A union and employer engaged in negotiations over the replacement to an expiring labor agreement. At the outset of the negotiations, the company’s negotiator informed the union that the company would not negotiate beyond the expiration date of the existing agreement (about a month and a half later). The parties held eight bargaining sessions during this period of time, only six of which were substantive. The parties reached tentative agreement on some thirty issues, although other issues, including the employer’s demand that just cause language be removed from the contract, remained unresolved. At the expiration date of the existing agreement the union requested an extension of negotiations, but the company refused and declared an impasse. The company then implemented selected portions of its final offer and made some additional changes. 

1. What were the legal issues in this case? What did the court decide?

2. Why was it concluded that a valid impasse did not exist at the time that the employer ceased to negotiate? Since the employer wanted to eliminate the just cause provision in the contract and the union said that it would never agree to that, why wasn’t that fact alone enough to show the existence of an impasse?

3. So, what happens now? What if the parties still cannot come to agreement?

4. What specific things should this employer have done differently to avoid the outcome in this case?