of the practice where the contract was silent and the practice was stable and well understood.
- The arbitrator concluded Vulcan could not unilaterally discontinue the turkey benefit without bargaining or other contractual justification.
- The arbitrator ordered Vulcan to restore the benefit and provide an appropriate remedy for the loss caused by the 1981 discontinuance.

## Legal Principles

- A past practice may become enforceable when it is clear, consistent, long-standing, and accepted by the parties as part of the employment relationship.
- Where a CBA is silent on a point, established practice can be used to supply an implied term or to define the parties’ mutual expectations about conditions of employment.
- An “entire agreement” clause does not automatically bar enforcement of a well-established practice that is not inconsistent with the written agreement; it does not permit one party to end a settled condition of employment by unilateral action.
- In labor arbitration, an employer’s unilateral termination of a binding practice may constitute a contract violation when the practice has ripened into an implied term maintained across bargaining cycles.

## Conclusion

The arbitrator held that Vulcan’s decades-long Thanksgiving turkey program was not merely a discretionary gift but a binding past practice that had become an implied part of the parties’ collective bargaining relationship; because the CBA did not clearly permit Vulcan to end that benefit, and the “entire agreement” clause did not negate the established practice, Vulcan violated the agreement by discontinuing the turkeys in 1981 and was directed to reinstate the benefit and remedy the loss.


Vulcan Iron Works, Inc., and Int'l Ass'n of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, Success Lodge No. 56, FMCS Arbn. No. 82K-05094, Grievance No. 2-81 (1982)