1. Since, as decided in
Pennsylvaria Railroad Co. v. Labor
Board, 261 U. S. 72, the
provisions of Title III of the Transportation Act, 1920, seeking to
promote adjustment of disputes between carriers and their employees
through conferences and through decisions of
Page 267 U. S. 204
the Railroad Labor Board, rely only upon the moral sanction of
public opinion, and do not grant rights enforceable in a court of
law, a carrier, in dealing with its employees concening wages and
working conditions, is not bound by rulings of the Board affirming
the right of any craft or class to select a trade union as their
representative, but may substitute an election whereby only
individuals, chosen regionally, are elected, and votes for a union
are rejected; may refuse to allow furloughed employee to vote in
the election, and may even threaten discharge of employees who do
not consent to the agreement made with the representatives elected.
P.
267 U. S.
210.
2. These things, being within the legal rights of a railroad
company, are not subject to be enjoined, at the suit of a union
composed of existing and former employees, upon the ground that the
company and its officers, in doing them, are guilty of a conspiracy
both at common law and under § 19 of the Criminal Code.
Id.
3. Denial of the prayer for equitable relief and dismissal of
the main part of the bill carries with it incidental claims for
damages, without prejudice to their prosecution at law by
individual claimants. P.
267 U. S.
218.
1 F.2d 171 affirmed.
Appeal from a decree of the circuit court of appeals which
affirmed a decree of the district court (296 F. 220) dismissing the
bill in a suit brought by a union, composed of present and former
workers of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, to enjoin the
corporation and its officers from carrying out an alleged
conspiracy to defeat the provisions of the Railroad Labor Board
legislation and to deprive the employees of rights under it.
Damages also were prayed. The case is fully stated in the
opinion.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Pennsylvania Railroad System and Allied Lines Federation No.
90, by its bill in equity herein against the
Page 267 U. S. 205
Pennsylvania Company and its officers, continued the controversy
which was considered in
Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Labor
Board, 261 U. S. 72. The
company filed an answer, and the case was heard in the District
Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on exhibits and
evidence. The district court dismissed the bill, 296 F. 220, and
the decree was affirmed in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, 1
F.2d 171. The issues involve the construction and application of
Title III of the Transportation Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 456, 469, c.
91. The title provides a method for the settlement of disputes over
wages, rules, and working conditions between railroad companies
engaged in interstate commerce and their employees, and as a means
of securing it, creates the Railroad Labor Board and defines its
functions and powers.
The Pennsylvania Railroad System and Allied Lines Federation No.
90 is a trades union of 50,000 employees or more affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor and embracing those crafts which
have to do with the mechanical part of railroad service. It
contains as members only workers, or those who have been workers,
in the employ of the Pennsylvania Company or its Allied Lines. Our
statement of the case and the opinion in what we shall call the
Labor Board case show the dealings between the company and
Federation No. 90 down to and beyond the time when the
Transportation Act was passed and the railroad property was turned
back by the government to the company. The Railroad Labor Board,
April 14, 1921, decided that the
modus vivendi under which
rules and working conditions under the Railroad Administration had
continued should end July 1, 1921, and called upon each carrier and
its respective employees to designate representatives to confer and
decide, so far as possible, respecting their future rules and
working conditions, and to keep the Board advised of the progress
toward agreement. The Board accompanied their announcement,
Page 267 U. S. 206
known as Decision 119, with a statement of rules of decision
which it intended to follow in consideration of the settlement of
disputes under Title III. The two which are relevant here, as they
were in the case cited, are as follows:
"5. The right of such lawful organization [
i.e., trade
unions] to act toward lawful objects through representatives of its
own choice, whether employees of a particular carrier or otherwise,
shall be agreed to by management."
"15. The majority of any craft or class of employees shall have
the right to determine what organization shall represent members of
such craft or class. Such organization shall have the right to make
an agreement which shall apply to all employees in such craft or
class. No such agreement shall infringe, however upon the right of
employees not members of the organization representing the majority
to present grievances either in person or by representatives of
their own choice."
Officials of Federation No. 90 met the representatives of the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in compliance with the request of
the Board, in May, 1921. The Pennsylvania representatives refused
to confer, on the ground that the Federation did not represent a
majority of the employees of the system, and proposed to send out a
form of ballot to their employees, asking them to designate their
representatives. The Federation officers objected, because the
ballot made no provision, in accordance with principles 5 and 15,
for the representation of employees by a trade union, but specified
that they must be natural persons and such only as were employees
of the Pennsylvania Company, and further because the company
required that the representatives of the employees should be
selected regionally, rather than from the craft in the whole
system, in compliance with principle No. 15. The result was that
two ballots were sent out, one by the company and the other by the
Federation. These forms were both
Page 267 U. S. 207
found objectionable by the Board, which by its decision No. 218
ordered a new election, for which rules were prescribed and a form
of ballot specified, on which labor organizations, as well as
individuals, could be voted for as his representatives at the
option of the employee. The Pennsylvania Company applied to the
Board to vacate this decision, on the ground that there was no
dispute before the Board of which by Title III of the
Transportation Act the Board was given jurisdiction. After a
rehearing the Board confirmed its original decision. The action of
the company in refusing to comply with the decision of the Board as
to the manner of holding the elections led to a vote among the
members of the Federation No. 90 as to whether they should strike
against the company because of such vote. There was an affirmative
vote, and some 20,000 struck. A bill was brought by the
Pennsylvania Company to enjoin the Labor Board from hearing the
controversy instituted by Federation No. 90 over the election of
representatives who should act for the employees in the conferences
proposed with the company. It was first objected that the
Federation No. 90 had no standing or capacity to invoke the hearing
of the dispute because a labor union; second, that the controversy
did not involve the kind of dispute of which the Board could take
cognizance under the act, because the question who should represent
the employees as to grievances, rules, and working conditions was
not within in the jurisdiction of the Labor Board to decide; and,
third, the Board had no right to publish its opinion condemning the
action of the company as it proposed to do, because that only
applied to final decisions of a dispute over wages or working
conditions. The position of the company was not sustained by this
Court. It was held that a labor union could invoke the Board's
action; that the question who should be recognized as
representatives of the employees was not only before the Board, but
involved one of the most important
Page 267 U. S. 208
of the rules and working conditions in the operation of a
railroad, and that such a decision could therefore be made public
if the Board deemed it wise and proper. The district court in which
the suit was brought had enjoined the Labor Board from hearing the
dispute and from publishing its opinion. Notwithstanding the
opinion of the Board, the Pennsylvania Company proceeded to carry
out its original method of selecting employees' representatives and
their regional distribution. It refused to allow its employees to
vote for the Federation No. 90 as their representative, and where
ballots were cast, as happened in some of the voting places, for
the Federation No. 90 in a great majority, individuals, though they
had but a small minority of votes, were declared elected as
representatives by the company. The company's plan brought together
in the organizations an equal number of officers and of employees'
representatives, with the restriction that no action should be
taken indicating agreement unless two-thirds of the body acting
should concur. The company paid the expenses of the organizations
and such permanent officers as they had were put upon thepayroll of
the company. It instituted a trade organization with which the
company proposed to deal and has dealt, although the evidence
conclusively showed that it did not at the time of the election
certainly, represent a majority of the employees. The company and
the employees whom it recognized as the representatives of their
employees came to an agreement in respect to wages and working
conditions, and have induced many employees to sign such agreement.
This agreement took effect as of July 1, 1921.
The bill in this case was filed to enjoin what was charged to be
a conspiracy by the Pennsylvania Company and its officers to defeat
the provisions of the Act and deprive the employees of their rights
with which the provisions of Title III of the Act intended to vest
them in their dealings
Page 267 U. S. 209
with the company, averring that, in the effort to deprive them
of their proper representation and to maintain the plan of the
company, the company resorted to coercion, with threats of
discharge, and further violated their rights by preventing a large
number of employees who were furloughed from casting their vote in
the elections.
The complainants further contend, first, that all furloughed
employees, who in July, 1921, were refused reemployment in
accordance with their seniority rights should recover wages for the
time the company has denied them reemployment at former wages; that
employees who, having worked a year from July, 1921, to July, 1922,
were discharged by the company for refusing to waive their rights
under the Transportation Act were entitled to recover the
difference between the rate paid and what they were entitled to
under a wage decision of the Board in June, 1921; and, finally,
that a large number of the company's employees, members of
Federation No. 90, who were not furloughed in 1921 and did not
strike in the summer of 1922, but continued at work under the
wages, rules, and conditions established by the company's alleged
unlawful agreement, are entitled to be paid by the company the
difference between the amounts actually received by them and the
amount they should have received at the rate of wages in force
before the 1st of July, 1921. The contention is that complainants,
in this their representative suit and as incident to the main
relief sought by injunction, may have an accounting of damages
sustained by the members of the Federation No. 90 in the
premises.
The prayer of the bill is for a decree enjoining the defendant
the Pennsylvania Company from enforcing the provisions of the
agreement with respect to wages and working conditions made as of
July 1, 1921, between it and its employees under its plan on the
vote taken, from enforcing
Page 267 U. S. 210
any change in rules and working conditions as they existed on
June 30, 1921 -- that is, as they existed under a previous national
agreement, entered into while the property was under federal
control; from continuing to deal with persons chosen on the
company's ballots as the representatives of the employees engaged
in mechanical work; from financing, interfering with, directing,
and controlling the organizations of the company's employees for
the purposes set forth in the Transportation Act, and from refusing
to confer and deal with Federation No. 90 as the organization
representing the great majority of the company's employees engaged
in such work.
The whole case for Federation No. 90 rests upon the contention
that the conduct of the company and its officers is a statutory
offense in the nature of a conspiracy under the provisions of § 19
of the Criminal Code, which provides that, if two or more persons
conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in
the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to
him by the laws of the United States, they shall be punished, and
further that injunction will lie to restrain the means for
promoting such conspiracy. Moreover, it is claimed that this is a
conspiracy at common law because it is a combination to accomplish
an unlawful result by unlawful means, and actionable, citing
Pettibone v. United States, 148 U.
S. 197, and
Duplex v. Deering, 254
U. S. 465. The whole issue, therefore, is whether the
provisions of Title III, in pointing out what Congress wished the
parties to the dispute to do, was intended by Congress to be a
positive, obligatory law, creating an enforceable duty, such that a
combination by the company and its officials to violate it is a
conspiracy. Title III we have already construed in the
Labor
Board case in
261 U. S. 72. We
quote from the statement in that case:
"Title III of the Transportation Act of 1920 bears the heading
'Disputes between Carriers and Their Employees and Subordinate
Officials.' "
Page 267 U. S. 211
"Section 301 makes it the duty of carriers, their officers,
employees, and subordinate officials to exert every reasonable
effort to avoid interruption to the operation of an interstate
commerce carrier due to a dispute between the carrier and its
employees, and further provides that such disputes shall be
considered and if possible decided"
"in conference between representatives designated and authorized
so to confer by the carriers, or the employees or subordinate
officials thereof, directly interested in the dispute."
"The section concludes:"
" If any dispute is not decided in such conference, it shall be
referred by the parties thereto to the Board which under the
provisions this title is authorized to hear and decide such
dispute."
"Section 302 provides for the establishment of railroad Boards
of adjustment by agreement between any carrier, group of carriers,
or the carriers as a whole, and any employees or subordinate
officials of carriers, or organization or group of organizations
thereof. No such Boards of adjustment were established when this
controversy arose."
"Section 303 provides for hearing and decision by such Boards of
adjustment upon petition of any dispute involving only grievances,
rules or working conditions not decided as provided in § 301."
"Sections 304, 305. and 306 provide for the appointment and
organization of the 'Railroad Labor Board' composed of nine
members, three from the labor group, three from the carrier group,
and three from the public group."
"Section 307(a) provides that, when a labor adjustment Board
under § 303 has not reached a decision of a dispute involving
grievances, rules, or working conditions in a reasonable time, or
when the appropriate adjustment Board has not been organized under
§ 302, the Railroad Labor Board,"
"(1) upon the application of the chief executive
Page 267 U. S. 212
of any carrier or organization of employees or subordinate
officials whose members are directly interested in the dispute, (2)
upon a written petition signed by not less than 100 unorganized
employees or subordinate officials directly interested in the
dispute, or (3) upon the Labor Board's own motion if it is of the
opinion that the dispute is likely substantially to interrupt
commerce, shall receive for hearing, and as soon as practicable and
with due diligence decide, any dispute involving grievances, rules,
or working conditions which is not decided as provided in §
301."
"Paragraph (b) of the same section provides for a hearing and
decision of disputes over wages."
"Paragraph (c) makes necessary to a decision of the Board the
concurrence of five members, of whom, in the case of wage disputes,
a member of the public group must be one. The paragraph further
provides that"
" All decisions of the Labor Board shall be entered upon the
records of the Board and copies thereof, together with such
statement of facts bearing thereon as the Board may deem proper,
shall be immediately communicated to the parties to the dispute,
the President, each adjustment Board, and the [Interstate Commerce]
Commission, and shall be given further publicity in such manner as
the Labor Board may determine."
"Paragraph (d) requires that decisions of the Board shall
establish standards of working conditions which in the opinion of
the Board are just and reasonable."
"Section 308 prescribes other duties and powers of the Labor
Board, among which is that of making 'regulations necessary for the
efficient execution of the functions vested in it by this
title.'"
"Section 309 prescribes that"
" Any party to any dispute to be considered by an Adjustment
Board or by the Labor Board shall be entitled to a hearing either
in person or by counsel. "
Page 267 U. S. 213
"Section 313 is as follows:"
" The Labor Board, in case it has reason to believe that any
decision of the Labor Board or of an adjustment Board is violated
by any carrier, or employee or subordinate official, or
organization thereof, may upon its own motion after due notice and
hearing to all persons directly interested in such violation,
determine whether, in its opinion such violation has occurred and
make public its decision in such manner as it may determine."
This Court's construction of the effect of these provisions is
shown in the opening language of the opinion, as follows :
"[Page
261 U. S. 79] It is evident,
from a review of title III of the Transportation Act of 1920 that
Congress deems it of the highest public interest to prevent the
interruption of interstate commerce by labor disputes and strikes,
and that its plan is to encourage settlement without strikes,
first, by conference between the parties; failing that, by
reference to adjustment Boards of the parties' own choosing, and if
this is ineffective, by a full hearing before a national Board
appointed by the President, upon which are an equal number of
representatives of the carrier group, the labor group, and the
public. The decisions of the Labor Board are not to be enforced by
process. The only sanction of its decision is to be the force of
public opinion invoked by the fairness of a full hearing, the
intrinsic justice of the conclusion, strengthened by the official
prestige of the Board, and the full publication of the violation of
such decision by any party to the proceeding. The evident thought
of Congress in these provisions is that the economic interest of
every member of the public in the undisturbed flow of interstate
commerce and the acute inconvenience to which all must be subjected
by an interruption caused by a serious and widespread labor
dispute, fastens public attention closely on all the circumstances
of the controversy and arouses
Page 267 U. S. 214
public criticism of the side thought to be at fault. The
function of the Labor Board is to direct that public criticism
against the party who, it thinks, justly deserves it."
Another passage is as follows:
"[Page
261 U. S. 83] The second
objection is that the Labor Board in Decision 119 and Principles 5
and 15, and in Decision 218, compels the railroad company to
recognize labor unions as factors in the conduct of its business.
The counsel for the company insist that the right to deal with
individual representatives of its employees as to rules and working
conditions is an inherent right which cannot be constitutionally
taken from it. The employees, or at least those who are members of
the labor unions, contend that they have a lawful right to select
their own representatives, and that it is not within the right of
the company to restrict them in their selection to employees of the
company or to forbid selection of officers of their labor unions
qualified to deal with and protect their interests. This statute
certainly does not deprive either side of the rights claimed."
"But Title III was not enacted to provide a tribunal to
determine what were the legal rights and obligations of railway
employers and employees or to enforce or protect them. Courts can
do that. The Labor Board was created to decide how the parties
ought to exercise their legal rights so as to enable them to
cooperate in running the railroad. It was to reach a fair
compromise between the parties without regard to the legal rights
upon which each side might insist in a court of law. The Board is
to act as a Board of arbitration. It is to give expression to its
view of the moral obligation of each side as members of society to
agree upon a basis for cooperation in the work of running the
railroad in the public interest. The only limitation upon the
Board's decisions is that they should establish a standard of
conditions, which,
Page 267 U. S. 215
in its opinion, is just and reasonable. The jurisdiction of the
Board to direct the parties to do what it deems they should do is
not to be limited by their constitutional or legal right to refuse
to do it. Under the Act, there is no constraint upon them to do
what the Board decides they should do except the moral constraint,
already mentioned, of publication of its decision."
A third passage is as follows:
"[Page
261 U. S. 85] It is not for
this or any other court to pass upon the correctness of the
conclusion of the Labor Board if it keeps within the jurisdiction
thus assigned to it by the statute. The statute does not require
the railway company to recognize or to deal with, or confer with
labor unions. It does not require employees to deal with their
employers through their fellow employees. But we think it does vest
the Labor Board with power to decide how such representatives ought
to be chosen with a view to securing a satisfactory cooperation and
leaves it to the two sides to accept or reject the decision. The
statute provides the machinery for conferences, the hearings, the
decisions, and the moral sanction. The Labor Board must comply with
the requirements of the statute, but, having thus complied, it is
not in its reasonings and conclusions limited as a court is limited
to a consideration of the legal rights of the parties."
It is clear from this language that, in the
Labor Board
case, this Court has decided that there is nothing compulsory in
the provisions of the statute as against either the company or the
employees upon the basis of which either acquired additional rights
against the other which can be enforced in a court of law. The
language of the title is a legal definition of the jurisdiction and
duty of the Railroad Labor Board in attempting to settle the
controversies between the railroad employer and its employees, and,
where the Labor Board exceeds its jurisdiction and violates the
provisions describing its functions, it
Page 267 U. S. 216
may be subject to judicial restraint at the complaint of any
properly interested party. The so-called mandatory language of §
301 might, if that section were accompanied by a penalty for its
violation or some other means of compulsion, and there were not the
other provisions of the title to help its construction, be given
the force of a statutory obligation of the parties to a dispute.
There are two sections, §§ 310 and 311, in this title which do
furnish instances of judicial compulsion in the matter of securing
evidence and the production of records to promote the efficient
administration of the functions vested in the Labor Board by the
title. And there is § 312, which required that carriers until
September 1, 1920, should continue to pay wages not less than those
paid March 1, 1920, and fixed a penalty for each violation of this
obligation and gave a right to the United States to a civil suit to
recover the penalty. But, when the other sections of the title are
taken as a whole, they may be searched through in vain to find any
indication in the mind of Congress or any intimation that the
disputants in the controversies to be anticipated were in any way
to be forced into compliance with the statute or with the judgments
pronounced by the Labor Board, except through the effect of adverse
public opinion.
What the complainants here are seeking to do is to enforce by
mandatory injunction a compliance with a decision of the Board not
based on the legal rights of the parties, but on its judgment as to
what legal rights the disputants should surrender or abate in the
public interest and in the interest of each other, to maintain
harmonious relations between them necessary to the continuance of
interstate commerce, and to avoid severing those relations as they
would have the strict legal right to do. Such a remedy by
injunction in a court it was not the intention of Congress to
provide.
The ultimate decision of the Board, it is conceded, is not
compulsory, and no process is furnished to enforce it,
Page 267 U. S. 217
but it is urged that the preliminary steps are not the final
decision, and it will make the Act meaningless and wholly
ineffective if, under the Act, the parties may not be forced to a
conference and to a contest before the Labor Board. This very point
was considered by us in the
Labor Board case, and we held
that the questions how the representatives of each side should be
selected and whom the Board should recognize as accredited
representatives were of primary importance, affecting the working
conditions of the railroad, and such decisions therefore must be
regarded, although preliminary, as of the same class of decisions
as those with respect to wages and ultimate working conditions. The
same sanction, therefore, of publication and public opinion exists
for them, and nothing else.
The Pennsylvania Company is using every endeavor to avoid
compliance with the judgment and principles of the Labor Board as
to the proper method of securing representatives of the whole body
of its employees, it is seeking to control its employees by
agreements free from the influence of an independent trade union,
it is, so far as its dealings with its employees go, refusing to
comply with the decisions of the Labor Board and is thus defeating
the purpose of Congress. Appellants charge that the company is
attempting by threats to discharge its employees to secure their
consent to the agreement of July 1, 1921, as to wages and working
conditions agreed to by the representatives of its employees it
declared elected. This is denied, though there is some evidence
tending to support the charge. All these things it might do and
remain within its strict legal rights after it came fully into
control of its railroad property subsequent to September 1, 1920.
We do not think Congress, while it would deprecate such action,
intended to make it criminal or legally actionable. Therefore, the
bill of complaint does not aver a conspiracy, and without that,
equitable relief cannot be granted.
Page 267 U. S. 218
We come now to the prayer for an allowance of damages to
Federation No. 90, suing on behalf of its members. The claims are:
first, for certain employees who, being on furlough when they were
notified to return to work on a scale of wages made effective by
the company July 1, 1921, refused to return, except on old scale
prevailing September 1, 1920. They seek wages on the old scale,
though they did not work. Second, for certain employees who worked
under this company scale for a year and then struck. They seek a
recovery for the difference between the old and the new scale
established by the company. Third, for certain employees who did
not strike at all, and accepted wages at the new scale till the
filing of the bill. They seek recovery for the difference between
the old scale and the new scale, which they accepted.
It is argued that the new scale was illegal, because not fixed
by the Labor Board under Title III after a hearing, and therefore
the only legal scale was that which prevailed before. We do not
find it necessary to consider these claims on their merits. Even if
the Federation No. 90 and its members, as representatives in a
class suit in equity, could recover such claims as damages
incidental to granting the main equitable relief prayed for, the
denial of the prayer for the equitable relief and the dismissal of
the main part of the bill carries with it such incidental claims
without prejudice to their prosecution at law by individual
claimants as they may be advised. Our conclusions on the merits of
the main issue and the damage claims have made it unnecessary for
us to consider objections made to the representative capacity of
the complainants to maintain the bill.
Decree affirmed.