1. The contention that an award of the National Railroad
Adjustment Board under the Railway Labor Act amounts to nothing
more than an advisory opinion is inconsistent with the terms,
purposes, and legislative history of the Act, and with decisions of
this Court construing it. P.
325 U. S.
720.
2. A collective bargaining representative is without statutory
authority under the Railway Labor Act to compromise and settle
accrued monetary claims of individual employees (arising out of
alleged violations of a collective agreement by the employer) or to
represent them exclusively before the National Railroad Adjustment
Board in proceedings before it for determination of such claims,
and, in the absence of legally sufficient authorization, a
settlement so effected and an adverse award based thereon do not
bar a suit by the individual employees to enforce such claims. P.
325 U. S.
738.
3. Upon the record in this case, it cannot be said as a matter
of law that the collective bargaining representative was authorized
in any legally sufficient manner to settle the claims in question
or to represent the individual employees before the Adjustment
Board. P.
325 U. S.
748.
140 F.2d 488 affirmed.
Certiorari, 323 U.S. 690, to review the reversal of a summary
judgment for the defendant railroad company in a suit by employees
upon claims arising out of alleged violations of a collective
bargaining agreement.
Page 325 U. S. 712
MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE delivered the opinion of the Court.
This cause, arising upon an amended complaint, [
Footnote 1] brings for decision novel and
important questions concerning the authority of a collective
bargaining representative, affecting the operation of the Railway
Labor Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1185, 45 U.S.C. § 151 ff. The ultimate
issues are whether such an agent has authority, by virtue of the
Act or otherwise, either to compromise and settle accrued monetary
claims of ten employees or to submit them for determination by the
National Railroad Adjustment Board to the exclusion of their right,
after the settlement and after the Board's adverse decision, to
assert them in a suit brought for that purpose. The claims are for
"penalty damages" for alleged violation of the starting time
provisions of a collective agreement, varying from $3,500 to
$14,000, and in the aggregate amounting to $65,274.00. [
Footnote 2]
The District Court rendered summary judgment for the carrier,
holding that the Board's award was a final adjudication of the
claims, within the union's power to seek and the Board's to make,
precluding judicial review. [
Footnote 3] The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment,
140 F.2d 488, 490, holding that the record presented a question of
fact
Page 325 U. S. 713
whether the union had been authorized by respondents "to
negotiate, compromise, and settle" the claims. We granted
certiorari, 323 U.S. 690, in order to resolve the important
questions affecting application and operation of the Act.
A statement of the more important facts will put the issues in
sharper perspective. The controversy relates to operations in
petitioner's so-called "Whiting Yard." Prior to July 24, 1934,
respondents, or some of them, were employed by the Standard Oil
Company to do private intra-plant switching in its Whiting,
Indiana, plant. On that date, this work was taken over by
petitioner. Until then, Standard Oil's switching crews began work
each day at hours fixed in advance by the management, which varied
as plant operations required.
Prior to 1934, petitioner's crews at all yards in Indiana and
Illinois began work daily in accordance with starting time
provisions contained in Article 6 of a collective agreement made in
1927 between petitioner and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen,
governing rules, working conditions and rates of pay of
yardmen.
Upon transfer of the Whiting yard switching to petitioner,
respondents theretofore employed by Standard Oil became employees
of petitioner and members of the Brotherhood. On July 24, 1934,
company officials conferred with representatives of the engineers,
the firemen, and the yardmen concerning terms of employment. The
Brotherhood acted for the yardmen. Apparently agreement was reached
on all matters except starting time, but, as to that, versions of
what transpired differ. Respondents and the Brotherhood have
maintained that the 1927 agreement, including Article 6, became
applicable to them upon the transfer. They say, however, that they
assented to a suspension of Article 6 for thirty days from July 27,
1934, to enable the company to work out adjustment to the plant's
operations, and accordingly it governed their relation with
petitioner from August 26, 1934.
Page 325 U. S. 714
The company has insisted that Article 6 did not become
applicable to respondents upon the transfer, and that it made no
agreement to apply Article 6, other than to follow it as closely as
possible, prior to October 31, 1938, when it and the Brotherhood
eventually agreed to place Whiting yard crews on fixed starting
time under circumstances to be noted.
Whichever version is true, a long controversy resulted. The
carrier continued to follow the former practice, although
departures from the schedule were reduced, as it claims, in
conformity with the oral undertaking to observe it as far as
possible. The work went on without interruption. But numerous
complaints on account of departures were made through local
officers of the Brotherhood. Time slips were filed by the
employees. Frequent negotiations took place. None, however,
resulted in a settlement prior to October 31, 1938.
In this state of affairs, respondents authorized the Brotherhood
to file complaint with the National Railroad Adjustment Board for
violation of Article 6. This was done on November 23, 1936. The
"statement of claim" was signed and filed by Williams, chairman of
the general grievance committee. It asserted that the carrier,
having "placed the employees under the agreement of the yardmen,"
had "failed to put into effect the starting time provisions" of
Article 6, and denied that violation was justified either because
the carrier had agreed with the Engineers to follow the formerly
prevailing practice or by the carrier's claim that the work could
be done in no other way. The submission was intended to secure
compliance. There was no prayer for money damages. Petitioner
maintained that Article 6 was not applicable.
The Board, following its customary procedure, [
Footnote 4] docketed the claim as No. 3537,
notified the carrier and the
Page 325 U. S. 715
union that the case, with many others docketed at the same time,
was "assumed to be complete," and forwarded to each copies of the
other's submissions. The record does not disclose what followed
until nearly two years later.
On October 31, 1938, Williams and Johnson, secretary of the
Brotherhood, two of the grievance committee's three members,
accepted an offer made by petitioner's president, Rogers, to settle
the claim. The settlement took the form of a proposal, made in a
letter by Rogers to Williams, to settle some 61 different claims,
including "Labor Board Docket No. 3537 -- Starting time of switch
engines in Whiting S. O. Yard." Williams and Johnson endorsed
acceptance for the Brotherhood and the yardmen on the letter.
Because of its importance, pertinent portions are set forth in the
margin. [
Footnote 5] On the day
the settlement was concluded,
Page 325 U. S. 716
Rogers and Williams advised the Board of it by letter, and
jointly requested that the case be withdrawn from the docket, which
accordingly was done.
Notwithstanding the settlement, a further dispute arose. In
March, 1939, the Brotherhood, through Williams, requested the
carrier to furnish a complete list of crews in the Whiting yard
started at times other than those fixed by Article 6 from August
27, 1934, to November 15, 1938, when the settlement became
effective. The company declined to furnish the list, stating it was
at a loss to understand the reason for the request in view of the
settlement.
The upshot of the dispute was the filing of another claim with
the Board, Docket No. 7324, on May 18, 1939, by Williams, acting
for the Brotherhood. This submission
Page 325 U. S. 717
was
"for one day's pay at time and one-half for each foreman and
each helper for each day they were required to work in yard service
in the Whiting (Standard Oil Company) Yard, in violation of the
fixed starting time provided for in Article No. 6 of the Yardmen's
Agreement . . . effective January 1, 1927, and applicable to
Whiting (Standard Oil Company) Yardmen, July 27, 1934, from dates
of August 27, 1934, until November 14, 1938, inclusive."
The submission not only maintained the applicability of Article
6 and accrual of the individual claims asserted. It also maintained
that the settlement of October 31, 1938, was effective only to fix
the starting time for the future, and had no effect to waive or
determine individual claims for penalty damages accrued prior to
the settlement. [
Footnote
6]
The carrier's submission reiterated its position in Case No.
3537. It also relied upon the settlement as precluding later
assertion of any claim, individual or collective, based upon
occurrences prior to the date of the settlement.
The matter went to decision by the Board. Under the procedure
prescribed in case of deadlock,
cf. § 3, First(l),
Page 325 U. S. 718
a referee was called in. The award was made by the First
Division on September 6, 1940. It sustained the Board's
jurisdiction, [
Footnote 7]
found that "the parties to said dispute were given due notice of
hearing thereon," and held that
"the evidence shows that the parties to the agreement disposed
of the claim here made by the letter of carrier dated October 28,
1938, accepted by employees October 31, 1938."
Accordingly, the claim was "denied per findings."
Thereafter, on November 19, 1940, the present suit was
instituted. As has been noted, the case comes here after a summary
judgment rendered on the carrier's motion, supported by the
affidavit of its vice-president. This, in effect, set up the
compromise agreement and the award in Case No. 7324 as bases for
the judgment sought.
The range and precise nature of the issues may be summarized
best, perhaps, as they were shaped upon respondents' opposition to
the carrier's motion. They denied that either Williams or the union
had authority to release their individual claims or to submit them
for decision by the Board. They relied upon provisions of the
Brotherhood's constitution and rules, [
Footnote 8] of which the carrier was alleged to have
knowledge, as forbidding union officials to release individual
claims or to submit them to the Board "without specific authority
to do so granted by the individual members themselves," and denied
that such authority in either respect had been given.
The validity and the conclusive effect of the award were
challenged also upon other grounds, among them that
Page 325 U. S. 719
respondents individually received no notice of the submission or
the hearing until after the award was made; that, since the award
denied a claim for money damages, it was within the exception of
Section 3, First (m), which provides that "the awards shall be
final and binding upon both parties to the dispute, except insofar
as they shall contain a money award," and therefore did not
preclude this suit, and that the Act, if construed to make the
award conclusive, would violate the Fifth Amendment's due process
provision by denying judicial review to defeated employees, though
allowing it to defeated employers.
Cf. § 3, First (p),
(q);
Washington Terminal Co. v. Boswell, 124 F.2d 235,
affirmed by an equally divided Court, 319 U.S. 732.
Finally, respondents suggested most sweepingly that the Board
may act "merely as an arbitrator," with the result that "any
decisions thereunder are void because it passes on matters and
bases its decision and its opinion on law and fact which is
contrary to public policy." The prayer was that the court overrule
the carrier's motion for summary judgment and, in doing so,
determine that the release was not effective; the award was not a
final adjudication of the claims, and the award was void for lack
of jurisdiction of the parties or the subject matter or "because
said Act under which award was entered is unconstitutional."
The District Court's judgment rested squarely on the conclusive
effect of the award in Docket No. 7324. It did not indicate whether
it regarded the Brotherhood's authority to submit the claims and
appear for the employees as derived from the statute or, apart from
the statute, as a matter of law upon the particular facts. But it
must be taken to have held that, upon the pleadings and the
affidavits, no genuine issue of material fact was presented,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 56(c), and therefore that it
was immaterial if, as alleged, respondents had not individually
given the Brotherhood or Williams specific authority
Page 325 U. S. 720
to submit their claims for decision or represent them in the
hearings.
The Court of Appeals, however, made no reference to the issues
concerning the award and its effect upon the claims. But its
judgment must be taken to have determined implicitly that none of
petitioner's contentions in these respects is valid.
The issues are not merely, as the Court of Appeals assumed,
whether the Brotherhood had authority to compromise and settle the
claims by agreement with the carrier and whether, on the record,
this presents a question of fact. For petitioner insists, and the
District Court held, that the award of the Board was validly made,
and is final, precluding judicial review. We do not reach the
questions of finality, which turn upon construction of the
statutory provisions and their constitutional validity as
construed. [
Footnote 9] Those
questions should not be determined unless the award was validly
made, which presents, in our opinion, the crucial question.
Respondents attack the validity and legal effectiveness of the
award in three ways. Two strike at its validity on narrow grounds.
Respondents say the Brotherhood had no power to submit the dispute
for decision by the Board without authority given by each of them
individually, and that no such authority was given. They also
maintain that they were entitled to have notice individually of the
proceedings before the Board, and none was given.
The third and most sweeping contention undercuts all other
issues concerning the award's effects, whether for validity or for
finality. In substance, it is that the award, when rendered,
amounts to nothing more than an advisory opinion. The contention,
founded upon language of the opinion in
Moore v. Illinois
Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630,
regards the Act's entire scheme for the settlement of grievances as
wholly conciliatory in character, involving
Page 325 U. S. 721
no element of legal effectiveness, with the consequence that the
parties are entirely free to accept or ignore the Board's
decision.
At the outset we put aside this broadest contention as
inconsistent with the Act's terms, purposes, and legislative
history. [
Footnote 10] The
Moore case involved no question concerning the validity or
the legal effectiveness of an award when rendered. [
Footnote 11] Nor did it purport to
determine that the Act creates no legal obligations through an
award or otherwise. Apart from the affirmance by equal division in
Washington Terminal Co. v. Boswell, supra, both prior and
later decisions here are wholly inconsistent with such a view of
its effects.
Cf. Virginian R. Co. v. System Federation,
300 U. S. 515;
Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Railway Clerks, 281 U.
S. 548; [
Footnote
12]
Switchmen's Union v. National Mediation Board,
320 U. S. 297;
General Committee
v.
Page 325 U. S. 722
M-K-T R. Co., 320 U. S. 323;
General Committee v. Southern Pacific Co., 320 U.
S. 338.
I
The difference between disputes over grievances and disputes
concerning the making of collective agreements is traditional in
railway labor affairs. It has assumed large importance in the
Railway Labor Act of 1934, substantively and procedurally.
[
Footnote 13] It divides the
jurisdiction and functions of the Adjustment Board from those of
the Mediation Board, giving them their distinct characters. It also
affects the parts to be played by the collective agent and the
represented employees, first in negotiations for settlement in
conference and later in the quite different procedures which the
Act creates for disposing of the two types of dispute.
Cf.
§§ 3, 4.
The statute first marks the distinction in Section 2, which
states as among the Act's five general purposes:
"(4) to provide for the prompt and orderly settlement of all
disputes concerning rates of pay, rules, or working
conditions;"
"(5) to provide for the prompt and orderly settlement of all
disputes growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or
application of agreements covering rates of pay, rules, or working
conditions."
The two sorts of dispute are sharply distinguished, [
Footnote 14] though there are points
of common treatment. Nevertheless, it is clear from the Act itself,
from the history of railway labor disputes
Page 325 U. S. 723
and from the legislative history of the various statutes which
have dealt with them, [
Footnote
15] that Congress has drawn major lines of difference between
the two classes of controversy.
The first relates to disputes over the formation of collective
agreements or efforts to secure them. They arise where there is no
such agreement or where it is sought to change the terms of one,
and therefore the issue is not whether an existing agreement
controls the controversy. They look to the acquisition of rights
for the future, not to assertion of rights claimed to have vested
in the past.
The second class, however, contemplates the existence of a
collective agreement already concluded, or, at any rate, a
situation in which no effort is made to bring about a formal change
in terms or to create a new one. The dispute relates either to the
meaning or proper application of a particular provision with
reference to a specific situation or to an omitted case. In the
latter event, the claim is founded upon some incident of the
employment relation, or asserted one, independent of those covered
by the collective agreement --
e.g., claims on account of
personal injuries. In either case, the claim is to rights accrued,
not merely to have new ones created for the future.
In general, the difference is between what are regarded
traditionally as the major and the minor disputes of the railway
labor world. [
Footnote 16]
The former present the large issues
Page 325 U. S. 724
about which strikes ordinarily arise with the consequent
interruptions of traffic the Act sought to avoid. Because they more
often involve those consequences and because they seek to create,
rather than to enforce contractual rights, they have been left for
settlement entirely to the processes of noncompulsory
adjustment.
The so-called minor disputes, on the other hand, involving
grievances, affect the smaller differences which inevitably appear
in the carrying out of major agreements and policies or arise
incidentally in the course of an employment. They represent
specific maladjustments of a detailed or individual quality. They
seldom produce strikes, though, in exaggerated instances, they may
do so. [
Footnote 17] Because
of their comparatively minor character and the general
improbability of their causing interruption of peaceful relations
and of traffic, the 1934 Act sets them apart from the major
disputes and provides for very different treatment.
Broadly, the statute as amended marks out two distinct routes
for settlement of the two classes of dispute, respectively, each
consisting of three stages. The Act treats the two types of dispute
alike in requiring negotiation as the first step toward settlement,
and therefore in contemplating voluntary action for both at this
stage, in the sense that agreement is sought, and cannot be
compelled. To
Page 325 U. S. 725
induce agreement, however, the duty to negotiate is imposed for
both grievances and major disputes. [
Footnote 18]
Beyond the initial stages of negotiation and conference,
however, the procedures diverge. "Major disputes" go first to
mediation under the auspices of the National Mediation Board; if
that fails, then to acceptance or rejection of arbitration,
cf. § 7;
Trainmen v. Toledo, P. & W. R. Co.,
321 U. S. 50, and
finally to possible presidential intervention to secure adjustment.
§ 10. For their settlement, the statutory scheme retains throughout
the traditional voluntary processes of negotiation, mediation,
voluntary arbitration, and conciliation. Every facility for
bringing about agreement is provided, and pressures for mobilizing
public opinion are applied. The parties are required to submit to
the successive procedures designed to induce agreement. § 5,
First(b). But compulsions go only to insure that those procedures
are exhausted before resort can be had to self-help. No authority
is empowered to decide the dispute. and no such power is intended
unless the parties themselves agree to arbitration.
The course prescribed for the settlement of grievances is very
different beyond the initial stage. Thereafter, the Act does not
leave the parties wholly free at their own will, to agree or not to
agree. On the contrary, one of the main purposes of the 1934
amendments was to provide a more effective process of settlement.
[
Footnote 19]
Prior to 1934, the parties were free at all times to go to court
to settle these disputes. Notwithstanding the contrary intent of
the 1926 Act, 44 Stat. 577, each also had the power, if
Page 325 U. S. 726
not the right, to defeat the intended settlement of grievances
by declining to join in creating the local boards of adjustment
provided for by that Act. They exercised this power to the limit.
Deadlock became the common practice, making decision impossible.
The result was a complete breakdown in the practical working of the
machinery. Grievances accumulated and stagnated until the mass
assumed the proportions of a major dispute. Several organizations
took strike ballots, and thus threatened to interrupt traffic, a
factor which, among others, induced the Coordinator of
Transportation to become the principal author and advocate of the
amendments. The sponsor in the House insisted that Congress act
upon them before adjournment for fear that, if no action were
taken, a railroad crisis might take place. [
Footnote 20] The old Mediation Board was
helpless. [
Footnote 21] To
break this log jam and at the same time to get grievances out of
the way of the settling of major disputes through the functioning
of the Mediation Board, the Adjustment Board was created and given
power to decide them. [
Footnote
22]
Page 325 U. S. 727
The procedure adopted is not one of mediation an conciliation
only, like that provided for major disputes under the auspices of
the Mediation Board. Another tribunal of very different character
is established with "jurisdiction" to determine grievances and make
awards concerning them. Each party to the dispute may submit it for
decision, whether or not the other is willing, provided he has
himself discharged the initial duty of negotiation. [
Footnote 23] § 3, First(i). Rights of
notice, hearing, and participation or representation are given. §
3, First (j). In some instances, judicial review and enforcement of
awards are expressly provided or are contemplated. § 3, First (p);
cf. § 3, First (m). When this is not done, the Act
purports to make the Board's decisions "final and binding." § 3,
First (m).
The procedure is, in terms and purpose, very different from the
preexisting system of local boards. That system was, in fact and
effect, nothing more than one for what respondents call "voluntary
arbitration." No dispute could be settled unless submitted by
agreement of all parties. When one was submitted, deadlock was
common, and there was no way of escape. The Adjustment Board
Page 325 U. S. 728
was created to remove the settlement of grievances from this
stagnating process and bring them within a general and inclusive
plan of decision. [
Footnote
24] The aim was not to dispense with agreement. It was to add
decision where agreement fails, and thus to safeguard the public as
well as private interests against the harmful effects of the
preexisting scheme.
II
The collective agent's power to act in the various stages of the
statutory procedures is part of those procedures, and necessarily
is related to them in function, scope, and purpose.
The statute itself vests exclusive authority to negotiate and to
conclude agreements concerning major disputes in the duly selected
collective agent.
Cf. Virginian R. Co. v. System Federation,
supra. [
Footnote 25]
Since the entire statutory
Page 325 U. S. 729
procedure for settling major disputes is aimed only at securing
agreement, and not decision, unless the parties agree to
arbitration, this exclusive authority includes representation of
the employees not only in the stage of conference, but also in the
later ones of mediation, arbitration, and conciliation.
Whether or not the agent's exclusive power extends also to the
settlement of grievances in conference or in proceedings before the
Board presents more difficult questions. The statute does not
expressly so declare. Nor does it explicitly exclude these
functions. The questions therefore are to be determined by
implication from the pertinent provisions. These are the ones
relating to rights of participation in negotiations for settlement
and in proceedings before the Board. They are in part identical
with the provisions relating to major disputes, but not entirely
so, and the differences are highly material.
The questions of power to bargain concerning grievances -- that
is, to conclude agreements for their settlement -- and to represent
aggrieved employees in proceedings before the Board are not
identical. But they obviously are closely related in the statutory
scheme and in fact. If the collective agent has exclusive power to
settle grievance by agreements, a strong inference, though not
necessarily conclusive, would follow for its exclusive power to
represent the aggrieved employee before the Board. The converse
also would be true. Accordingly, it will be convenient to consider
the two questions together.
The primary provisions affecting the duty to treat are found in
Section 2, First and Second, imposing the duty generally as to all
disputes, both major and minor, and Sections 2, Sixth and 3, First
(i), together with the proviso to Section 2, Fourth, which apply
specially to grievances. These sections in material part are set
forth in the margin, [
Footnote
26] except the
Page 325 U. S. 730
proviso which is as follows:
"Provided, That nothing in this Act shall be construed to
prohibit a carrier from permitting
an employee,
individually, or local representatives of employees
from
conferring with management during
Page 325 U. S. 731
working hours
without loss of time, or to prohibit a
carrier from furnishing free transportation to its employees while
engaged in the business of a labor organization. [
Footnote 27]"
(Emphasis added.)
Relating to participation in the Board's proceeding, in addition
to the concluding sentence of Section 3, First(i),
see
note 26 is Section 3, First
(j), as follows:
"Parties may be heard either
in person, by counsel, or
by other representatives, as they may respectively elect, and the
several divisions of the Adjustment Board shall give due notice of
all hearings
to the employee or employees and the carrier
or carriers involved in any dispute submitted to them."
(Emphasis added)
Petitioner urges that, notwithstanding the proviso and Section
3, First (j), the effect of the provisions taken as a whole is to
make the collective agent the employees' exclusive representative
for the settlement of all disputes, both major and minor, and, of
the latter, "whether arising out of the application of such
[collective] agreements or otherwise." The argument rests primarily
upon Sections 2, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, and 3, First
(i). It emphasizes the carrier's duty to treat with the collective
representative, as reinforced by Sections 2, Eighth and Tenth.
[
Footnote 28]
Petitioner does not squarely deny that the aggrieved employee
may confer with the carrier's local officials either
Page 325 U. S. 732
personally or through
local union representatives in
accordance with the proviso to Section 2, Fourth. But this right,
if it exists, is regarded apparently as, at most, one to be heard,
since, in petitioner's view, the power to make settlement by
agreement is vested exclusively in the collective agent.
Cf. §§ 2, Sixth and 3, First (i).
The collective agent, as the carrier conceives the statute, is
the "representative[s], designated and authorized so to confer"
within the meaning of Section 2, Second, without distinction
between major and minor disputes. It is likewise the
"[representative] for the purposes of this Act," again without
distinction between the two types of dispute, in the selection of
which by "the respective parties" Section 2, Third, forbids the
other to interfere. It is also "the designated representative" of
the employees with whom, by Section 2, Sixth, the carrier is
required to treat concerning grievances in conference, a provision
considered to carry over into Section 3, First (i). The latter
requires that disputes over grievances "shall be handled in the
usual manner up to and including the chief operating officer of the
carrier designated to handle such disputes."
In accordance with this view, "either party," within the further
provision of Section 3, First (i) authorizing reference of the
dispute to the Adjustment Board "by petition of the parties or by
either party," refers to the carrier or the collective agent, not
to the aggrieved employee acting otherwise than by the collective
agent. Hence, "parties" as used in Section 3, First (j), is given
similar meaning. Consequently the collective agent also has
exclusive power to submit the dispute to the Board and to represent
aggrieved employees before it.
Petitioner's view has been adopted, apparently, in the general
practice, if not the formally declared policy of the Adjustment
Board. And this, it seems, has been due to the position taken
consistently by the employees' representatives on the Board, over
the opposition of carrier
Page 325 U. S. 733
representatives. [
Footnote
29] The unions, apparently, like petitioner in this case,
interpret the Act as not contemplating two distinct systems for the
settlement of disputes -- one wholly collective for major disputes,
the other wholly individual for minor ones. In this view, the
collective agent becomes a party to the collective agreement by
making it, and its interest as representative of the collective
interest does not cease when that function ends. It remains a party
to the agreement, as such representative, after it is made, and
consequently, in that capacity and for the protection of the
collective interest, is concerned with the manner in which the
agreement may be interpreted and applied.
Accordingly, petitioner urges that the statute, both, by its
terms and by its purpose, confers upon the collective agent the
same exclusive power to deal with grievances, whether by
negotiation and contract, or by presentation to the Board when
agreement fails, as is given with respect to major disputes. And
the aggrieved employee's rights of individual action are limited to
rights of hearing before the union, and possibly also by the
carrier.
We think that such a view of the statute's effects, insofar as
it would deprive the aggrieved employee of effective voice in any
settlement and of individual hearing before the Board, would be
contrary to the clear import of its provisions and to its
policy.
It would be difficult to believe that Congress intended, by the
1934 amendments, to submerge wholly the individual and minority
interests, with all power to act concerning them, in the collective
interest and agency, not only in forming the contracts which govern
their employment relation, [
Footnote 30] but also in giving effect to them and to all
other
Page 325 U. S. 734
incidents of that relation. Acceptance of such a view would
require the clearest expression of purpose. For this would mean
that Congress had nullified all preexisting rights of workers to
act in relation to their employment, including perhaps even the
fundamental right to consult with one's employer, except as the
collective agent might permit. Apart from questions of validity,
the conclusion that Congress intended such consequences could be
accepted only if it were clear that no other construction would
achieve the statutory aims. [
Footnote 31]
The Act's provisions do not require such a construction. On the
contrary, they appear expressly to preclude it. The proviso to
Section 2, Fourth, in terms reserves the right of "an employee
individually" to confer with management, and Section 3,
First (j), not only requires the Board to give "due notice of all
hearings
to the employee . . . involved in any dispute
submitted . . . ," but provides for "parties" to be heard
"either
in person, by counsel, or by other
representatives, as they may respectively elect."
These provisions would be inapposite if the collective agent,
normally a labor union and an unincorporated association,
exclusively were contemplated. Such organizations do not and cannot
appear and be heard "in person." Nor would the provision for notice
"to
the employee . . . involved in any dispute" be either
appropriate or necessary. If only the collective representative
were given
Page 325 U. S. 735
rights of submission, notice, appearance and representation,
language more aptly designed so to limit those rights was readily
available and was essential for the purpose.
This conclusion accords fully with the terms of the proviso to
Section 2, Fourth. It appears to be intended as a qualification, in
respect to loss of time and free transportation, of the section's
preceding prohibitions against the carrier's giving financial and
other aid to labor organizations and to employees in an effort to
influence their union affiliations. [
Footnote 32] However, the language clearly contemplates
also that the individual employee's right to confer with the
management about his own grievance is preserved. There is some
indication in the legislative history to this effect. [
Footnote 33] The right is so
fundamental that we do not believe the purpose was to destroy it.
Cf. 40 Op.Atty.Gen., No. 59, pp. 5, 6 (Dec. 29, 1942);
Hughes Tool Co. v. Labor Board, 147 F.2d 69.
Rights of conference are not identical with rights of
settlement. But the purpose of conference and the duty to treat is
to bring about agreement. The right and the obligation to share in
the negotiations are relevant to their aim. Conceivably, the
statute might confer the right to participate in the negotiations
-- that is, to be heard before any agreement is concluded, either
upon the collective agent or upon the aggrieved employee or
employees at the same time conferring upon the other the final
voice in determining the terms of the settlement. This is, in
effect, the position taken by each of the parties in this case. But
they differ concerning where the final say has been
Page 325 U. S. 736
vested. Petitioner maintains it has been given to the union.
Respondents say it has been left with them.
In the view we take, the Act guarantees to the aggrieved
employee more than merely the right to be heard by the union and
the carrier. We cannot say that the terms of the proviso to Section
2, Fourth, and of Section 3, First (j), are so limited. Moreover,
Section 3, First (p), expressly states that the statutory suit to
enforce an award in favor of an aggrieved employee may be brought
by "the petitioner," presumably the collective agent, or by the
employee. All of these provisions contemplate effective
participation in the statutory procedures by the aggrieved
employee.
His rights to share in the negotiations, to be heard before the
Board, to have notice, and to bring the enforcement suit would
become rights more of shadow than of substance if the union, by
coming to agreement with the carrier, could foreclose his claim
altogether at the threshold of the statutory procedure. This would
be true in any case where the employee's ideas of appropriate
settlement might differ from the union's. But the drastic effects
in curtailment of his preexisting rights to act in such matters for
his own protection would be most obvious in two types of cases --
one where the grievance arises from incidents of the employment not
covered by a collective agreement, in which presumably the
collective interest would be affected only remotely, if at all; the
other where the interest of an employee not a member of the union
and the collective interest, or that of the union itself, are
opposed or hostile. That the statute does not purport to
discriminate between these and other cases furnishes strong support
for believing its purpose was not to vest final and exclusive power
of settlement in the collective agent. [
Footnote 34]
Page 325 U. S. 737
We need not determine in this case whether Congress intended to
leave the settlement of grievances altogether to the individual
workers, excluding the collective agent entirely except as they may
specifically authorize it to act for them, or intended it also to
have voice in the settlement as representative of the collective
interest.
Cf. Matter of Hughes Tool Company, 56 N.L.R.B.
981,
modified and enforced, Hughes Tool Co. v. Labor Board,
supra. The statute does not expressly exclude grievances from
the collective agent's duty to treat or power to submit to the
Board. Both collective and individual interests may be concerned in
the settlement where, as in this case, the dispute concerns all
members alike, and settlement hangs exclusively upon a single
common issue or cause of dispute arising from the terms of a
collective agreement. [
Footnote
35]
Page 325 U. S. 738
Those interest combine in almost infinite variety of relative
importance in relation to particular grievances, from situations in
which the two are hostile or in which they bear little or no
relation of substance to each other and opposed to others in which
they are identified. [
Footnote
36]
Congress made no effort to deal specifically with these
variations. [
Footnote 37]
But whether or not the collective agent has rights, independently
of the aggrieved employee's authorization, to act as representative
of the collective interest and for its protection in any
settlement, whether by agreement or in proceedings before the
Board, an award cannot be effective as against the aggrieved
employee unless he is represented individually in the proceedings
in accordance with the rights of notice and appearance or
representation given to him by Section 3, First (j). Those rights
are separate and distinct from any the collective agent may have to
represent the collective interest. For an award to affect the
employee's rights, therefore, more must be shown than that the
collective agent appeared and purported to act for him. It must
appear that, in some legally sufficient way, he authorized it to
act in his behalf. [
Footnote
38]
Page 325 U. S. 739
Petitioner's contrary view, as has been indicated, regards the
settlement of grievances as part of the collective bargaining
power, indistinguishable from the making of collective agreements.
The assumption ignores the major difference which the Act has drawn
between those functions, both in defining them and in the modes
provided for settlement.
To settle for the future alone, without reference to or effect
upon the past, is in fact to bargain collectively -- that is, to
make a collective agreement. That authority is conferred
independently of the power to deal with grievances, as part of the
power to contract "concerning rates of pay, rules, or working
conditions." It includes the power to make a new agreement settling
for the future a dispute concerning the coverage or meaning of a
preexisting collective agreement. For the collective bargaining
power is not exhausted by being once exercised; it covers changing
the terms of an existing agreement, as well as making one in the
first place.
But it does not cover changing them with retroactive effects
upon accrued rights or claims. For it is precisely the difference
between making settlements effective only for the future and making
them effective retroactively to conclude rights claimed as having
already accrued which marks the statutory boundary between
collective bargaining and the settlement of grievances. The latter,
by explicit definition, includes the "interpretation or
application" of existing agreements. To regard this as part of the
collective bargaining power identifies it with making new
agreements having only prospective operation, and,
Page 325 U. S. 740
by so doing, obliterates the statute's basic distinction between
those functions. [
Footnote
39]
The Brotherhood had power, therefore, as collective agent, to
make an agreement with the carrier, effective for the future only,
to settle the question of starting time, and that power was derived
from the Act itself. In dealing within its scope, the carrier was
not required to look further than the Act's provisions to ascertain
the union's authority. But it does not follow, as petitioner
assumes, that it had the same right to deal with the union
concerning the past. That aspect of the dispute was not part of the
collective agent's exclusive statutory authority.
If to exclude it severs what otherwise might be considered
organic, the severance clearly is one which Congress could make,
and is one we think it has made, by its definition of grievances
and by the provisions for individual participation in their
settlement. If, moreover, as petitioner urges, this may make the
settlement less convenient than if power to deal with grievances
were vested exclusively
Page 325 U. S. 741
in the collective agent, that consequence may be admitted. But
it cannot outweigh the considerations of equal or greater force
which we think Congress has taken into account in preserving the
individual workman's right to have a voice amounting to more than
mere protest in the settlement of claims arising out of his
employment.
From the fact that the Brotherhood occupied the position of
collective bargaining agent, and, as such, had power to deal for
the future, therefore, petitioner was not entitled to make any
assumption concerning its authority to settle the claims accrued
for the past, or to represent the claimants exclusively in
proceedings before the Board. Accordingly, for the union to act in
their behalf with conclusive effect, authorization by them over and
above any authority given by the statute was essential.
III
Petitioner urges that, apart from the statute, the facts of
record show as a matter of law that respondents authorized the
Brotherhood to settle the claims, to submit them to the Board, and
to represent them in its proceedings. Respondents deny that
authority in any of these respects was given, either by individual
authorization or by virtue of the Brotherhood's constitution and
rules, and they insist that the record presents these questions as
issues of fact.
Stripped of its statutory influences, petitioner's argument
comes, in substance, to this. It is undisputed that, from August
27, 1934, to November 23, 1936, when the complaint in Docket No.
3537 was filed, respondents made out time slips and filed many
complaints with the carrier's local officials through local
officers of the Brotherhood on account of departures from the
schedule of Article 6. The question of the article's applicability
was a matter of discussion between the Brotherhood and company
officials from the time of the transfer in 1934. Respondents
admit
Page 325 U. S. 742
having authorized the Brotherhood, at a meeting of their local
lodge, to file the complaint in Docket No. 3537, and that this
complaint was filed in full compliance with the Brotherhood's
constitution and rules. The settlement of October, 1938, and the
consequent withdrawal of the claim in Docket No. 3537, were made by
the same official, Williams, whom respondents had authorized to
file the claim and with whom, in effect, both the collective
agreement and the Brotherhood's regulations required petitioner to
deal concerning the matter. [
Footnote 40] Moreover, the complaint in Docket No. 7324,
filed in May, 1939, was filed by Williams, and in the same manner
as the complaint in Docket No. 3537.
From these facts, petitioner concludes that respondents
authorized the Brotherhood to settle the claims and to represent
them before the Board. In its view, all of these transactions
related to the same subject matter -- namely, whether Article 6 was
applicable in the Whiting yard -- the only difference being that
the relief sought in the two proceedings was not the same, and that
difference is not material.
Page 325 U. S. 743
Respondents differ concerning the effect of these facts and
others they set forth. They allege that, under the Brotherhood's
constitution and rules, neither Williams and Johnson nor the
general grievance committee could
"revise or change a general wage 'schedule' or agreement
concerning rates of pay, nor working conditions, unless authorized
to do so by a majority vote of the lodges or by a majority vote of
the membership in the system;"
that claims of individual members for back compensation could
not be released without specific authority given individually; that
no such authority was given, and that the carrier had knowledge of
these limitations. They further allege that Williams and Johnson
failed to notify them of the settlement, as the bylaws required;
[
Footnote 41] and deny that
they knew of the settlement, the proceedings in Docket 7324, or the
award until after the award was made, when they promptly repudiated
it. [
Footnote 42] They say,
accordingly, that Williams acted without authority from them,
directly or through the Brotherhood's regulations, in submitting
and presenting the claims, and that the award is invalid not only
for this reason, but also because no notice of the proceeding was
given to them.
It is apparent that the parties are at odds upon the inferences
to be drawn from the facts and their legal effects, rather than
upon the facts themselves. Respondents deny, and petitioner
apparently does not claim, that they at any time individually and
specifically authorized the Brotherhood or its officials to
compromise their claims for money due or to act for them
exclusively in Board proceedings concerning those claims. If there
is an issue
Page 325 U. S. 744
in this respect, it is obviously one of fact, concerning which
evidence and findings would be required.
The real issues, as we view the record, come down to whether
respondents assented, in legal effect, to the final settlement of
their claims by the union or to exclusive representation by it in
any of the following ways: (1) by making complaints through local
union officials; (2) by authorizing the Brotherhood to submit the
complaint in Docket No. 3537; (3) by virtue of the Brotherhood's
regulations; (4) by virtue of the collective agreement.
The collective agreement could not be effective to deprive the
employees of their individual rights. Otherwise, those rights would
be brought within the collective bargaining power by a mere
exercise of that power, contrary to the purport and effect of the
Act as excepting them from its scope and reserving them to the
individuals aggrieved. In view of that reservation, the Act clearly
does not contemplate that the right saved may be nullified merely
by agreement between the carrier and the union.
Nor can we say as a matter of law that the mere making of
complaints through local Brotherhood officials amounted to final
authorization to the union to settle the claims or represent the
employees before the Board. Neither the statute nor the union's
regulations purported to give these effects to that conduct. The
time slips apparently were filed by the employees themselves. The
record shows only the general fact that complaints concerning
departures were made through local officials. More than this would
be required to disclose unequivocal intention to surrender the
individual's right to participate in the settlement and to give the
union final voice in making it together with exclusive power to
represent him before the Board. The making of complaints in this
manner was only preliminary to negotiation, and equivocal, at the
most.
Nor can we say, in the present state of the record, that the
union's regulations unequivocally authorized the general
Page 325 U. S. 745
grievance committee or its chairman either to settle the claims
or to act as exclusive representative before the Board. The parties
rely upon apparently conflicting provisions, or, if they are not
actually in conflict, then upon different ones, the applicability
of some of which is in dispute. Thus, respondents rely upon Rule 3,
which forbids change in existing agreements without the required
vote of local lodges or system membership, and petitioner says the
rule is not applicable to the dispute in this case. Whether or not
the rule is applicable is a question of fact to be determined in
the light of whatever evidence may be presented to sustain the one
view or the other. Conceivably it may be intended to apply only
where no grievance is involved, or to the settlement of grievances
and other disputes as well. But we cannot say, in the absence of
further light than is now available, that, on its face, the rule
bears only the one construction or the other.
Similar difficulties arise in connection with the other
regulations. Only some of them are set forth in the printed record,
although the full constitution and rules were made a part of the
record proper by petitioner. The rules and regulations do not
purport to require members to negotiate and settle their grievances
only through the union. The general committee can act only when a
grievance is referred to it by a local lodge. The rules are
extensive, parts of them appear to involve possible conflict, the
parties differ concerning their effects, and the mode of their
operation quite obviously may be largely affected by the manner in
which they are applied in practice. Their construction and legal
effect are matters of some complexity, and should not be undertaken
in a vacuum apart from the facts relating to their application in
practice. Because both factual and legal inferences would be
involved in determining the effects of the regulations to bring
about a surrender of the individual rights to take part in the
settlement and in the Board's proceedings,
Page 325 U. S. 746
those effects cannot be determined as a matter of law in the
first instance here.
Nor can we say as a matter of law that authorizing the
submission in Docket No. 3537, without more, constitute
authorization either to make the agreement of settlement or to
represent the employees in Docket No. 7324. The matter requires
some explication in the light of the view we have taken concerning
the rights of an aggrieved employee in the settlement of
grievances. In that view, no valid settlement can be made unless he
agrees. If settlement by agreement after negotiation fails, he has
the right to submit the dispute to the Board for decision. If it is
submitted he has rights of notice, hearing, and individual
representation according to his choice.
All these rights are separate and distinct, though closely
related. A surrender or delegation of one would not result in
surrender of the others as a matter of law, or necessarily as a
matter of fact. Whether in particular circumstances it might do so
would depend upon whether they were considered sufficient to
disclose such an intent. [
Footnote 43] It follows that authority to concur in an
agreement of settlement does not imply, without more, authority to
represent the employee in Board proceedings, or the latter the
former. This is true when the authority is given to the collective
agent as it is when it is given to another. That circumstance is
not controlling. It only bears as one factor
Page 325 U. S. 747
in the total situation. Accordingly, in this case, the mere fact
that the respondents authorized the union to make the submission
and to represent them in Docket No. 3537 did not imply authority to
make the settlement agreement or to represent them in the quite
different later proceedings in Docket No. 7324.
The record does not show conclusively that, prior to the
submission in Docket No. 3537, the employees had finally committed
the whole matter of their claims into the union's hands in such a
manner as to constitute a surrender of their individual rights to
concur in any agreement of settlement. That conclusion is not
justified merely from the fact that the union participated in
negotiations with the carrier.
Moreover, the authorization to act in Docket No. 3537 obviously
was given after efforts to secure settlement by negotiation and
agreement were considered to have failed. Only then was anyone
entitled to make the submission. Accordingly, that authorization
was entirely consistent with the idea that no further negotiations
would be had, and therefore, without more, also with the idea that
no authority to negotiate further was implied. It may be that, upon
a full hearing concerning the course and scope of the negotiations
prior to this submission, the evidence will justify a conclusion
that the respondents had authorized the union to act finally for
them. But the record in its present state does not justify that
conclusion as a matter of law. [
Footnote 44]
Page 325 U. S. 748
It may be true also that, if Docket No. 3537 had been carried to
decision, the award would have been effective to determine the
rights of the parties. But no award was made in that proceeding. It
was terminated, and the claim was withdrawn. Whether or not that
action or other events occurring later were effective to terminate
the authority given to submit for the Board's determination the
issue which was the foundation of respondents' monetary claims, or
whether that authority continued in spite of the changed
conditions, are questions also to be determined from a factual
evaluation of the entire situation, essentially preliminary to
determination of legal effects, which we cannot make.
Since, upon the total situation, we cannot say as a matter of
law that respondents had authorized the Brotherhood to act for them
in Docket No. 7324, whether in submitting the cause or in
representing them before the Board; since it is conceded also that
they were not given notice of the proceeding otherwise than as the
union had knowledge of them, and since, further, they have denied
that they had knowledge of the proceedings and of the award until
after it was entered, the question whether the award was effective
in any matter to affect their rights must be determined in the
further proceedings which are required. The crucial issue in this
respect, of course, will be initially whether respondents had
authorized the Brotherhood in any legally sufficient manner to
represent them, individually, in the Board's proceedings in Docket
No. 7324.
Page 325 U. S. 749
Until that question is determined, it is not necessary for us to
pass upon the important issue concerning the finality and
conclusive effect of the award, or to determine the validity and
legal effect of the compromise agreement. We accordingly express no
opinion concerning those issues.
The judgment is affirmed. The cause is remanded for further
proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
[
Footnote 1]
Amendments were allowed to cure jurisdictional defects found to
exist upon an earlier appeal.
Alderman v. Elgin, Joliet &
Eastern R. Co., 125 F.2d 971.
[
Footnote 2]
The record sets forth no provision for penalty damages. But the
complaint alleges that, under the terms of the agreement, each of
the plaintiffs is entitled to "pay for an additional day at time
and one-half at the regular daily rate" for each day he was
required to work contrary to the agreement's terms.
[
Footnote 3]
The court said:
"I think that the controversy was submitted to the Board, that
it had jurisdiction and that it was decided, and that the
plaintiffs were represented there and are bound thereby. . . . I
think the ruling of the Adjustment Board was binding upon the
plaintiffs as well as upon the defendant, and that it is binding on
this court in this proceeding."
[
Footnote 4]
The procedure, though informal, consists principally in written
statements or "submissions" filed by the parties, which perform the
functions of pleading and evidence combined, and oral argument upon
the submissions thus made.
See Garrison, The National
Railroad Adjustment Board: A Unique Administrative Agency (1937) 46
Yale L.J. 567, for a detailed description of the procedure.
See
also Final Report of the Attorney General's Committee on
Administrative Procedure (1941) 185 ff.; Administrative Procedure
in Government Agencies, Sen.Doc. No. 10, Part IV, 77th Cong., 1st
Sess.
[
Footnote 5]
The letter was addressed to Williams, as general chairman of the
Brotherhood, and dated October 28, 1938. It stated:
"Since my letter of August 18th, in which I tentatively proposed
settlement of certain matters of grievance, we have had further
correspondence and conferences, which had modified our decision in
some cases. Therefore, in order that the whole matter be placed in
concrete form, I am outlining below our proposals to settle all of
the cases except as otherwise specified."
"
* * * *"
"Case No. 5-Labor Board Docket #3537 -- Starting time of switch
engines in Whiting S. O. Yard."
"Settled by agreement that
the starting times for a ninety
day trial period commencing November 15th, 1938,
shall be
the times provided for in Article 6 of the Yardmen's
Agreement,
instead of the starting times heretofore agreed upon
and now being followed. If, at the end of the ninety-day trial
period, the Railway Company or its employees claim that the
starting times as fixed in Article 6 do not result in efficient and
economical operation and in satisfaction to our employees and to
the industry served, then representatives of the Railway Company
and representatives of the Yardmen, and representatives of the
Engineers and representatives of the Firemen,
will sit down and
work out a schedule of starting time best suited for meeting the
special requirements of the industry."
"
* * * *"
"We have by this letter given you a complete resume of all of
the claims which have not heretofore been disposed of, filed by you
on behalf of the employees whom you represent, and have proposed in
this letter a very liberal disposition of all the cases involved.
The settlements proposed are predicated on a
complete
settlement and withdrawal of all cases now pending either
before the board
or under discussion with this office except
Case No. 4, which it is understood will be left to a decision
by the National Railroad Adjustment Board,
and it is further
understood that, in the event these settlements are accepted, that
the claims listed in this letter cover all claims of a similar
nature, and that no other claims covering the same or like
situations will be presented when such claims arise from causes
occurring prior to the date of this settlement. [Emphasis
added.]"
"Yours truly,"
"S. M. Rogers,
President"
"Accepted for the Yardmen: Oct. 31, 1938"
"C. H. Williams, General Chairman, B. of R. T."
"S. F. Johnson, Secretary, B. of R. T."
[
Footnote 6]
Cf. note 5. The submission stated:
"There were no agreements reached whereby payment for violation
of Article No. 6 of the Yardmen's Agreement would be waived as a
result of withdrawal of Labor Board Docket No. 3537.
In fact,
that case held no claims for payment for time. It was simply a case
to settle the dispute as to the carrier's right to force the yard
crews in the Whiting yard
to work at times other than the
fixed starting time provided for in Article 6. . . ."
"As stated before, Case No. 5-Labor Board Docket No. 3537
contained no claim for pay to Whiting Yardmen.
Consequently it was not a question before the Management and
the Committee in the starting time
negotiation, and
claim cannot be made that a waiver was made on a matter which was
not negotiated."
The submission also denied that oral agreements relating to
starting time, claimed by the carrier to have been made at the time
of the transfer in 1934, could be effective "to invalidate the
prescribed written rule of Article 6." Williams, however, did not
question the validity of the verbal agreement, as he maintained,
for the thirty day suspension.
[
Footnote 7]
The submission in no way challenged the jurisdiction of the
Board or of the Division.
[
Footnote 8]
See 325 U. S. The
provisions regulate the union's internal procedure in relation to
making changes in a "general or system wage schedule or agreement,"
Rule No. 3, and that to be followed when the local chairman or
grievance committee fails "satisfactorily to adjust any grievance
referred to it." Rule No. 7. The latter includes a provision that
"a general grievance committee may authorize their chairman to
handle all grievances received from local lodges."
See
also note 40
[
Footnote 9]
Cf. § 3 First (m), (o), (p), (q).
[
Footnote 10]
Cf. 325 U. S.
[
Footnote 11]
It was held that nothing in the Act
"purports to take away from the courts the jurisdiction to
determine a controversy over a wrongful discharge or to make an
administrative finding a prerequisite to filing a suit in
court,"
312 U.S. at
312 U. S. 634,
and therefore the employee's suit could be maintained against the
carrier without prior resort to the Adjustment Board. Among the
reasons assigned was that the machinery provided for settling
disputes was not "based on a philosophy of legal compulsion," but
created "a system for peaceful adjustment and mediation voluntary
in its nature."
The problem presented was whether the Adjustment Board procedure
either was exclusive or was an essential preliminary to judicial
proceedings within the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. These were
questions not entirely determinable by the criterion of whether the
procedure is wholly advisory or conciliatory in character. For,
conceivably, Congress might have made the taking of the Board's
merely advisory opinion a condition precedent to asking for
judicial relief; and, conversely, allowing that relief without
prior resort to the Board does not necessarily make the Board's
action, when taken, merely advisory.
[
Footnote 12]
[
Footnote 13]
Cf. the references cited in notes
4 and |
4 and
S. 711fn15|>15.
[
Footnote 14]
[
Footnote 15]
See the references cited in
note 4; Hearings before Committee on Interstate Commerce on
HR.7650, 73d Cong., 2d Sess.; Hearings before Committee on
Interstate Commerce on S. 3266, 73d Cong., 2d Sess.;
Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Railroad Labor Board, 261 U. S.
72;
Pennsylvania System Federation v. Pennsylvania
R. Co., 267 U. S. 203;
Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Brotherhood, 281 U.
S. 548;
Virginian R. Co. v. System Federation,
300 U. S. 515.
[
Footnote 16]
Cf. the references cited in
note 4 Commissioner (also Coordinator) Eastman, who very
largely drafted the 1934 amendments, said in testifying at the
House Committee hearings concerning them:
"Please note that disputes concerning changes in rates of pay,
rules, or working conditions may not be so referred [to the
National Adjustment Board], but are to be handled, when unadjusted,
through the process of mediation. The national adjustment board is
to handle only the minor cases growing out of grievances or out of
the interpretation or application of agreements."
Hearings before Committee on Interstate Commerce on H.R.7650, 73
Cong., 2d Sess., 47;
cf. also pp. 49, 51, 59, 62.
And
see the testimony of Harrison, a principal union proponent,
before the House Committee,
id. at 80-83, and before the
Senate Committee, Hearings before Committee on Interstate Commerce
on S.3266, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 33, 35.
[
Footnote 17]
Cf. the testimony of Eastman and Harrison cited in
note 16
[
Footnote 18]
[
Footnote 19]
H.Rep. No.1944 on H.R.9861, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 3; S.Rep.
No.1065 on S.3266, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1, 2.
[
Footnote 20]
Cf. 78 Cong.Rec. 12553. Coordinator Eastman referred in
his testimony to four recent strike votes occasioned by deadlock.
Hearings before Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 3266, 73d
Cong., 2d Sess., 17.
[
Footnote 21]
The Chairman told the Senate Committee:
"The provision in the present act [1926] for adjustment boards
is in practice about as near a fool provision as anything could
possibly be. I mean this -- that, on the face of it, they shall, by
agreement, do so and so. Well, you can do pretty nearly anything by
agreement, but how can you get them to agree?"
Hearings before Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 3266, 73d
Cong., 2d Sess., 137.
[
Footnote 22]
See, for a general view of the circumstances inducing
enactment of the 1934 Amendments, the references cited above in
notes
4 15 16,
19
The report of the House Committee in charge of the bill stated:
"Many thousands of these disputes have been considered by boards
established under the Railway Labor Act, but the boards have been
unable to reach a majority decision, and so the proceedings have
been deadlocked. These unadjusted disputes have become so numerous
that, on several occasions, the employees have resorted to the
issuance of strike ballots and threatened to interrupt interstate
commerce in order to secure an adjustment. This has made it
necessary for the President of the United States to intervene and
establish an emergency board to investigate the controversies. This
condition should be corrected in the interest of industrial peace
and of uninterrupted transportation service. This bill therefore
provides for the establishment of a national board of adjustment to
which these disputes may be submitted if they shall not have been
adjusted in conference between the parties."
H.Rep. No.1944, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 3.
Cf. also the
testimony of Coordinator Eastman, Hearings before Committee on
Interstate Commerce on H.R. 7650, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 49.
[
Footnote 23]
Section 3, First (i), expressly conditions the right to move
from negotiation into proceedings before the Adjustment Board upon
"failing to reach an adjustment in this manner,"
i.e., by
negotiation.
[
Footnote 24]
See the testimony of Coordinator Eastman and Mr.
Harrison, cited in
note 16
The latter stated at the Senate Committee hearings, pp. 33, 35:
". . . [T]his has been a question for the last 14 years as to
what kind of boards we are going to have to settle our grievances.
. . . We have always sought national boards; the railroads . . .
have sought the system boards, regional boards. . . . Most of the
boards . . . under the present law have deadlocked on any number of
cases. As a result of that, there was fast growing up in our
industry a serious condition that might very well develop into
substantial interruption of interstate commerce. . . . These
railway labor organizations have always opposed compulsory
determination of their controversies. We have lived a long
time and got a lot of experience, and we know that these minor
cases that develop out of contracts that we make freely, and . . .
we are now ready to concede that we can risk having our
grievances go to a board and get them determined, and that is a
contribution that these organizations are willing to make; . .
. if we are going to get a hodge-podge arrangement by law, then we
don't want to give up that right, because we only give up the right
because we feel that we will get a measure of justice by this
machinery that we suggest here."
(Emphasis added.)
[
Footnote 25]
Cf. also Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. Labor Board,
321 U. S. 678;
J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U.
S. 332.
[
Footnote 26]
By Section 2, First,
"
It shall be the duty of all carriers, their officers,
agents, and
employees to exert every reasonable effort to
make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and
working conditions, and
to settle all disputes, whether
arising our of
the application of such agreements or
otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce. . .
."
By Section 2, Second,
"
All disputes between a carrier or carriers and its or
their employees
shall be considered, and, if possible,
decided, with all expedition, in conference
between
representatives designated and authorized so to confer,
respectively, by the carrier or carriers and
by the employees
thereof interested in the dispute."
(Emphasis added.) These are the basic sections creating the
duty, applicable to all disputes, major or minor, and to carriers
and employees alike.
Other provisions affecting the general duty to treat are those
of Section 2 Third, that "representatives,
for the purposes of
this Act, shall be designated by the respective parties
without interference" by the other and "need not be persons in the
employ of the carrier;" of Section 2, Fourth, that
"the majority of any craft or class of employees shall have the
right to determine who shall be the
representative of the craft
or class for the purposes of this Act;"
and of Section 2, Eighth, that
"every carrier shall notify its employees by printed notices . .
. that
all disputes between the carrier and its employees
will be handled in accordance with the requirements of this
Act."
(Emphasis added.)
Section 2, Sixth applies specially to grievances, as does
Section 3, First (i). The former provides:
"In case of a dispute between a carrier or carriers and its or
their employees,
arising out of grievances or out of the
interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates
of pay, rules, or working conditions,
it shall be the duty of
the designated representative or representatives of such
carrier or carriers and
of such employees, within ten days
after the receipt of notice of a desire on the part of either party
to confer in respect to such dispute, to specify a time
and place. . . ."
Section 3 First (i) is as follows:
"The disputes between
an employee or group of employees
and a carrier or carriers growing out of grievances or out of the
interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of
pay, rules, or working conditions, including cases pending and
unadjusted on the date of approval of this Act,
shall be
handled in the usual manner up to and including the chief
operating officer of the carrier designated to handle such
disputes; but,
failing to reach an adjustment in this manner,
the disputes may be referred by petition of the parties or by
either party to the appropriate division of the Adjustment
Board with a full statement of the facts and all supporting
data bearing upon the disputes."
(Emphasis added.)
[
Footnote 27]
Section 2, Eighth makes this proviso part of the contract of
employment between the carrier and each employee, and section 2,
Tenth makes it a misdemeanor for the carrier to refuse to observe
it. Section 2, Eighth incorporates the provisions of Sections 2,
Third, Fourth, and Fifth in each employee's contract of employment.
Section 2, Tenth makes it a misdemeanor for the carrier to fail or
refuse to comply with the terms of Section 2, Third, Fourth, Fifth,
Seventh, and Eighth.
[
Footnote 28]
See note 27
[
Footnote 29]
Cf. Administrative Procedure in Government Agencies,
Sen.Doc. 10, Part IV, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., 7.
[
Footnote 30]
Cf. Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.
S. 192;
Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive
Firemen. 323 U. S. 210;
Wallace Corp. v. Labor Board, 323 U.
S. 248.
[
Footnote 31]
In this connection, it is important to recall that the Act does
not contemplate the existence of closed shops, to the extent, at
any rate, that the carrier is forbidden to make such agreements.
Cf. § 2, Fourth; 78 Cong.Rec. 12,402; 40 Op.Atty.Gen., No.
59 (Dec. 29, 1942). Accordingly, the interests of unorganized
workers and members of minority unions are concerned in the
solution. These are not always adverse to the interests of the
majority or of the designated union. But they may be so, or even
hostile.
Cf. the authorities cited in
note 30 To regard the statute as so completely
depriving persons thus situated of voice in affairs affecting their
very means of livelihood would raise very serious questions.
[
Footnote 32]
This undoubtedly was the primary object. The language in the
concluding clause, "while engaged in the business of a labor
organization," applies literally only to employees traveling upon
union business, and has no apparent application to the preceding
provision relating to the individual employee's right to confer
with management.
[
Footnote 33]
Hearings before Committee on Interstate Commerce on H.R.7650,
73d Cong., 2d Sess., 36, 44, 89.
[
Footnote 34]
Cf. note 37 and
text It is to be doubted that Congress, by the generally
inclusive language used concerning grievances, intended, for
instance, to give the collective agent exclusive power to settle a
grievance arising independently of the collective agreement,
affecting only nonunion men to whose claim the union and the
majority were hostile.
[
Footnote 35]
But, whether or not the carrier's violation affects all the
members of the group immediately and alike, so as to create a
present basis for claims by each, the violation, though resulting
from misinterpretation, would constitute a present threat to the
similar rights of all covered by the contract.
Cf. Hughes Tool
Co. v. Labor Board, supra, 72, 74; 40 Op.Atty.Gen., No. 59,
pp. 4, 5 (Dec. 29, 1942).
To leave settlements in such cases ultimately to the several
choices of the members, each according to his own desire without
regard to the effect upon the collective interest, would mean that
each affected worker would have the right to choose his own terms,
and to determine the meaning and effect of the collective agreement
for himself. Necessarily, the carrier would be free to join with
him in doing so, and thus to bargain with each employee for
whatever terms its economic power, pitted against his own, might
induce him to accept. The result necessarily would be to make the
agreement effective not to all alike, but according to whatever
varied interpretations individual workers, from equally varied
motivations, might be willing to accept. To give the collective
agent power to make the agreement, but exclude it from any voice
whatever in its interpretation, would go far toward destroying its
uniform application.
[
Footnote 36]
Depending upon the substantive character of the claim, its
foundation in a collective agreement or otherwise, its
intrinsically substantial or insubstantial nature, the number of
employees affected, the length of time it remains unsettled, the
number of claims allowed so to run, or perhaps other factors, the
grievance may be a matter of large moment to the group as a whole,
or of little or no concern to it, and, it may be, of either
identical or converse importance to the individual or individuals
directly affected.
[
Footnote 37]
Congress was concerned primarily with differences between the
carrier and the employees, not with differences among the latter or
between them, or some of them, and the collective agent. The
statute therefore was not drawn with an eye leveled to these
problems, except as to choice of representatives,
cf. § 2,
Fourth; § 2, Ninth, and
note
34
[
Footnote 38]
Authority might be conferred in whatever ways would be
sufficient according to generally accepted or "common law" rules
for the creation of an agency, as conceivably by specific
authorization given orally or in writing to settle each grievance,
by general authority given to settle such grievances as might
arise, or by assenting to such authority by becoming a member of a
union, and thereby accepting a provision in its constitution or
rules authorizing it to make such settlements.
[
Footnote 39]
The distinction holds true although "interpretation or
application" may look to the future, as well as the past, as it
often does. It goes to the source of the right asserted, whether in
an antecedent agreement or only to one presently sought. The
difference is important for other issues as well as those presently
involved --
e.g., application of statutes of
limitations.
The distinction is not to be ignored or wiped out merely because
a particular dispute or agreement may look both to the past and to
the future. The special procedure for settling grievances was
created because it was intended they should be disposed of
differently from disputes over "rates of pay, rules, or working
conditions," which were committed exclusively to the collective
agent's authority. One important difference preserved the aggrieved
employee's rights to participate in all stages of the settlement.
Congress therefore, when it preserved those rights, contemplated
something more than collective representation and action to make
the settlement effective for the past. It follows that the
individual employee's rights cannot be nullified merely by
agreement between the carrier and the union. They are statutory
rights, which he may exercise independently or authorize the union
to exercise in his behalf.
[
Footnote 40]
The collective agreement, of which Article 6 is a part,
provides: "Any controversy arising
as to the application
of the rules herein agreed upon . . . shall be taken up . . ." by
the general grievance committee with the general superintendent of
the carrier, "and in the event of their failure to agree upon a
satisfactory settlement, the Committee may appeal to the Vice
President." (Emphasis added.) Petitioner says this provision bound
it to deal only with the general committee.
Petitioner also relies upon Rule 10 of the Brotherhood's
constitution and general rules as imposing the same duty:
"Whatever action may be taken by the General Grievance Committee
or Board of Adjustment of any system within the meaning of the
above General Rules shall be law to the Lodges on that road until
and unless reversed by the Board of Appeals, and if any member
refuses to vote or abide by the action of such General Grievance
Committee or Board of Adjustment, he shall be expelled from the
Brotherhood for violation of obligation."
See also note 8
[
Footnote 41]
This, they say, was because Williams did not regard the
agreement as waiving the money claims, since he did not give them
the required notice and, shortly after the settlement, filed the
money claims with the Board.
Cf. note 6
[
Footnote 42]
Respondents also attack the settlement because it was not signed
by the third member of the grievance committee, the local grievance
chairman. This objection borders on the frivolous.
[
Footnote 43]
In other words, the aggrieved employee has the right to delegate
his power to concur in an agreement of settlement, but, at the same
time, to reserve his rights to make submission to the Board, and of
appearance and representation before it, or, conversely, to reserve
his right to concur and delegate the rights of submission and
representation. To what extent he may delegate one or all depends,
therefore, upon the intent with which he makes the particular
delegation, as disclosed by the circumstances in which it is made,
or gives evidence of such intent by his conduct, and this will be a
question of fact unless the circumstances so clearly show he
intended to make the delegation claimed that no other conclusion is
possible.
[
Footnote 44]
It is true that respondents' position concerning the
consequences of their authorization to make the submission in
Docket No. 3537 is not altogether consistent. For, in claiming that
they authorized submission only to determine the applicability of
Article 6 for the future, and not to determine the question of
retroactivity, so as to establish or conclude adversely the basis
for their individual monetary claims, they appear to ignore, as
does petitioner in some of its contentions, the distinction between
collective bargaining and the settlement of grievances as the Act
defines them.
Cf. note
39 and text If their purpose was merely to authorize settlement
for the future, without retroactive effects, the submission to the
Adjustment Board was misconceived, since it has no power to render
a decision requiring the carrier or the union to make a new
agreement. Its only authority under the Act is to determine what
they have agreed upon previously or, outside the scope of a
collective agreement, what rights the carrier and its employees may
have acquired by virtue of other incidents of the employment
relation. Such an issue, by its very nature, looks to the past,
though it may also seek compliance for the future.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, dissenting.
On July 27, 1934, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen made an
agreement with petitioner, Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway
Company, affecting its yardmen whereby the starting time for
switching crews was fixed. The respondents are employed as
switching crews in the Whiting, Indiana yard of petitioner. They
are all members of the Brotherhood. Observance by petitioner of
this yard agreement was called into question. After abortive
conferences for the adjustment of these claims between officials of
petitioner and of the Brotherhood, C. H. Williams, General Chairman
of the Brotherhood General Grievance Committee, filed a complaint
covering several grievances with the National Railroad Adjustment
Board, created by the Railway Labor Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1185, 45
U.S.C. § 151
et seq., to compel petitioner's compliance
with the agreed time. In November, 1936, the cases were duly
docketed. Before they came to be heard, petitioner, on October 28,
1938, proposed settlement of numerous claims against it by the
Brotherhood then pending before the Adjustment Board. Among these
claims was the dispute as to starting time. Petitioner agreed for a
ninety-day trial period, beginning November 15, 1938, to abide by
the time fixed in the 1934 agreement. But its offer was
conditioned
"on a complete settlement and withdrawal of all cases now
pending either before the board, or under discussion with this
office . . . and it is further understood
Page 325 U. S. 750
that, in the event these settlements are accepted, that the
claims listed in this letter cover all claims of a similar nature,
and that no other claims covering the same or like situations will
be presented when such claims arise from causes occurring prior to
the date of this settlement."
On October 31, 1938, settlement on these terms was accepted for
the yardmen by Williams, General Chairman, and S. F. Johnson, the
Secretary of the Brotherhood's General Grievance Committee. On the
same day and upon request of the Brotherhood and Railway, the cases
were removed from its docket by the Adjustment Board.
Later, the Brotherhood filed with the Adjustment Board a second
complaint claiming money damages on behalf of its members for
violation of the 1934 agreement. The Board, by formal award, denied
the claim on the ground that the
"evidence shows that the parties to the agreement disposed of
the claim here made by the letter of carrier dated October 28th,
1938, accepted by employees October 31, 1938."
Respondents then filed this suit in the District Court for
damages. Petitioner invoked the 1938 settlement and the Board's
award thereon as a bar, and moved for summary judgment. Respondents
resisted this motion by denying the authority of the Brotherhood
officials to present their claims to the Board or to agree to the
settlement. The District Court gave summary judgment for the
petitioner, which was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit on the ground that the question of authority of
the Brotherhood officials raised an issue of fact for trial by the
District Court. 140 F.2d 488. The correctness of this ruling is the
important question now before us. 323 U.S. 690.
We have had recent occasion to consider the Railway Labor Act in
other aspects.
Switchmen's Union v. National Mediation
Board, 320 U. S. 297;
General Committee v. M.-K.-T. R. Co., 320 U.
S. 323;
General Committee v. Southern
Pacific Co.,
Page 325 U. S. 751
320 U. S. 338. The
complexities which the problems in those cases laid bare make clear
that the specific question immediately before us cannot be isolated
from the scheme and structure of the Railway Labor Act as an
entirety. The Act, in turn, cannot be appreciated apart from the
environment out of which it came and the purposes which it was
designed to serve.
From the point of view of industrial relations, our railroads
are largely a thing apart. The nature and history of the industry,
the experience with unionization of the roads, the concentration of
authority on both sides of the industry in negotiating collective
agreements, the intimacy of relationship between the leaders of the
two parties shaped by a long course of national, or at least
regional, negotiations, the intricate technical aspects of these
agreements, and the specialized knowledge for which their
interpretation and application call, the practical interdependence
of seemingly separate collective agreements -- these and similar
considerations admonish against mutilating the comprehensive and
complicated system governing railroad industrial relations by
episodic utilization of inapposite judicial remedies.
The Railway Labor Act of 1934 is primarily an instrument of
government. As such, the view that is held of the particular world
for which the Act was designed will largely guide the direction of
judicial interpretation of the Act. The railroad world for which
the Railway Labor Act was designed has thus been summarized by one
of the most discerning students of railroad labor relations:
"The railroad world is like a state within a state. Its
population of some three million, if we include the families of
workers, has its own customs and its own vocabulary, and lives
according to rules of its own making. . . . This state within a
state has enjoyed a high degree of internal peace for two
generations; despite the divergent interests of its component
parts, the reign of law has been firmly
Page 325 U. S. 752
established."
Garrison, The Railroad Adjustment Board: A Unique Administrative
Agency (1937) 46 Yale L.J. 567, 568-69.
The Railway Labor Act of 1934 is an expression of that "reign of
law," and provides the means for maintaining it. Nearly half a
century of experimental legislation lies behind the Act. It is fair
to say that every stage in the evolution of this railroad labor
code was progressively infused with the purpose of securing
self-adjustment between the effectively organized railroads and the
equally effective railroad unions and, to that end, of establishing
facilities for such self-adjustment by the railroad community of
its own industrial controversies. These were certainly not expected
to be solved by ill-adapted judicial interferences, escape from
which was indeed one of the driving motives in establishing
specialized machinery of mediation and arbitration. Government
intervention of any kind was contemplated only as a last resort for
the avoidance of calamitous strikes.
The landmarks in this history, tersely summarized, are the
meager act of October 1, 1888, 25 Stat. 501, providing for
voluntary arbitration; the Erdman Act of June 1, 1898, 30 Stat.
424, securing government mediation and arbitration, but applicable
only to those actually engaged in train service operations; the
Newlands Act of July 15, 1913, 38 Stat. 103, providing for a
permanent board of mediation and also a board of arbitration; the
Adamson Act of September 3, 1916, 39 Stat. 721, as to which
see
Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332;
Order No. 8 of February 21, 1918, formulating the labor policy of
the Government after the United States took over the railroads,
see Hines, War History of American Railroads (1928) p. 155
et seq.; the more elaborate machinery established by Title
III of the Transportation Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 456, 469, for
adjustments of these controversies, which, in its turn, was
repealed and replaced by the Railway Labor Act of May
Page 325 U. S. 753
20, 1926, 44 Stat. 577, legislation agreed upon between the
railroads and the Brotherhoods, and probably unique in having been
frankly accepted as such by the President and Congress.
* The actual
operation of this legislation partly disappointed the hopes of its
sponsors, and led, for the still greater promotion of
self-government by the railroad industry, to the Act of 1934.
The assumption as well as the aim of that Act is a process of
permanent conference and negotiation between the carriers, on the
one hand, and the employees, through their unions, on the other.
Section 2, First, provides:
"It shall be the duty of all carriers . . . and employees to
exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements
concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to
settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of such
agreements or otherwise. . . ."
Section 2, Second, provides:
"All disputes between a carrier . . . and its . . . employees
shall be considered, and, if possible, decided, with all
expedition, in conference between representatives designated and
authorized so to confer, respectively, by the carrier . . . and by
the employees thereof interested in the dispute."
According to § 2, Sixth,
"In case of a dispute . . . arising out of grievances or out of
the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of
pay, rules, or working conditions, it shall be the duty of the
designated representative or representatives of such carrier . . .
and of such employees, within ten days after the receipt of notice
of a desire on the part of either party, to confer in respect to
such dispute, to specify a time and place at which such
Page 325 U. S. 754
conference shall be held. . . ."
Section 3, First (i) directs that disputes growing out of
grievances or the interpretation or application of agreements
concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions be handled by
conference and negotiation, including resort, if necessary, to the
chief operating officer of the carrier. Compliance with these
statutory duties is a prerequisite to appeal to the National
Railroad Adjustment Board. The purpose of this legislation is the
exertion of maximum pressure toward amicable settlement between the
parties. Resort to the Adjustment Board is the last step in the
statutory process.
In the controversy before us, an amicable adjustment between the
parties -- the goal of the legislation -- had been achieved by
pursuing the course which the Act of 1934 directed. We are now
asked to nullify this settlement, arrived at after prolonged
negotiations, and to open the door of litigation to new discords.
Not only is it sought to revive the dispute and to restore it to
the status it had before the Adjustment Board more than eight years
ago. The respondents claim that, after all these years, they have a
right to repudiate their bargaining agents, and to try the
authority of these agents as though this were a conventional
lawsuit involving the responsibility of a principal for the conduct
of his agent.
As members of their Brotherhood, respondents were, of course,
familiar with the procedure whereby the union speaks for them both
to the Railroad and before the Adjustment Board. The Brotherhood's
"Constitution and General Rules," which the respondents made part
of their case below, are clear about this. Rule No. 7 declares
that, after a grievance has been transmitted to a General Grievance
Committee, that Committee
"shall have power to alter, amend, add to or strike out . . .
any part or all of any complaint or claim submitted to the
committee, subject to appeal to the entire General Committee and/or
Board of Appeals. A general grievance Committee may
Page 325 U. S. 755
authority their chairman to handle all grievances received from
local lodges with the management for settlement. . . ."
Respondents cannot deny that the Brotherhood officials had
authority to seek compliance by the railroad with the starting time
agreement through the Adjustment Board. In view of the sweeping
power of the General Grievance Committee to settle grievances, the
settlement that was made on behalf of the Brotherhood is
invulnerable. The attack on the settlement because it was signed by
only two of the three members of the Committee is frivolous. Such
procedure is not at all unusual. Williams and Johnson settled other
grievances in like manner, many of them involving claims for money.
The Brotherhood's own rules sanction such action in that the
Committee may authorize the Chairman to handle all grievances.
This is not a simple little case about an agent's authority.
Demands of the employees' representative imply not only authority
from those for whom he speaks, but the duty of respect from those
to whom he speaks. The carrier is under a legal duty to treat with
the union's representative for the purposes of the Railway Labor
Act. Section 2, Ninth;
see Virginian R. v. System
Federation, 300 U. S. 515. We
do not have the ordinary case where a third person dealing with an
ostensible agent must at his peril ascertain the agent's authority.
In such a situation, a person may protect himself by refusing to
deal. Here, petitioner has a duty to deal. If petitioner refuses to
deal with the officials of the employees' union by challenging
their authority, it does so under pain of penalty. If it deals with
them on the reasonable belief that the grievance officials of the
Brotherhood are acting in accordance with customary union
procedure, settlements thus made ought not to be at the hazard of
being jettisoned by future litigation. To allow such settlements to
be thus set aside is to obstruct the smooth
Page 325 U. S. 756
working of the Act. It undermines the confidence so
indispensable to adjustment by negotiation which is the vital
object of the Act.
See Division 525, Order of R. Conductors v.
Gorman, 133 F.2d 273, 278.
But respondents claim that, irrespective of the authority of the
Brotherhood officials to handle claims for the enforcement of the
agreed starting time, Williams did not have authority to present to
the Adjustment Board the claim for damages due to respondents for
petitioner's alleged past violation of the starting time agreement.
They insist that there is no relation between a claim for money
resulting from the violation of a collective agreement and a claim
for the enforcement of a collective agreement. But surely this is
to sever that which is organic. It wholly disregards the nature of
such a collective agreement, its implications, and its
ramifications. In passing on the claim for money damages arising
out of the yard agreement, any tribunal would have to examine,
interpret, and apply the collective agreement precisely as it would
if the issue were the duty to observe the agreement in the future.
An award based on the application of the collective agreement
would, quite apart from technical questions of
res
judicata, affect future claims governed by the same collective
agreement, whatever the particular forms in which the claims may be
cast. To find here merely an isolated, narrow question of law as to
past liability is to disregard the ties which bind the money
controversy to its railroad environment. Such a view is blind to
the fact that
"all members of the class or craft to which an aggrieved
employee belongs have a real and legitimate interest in the
dispute. Each of them, at some later time, may be involved in a
similar dispute."
40 Ops.Atty.Gen., No. 59 (Dec. 29, 1942) pp. 4, 5. Indeed, such
a view leaves out of consideration not only the significant bearing
of the construction of the same collective agreement on parts of
the carrier's lines not immediately before the Court. It
Page 325 U. S. 757
overlooks the relation of a provision in a collective agreement
with one railroad to comparable provisions of collective agreements
with other roads.
To allow the issue of authorization after an award by the Board
to be relitigated in the courts is inimical to the internal
government of the Brotherhood. Union membership generates
complicated relations. Policy counsels against judicial intrusion
upon these relations. If resort to courts is at all available, it
certainly should not disregard and displace the arrangements which
the members of the organization voluntarily establish for their
reciprocal interests and by which they bound themselves to be
governed. The rights and duties of membership are governed by the
rules of the Brotherhood. Rule 10 concerns objections to official
action:
"Whatever action may be taken by the general grievance committee
. . . shall be law to the lodges on that road until the next
meeting of the board of appeals, and if any member refuses to vote
or abide by the action of such general grievance committee or board
of adjustment, he shall be expelled from the Brotherhood for
violation of obligation."
To ask courts to adjudicate the meaning of the Brotherhood rules
and customs without preliminary resort to remedial proceedings
within the Brotherhood is to encourage influences of disruption
within the union, instead of fostering these unions as stabilizing
forces. Rules of fraternal organizations, with all the customs and
assumptions that give them life, cannot be treated as though they
were ordinary legal documents of settled meaning.
"Freedom of litigation, for instance, is hardly so essential a
part of the democratic process that the courts should be asked to
strike down all hindrances to its pursuit. The courts are as wise,
to take an example of this, in adhering to the general requirement
that all available remedies within the union be exhausted before
redress is sought before them as they are unwise in many of the
exceptions they have grafted upon
Page 325 U. S. 758
this rule."
Witmer, Civil Liberties and the Trade Union (1941) 50 Yale L.J.
621, 630. To an increasing extent, courts require dissidents within
a union to seek interpretation of the organization's rules, and to
seek redress for grievances arising out of them before appropriate
union tribunals.
Compare Norfolk & W. R. Co. v.
Harris, 260 Ky. 132, 84 S.W.2d 69;
Agrippino v.
Perrotti, 270 Mass. 55, 169 N.E. 793;
Snay v. Lovely,
276 Mass. 159, 176 N.E. 791;
Webb v. Chicago, R.I. & G. R.
Co., Tex.Civ.App. 136 S.W.2d 245.
The Railway Labor Act, as the product of long experience, is a
complicated but carefully devised scheme for adjusting the
relations between the two powerful groups constituting the railroad
industry. It misconceives the legislation and mutilates its
provisions to read into it common law notions for the settlement of
private rights. If, when a dispute arises over the meaning of a
collective agreement, the legally designated railroad bargaining
unit cannot negotiate with the carrier without first obtaining the
specific authorization of every individual member of the union who
may be financially involved in the dispute, it not only weakens the
union by encouraging divisive elements. It gravely handicaps the
union in its power to bargain responsibly. That is not all. Not to
allow the duly elected officers of an accredited union to speak for
its membership in accordance with the terms of the internal
government of the union, and to permit any member of the union to
pursue his own interest under a collective agreement, undermines
the very conception of a collective agreement. It reintroduces the
destructive individualism in the relations between the railroads
and their workers which it was the very purpose of the Railway
Labor Act to eliminate. To allow every individual worker to base
individual claims on his private notions of the scope and meaning
of a collective agreement intended to lay down uniform standards
for all those covered by the
Page 325 U. S. 759
collective agreement is to permit juries and courts to make
varying findings and give varying constructions to an agreement
inevitably couched in words or phrases reflecting the habits,
usage, and understanding of the railroad industry. Thus will be
introduced those disclocating differentiations for workers in the
same craft which have always been among the most fertile
provocations to friction, strife, and strike in the railroad world.
The Railway Labor Act, one had supposed, would be construed so as
to reduce, and not to multiply, these seeds of strife.
In order to avoid mischievous opportunities for the assertion of
individual claims by shippers as against the common interest of
uniformity in construing railroad tariffs, this Court so construed
the Interstate Commerce Act in the famous
Abilene Cotton
Oil case,
Texas & P. R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil
Co., 204 U. S. 426, as
to withdraw from the shipper the historic common law right to sue
in the courts for charging unreasonable rates. It required resort
to the Interstate Commerce Commission because not to do so would
result in the impairment of the general purpose of that Act. It did
so because, even though, theoretically, this Court could ultimately
review such adjudications imbedded in the various judicial
judgments -- if a shipper could go to a court in the first instance
-- there would be considerations of fact which this Court could not
possibly dissentangle so as to secure the necessary uniformity. The
beneficent rule in the
Abilene Cotton Oil case was evolved
by reading the Interstate Commerce Act not as though it were a
collection of abstract words, but by treating it as an instrument
of government growing out of long experience with certain evils and
addressed to their correction. Chief Justice White's opinion in
that case was characterized by his successor, Chief Justice Taft,
as a "conspicuous instance of his unusual and remarkable power and
facility in statesmanlike interpretation of statute law." 257 U.S.
xxv. The provisions of the Railway Labor Act do not even
Page 325 U. S. 760
necessitate such a creative act of adjudication as this Court in
the
Abilene case unanimously accomplished. The Railway
Labor Act contains no embarrassing specific provision, as was true
of § 22 of the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. 379, 387, calling
for subordination to the main purpose of the legislation. The
considerations making for harmonious adjustment of railroad
industrial relations through the machinery designed by Congress in
the Railway Labor Act are disregarded by allowing that machinery to
be bypassed, and by introducing dislocating differentiations
through individual resort to the courts in the application of a
collective agreement.
Since the claim before the Adjustment Board was for money, there
remains the question whether its disposition was open to judicial
review. The Railway Labor Act commands that the Board's "awards
shall be final and binding upon both parties to the dispute, except
insofar as they shall contain a money award." Section 3, First (m).
But the determination here in controversy does not "contain a money
award" so as to be excepted from the final and binding effect given
other awards. The obvious meaning of "money award" is an award
directing the payment of money, not one denying payment.
See
Berryman v. Pullman Co., 48 F. Supp.
542. We are pointed to no aids to construction that should
withhold us from giving the familiar term "money award" any other
than its ordinary meaning as something that awards money. This
construction is confirmed by comparison with the provisions of the
Interstate Commerce Act dealing with reparation orders. Since both
Act came out of the same Congressional Committees, one finds,
naturally enough, that the provisions for enforcement and review of
the Adjustment Board's awards were based on those for reparation
orders by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Compare
Railway Labor Act, § 3, First (p),
with Interstate
Commerce Act, as amended by § 5 of the Hepburn Act, 34
Page 325 U. S. 761
Stat. 584, 590, 49 U.S.C. § 16(1), (2). If a carrier fails to
comply with a reparation order, as is true of noncompliance with an
Adjustment Board award, the complainant may sue in court for
enforcement; the Commission's order and findings and evidence then
become
prima facie evidence of the facts stated. But a
denial of a money claim by the Interstate Commerce Commission bars
the door to redress in the courts.
Baltimore & Ohio R. Co.
v. Brady, 288 U. S. 448;
Interstate Commerce Commission v. United States,
289 U. S. 385,
289 U. S. 388;
Terminal Warehouse v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 297 U.
S. 500,
297 U. S.
507.
The Railway Labor Act precludes review of the Board's award,
and, since authorization of the Brotherhood officials to make the
settlement is not now open to judicial inquiry, the judgment calls
for reversal.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS and MR. JUSTICE JACKSON
join in this dissent.
* In his message of December 8, 1925, to Congress, President
Coolidge stated:
"I am informed that the railroad managers and their employees
have reached a substantial agreement as to what legislation is
necessary to regulate and improve their relationship. Whenever they
bring forward such proposals, which seems sufficient to protect the
interests of the public, they should be enacted into law."
67 Cong.Rec. 463.