In Livadas v. Bradshaw (1994) 512 U.S. 107, a terminated union employee sought penalties for the period between her discharge and the date she received the wages due her. The employee filed a claim with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, but the division refused to process it, asserting that the employee's claim was governed by a collective bargaining agreement. The employee filed a federal action, challenging the division's position. The issue raised was a question of state law, entirely independent of any understanding embodied in the collective bargaining agreement. There was no indication that there was a dispute over the amount to which the employee would be entitled as damages. (512 U.S. at p. 125 114 S. Ct. at p. 2079.) The Court employee, a grocery clerk was fired by Safeway. "When notified of her discharge, the employee demanded immediate payment of wages owed her, as guaranteed to all California workers" by section 201, "but her store manager refused, referring to the company practice of making such payments by check mailed from a central corporate payroll office." ( Livadas v. Bradshaw, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 110-111.) Three days later, the employee received a check in the mail for the full amount due. ( Id. at p. 111.) The employee then filed a claim against Safeway with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, asserting that, under section 203, Safeway was liable to her for a sum equal to three days' wages as a penalty for the delay. She asked the Labor Commissioner to enforce her claim. ( Livadas v. Bradshaw, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 111-112.) By an "apparently standard form letter," the employee was notified that the Commissioner would take no action because Safeway's employees were covered by a collective bargaining agreement that contained an arbitration clause -- and because the requirement in section 203 that wages continue at the "same rate" until paid meant it would be "necessary to look to the collective bargaining agreement to 'apply' that agreement." (Livadas v. Bradshaw, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 112-113.) The employee then filed suit in federal court, alleging a claim under 42 United States Code section 1983 arising out of the Commissioner's nonenforcement policy, and contending the Commissioner's policy imposed a "penalty on the exercise of her statutory right to bargain collectively with her employer." ( Livadas v. Bradshaw, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 113-114.) She sought declaratory and injunctive relief, and damages in the amount of the penalty she would have recovered had the Commissioner pursued her claim. ( Id. at p. 114.) Since there were no issues about the amount due or about Safeway's willfulness ( id. at pp. 114, 124-125), I fail to see how my colleagues can say that Livadas is "remarkably like the one before us." (Maj. opn., p. 7.) The Supreme Court agreed with the employee that she could not be made to choose between the pursuit of a state law claim for Safeway's unfair labor practice and the exercise of her right to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with an arbitration clause. ( Livadas v. Bradshaw, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 117.) The issue, said the Supreme Court, was not the relationship of the California statute to federal law but rather the content and effect of the Commissioner's policy on federal rights. ( Id. at p. 119.) In that context, the Supreme Court emphasized that the preemption rule has been applied only to assure that the purposes animating section 301 will not be frustrated by state laws purporting to determine "'questions relating to what the parties to a labor agreement agreed, and what legal consequences were intended to flow from breaches of that agreement,'" or by the "parties' efforts to renege on their arbitration promises by 'relabeling' as tort suits actions simply alleging breaches of duties assumed in collective bargaining agreements . . . ." (Livadas v. Bradshaw, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 123.) The Supreme Court concluded that the Labor Code claim was not barred by section 301, stating: "The primary text for deciding whether Livadas was entitled to a penalty was not the Food Store Contract, but a calendar. The only issue raised by Livadas's claim, whether Safeway 'willfully failed to pay' her wages promptly upon severance, Cal. Lab. Code Ann. 203 (West 1989), was a question of state law, entirely independent of any understanding embodied in the collective-bargaining agreement between the union and the employer. There is no indication that there was a 'dispute' in this case over the amount of the penalty to which Livadas would be entitled, and Lingle v. Norge Division of Magic Chef, Inc., supra, 486 U.S. at p. 413, n. 12,] makes plain in so many words that when liability is governed by independent state law, the mere need to 'look to' the collective-bargaining agreement for damages computation is no reason to hold the state-law claim defeated by 301. . . . "Beyond the simple need to refer to bargained-for wage rates in computing the penalty, the collective-bargaining agreement is irrelevant to the dispute (if any) between Livadas and her employer]. There is no suggestion here that Livadas's union sought or purported to bargain away her protections under 201 or 203, a waiver that we have said would . . . have to be "'clear and unmistakable,'" . . . for a court even to consider whether it could be given effect, nor is there any indication that the parties to the collective-bargaining agreement understood their arbitration pledge to cover these state-law claims." ( Livadas, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 124-125)