Oral Argument Set in CWA Appeal of Texas Collective Bargaining Case Ruling

The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals calendared Communications Workers of America v. Dex Media for oral argument on Feb. 8. The CWA is appealing a March 23 judgment (docket 3:20-cv-3295) in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas claiming an arbitrator in a collective bargaining agreement demonstrated “unacceptable bias” and denied YP Holdings employee George Animadu due process and fundamental fairness after his termination “without just cause” in January 2014 while he was a member of a collective bargaining unit represented by CWA. YP Holdings “took over a year” to submit an answer to the union denying the grievance and failed to respond at the second step of the grievance process, said the complaint. Dex Media acquired YP Holdings in 2017. The union filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board in October 2017, which issued a formal complaint of unfair labor practices. Dex Media, which took the assumed name Thryv in 2018, wouldn’t respond to the grievance and the case proceeded to arbitration, where the company argued the union was barred by laches due to the time that had passed from initiation of the grievance, the complaint said. The union cited the company’s refusal to respond to the grievance as the cause for the time-lapse. In August 2020, the arbitrator dismissed the grievance based on laches. U.S. District Court Judge Sam Lindsay dismissed the case with prejudice in March, and CWA filed a notice of appeal in April.