Petitioner -- a language instructor for the Defense Language
Institute, a federal agency -- was not a union member but was
within a bargaining unit for which respondent union was the
exclusive bargaining agent. He was promoted to a reopened "course
developer" position, which had previously been occupied by one
Kuntelos, who was demoted when the Institute first abolished the
position. After respondent agreed to arbitrate on behalf of
Kuntelos (who was a member of its board) and successfully argued
that the position should be declared vacant for refilling, the
Institute reassigned the job to Kuntelos, demoted petitioner, and
denied his direct protest. Respondent refused to prosecute
petitioner's grievance because of a perceived conflict of interest
with its previous Kuntelos advocacy. Petitioner then filed unfair
labor practice charges with the Federal Labor Relations Authority
(FLRA), alleging,
inter alia, that respondent had breached
its duty of fair representation. The FLRA's General Counsel upheld
this charge, and ordered that a complaint be issued against
respondent, which entered into a settlement whereby it posted
notice guaranteeing representation to all employees seeking a
single position. When the General Counsel rejected petitioner's
contention on appeal that the settlement provided him no relief, he
filed a damages suit in the District Court, which held that his
charge against respondent was judicially cognizable, since the
grant of exclusive union representation contained in the Civil
Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA or Act) impliedly gives federal
employees a private right of action to safeguard their right to
fair representation. However, the Court of Appeals reversed the
judgment for petitioner, stating that the CSRA's statutory scheme,
which creates both an express duty of fair representation and a
remedy in the FLRA for infringement of this duty, precludes
implication of a parallel right to sue in federal court.
Held: Title VII of the CSRA does not confer on federal
employees a private cause of action against a breach by a union
representing such employees of its statutory duty of fair
representation. Pp.
489 U. S.
531-537.
(a) Title VII's express language does not create a private cause
of action, and there is nothing in the Act's language, structure,
or legislative history from which a congressional intent to provide
such a remedy
Page 489 U. S. 528
can be implied. In fact, Title VII's provisions demonstrate that
Congress vested exclusive enforcement authority over the duty of
fair representation in the FLRA and its General Counsel, since the
Title renders a breach of that duty an unfair labor practice, which
is adjudicated by the FLRA upon the General Counsel's complaint,
and since the Title provides recourse to the courts in only three
instances, none of which directly relate to the enforcement of the
duty of fair representation. To hold that the district courts must
entertain such cases in the first instance would seriously weaken
the congressional scheme. Pp.
489 U. S.
532-534.
(b) A congressional intent to provide a private CSRA cause of
action cannot be implied from that Act's similarities to the
National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Railway Labor Act,
under which this Court has recognized implicit judicial causes of
action to enforce the fair representation duty in the private
sector. Unlike the CSRA, neither of those statutes expressly
recognizes that duty or provides any administrative remedy for its
enforcement. Furthermore, the implication in
Vaca v.
Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, of
a private NLRA cause of action was intended to preserve courts'
preexisting jurisdiction to enforce the fair representation duty
after the National Labor Relations Board tardily assumed
jurisdiction, whereas, under the pre-CSRA regulatory scheme, there
was no equivalent judicial role. Moreover,
Vaca and
earlier cases stressed that it was critical that unions represent
all employees in good faith, since the pertinent statutes deprived
bargaining unit employees of their individual rights to bargain by
providing for exclusive bargaining agents. In contrast, federal
employment does not rest on contract in the private sector sense;
the deprivation a federal employee suffers from the election of a
bargaining agent -- if there is such a deprivation -- is not
clearly comparable to the private sector predicament; and the
collective bargaining mechanisms created by Title VII do not
deprive employees of remedies otherwise provided by statute or
regulation.
Vaca also rested in part on the fact that
private collective bargaining contracts were enforceable in the
courts under § 301 of the NLRA, whereas no provision equivalent to
§ 301 exists in the CSRA. Pp.
489 U. S.
534-536.
821 F.2d 1389, affirmed.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Page 489 U. S. 529
JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before the Court is whether Title VII of the Civil
Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA or Act), 5 U.S.C. § 7101
et
seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. IV), confers on federal employees a
private cause of action against a breach by a union representing
federal employees of its statutory duty of fair representation.
Because we decide that Congress vested exclusive enforcement
authority over this duty in the Federal Labor Relations Authority
(FLRA) and its General Counsel, we agree with the Court of Appeals
that no private cause of action exists. Hence, we affirm.
Petitioner, Efthimios Karahalios, is a Greek language instructor
for respondent, the Defense Language Institute/Foreign Language
Center, Presidio of Monterey, California (Institute). Karahalios
was not a union member, but was within a bargaining unit of
professional employees for which respondent, the National
Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1263 (Union), was the
exclusive bargaining agent. In 1976, the Institute reopened its
"course developer" position, for which opening Karahalios applied.
Previously, the position had been occupied by one Simon Kuntelos,
who had been demoted to instructor in 1971, when the Institute
first abolished the course developer position. Because Kuntelos
declined to seek the reopened job through the competitive
application process, Karahalios won the position after scoring 81
on the required examination.
Kuntelos filed a grievance, asserting that the Institute's job
award to Karahalios infringed the collective bargaining agreement,
and that Kuntelos should have been assigned the
Page 489 U. S. 530
position without a competitive application process. The Union
agreed to arbitrate on behalf of Kuntelos (a Union board member),
and successfully argued that the position be declared vacant for
refilling. Because promotion selection procedures had altered,
Kuntelos was permitted considerably more time on the examination.
He scored 83, and in May, 1978, the Institute reassigned the course
developer opening to Kuntelos and demoted Karahalios to
instructorship status.
The Institute denied Karahalios' direct protest against the
substitution; likewise, the Union refused to prosecute his
grievances because of a perceived conflict of interest with its
previous Kuntelos advocacy. Karahalios filed unfair labor practice
charges with the FLRA challenging both adverse decisions: he
alleged, first, that the Institute violated its collective
bargaining agreement, and, second, that the Union breached its duty
of fair representation. The General Counsel of the FLRA upheld
Karahalios' second charge, and ordered that a complaint be issued
against the Union. The Union and the FLRA's Regional Director,
however, entered into a settlement whereby the Union posted notice
guaranteeing representation to all employees seeking a single
position. The General Counsel rejected Karahalios' contention on
appeal that the settlement provided him no relief
Karahalios then filed a damages suit in the District Court,
restating his charges against the Institute and the Union. The
District Court, in its first of three published orders, dismissed
on jurisdictional grounds Karahalios' claim against the Institute,
but declared judicially cognizable his unfair labor practice charge
against the Union. Specifically, the District Court held that 28
U.S.C. § 1331 supports jurisdiction because the CSRA's grant of
exclusive union representation impliedly supplies to federal
employees a private right of action to safeguard their right to
fair representation. After trial, the District Court ruled that the
Union's actions -- notably its decisions to arbitrate for Kuntelos
without consulting,
Page 489 U. S. 531
or even notifying, Karahalios, and, subsequently, to refuse to
represent Karahalios -- breached its duty of fair representation
owed to him. The court confined damages to attorney's fees,
however, explaining that both applicants were too similarly matched
to allow judicial distinction.
The Court of Appeals reversed, stating that the CSRA's statutory
scheme, which creates both an express duty of fair representation
and a remedy in the FLRA for infringement of this duty, precludes
implication of a parallel right to sue in federal courts. We
granted Karahalios' petition for certiorari. 486 U.S. 1041
(1988).
Prior to 1978, labor relations in the federal sector were
governed by a 1962 Executive Order administered by a Federal Labor
Relations Council whose decisions were not subject to judicial
review.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms v. FLRA,
464 U. S. 89,
464 U. S. 91-92
(1983). Since 1978, Title VII of the CSRA has been the controlling
authority. Of particular relevance here, 5 U.S.C. § 7114(a)(1)
provides that a labor organization that has been accorded the
exclusive right of representing employees in a designated unit
"is responsible for representing the interests of all employees
in the unit it represents without discrimination and without regard
to labor organization membership. [
Footnote 1]"
This provision is "virtually identical" to that found in the
Executive Order, and is the source of the collective bargaining
agent's duty of fair representation.
See National Federation of
Federal Employees, Local 1453, 23 F.L.R.A. 686, 690 (1986).
[
Footnote 2] This duty also
Page 489 U. S. 532
parallels the fair representation obligation of a union in the
private sector that has been found implicit in the National Labor
Relations Act (NLRA), 49 Stat. 449,
as amended, 29 U.S.C.
§ 151
et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. IV), and the Railway
Labor Act (RLA), 44 Stat. 577,
as amended, 45 U.S.C. § 151
et seq. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.
S. 171,
386 U. S.
180-183 (1967);
Steele v. Louisville & N. R.
Co., 323 U. S. 192,
323 U. S.
205-207 (1944).
Title VII also makes it clear that a breach of the duty of fair
representation is an unfair labor practice, for it provides that it
is "an unfair labor practice for a labor organization . . . to
otherwise fail or refuse to comply with any provision of this
chapter." § 7116(b)(8). Under § 7118, unfair labor practice
complaints are adjudicated by the FLRA, which is authorized to
order remedial action appropriate to carry out the purposes of
Title VII, including an award of backpay against either the agency
or the labor organization that has committed the unfair
practice.
There is no express suggestion in Title VII that Congress
intended to furnish a parallel remedy in a federal district court
to enforce the duty of fair representation. The Title provides
recourse to the courts in only three instances: with specified
exceptions, persons aggrieved by a final FLRA order may seek review
in the appropriate court of appeals, § 7123(a); the FLRA may seek
judicial enforcement of its orders, § 7123 (b); and temporary
injunctive relief is available to the FLRA to assist it in the
discharge of its duties, § 7123(d).
Petitioner nevertheless insists that a cause of action to
enforce the Union's fair representation duty should be implied.
Such a claim poses an issue of statutory construction: the
"ultimate issue is whether Congress intended to create a private
cause of action,"
California v. Sierra Club, 451 U.
S. 287,
451 U. S. 293
(1981) (citations omitted);
see also Touche Ross & Co. v.
Redington, 442 U. S. 560,
442 U. S. 569
(1979). Unless such "congressional intent can be inferred from the
language of the statute,
Page 489 U. S. 533
the statutory structure, or some other source, the essential
predicate for implication of a private remedy simply does not
exist."
Thompson v. Thompson, 484 U.
S. 174 (1988). It is also an "elemental canon" of
statutory construction that, where a statute expressly provides a
remedy, courts must be especially reluctant to provide additional
remedies.
Transamerica Mortgage Advisers, Inc. v. Lewis,
444 U. S. 11,
444 U. S. 19
(1979). In such cases,
"[i]n the absence of strong indicia of contrary congressional
intent, we are compelled to conclude that Congress provided
precisely the remedies it considered appropriate."
Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. Sea Clammers,
453 U. S. 1,
453 U. S. 15
(1981);
see also, Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co. v.
Russell, 473 U. S. 134,
473 U. S. 147
(1985);
Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. Transport Workers,
451 U. S. 77,
451 U. S. 93
(1981).
These guideposts indicate that the Court of Appeals was quite
correct in concluding that neither the language nor the structure
of the Act shows any congressional intent to provide a private
cause of action to enforce federal employees unions' duty of fair
representation. That duty is expressly recognized in the Act, and
an administrative remedy for its breach is expressly provided for
before the FLRA, a body created by Congress to enforce the duties
imposed on agencies and unions by Title VII, including the duty of
fair representation. Nothing in the legislative history of Title
VII has been called to our attention indicating that Congress
contemplated direct judicial enforcement of the union's duty.
Indeed, the General Counsel of the FLRA was to have exclusive and
final authority to issue unfair labor practice complaints, and only
those matters mentioned in § 7123 were to be judicially reviewable.
H.R.Rep. No. 95-1403, p. 52 (1978). All complaints of unfair labor
practices were to be filed with the FLRA. S.Rep. No. 95-969, p. 107
(1978). Furthermore, Title VII contemplates the arbitration of
unsettled grievances, but a House proposal that the duty to
arbitrate could be enforced in federal court in the first
instance
Page 489 U. S. 534
was ultimately rejected.
See H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 951717,
p. 157 (1978). There exists no equivalent to § 301 of the Labor
Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA), 61 Stat. 156, 29 U.S.C. §
185, which permits judicial enforcement of private collective
bargaining contracts.
Petitioner, however, relies on another source to find the
necessary congressional intent to provide him with a cause of
action. Petitioner urges that Title VII was modeled after the NLRA,
and that the authority of the FLRA was meant to be similar to that
of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Because this Court
found implicit in the NLRA a private cause of action against unions
to enforce their fair representation duty even after the NLRB had
construed the NLRA to make a breach of the duty an unfair labor
practice, petitioner argues that Congress must have intended to
preserve this judicial role under Title VII. Much of the argument
rests on our decision in
Vaca v. Sipes, supra. There are,
however, several difficulties with this argument.
In the first place, Title VII is not a carbon copy of the NLRA,
nor is the authority of the FLRA the same as that of the NLRB. The
NLRA, like the RLA, did not expressly make a breach of the duty of
fair representation an unfair labor practice, and did not expressly
provide for the enforcement of such a duty by the NLRB. That duty
was implied by the Court because members of bargaining units were
forced to accept unions as their exclusive bargaining agents.
Because employees had no administrative remedy for a breach of the
duty, we recognized a judicial cause of action on behalf of the
employee. This occurred both under the RLA,
Steele v.
Louisville & N. R. Co., supra; Railroad Trainmen v.
Howard, 343 U. S. 768
(1952), and also under the LMRA,
Syres v. Oil Workers, 350
U.S. 892 (1955);
Vaca v. Sipes, supra. Very dissimilarly,
Title VII of the CSRA not only expressly recognizes the fair
representation duty, but also provides for its administrative
enforcement.
Page 489 U. S. 535
To be sure, prior to
Vaca, the NLRB had construed §§ 7
and 8(b) of the NLRA to impose a duty of fair representation on
union bargaining agents and to make its breach an unfair labor
practice.
See Miranda Fuel Co., 140 N.L.R.B. 181 (1962),
enf. denied, NLRB v. Miranda Fuel Co., 326 F.2d
172 (CA2 1963). The issue in
Vaca, some years later, was
whether, in light of
Miranda Fuel Co., the courts still
had jurisdiction to enforce the unions' duty. As we understood our
inquiry, it was whether Congress, in enacting § 8(b) in 1947, had
intended to oust the courts of their role of enforcing the duty of
fair representation implied under the NLRA. We held that the "tardy
assumption" of jurisdiction by the NLRB was insufficient reason to
abandon our prior cases, such as
Syres.
In the case before us, there can be no mistaking Congress'
intent to create a duty previously without statutory basis, and no
mistaking the authority of the FLRA to enforce that duty. Also,
because the courts played no role in enforcing a union's fair
representation duty under Executive Order No. 11491 § 10e, 3 CFR
861 (1966-1970 Comp.), and subsequent amended orders, under the
pre-CSRA regulatory regime, there was not in this context any
preexisting judicial role that at least arguably Congress intended
to preserve. [
Footnote 3]
Moreover, in
Vaca and the earlier cases, it was
stressed that, by providing for exclusive bargaining agents, the
pertinent statutes deprived bargaining unit employees of their
individual rights to bargain for wages, hours, and working
conditions. Hence it was critical that unions be required to
represent all in good faith. Again, Title VII operates in a
different context. As the United States as
amicus
explains, federal employment does not rest on contract in the
private sector sense; nor is it clear that the deprivation a
federal employee suffers from the election of a bargaining agent --
if
Page 489 U. S. 536
there is such a deprivation -- is comparable to the private
sector predicament. Moreover, the collective bargaining mechanisms
created by Title VII do not deprive employees of recourse to any of
the remedies otherwise provided by statute or regulation.
See the CSRA, 5 U.S.C. §§ 7114(a)(5) and 7121(e)(1).
We also note that
Vaca rested in part on the fact that
private collective bargaining contracts were enforceable in the
federal courts under LMRA § 301. Because unfair representation
claims most often involve a claim of breach by the employer, and
since employers are suable under § 301, the implied fair
representation cause of action allows claims against an employer
and a union to be adjudicated in one action. Section 301 has no
equivalent under Title VII; there is no provision in that Title for
suing an agency in federal court.
We therefore discern no basis for finding congressional intent
to provide petitioner with a cause of action against the Union.
Congress undoubtedly was aware from our cases such as
Cort v.
Ash, 422 U. S. 66
(1975), that the Court had departed from its prior standard for
resolving a claim urging that an implied statutory cause of action
should be recognized, and that such issues were being resolved by a
straightforward inquiry into whether Congress intended to provide a
private cause of action. Had Congress intended the courts to
enforce a federal employees union's duty of fair representation, we
would expect to find some evidence of that intent in the statute or
its legislative history. We find none. Just as in
United States
v. Fausto, 484 U. S. 439,
484 U. S. 445
(1988), we held that the CSRA's "integrated scheme of
administrative and judicial review" foreclosed an implied right to
Court of Claims review, we follow a similar course here.
See
also Bush v. Lucas, 462 U. S. 367,
462 U. S. 388
(1983). To be sure, courts play a role in CSRA § 7116(b)(8) fair
representation cases, but only sitting in review of the FLRA. To
hold that the district courts must entertain such cases in the
first instance would seriously undermine what we deem to be the
congressional
Page 489 U. S. 537
scheme, namely to leave the enforcement of union and agency
duties under the Act to the General Counsel and the FLRA, and to
confine the courts to the role given them under the Act.
Accordingly the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
Section 7114(a)(1) reads, in full:
"A labor organization which has been accorded exclusive
recognition is the exclusive representative of the employees in the
unit it represents, and is entitled to act for, and negotiate
collective bargaining agreements covering, all employees in the
unit. An exclusive representative is responsible for representing
the interests of all employees in the unit it represents without
discrimination and without regard to labor organization
membership."
[
Footnote 2]
The Executive Order precursor provision likewise was interpreted
to impose on federal unions the duty of fair representation.
See National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1453,
23 F.L.R.A. at 690.
[
Footnote 3]
Because such orders were not legislative, courts generally
refused judicial enforcement.
See, e.g., Kuhn v. National
Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 5, 570 F.2d 757,
760-761 (CA8 1978).