The full case caption appears at the
end of this opinion. SELYA, Circuit Judge. Arbitral awards are nearly impervious to judicial oversight.See Advest, Inc. v. McCarthy, 914 F.2d 6, 8-9 (1st Cir. 1990) (describingexceptions); Maine Cent. R.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees,873 F.2d 425, 428 (1st Cir. 1989) (“Judicial review of an arbitration award is amongthe narrowest known in the law.”). Accordingly, disputes that are committed bycontract to the arbitral process almost always are won or lost before thearbitrator. Successful court challenges are few and far between. Undaunted by this bleak prospect, Local Union No. 42 (Local 42 or the union), aTeamsters affiliate, invited a federal district court to vacate a labor arbitrator’saward in favor of Supervalu, Inc. (Supervalu or the employer). The court refused theinvitation. Because we agree that the arbitrator, regardless of whether his decisionwas right or wrong, acted within the realm of the authority vested in him by theapplicable collective bargaining agreement, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND Supervalu is a large wholesale grocer that operates a regional facility in Andover,Massachusetts. Local 42 represents all the warehouse workers and truck drivers atthat site. The parties’ current collective bargaining agreement (the CBA) tookeffect in May of 1994. Among other things, the CBA designates Local 42 as theexclusive bargaining agent for its members, lays out wage rates for the multi-yearperiod covered by the pact (distinguishing, in the process, between “present” and”new” full-time employees), and sets out guidelines for the allocation of benefits. About two months before the CBA took effect, Supervalu acquired the business of acompetitor, Sweet Life Foods (SLF), which operated a grocery warehouse in Northboro,Massachusetts. As part of that transaction, Supervalu assumed the collectivebargaining agreement then in effect between SLF and Teamsters Local 170 (whichrepresented workers at the Northboro facility). Supervalu soon decided to move allthe Northboro work to Andover, transferring some of the crew and discharging therest. To that end, it commenced negotiations with Local 170 anent transfer andseverance terms, but failed to reach an accord. In August of 1994, Supervalu made a so-called “final and best offer” to Local 170 inthe form of a memorandum that, among other things, laid out anticipated terms ofengagement (including compensation) for those workers who would be redirected toAndover. Supervalu informed a representative of Local 42 about the proposal (or sothe arbitrator supportably found), but it never bargained with Local 42 anent theterms and conditions of the transferees’ employment. In all events, neither Local170 nor Local 42 ever formally accepted the offer. Supervalu, acting unilaterally,nonetheless started shifting workers from Northboro to Andover in late August andSeptember. Upon reporting for duty at Andover, the transferees automatically becamemembers of Local 42. Supervalu applied the wage rate and conditions of employment specified in thememorandum to the transferred workers. Overall, these terms were a compromisebetween treating them like veteran employees and treating them like neophytes.
[FOOTNOTE 1]This hermaphroditic status sowed the seeds for an horrific harvest. The first poisonous plant bloomed when the union, acting on the transferees’ behalf,grieved the allocation of bonus days (i.e., extra personal days), charging thatunder Article 25 of the CBA the transferees’ entitlement to bonus days should bedetermined in light of their years of service with SLF. In mounting this challenge,the union brushed aside the CBA’s definition of seniority as “the period ofemployment with [Supervalu] in the work covered by this Agreement, at the terminal(or terminals) within the jurisdiction of the Local,” and posited that”years/service” — the critical integer in the bonus days equation — was a broaderterm that could include periods in the employ of SLF. Supervalu rejected thegrievance, asserting that years of service, like seniority, had to be calculatedfrom the date it hired an employee to work full time at Andover. The parties submitted the case to arbitration. The arbitrator, Greenbaum, observedthat some workers who came to the Andover facility from acquired companies had beenpermitted to carry over years of service (as well as seniority). She then determinedthat, from and after 1989, the terms “years/service” and “seniority” had developeddistinct meanings. Beginning at that time, the CBA made provision for “casualemployees,” i.e., part-time workers hired, as needed, to toil in the Andoverwarehouse, and those employees, collectively, had come to constitute the pool fromwhich most new full-time workers were recruited. Arbitrator Greenbaum noted thatwhen a casual worker became a regular full-time employee, Supervalu figured hisyears of service from his original date of hire as a casual employee, even though heaccrued no seniority in respect to the time spent in casual work. The arbitrator found additional support for the theory that years of service andseniority were independent variables in the differing uses of those terms within thefour corners of the CBA: A review of [the terms'] uses in the Agreement shows that where the intent is toprovide an employee with a benefit that is non-competitive, i.e., does not impact onany other employee, such as bonus days and entitlement to vacation days, the partiesused the synonymous terms of date of hire or years of service or length of serviceor “the period of employment with the Company” and “in the Company’s employ” allmeaning essentially the same thing. In contrast, the term “seniority” is generallyused where competitive rights are involved. This is the case in bidding forpromotions, preferences for vacation schedules, preference for work assignments, . .. . She also found that this dichotomy characterized the treatment of the transferees(at least to some degree), inasmuch as their vacation entitlement — anon-competitive benefit — was determined in light of the years they had worked atSLF, while preference in vacation scheduling — a competitive benefit — wasallocated strictly in accordance with seniority. Based on these facts, the arbitrator found that, as used in the CBA, “years/service”was broader than “seniority” and sometimes included work other than full-time Local42 work at the Andover warehouse; and that the transferees’ previous service at SLFshould have informed the calculation of their bonus days. The fact that the SLFtransferees were not treated generically as new hires (unlike another group that hadpreviously joined the work force from an acquired company) contributed heavily toher conclusion that Supervalu had breached the CBA in computing the transferees’entitlement to bonus days without regard to “years/service” (including time spent atSLF).
[FOOTNOTE 2] The battleground then shifted to wages and, in particular, to Article 13 of the CBA(governing “minimum hourly wages”). Article 13 sets out separate wage schedules for”present” and “new” full-time workers, and lists wage rates for casual (part-time)workers in a separate chart. Both before and after the CBA took effect, Supervalu’sprevailing practice was to pay former casual workers who became regular full-timeemployees at the rate specified by the controlling CBA for new hires. When Supervalubegan to integrate SLF personnel into its Andover work force, it paid them at a rateof $13.23/hr. — one that fell somewhere between the rate for new recruits and therates applicable to present workers. Buoyed by Arbitrator Greenbaum’s award, Local 42 filed a second grievance. Thistime, it argued that the starting wages paid to erstwhile casual employees and SLFtransferees were too stingy and placed Supervalu in breach of Article 13. The unionasseverated that wages, like bonus days and vacation eligibility, were anon-competitive benefit and should be determined by years of service, not seniority,in accordance with Arbitrator Greenbaum’s construct. If this were so, the union’sthesis ran, workers who had accumulated years of service could not properly bedeemed “new,” and Supervalu’s praxis of paying them differently than “present”employees transgressed the CBA because Article 13 contained no classification forfull-time workers other than “new” and “present.” This second grievance was heard by Arbitrator Cooper. He adopted ArbitratorGreenbaum’s extensive findings of fact and acknowledged that Local 42 had neveragreed to a specific wage scale for the transferees. The question for thetransferees, then, was whether the wages unilaterally imposed by the employerbreached the CBA. Noting that Article 13′s wage-rate provision did not state whetherthe wage progression limned thereby was to be based upon “seniority” or”years/service,” Arbitrator Cooper concluded that the article was thus ambiguous asto whether the transferees and former casual employees — who had accrued years ofservice but no seniority — were to be regarded as “new” or “present” workers forpurposes germane to this article. The arbitrator proceeded to explore the perceivedambiguity. He first examined the historical development of the wage provisions. Doing sorevealed to his satisfaction that paying former casual workers as “present” workers(i.e., according to their original dates of hire) would create some obviousanomalies. For example, the CBA dictated that “all new, full time employees” wouldreach the top rate in their classification after seven years, but, on the union’sinterpretation, some casual workers would receive the top rate simultaneous withtheir engagement as regular full-time employees, leapfrogging more senior members ofLocal 42 in the process.
[FOOTNOTE 3] The arbitrator expressed grave doubt that the partiesintended the CBA to produce such eccentric results “without a single word in the[text].” Arbitrator Cooper also found that longstanding practice suggested that the parties”did not consider [a casual employee's] date of hire as the point for measuring hisor her progression on the salary scale.” In this vein, he observed that the employerhad paid former casual workers who became regular full-time workers at the rate for”new” hires ever since the casual employee category had been established in 1989.Coupling this evidence of prior practice with the language of the CBA, ArbitratorCooper concluded that Supervalu had not contravened the intention behind Article 13by paying former casual employees according to the schedule for new hires.
[FOOTNOTE 4] Arbitrator Cooper then turned to the issue of whether the wages paid to workerstransferring from SLF should have been based on years of service or seniority. Hefound that his resolution of the earlier question — involving the entry-level ratefor former casual employees who converted to full-time status — was decisive: Unless there is some compelling aspect of Article 13 which demonstrates thatnotwithstanding the narrow definition of “seniority,” wages were to be determined bytime in service including time spent with the Company at the former Sweet Lifefacility, the Union does not have a valid contractual claim. Arbitrator Greenbaumrelied upon the fact that for employees who served as casual employees and laterbecame regular full-time employees, the Company counted their service time fromtheir initial date of hire, not their seniority date, to measure their entitlementto bonus days. The opposite is true in the current case, the Company never countedfrom the date of hire to determine the appropriate wage rate for casual employees.Given this circumstance, Arbitrator Greenbaum’s Award requires a different outcome. Thus, Supervalu had not violated Article 13 of the CBA by declining to pay SLFtransferees the wages guaranteed to “present” employees. In resolving the second grievance favorably to the employer, the arbitrator gaveshort shrift to the union’s claim that Supervalu was in breach because it had paidthe transferred workers more than the wages stipulated in Article 13 for “new”employees. In his view, Article 13 established “only a minimum wage rate andtherefore if the Company seeks to pay the employees more than is required, it ispermitted to do so.” He bolstered this finding by noting the transferees’acquiescence in the rates paid and concluding that “the general acquiescence by theemployees involved should be inferred to the Union.” Displeased with Arbitrator Cooper’s award, Local 42 filed suit for vacation in thefederal district court. See 29 U.S.C. � 185. After weighing cross-motions forsummary judgment, the court determined that the union’s jeremiad amounted to no morethan a litany of factual and legal errors allegedly made by the arbitrator, andconcluded that it lacked authority to intercede. Consequently, it granted brevisdisposition in Supervalu’s favor. This appeal ensued. II. STANDARD OF REVIEW In an action to vacate an arbitral award, this court reviews the district court’sgrant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard as did that tribunal.See Wheelabrator Envirotech Operating Servs. Inc. v. Massachusetts Laborers Dist.Council Local 1144, 88 F.3d 40, 43 (1st Cir. 1996). In this type of case, thedistrict court’s authority (and, hence, our authority) is very tightlycircumscribed: The courts are not authorized to reconsider the merits of an award even though theparties may allege that the award rests on errors of fact or on misinterpretation ofthe contract. . . . As long as the arbitrator’s award “draws its essence from thecollective bargaining agreement,” and is not merely “his own brand of industrialjustice,” the award is legitimate. United Paperworkers Int’l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 36 (1987) (quotingUnited Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597 (1960)). Thisstandard has been described in different ways over time. See Advest, 914 F.2d at 9(citing examples). Whatever words are used, however, all the formulations reflectthe idea that a court ought not to vacate an arbitral award “as long as thearbitrator is even arguably construing or applying the contract and acting withinthe scope of his authority.” Misco, 484 U.S. at 38; see also Labor Relations Div. ofConstr. Indus. v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, Local #379, 29 F.3d 742, 743 (1st Cir.1994) (concluding that “courts must resist the temptation to substitute their ownjudgment about the most reasonable meaning of a labor contract for that of thearbitrator and avoid the tendency to strike down even an arbitrator’s erroneousinterpretation of such contracts”). In a case in which the arbitrator purports to interpret the language of a collectivebargaining agreement, a party who seeks judicial review ordinarily must demonstratethat the award is contrary to the plain language of the CBA and that the arbitrator,heedless of the contract language, preferred instead to write his own prescriptionfor industrial justice. See Kraft Foods, Inc. v. Office & Prof’l Employees Int’lUnion, Local 1295, 203 F.3d 98, 100 (1st Cir. 2000); Challenger Caribbean Corp. v.Union General de Trabajadores, 903 F.2d 857, 861 (1st Cir. 1990). Put another way, asuccessful challenge to an arbitral award in such circumstances necessitates ashowing that the award is “(1) unfounded in reason and fact; (2) based on reasoningso palpably faulty that no judge, or group of judges, ever could conceivably havemade such a ruling; or (3) mistakenly based on a crucial assumption that isconcededly a non-fact.” Local 1445, United Food and Commercial Workers Int’l Unionv. Stop & Shop Cos., 776 F.2d 19, 21 (1st Cir. 1985). III. ANALYSIS Local 42 maintains that Arbitrator Cooper committed four fundamental mistakes.First, the union asserts that the arbitrator impermissibly relied upon thetransferees’ acquiescence in regard to their wage rate (reliance which, in theunion’s view, contradicts the union’s status as the transferees’ exclusivebargaining representative in respect to wages). Second, the union contends that,whereas Article 13 created only two classifications of regular full-time employees,the arbitrator took it upon himself to rewrite the agreement and construct anothercategory. Third, the union charges that the arbitrator departed from his properprovince when he allowed Supervalu to pay the transferees more than the minimumhourly wage for new workers specified in the CBA. Finally, the union raises a claimof procedural error. We find none of these four arguments persuasive. A Local 42 calumnizes the arbitrator’s comment that “[w]hile the Union did not agreeto [the transferees'] wage rate, the general acquiescence by the employees involvedshould be inferred to the Union.” The union claims that acquiescence is irrelevant,and that the arbitrator’s reliance on it effectively rewrote the CBA and frustratedthe union’s prerogative as the exclusive negotiating agent for all the employees inthe bargaining unit (including those who transferred from SLF). As a subset of thisargument, the union claims that glorifying the effect of acquiescence inserted intothe CBA a brand-new timeliness requirement for union grievances. This argument is a red herring. We do not agree with the union that ArbitratorCooper premised his award on acquiescence. As the passage quoted supra at 10 makesmanifest, the arbitrator understandably determined that “new,” as used in Article13, must mean “without seniority” in order to make sense of the overall paymentscheme vis-�-vis former casual employees. Based on this determination — one whichthe union does not challenge, see supra note 4 — he then concluded that thetransferees (whom the union concedes had no seniority) likewise must be deemed “new”employees for purposes of the wage provision.
[FOOTNOTE 5] This reasoning depended on thecontract language and the arbitrator’s discernment of the parties’ mutual intent. Itdid not “ignore the plain language of the contract,” Misco, 484 U.S. at 38, because”new” plausibly could mean “new to Local 42 and the Andover warehouse.” Nor did itdepend in any way, shape, or form on a finding of acquiescence. We hasten to add that Arbitrator Cooper’s rendition of the wage provision seemsreasonable — especially since the parties knew, when the CBA was signed, that thecategory of “new” employees under the previous CBA had been deemed to include formercasual employees for wage purposes. Indeed, the only way to avoid the conclusionthat he reached (after deciding that “new” meant “without seniority”) would havebeen to decide that “new” had different meanings for different categories ofworkers. We cannot fault the arbitrator for his reluctance to engage in that type oflinguistic microsurgery. In all events, what counts is that the arbitrator’s readingof the wage provision, right or wrong, had a plausible basis in the language andstructure of the CBA. A reviewing court can go no further. See Coastal Oil of NewEngl., Inc. v. Teamsters Local A/W, 134 F.3d 466, 469 (1st Cir. 1998); ChallengerCaribbean, 903 F.2d at 863-64. If more were needed — and we doubt that it is — we note that Local 42 wrests thearbitrator’s statements about acquiescence from their contextual moorings, thusdistorting their meaning. Placing the remarks in context clarifies their possiblerole in the decisional calculus.
[FOOTNOTE 6] Toward the beginning of Arbitrator Cooper’sdiscussion, he wrote that “[o]nce the facts are determined, an arbitrator’s firststep is to look at the parties’ Agreement and, if the clear and unambiguous languageof that Agreement does not answer the question posed, the parties’ conduct should beused to help decipher their intent.” He then seems to have used the transferees’acquiescence (and that of Local 42) to cast light upon the parties’ initialunderstanding that the transferees’ wage rate was acceptable. That understanding –as the arbitrator suggested in the very next sentence — could reflect that theunion knew all along that the CBA established a minimum wage rate and thus permittedthe employer to pay more than the minimum if it so desired. Applying this originalunderstanding to what was done vis-�-vis the transferees lends support to hisholding. To be sure, the arbitrator’s decision is not entirely a model either of consistencyor clarity. But we do not review arbitral decisions for style points, and thearbitrator’s core message — that the CBA, as drafted, permitted the employerunilaterally to pay classes of employees more (but not less) than the agreed minimumwage — comes through with sufficient precision. To cinch matters, although rationalminds can differ about whether the arbitrator accurately divined the parties’intent, the standard of review does not allow an inquiring court to second-guess thecorrectness of that determination. See Enterprise Wheel, 363 U.S. at 599; LaborRelations Div., 29 F.3d at 745. Nor does the arbitrator’s use of acquiescence asrelevant evidence open the award to judicial nullification. Even if his usage issusceptible to the union’s charge that he impermissibly read a timeliness provisioninto the CBA, “[a] mere ambiguity in the opinion accompanying an award, whichpermits the inference that the arbitrator may have exceeded his authority, is not areason for refusing to enforce the award.” Enterprise Wheel, 363 U.S. at 598. We add a postscript of sorts. An arbitrator has no duty to set forth the reasonsunderlying his award. Consequently, a reviewing court may “uphold[] the arbitrator’sdecision on grounds or reasoning not employed by the arbitrator himself.” LaborRelations Div., 29 F.3d at 747. For that reason, we see no problem in approving theinstant decision based on the arbitrator’s plausible construction of the terms “new”and “minimum hourly wages,” without more. B This brings us to Local 42′s contention that Arbitrator Cooper arbitrarily engrafteda hybrid category of regular full-time workers — transferees — onto Article 13.This contention, too, stems from an insensitive reading of the arbitrator’sdecision. We explain briefly. The arbitrator’s award, whether or not mistaken, resulted directly from hisinterpretation of two terms set forth in Article 13 of the CBA (“new” and “minimumhourly wages”). On that basis, he determined that the employer was entitled as amatter of contract to pay more (but not less) than the rates listed as “minimumhourly wages.” This determination did not create a third category of full-timeemployees. Rather, under the arbitrator’s plausible construction, the transfereeswere members of the CBA’s new-worker category who were being paid more than theminimum wage, as the CBA permitted.
[FOOTNOTE 7] Viewed in this light, the arbitral decisiondid not amend the CBA, but, rather, derived its essence from the CBA. No more isexigible.
[FOOTNOTE 8] See Misco, 484 U.S. at 36; Kraft Foods, 203 F.3d at 102, 103. C Local 42 makes a last-ditch assertion that the arbitrator exceeded his authoritybecause “[n]othing in the [CBA] provided Supervalu with the right to pay more thanthe contractually stated terms without Local 42′s agreement.” In its estimation, theCBA is not a “minimum standards contract,” and thus deprives the employer of thefreedom to pay more than the stipulated wages. This is the same whine — a protestagainst the arbitrator’s construction of the term “minimum hourly wages” — in a newbottle, and it is equally unpalatable. See Misco, 484 U.S. at 38. Put another way,to the extent that the arbitral award properly can be characterized as embodying aconclusion that the CBA functioned like a minimum standards contract, that is alegal conclusion which falls outside the narrow confines of judicial review. See id.Moreover, there is no sign that Local 42 ever argued this point to the arbitrator,and it is therefore procedurally defaulted. See Dorado Beach Hotel Corp. v. Union deTrabajadores de la Industria Gastronomica Local 610, 959 F.2d 2, 5-6 (1st Cir.1992). The related argument that federal law requires employers to negotiate wages withunion representatives, see 29 U.S.C. � 159(a), also comes too late in the day. Theunion’s contention before the arbitrator was simply that “the Company is inviolation of Article 13 of the collective bargaining agreement between the parties.”The statutory argument was, therefore, waived. At any rate, because arbitrators acquire their power from the parties’ agreement tosubmit to their decisions, they generally lack the authority, absent a contrarystipulation, to consider laws external to the CBA. See Barrentine v. Arkansas-BestFreight Sys. Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 744 & n.23 (1981); Challenger Caribbean, 903 F.2dat 866. That being so, we cannot take the arbitrator to task for concentrating onthe CBA’s language and not on federal labor law. See Graphic Arts Int’l Union Local97B v. Haddon Craftsmen, Inc., 796 F.2d 692, 697-98 (3d Cir. 1986); cf. Alexander v.Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 49-50 (1974) (explaining that contractual rightsunder a CBA and statutory rights are “distinctly separate” and may be enforced “intheir respectively appropriate forums” without inconsistency). The authorities cited by the union do not convince us otherwise. In LeedArchitectural Products, Inc. v. United Steelworkers of America, Local 6674, 916 F.2d63 (2d Cir. 1990), the court affirmed the vacatur of an arbitral award that requiredan employer to pay aggrieved workers the same wage that it had agreed to pay a newemployee. In that case, however, the CBA specified a maximum as well as a minimumwage, and the awarded rate of pay exceeded the cap. See id. at 64. Here, the CBAonly sets forth a minimum, and the wage rate paid to the transferees (and sanctionedby the arbitrator) is not inconsistent with it. The arbitral decisions cited by Local 42 are beside any relevant point. While theysuggest that Arbitrator Cooper interpreted the CBA differently than otherarbitrators in kindred situations, that suggestion misses the mark. Because “anarbitrator’s refusal to follow a previous arbitrator’s interpretation of a specificcontractual provision does not expose an ensuing award to judicial tinkering,” ElDorado Technical Servs., Inc. v. Union General de Trabajadores, 961 F.2d 317, 321(1st Cir. 1992), these citations afford the union no traction. D Local 42′s procedural argument need not detain us. It complains that, at thearbitration hearing, the arbitrator denied its representative the opportunity topresent evidence. We have perused the record with care and find that the arbitratormerely declined to hear the witness’s elucidation of the contents of certain itemsof documentary evidence. Thus, the union’s claim of error fails. Generally speaking, documents are the best evidence of their contents. See, e.g.,Fed. R. Evid. 1002. Consequently, an arbitrator, like a trial judge, usually actswithin his rights in admitting documents into evidence without permitting externalelaboration. Nothing about this case removes it from the sweep of this general rule.We add only that any error in this regard would have been benign; the union hadample opportunity to explain the significance of the documents in its post-hearingbrief and took full advantage. IV. CONCLUSION We need go no further. The arbitral award at issue here stemmed rationally, if notinevitably, from the arbitrator’s construction of the CBA. It is founded inreasoning that can be questioned, but not dismissed as chimerical. It does notdepend on invented or imagined facts. Because this is so, and because the union’sclaim of procedural error is jejune, the award must stand. When all is said anddone, “courts must confine themselves to determining whether the arbitrator’sconstruction of the contract was in any way plausible,” Labor Relations Div., 29F.3d at 743, and the decision here passes that undemanding test. :::FOOTNOTES:::
FN1 To offer a few illustrations, the transferred workers were treated like experienced hands in that they were exempted from the60-day probationary period for new hires imposed by Article 2 of the CBA and received credit toward vacation eligibility for thetime they had worked with SLF. They were, however, paid less than veteran workers (although their starting wage — $13.23 perhour — was substantially above the minimum rate set for beginners in the CBA), and their eligibility for bonus days was calculatedas if they had begun work on the date the CBA took effect.
FN2 Arbitrator Greenbaum found Supervalu’s breach of the CBA especially flagrant because it had allowed transferees to receivebonus days as early as May 1995, even though they had not yet been working at Andover for a full year. In the arbitrator’s words,”[t]he Company created a fiction for them by changing their date of hire from September or October 1994 to May 1994 [when theCBA had taken effect], which certainly was not in accordance with its agreement with Local 42.” This approach both ignored thetransferees’ years of service at SLF and defied the CBA’s rules anent new hires.
FN3 This would create a stark inequity in regard to workers who had been recalled after forced layoffs. When reinstated, suchworkers are paid at the rates they were earning when furloughed, not at the current rates for “present” workers. They arenonetheless entitled, under Article 27 of the CBA, to a preference over casual workers when positions open up.
FN4 This aspect of the arbitral award is not before us. Although the union’s complaint prayed for vacation of the entire award, itsarguments before this court have dealt exclusively with the rates paid to transferees. We limit our analysis accordingly and deemforfeited all arguments about the wages for former casual employees. See Sheinkopf v. Stone, 927 F.2d 1259, 1263 (1st Cir.1991).
FN5 Arbitrator Cooper was not precluded from reaching this result by Arbitrator Greenbaum’s conclusion that the parties typicallyused years of service to quantify non-competitive benefits. Earlier holdings of a previous arbitrator do not bind a new arbitrator toread a collective bargaining agreement in a way that he determines is contrary to the parties’ intent. See Boston Shipping Ass’n v.International Longshoremen’s Ass’n, 659 F.2d 1, 3 n.4 (1st Cir. 1981).
FN6 Neither the arbitrator’s factual finding of acquiescence nor his legal determination that acquiescence could be imputed to theunion are susceptible to review in this proceeding. See Misco, 484 U.S. at 36, 38.
FN7 We note in passing that, for much the same reason, the higher wages did not contravene Article 9(C) (which barred “attempt[s]to arrange other conditions [of employment] with any of its employees than are set forth in this Agreement”).
FN8 Although the workers who had been transferred from SLF did not comprise a third category of regular full-time employeeswithin the meaning of Article 13 of the CBA, the separate definitions of “years/service” and “seniority” described by ArbitratorGreenbaum plainly allowed for three classes of full-time workers overall, namely, workers with years of service and seniority;workers with neither years of service nor seniority; and workers with years of service but no seniority. This taxonomy does noviolence to the CBA — and it was the union that urged the taxonomy on Arbitrator Greenbaum in the first place.
Teamsters Local Union No. 42 v. Supervalu, Inc. United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Teamsters Local Union No. 42, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Supervalu, Inc., Defendant, Appellee. No. 99-1688 Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. [Hon. Reginald C. Lindsay, U.S. District Judge] Filed: May 15, 2000 Before: Torruella, Chief Judge, Selya and Lipez, Circuit Judges. Counsel: John D. Burke, with whom Law Offices of Gabriel Dumont was on brief, for appellant. Keith P. Spiller, with whom Thompson Hine & Flory LLP, Gregory C. Keating, andChoate, Hall & Stewart were on brief, for appellee.
