UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, PETITIONER V. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS, AFL-CIO No. 87-59 In the Supreme Court of the United States October Term, 1987 The Solicitor General, on behalf of the United States Postal Service, petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in this case. Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit TABLE OF CONTENTS Opinions below Jurisdiction Statutory provisions involved Questions presented Statement Reasons for granting the petition Conclusion Appendix OPINIONS BELOW The opinion of the court of appeals (App., infra, 1a-6a) is reported at 810 F.2d 1239. The opinion of the district court (App., infra, 7a-13a) is reported at 631 F. Supp. 599. JURISDICTION The judgment of the court of appeals (App., infra, 25a-26a) was entered on February 13, 1987. A petition for rehearing was denied on April 9, 1987 (App., infra, 27a). The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 28 U.S.C. 1254 (1). STATUTORY PROVISIONS INVOLVED Section 101(a) of Title 39, United States Code, provides in pertinent part: The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States * * *. The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas * * *. Section 101(e) provides: In determining all policies for postal services, the Postal Service shall give the highest consideration to the requirement for the most expeditious collection, transportation, and delivery of important letter mail. Section 202(a) provides in pertinent part: The exercise of the power of the Postal Service shall be directed by a Board of Governors * * *. Section 402 provides in pertinent part: (T)he Board may delegate the authority vested in it to the Postmaster General under such terms * * * as it deems desirable. The Board may establish such committees of the Board, and delegate such powers to any committee, as the Board determines appropriate to carry out its functions and duties. Delegations to the Postmaster General or committees shall be consistent with other provisions of this title, shall not relieve the Board of full responsibility for the carrying out of its duties and functions, and shall be revocable by the Governors in their exclusive judgment. Section 403 provides in pertinent part: (a) The Postal Service shall plan, develop, promote, and provide adequate and efficient postal services * * *. The Postal Service shall serve as nearly as practicable the entire population of the United States. (b) It shall be the responsibility of the Postal Service -- (1) to maintain an efficient system of collection, sorting, and delivery of the mail nationwide; * * *. Section 1001(e) provides in pertinent part: The Postal Service shall have the right, consistent with section 1003 and chapter 12 of this title and applicable laws, regulations, and collective-bargaining agreements -- * * * * * (2) to hire, promote, transfer, assign, and retain officers and employees in positions within the Postal Service, and to suspend, demote, discharge, or take other disciplinary action against such officers and employees; (3) to relieve officers and employees from duties because of lack of work or for other legitimate reasons; (4) to maintain the efficiency of the operations entrusted to it; * * *. Section 1206(b) provides in pertinent part: Collective-bargaining agreements between the Postal Service and bargaining representatives * * * may include any procedures for resolution by the parties of grievances and adverse actions arising under the agreement, including procedures culminating in binding third-party arbitration * * *. Section 1208(b) provides in pertinent part: Suits for violation of contracts between the Postal Service and a labor organization representing Postal Service employees * * * may be brought in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties, without respect to the amount in controversy. Section 1209(a) provides: Employee-management relations shall, to the extent not inconsistent with provisions of this title, be subject to the provisions of subchapter II of chapter 7 of title 29 (29 U.S.C. (& Supp. III) 151-169 (National Labor Relations Act)). 1. Whether judicial enforcement of an arbitration award against a public employer may be contrary to public policy where the agency has reasonably determined that the award threatens its basic statutorily defined public mission, although the award does not violate a specific command of positive law or compel unlawful conduct. 2. Whether an arbitration award ordering the Postal Service to reinstate an employee who has been discharged for, and criminally convicted of, failing to deliver thousands of pieces of mail should be set aside as contrary to public policy. STATEMENT Like United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., cert. granted, No. 86-651 (Jan. 12, 1987), this case involves the question whether considerations of public policy may preclude enforcement of a labor arbitrator's reinstatement order (see W.R. Grace & Co. v. Rubber Workers Local 759, 461 U.S. 757, 766 (1983)). Here, however, the order runs against a public employer, the Postal Service, charged by statute with the obligation promptly, reliably, and efficiently to carry out its mission -- the delivery of the mails (39 U.S.C. 101, 403, 1001). The arbitration award directs the Postal Service to reinstate a letter carrier who was discharged for, and criminally convicted of, failing to deliver more than 3,500 pieces of mail. The court of appeals nevertheless held that enforcement of the award does not violate public policy (App., infra, 1a-6a). 1. In 1984 police and postal inspectors made a lawful search of the personal automobile of letter carrier Edward Hyde. They found more than 3,500 undelivered pieces of mail addressed to residents on his delivery route and elsewhere. Some of the mail contained commercial and United States Treasury checks; some had been delayed more than a year. See App., infra, 8a. Mr. Hyde pled guilty to unlawful delay of the mail by a postal employee, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1703, and was sentenced to 18 months' probation, a condition of which was that he complete a rehabilitation program for compulsive gamblers (App., infra, 8a). The Postal Service discharged Mr. Hyde for his criminal dereliction of duty. The National Association of Letters Carriers filed a grievance on Mr. Hyde's behalf and ultimately sought arbitration. The arbitrator ordered reinstatement of Mr. Hyde without back pay after a 60-day medical leave of absence. App., infra, 8a-9a. Although stating that the question presented was whether Mr. Hyde's removal was for "just cause," the arbitrator refused to consider Mr. Hyde's unlawful possession and delay of mail in themselves sufficient. Rather, while acknowledging that he was unable to foretell the prospects of Mr. Hyde's rehabilitation (ibid.), that "(t)here is the threat of recurrence of misconduct" (id. at 23a), and that he was not persuaded that Mr. Hyde could yet return to work (ibid.), the arbitrator ordered Mr. Hyde's reinstatement (after 60 days) because he thought reinstatement was necessary to Mr. Hyde's rehabilitation. The arbitrator explained: "if any reasonable hope exists for the rehabilitation of * * * (Mr. Hyde) and the returning of him to the work place, no one should deny him this opportunity" (id. at 21a). 2. The Postal Service filed suit in the district court seeking to set aside the award as contrary to public policy (see W.R. Grace & Co. v. Rubber Workers Local 759, 461 U.S. at 766). The district court agreed with the Service (App., infra, 7a-13a; 631 F. Supp. 599, 600 (D.D.C. 1986)). Following the First Circuit decision in United States Postal Service v. American Postal Workers Union, 736 F.2d 822 (1984) (enforcement of arbitrator's order to reinstate a postal employee who admitted embezzling postal funds violates public policy), the district court concluded (App., infra, 12a) that the award ordering reinstatement of Mr. Hyde violates the public policy requiring a reliable and efficient postal service. The court noted that it would "not lightly discard the compassionate conclusions of the arbitrator" (ibid.), but explained (id. at 11a-12a (emphasis in original; footnote omitted)) that Mr. Hyde violated a public trust by failing to perform his own primary duty, viz., properly delivering the mail entrusted to him, and his conduct does no less mischief to the operation of the postal system simply because it originates in deficits of character arguably more forgiveable than cupidity. The inexorability of the mails, upon which literally millions depend daily, is equally compromised whether postal workers are derelict in their duties for reasons of avarice, indolence, or distractive vices such as gambling. The public policy which must prevail in such cases, when a choice must be made, is that which gives best assurance of an efficient and reliable postal service, and that policy is not one of deference to arbitral autonomy in individual grievance cases, no matter how conscientiously the arbitrator may have sought to match the penalty to the culpability of the offender. The Postal Service must retain the ability to remove postal employees it does not fully trust from positions vulnerable to breaches of trust; the mails are simply too important to the country to make them dependent upon the vicissitudes of rehabilitation of a single letter carrier. 3. The court of appeals reversed (App., infra, 6a; 810 F.2d 1239 (1987)). The court had previously held, in Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n Int'l, 808 F.2d 76 (D.C. Cir. 1987), petition for cert. pending, No. 86-1548 (filed Mar. 26, 1987), and in American Postal Workers Union v. United States Postal Service, 789 F.2d 1 (D.C. Cir. 1986), that an arbitrator's award may be set aside as contrary to public policy only if the award itself violates established law or seeks to compel unlawful conduct. The court reaffirmed that view in this case (App., infra, 3a-5a), though it acknowledged (id. at 12a n.4) that its approach was in conflict with that of the First Circuit in United States Postal Service v. American Postal Workers Union, supra. On the particular facts of this case, the court found no legal proscription against the reinstatement of Mr. Hyde (App., infra, 5a-6a) and accordingly remanded with instructions to enforce the arbitration award. On April 9, 1987, the court denied the government's petition for rehearing (App., infra, 27a). On April 24, the court refused to stay issuance of its mandate (App., infra, 28a). On May 21, 1987, Chief Justice Rehnquist, acting as Circuit Justice, granted the government's application for a stay (App., infra, 29a-31a). REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION The court of appeals erred in both its interpretation and its application of the principle that federal courts must refuse to enforce arbitration awards that are against public policy. The courts of appeals are in sharp conflict over the scope of that principle not only as it applies to private employers but also as it applies to public employers (and, in particular, the Postal Service). The narrow view of the principle espoused by the court of appeals in this case, whatever its merits for the private-employer context, is erroneous as applied to public employers, like the Postal Service, that are subject to statutorily defined public duties. The arbitration award here, which ordered the Postal Service to reinstate an employee who criminally failed to deliver thousands of pieces of mail, must be set aside because it is inconsistent with the Service's statutory responsibility and authority to carry out its fundamental mission. 1. This case presents an important question regarding the scope and application of the rule that a court may, indeed must, set aside an arbitration award rendered under a collective bargaining agreement when its judicial enforcement would be contrary to public policy. See W.R. Grace & Co. v. Rubber Workers Local 759, 461 U.S. at 766 (if a labor contract as interpreted by an arbitrator "violates some explicit public policy, we are obliged to refrain from enforceing it"); Town of Newton v. Rumery, No. 85-1449 (Mar. 9, 1987), slip op. 4 (footnote omitted) ("a promise is unenforceable if the interest in its enforcement is outweighed in the circumstances by a public policy harmed by enforcement of the agreement"). The court of appeals interpreted this public policy doctrine as permitting a court to set aside an arbitration award, in public-employer cases and private-employer cases alike, only when the award compels unlawful conduct or when its enforcement would viiolate specific positive law. As applied to private employers, there is a conflict among the courts of appeals on whether the doctrine is restricted to specific positive-law violations. E.g., Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n Int'l, supra; E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. v. Grasselli Employers Independent Ass'n, 790 F.2d 611 (7th Cir. 1986) (disagreeing with view of District of Columbia Circuit), cert. denied, No. 86-184 (Oct. 6, 1986); S.D. Warren Co. v. United Paperworkers' Int'l Union, 815 F.2d 178 (1st Cir. 1987) (same); Amalgamated Meat Cutters, Local 540 v. Great Western Food Co., 712 F.2d 122, 124 (5th Cir. 1983) (same). This Court has granted the petition for a writ of certiorari in United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., supra, which presents the question, in a private-employer case, whether the restrictive view is correct. We do not here take a position on the proper scope of the public policy principle as applied in Misco or in other private-employer settings, although some of the reasons (set out below) why we submit that the district of Columbia Circuit's narrow view is wrong in this public-employer case apply as well in certian private-employer cases. It is clear in any event that should this Court reject the restrictive view of the public policy doctrine in Misco, the decision of the court of appeals in this case could not stand. At the very least, the decision would have to be vacated and the public policy question reconsidered. Accordingly, at a minimum, the instant petition should be held for Misco. 2. The decision of the court of appeals in this case warrants review independent of Misco. In W.R. Grace & Co. v. Rubber Workers Local 759, 461 U.S. at 766 (citation omitted), this Court stated that, when the public policy doctrine is invoked, the public policy "must be well defined and dominant, and is to be ascertained 'by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from general considerations of supposed public interest.'" Wholly apart from whether Misco or other private-employer cases may involve such a policy, this case clearly involves a public policy of the sort called for by W.R. Grace, and that is so for a reason not present in Misco -- the presence of statutory commands defining the mission and standards of operation of a public employer. Petitioner here, the Postal Service, is a public employer with a public mission defined by statute. The Service "shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services" in delivering the mail (39 U.S.C. 101(a); see also 39 U.S.C. 101(e), 403(a) and (b)(1), 1001 (e)(2), (3), and (4)). This statutorily rooted public obligation is enjoined upon the Postal Service, and the Service is not free to relinquish it. Moreover, this fundamental obligation to safeguard and to deliver the mails is necessarily implicated by any Postal Service action, including compliance with an arbitral reinstatement order, that threatens to undermine its mission. By contrast, private employers like the one involved in Misco do not ordinarily operate under a statutorily based public obligation that guides and constrains the exercise of their discretion in the conduct of their business. For this reason, the scope of the public policy doctrine as applied to public-sector employers like the Postal Service raises a question distinct from the private-sector issue presented in Misco. Because statute-based public policy constraints are more demanding and more focused and explicit, the discretion of the Service to conclude that compliance with a particular award would be inconsistent with those constraints, and the role of judicial review of arbitration awards for consistency with public policy, must be correspondingly greater. Accordingly, as we explain more fully below, even if the Court were to adopt a restrictive view of the public policy doctrine in the Misco context, a different result would be called for here. See App., infra, 30a (opinion of Rhenquist, Circuit Justice, on Application for Stay) ("Although (Misco) presents the issue in the context of a private employer, (petitioner) presents a stronger case for setting aside the arbitrator's award because it operates under a statutory mandate to ensure prompt delivery of the mails. See 39 U.S.C. Section 101(a)."). The conflict among the courts of appeals on the private-sector issue is mirrored in the public-sector setting. Indeed, the courts of appeals are pointedly in conflict on the particular issue presented in this case -- the scope of the public policy doctrine as applied to the Postal Service. Compare App., infra, 1a-6a (decision below) with United States Postal Service v. American Postal Workers Union, supra (1st Cir.). In addition, the issue here is of obvious importance to the federal government generally, since the Postal Service's statutorily rooted public mission has parallels throughout the government, as does arbitration under public sector collective bargaining agreements (see 5 U.S.C. 7121). Therefore, regardless of the decision in Misco, the court of appeals' decision in this case merits review. 3. In a public sector case like this, even if not in a private sector case like Misco, the court of appeals' restrictive view of the public policy doctrine is erroneous. The court of appeals simply concluded that, because the hiring of Mr. Hyde would not be clearly proscribed by positive law, no statutorily rooted public policy is violated by enforcing the arbitrator's award ordering his reinstatement. In reaching that conclusion, the court of appeals ignored the statutorily mandated public policy demanding a reliable and efficient Postal Serive, a policy that plainly meets the W.R. Grace requirement (461 U.S. at 766 (citation omitted)) that it be "well defined and dominant, and * * * ascertained 'by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from general considerations of supposed public interests.'" a. Title 39 of the United States Code provides the statutory framework within which this case arises. The Postal Service is authorized by Section 1209(a) to enter into collective bargaining agreements and by Section 1206(b) to provide in such agreements for arbitration as a means of resolving grievances. The resulting grievance arbitration awards are, in turn, enforceable in court to the extent provided by Section 1208(b). That provision, however, like Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 185, which applies generally in the private sector, does not define the substantive law governing when and how collective bargaining agreements (and hence arbitration awards) are to be enforced. Instead, it authorizes the federal courts to develop common-law principles to apply in exercising jurisdiction over "(s)uits for violation of contracts between the Postal Service and a labor organization representing Postal Service employees" (39 U.S.C. 1208(b)). See Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448 (1957) (construing 29 U.S.C. 185 as authorizing such development). In fulfilling the obligation to develop substantive law governing the enforcement of Postal Service labor contracts generally and arbitration awards in particular, the federal courts should not automatically and uncritically transfer to this special context every aspect of the law developed under Section 301 of the LMRA, which does not apply to the Postal Service. /1/ Although the principles developed in that private-sector setting may certainly be borrowed, and indeed uniformity is generally desirable, /2/ the federal courts must define Postal Service labor arbitration principles in light of the distinctive statutory structure defining the duties of the Postal Service. The court of appeals in this case wholly ignored that obligation. b. The scope of public policy review of Postal Service arbitration awards under Section 1208(b) must be defined with reference to the statutes, cited above, that define the Postal Service's public mission. That mission is subject to implementation -- but not subject to dilution -- by a collective bargaining agreement or an arbitrator's decision under such an agreement. Hence, although the Service is permitted to adopt arbitration as part of its ordinary means of resolving employee grievances (39 U.S.C. 1206(b)), that authority does not allow the Service to waive its statutory obligation to fulfill its public duties. Nor may the Postal Service divest itself of the discretion plainly required to determine how to carry out the broad statutory responsibilities with which Congress has vested the Postal Service. /3/ The two statutorily based policies that are relevant here -- one promoting the finality of arbitration when it is selected by the Service, the other requiring the public employer to retain the authority to carry out its public responsibilities -- are in tension in some instances. The resolution of the tension between the two statutory policies, like any accommodation of two competing but partly overlapping statutes, is a task for the courts. But the judicial responsibility is to accommodate both of the competing statutory policies, not to permit one simply to displace the other, even if the courts generally resolve the tension by holding the Service to its arbitration commitment as itself a reasonable interpretation of its statutory mandate. In some extreme instances, an arbitral award would effectively overturn the congressional commitment of administrative discretion to the Postal Service to determine how to carry out its basic mission. Accordingly, the federal courts must decline to enforce arbitration awards that the Postal Service reasonably determines to threaten its fundamental obligation to provide reliable and efficient mail delivery. /4/ c. The aspects of arbitration under collective bargaining agreements that distinguish the Postal Service from most private employers are shared by public employers generally. Thus, while the statutory source of judicial authority to review labor arbitration awards in most private-sector cases is Section 301 of the LMRA, 29 U.S.C. 185, that statute does not apply to the Postal Service, which is governed by 39 U.S.C. 1208(b), or to federal employers generally, which are governed by 5 U.S.C. (& Supp. III) 7121-7123. Moreover, public employers but not private employers generally have a statutorily defined public mission akin to that of the Postal Service. Because such a mission and other statutory duties necessarily affect the scope of judicial review of arbitration awards, the significant distinction between public and private employers for this purpose is widely recognized. See Craver, The Judicial Enforcement of Public Sector Grievance Arbitration, 58 Tex. L. Rev. 329, 338-339, 350-352 (1980); Developments in the Law -- Public Employment, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 1611, 1684-1687, 1691-1696, 1718-1724 (1984). Further, although arbitration in the Postal Service bears strong resemblances to private-sector arbitration, there are also important differences. For example, unlike their ordinary private-sector counterparts, Postal Service (and other federal government) employees have no right to strike (5 U.S.C. 3333, 7311; 39 U.S.C. 410); thus, the alternative to arbitral finality is not the stark economic warfare that is more typical of the private sector (see Gateway Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 414 U.S. 368, 377-379 (1974)). Moreover, as explained above, more than mere contractual obligations are relevant to a Postal Service arbitration. An arbitrator who is applying only contractual provisions between private parties has broad leeway to fill in and to elaborate those provisions according to the "common law of the shop" (United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 581 (1960); see also Gateway Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 414 U.S. at 377-379). When statutory duties of a public employer overlay any contractual agreements, the contract and the law of the shop cannot always be the last word. Rather, those public duties must also be considered. To do so, of course, requires administrative and, then, judicial interpretation: the meaning in a given case of the Postal Service's public mission, like any question of public policy, "is ultimately one for resolution by the courts" (W.R. Grace & Co. v. Rubber Workers Local 759, 461 U.S. at 766). d. Not only the Postal Service statute itself but also the legislative history of that statute reveals congressional recognition of the distinctive character of Postal Service collective bargaining (and hence arbitration under collective bargaining agreements). Thus, although Congress took private-sector labor relations as the model for the Postal Service (see H.R. Rep. 91-1104, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 13 (1970)), it was understood from the beginning of the legislative process that it was only "in general" that the private-sector rules were to be borrowed for the Postal Service (id. at 13, 57). Indeed, Congress specifically recognized that "(c)ollective bargaining in public employment involves factors that differ importantly from those traditionally found in the private sector" (id. at 14). In short, whatever the scope of "public policy" review of arbitration awards in various private-sector cases, the public policy doctrine as applied to the Postal Service (and other public employers with statutorily rooted public duties) requires that courts review claims by the Service that fulfillment of its fundamental statutorily based public trust would be threatened by enforcement of a particular arbitration award. /5/ The court of appeals wholly failed to consider this question. 4. The court of appeals erred not only in refusing to undertake the proper analysis. The result it reached is also erroneous. We think there can be only one conclusion of a proper analysis of this case -- that the arbitration award at issue here violates public policy. This case involves a simple determination by the Postal Service that an employee who commits an offense that effects an egregious impairment of the fundamental duty of the Postal Service -- to deliver the mails -- must be discharged. Mr. Hyde failed over the course of a year to deliver more than 3,500 pieces of mail, including Treasury checks, on which numerous individuals may vitally depend. Whatever the prospects for rehabilitation for Mr. Hyde in particular, the Service has determined that, for the sake of its mission as a whole, it cannot have in its employment an individual who has committed such an offense against the Service; nor can it place its patrons at risk by restoring Mr. Hyde to his position of public trust. Enforcement of the arbitration award ordering Mr. Hyde's reinstatement would, by example to his co-workers and as a precedent, "seriously impair (the Postal Service's) ability to impress the seriousness of the Postal Service's mission upon its workers" and hence would deprive the Service of its "ability to carry out its legal obligations" (App., infra, 30a-31a) (opinion of Rehnquist, Circuit Justice, on Application for Stay). As the district court stated (App., infra, 12a (footnote omitted)), "(t)he Postal Service must retain the ability to remove postal employees it does not fully trust from positions vulnerable to breaches of trust; the mails are simply too important to the country to make them dependent upon the vicissitudes of rehabilitation of a single letter carrier." In this case, a general policy of deference to arbitral awards cannot override the need, as the Postal Service determines it in the exercise of its delegated responsibility, to protect the basic public mission of the Postal Service. The arbitration award rejecting the Service's determination of how to fulfill its public obligations in this case should therefore be set aside. CONCLUSION The petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted. In the alternative, the Court may wish to hold this petition pending its decision in United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., cert. granted, No. 86-651 (Jan. 12, 1987), and dispose of this petition as appropriate in light of that decision. Respectfully submitted. CHARLES FRIED Solicitor General RICHARD K. WILLARD Assistant Attorney General LAWRENCE G. WALLACE Deputy Solicitor General RICHARD G. TARANTO Assistant to the Solicitor General WILLIAM KANTER MARC RICHMAN Attorneys JULY 1987 /1/ Section 1209(b) (39 U.S.C.) generally applies Sections 151 through 169 of Title 29 (National Labor Relations Act) to the Postal Service. The incorporated provisions, however, do not include Section 301 of the LMRA, which is codified at 29 U.S.C. 185. Moreover, the incorporation of the specified Title 29 provisions is only "to the extent not inconsistent with provisions" of the Postal Service statute (39 U.S.C. 1209(b)). /2/ See, e.g., Bowen v. United States Postal Service, 459 U.S. 212 (1983) (borrowing Section 301 law to hold Postal Service union liable for certain damages for breach of duty of fair representation); Johnson v. United States Postal Service, 756 F.2d 1461, 1465 (9th Cir. 1985) (Section 301 law provides "guidance"); Abernathy v. United States Postal Service, 740 F.2d 612, 614 (8th Cir. 1984); Melendy v. United States Postal Service, 589 F.2d 256 (7th Cir. 1978); Malone v. United States Postal Service, 526 F.2d 1099, 1109-1110 (6th Cir. 1975). /3/ Congress has conferred authority and discretion over postal operations on the Postal Service (39 U.S.C. 403(a)). Congress specifically entrusted the Board of Governors with the obligation to direct "(t)he exercise of the power of the Postal Service" (39 U.S.C. (Supp. III) 202(a)). Although congress permitted the Board to delegate its authority to the Postmaster General or to Board committees (39 U.S.C. 402), it did not provide for further delegation. Indeed, Congress expressly provided that such delegations "shall not relieve the Board of full responsibility for carrying out of its duties and functions, and shall be revocable by the Governors in their exclusive judgment" (39 U.S.C. 402). /4/ Of course, even in the public-sector setting, courts must accord arbitrators' findings and conclusions substantial deference and must apply the public policy doctrine with care so as not to undermine the system of ordinarily final arbitration. "Incantations of 'public policy' may not be advanced to overturn every arbitration award that impairs the flexibility of management * * *. Only when the award contravenes a strong public policy, almost invariably involving an important constitutional or statutory duty or responsibility, may it be set aside" (Port Jefferson Station Teachers Ass'n v. Brookhaven-Comsewogue Union Free School Dist., 45 N.Y.2d 898, 899, 383 N.E.2d 553, 554, 411 N.Y.S.2d 1, 2 (1978)). Moreover, the importance to public employers of maintaining a mutually beneficial working relationship with their employees' labor unions provides a strong disincentive against public employers' too-frequent invocation of the public policy doctrine to challenge arbitration awards. Although the Postal Service is annually involved in thousands of grievance arbitrations, it has challenged only a handful under the public policy doctrine each year. /5/ A similar conclusion may apply to some private employers that are subject to statutory duties. In Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n Int'l, 808 F.2d 76 (D.C. Cir. 1987), petition for cert. pending, No. 86-1548 (filed Mar. 26, 1987), the petitioner has argued that, as an air carrier, it is subject to such overriding statutory duties. Appendix