1. Failure of the carrier to give notice, to the representative
of the employees, of an intended change affecting rates of pay of
certain individual employees was in violation of § 6 of the Railway
Labor Act of 1926, applicable to the collective agreement in
question, and rendered ineffective the individual agreements
entered into, and the award of the Adjustment Board, based on the
collective agreement, was in accordance with law. P.
321 U. S.
346.
2. An award of the Adjustment Board under the Railway Labor Act,
held enforceable in a proceeding in the federal district
court begun within two years of the date of the award, and not
barred by a state statute of limitation of six years (even if
applicable) merely because the claims became six years old while
proceedings were pending before the Board. P.
321 U. S.
348.
137 F.2d 46 reversed.
Page 321 U. S. 343
Certiorari, 320 U.S. 727, to review the reversal of a judgment
for the plaintiff in a suit to enforce an award of the Adjustment
Board under the Railway Labor Act.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON delivered the opinion of the Court.
This hoary litigation presents the question whether, a carrier
by contracts with individual employees made in 1930, could
supersede or expand terms of an agreement collectively bargained
between the employer and the union in 1917, in view of the
provisions of the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which was applicable
when the controversy arose.
Petitioner was a union designated to represent certain crafts
and classes of employees of carriers by railroad. Employees here
involved are agents at stations on the Seaboard Airline Railroad,
who primarily are employees of the railway and secondarily of the
railway express agency; they receive compensation from each
employer. For some years, they were represented by the union in
bargaining collective agreements with predecessor express
companies. The last was executed in 1917, and was assumed by this
respondent March 1, 1929.
In 1930, the Express Company began to handle new business
consisting mainly of carload shipments of perishables which
formerly had been handled by the railroad company as freight. The
Express Company thought the change in volume and character of its
shipments warranted an adjustment of rates of pay applicable to
certain of the agencies where the shipments originated. The Railway
Labor Act of 1926, then in effect, provided that
Page 321 U. S. 344
carriers and representatives of employees should give at least
thirty days' written notice of an intended change affecting rates
of pay, rules, or working conditions, and should agree upon time
and place of conference. [
Footnote
1] The collective agreement also provided that no change should
be made in its terms "until after 30 days notice in writing has
been given." The Express Company gave no such notice to the union
signatory to the 1917 collective agreement. Instead, it gave
individual notices to the agents that their compensation for such
shipments would be $5.00 per car, the notices on one division going
out on March 25, and those on another April 8, and all becoming
effective April 10, 1930. The agents involved, after various
objections and negotiations, individually accepted the rate,
although there is controversy as to whether their acceptance was
wholly voluntary. For purposes of decision, however, we assume
voluntary assent, and that, but for provisions of the Railway Labor
Act, valid individual contracts resulted.
The local chairman of the union protested, and insisted that
collective bargaining must control the compensation of the agents.
The Express Company declined to accede to the claims, and the
union's claim that the agents must be compensated under the
collective agreement remained unadjusted. Attempts to adjust were
renewed by the general chairman, but no voluntary Board of
Adjustment was agreed upon as provided under § 3 of the 1926 Act.
[
Footnote 2]
Page 321 U. S. 345
The statutory Board was created in 1934, [
Footnote 3] the Company refused to join the union
in a petition, and the union, on October 8, 1935, gave notice of
its intention to refer the dispute to the Board. The Company
challenged the Board's jurisdiction, a hearing was had, the
bipartisan board deadlocked, a referee was named, and, in 1936,
objections to jurisdiction were overruled and a hearing on the
merits was directed. After the hearing, the Board again deadlocked,
again a referee was chosen, and, on December 15, 1937, an award
sustaining the claims that the agents were entitled to the
compensation provided by the collectively bargained agreement was
made, accompanied by a holding that the individual contracts were
ineffective. The Company failed to comply with the award, and, in
December, 1939, after almost two years, the present action was
commenced in the United States District Court. The district courts
are given jurisdiction to enforce awards of the Board, its orders
and findings being declared to be "
prima facie evidence of
the facts therein stated." Laws 1934, c. 691, § 3, First (p), 48
Stat. 1192. In June, 1942, decision was rendered by which the
district court enforced the Adjustment Board's award. The Circuit
Court of Appeals reversed upon the ground that the collective
agreement had been superseded validly by the individual contracts
and upon the further ground that the claims under collective
agreements were barred by the statute
Page 321 U. S. 346
of limitations. [
Footnote 4]
These questions are unsettled ones important to the administration
of the current Railway Labor Act, and we granted certiorari.
[
Footnote 5]
1. The Company contends that special voluntary individual
contracts as to rates of pay, rules, and conditions of employment
may validly be made, notwithstanding the existence of a collective
agreement, and that the terms of the individual agreements
supersede those of the collectively bargained one. If this were
true, statutes requiring collective bargaining would have little
substance, for what was made collectively could be promptly unmade
individually. It is said, however, that in this case the agreements
affect relatively few agents, and that those are specially and
uniquely situated. This apparently is true, for the application of
the collective agreement results in an award of some $40,000 to one
agent over the period and less than $2,000 to all of the others,
and most of the awards are for a few hundred dollars.
Collective bargaining was not defined by the statute which
provided for it, but it generally has been considered to absorb and
give statutory approval to the philosophy of bargaining as worked
out in the labor movement in the United States. [
Footnote 6] From the first, the position of
labor with reference to the wage structure of an industry has been
much like that of the carriers about rate structures. [
Footnote 7] It is insisted that
exceptional situations often have an importance to the whole
because they introduce competitions and discriminations that are
upsetting to the entire structure.
Page 321 U. S. 347
Hence, effective collective bargaining has been generally
conceded to include the right of the representatives of the unit to
be consulted and to bargain about the exceptional, as well as the
routine, rates, rules, and working conditions. Collective bargains
need not and do not always settle or embrace every exception. It
may be agreed that particular situations are reserved for
individual contracting, either completely or within prescribed
limits. Had this proposed rate of pay been submitted to the
collective bargaining process, it might have been settled thereby,
or might have resulted in an agreement that the company should be
free to negotiate with the agents severally. But the Company did
not observe the right of the representatives of the whole unit to
be notified and dealt with concerning a matter which, from an
employee's point of view, may not be exceptional, or which may
provide a leverage for taking away other advantages of the
collective contract.
The decision in
J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, ante, p.
321 U. S. 332,
decided today, considers more generally the relation of individual
contracts to collective bargaining, and much that is said in that
opinion is applicable here.
We hold that the failure of the carrier to proceed as provided
by the Railway Labor Act of 1926, then applicable, left the
collective agreement in force throughout the period, and that the
carrier's efforts to modify its terms through individual agreements
are not effective. The award therefore was in accordance with the
law.
2. The Circuit Court of Appeals held the claims barred by the
state six-year statute of limitations applicable in the forum. It
is true that the enforcement of the award results in entering
judgment in 1942 on claims that began to accrue in 1930, and some
of which ceased to accrue over six years before the suit in the
District Court was commenced. It also is true that some of these
have accrued in large amounts.
Page 321 U. S. 348
If the action brought in 1939 had been a common law action to
recover wages, like that in
Moore v. Illinois Cent. R.
Co., 312 U. S. 630, a
quite different question of limitations would be presented. The
action as brought, however, was not a common law action, but one of
statutory origin to enforce the award of an administrative
tribunal. A special two-year limitation from the time of award was
prescribed by the federal statute, [
Footnote 8] and this action was brought within that
period. It is clear that, as an action to enforce the award, the
suit was not barred, and it must therefore have been the opinion of
the Circuit Court of Appeals that the statute barred the
administrative tribunal from making an award on claims so old.
There is no federal statute of limitations applicable to unadjusted
claims which the Adjustment Board may consider. It is difficult to
see how state statutes of limitations can restrict the power of the
federal administrative tribunal to consider and adjust claims.
Moreover, even if the six-year statute did apply to the claims
under the collective contract, as we think it did not, proceedings
on these claims were initiated before the Board well within that
time.
If, therefore, these claims are barred, it must be because the
time occupied in their litigation before the Adjustment Board
operates to defeat them. A state statute of limitations can hardly
destroy a claim because the period of actual contest over it in a
federal tribunal extends beyond the limitation period.
Statutes of limitation, like the equitable doctrine of laches,
in their conclusive effects are designed to promote justice by
preventing surprises through the revival of
Page 321 U. S. 349
claims that have been allowed to slumber until evidence has been
lost, memories have faded, and witnesses have disappeared. The
theory is that, even if one has a just claim, it is unjust not to
put the adversary on notice to defend within the period of
limitation and that the right to be free of stale claims in time
comes to prevail over the right to prosecute them. Here, while the
litigation shows no evidence of reckless haste on the part of
either party, it cannot be said that the claims were not timely
pursued.
Regrettable as the long delay has been, it has been caused by
the exigencies of the contest, not by the neglect to proceed. We
find no basis for applying a state statute of limitations to cut
off the right of the Adjustment Board to consider the claims or to
absolve the courts from the duty to enforce an award.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS is of opinion that the judgment should be
affirmed for the reasons given in the opinion of the Circuit Court
of Appeals, 137 F.2d 46.
[
Footnote 1]
§ 6, 44 Stat. 582. This provided:
"Carriers and the representatives of the employees shall give at
least thirty days' written notice of an intended change affecting
rates of pay, rules, or working conditions, and the time and place
for conference between the representatives of the parties
interested in such intended changes shall be agreed upon within ten
days after the receipt of said notice, and said time shall be
within the thirty days provided in the notice. . . ."
The 1934 Act contains a similar provision. § 6, 48 Stat. 1197,
45 U.S.C. § 156.
[
Footnote 2]
44 Stat. 578.
[
Footnote 3]
Act of 1934, § 3, 48 Stat. 1189. § 3, First (i), provides:
"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."
[
Footnote 4]
137 F.2d 46.
[
Footnote 5]
320 U.S. 727.
[
Footnote 6]
Cf. H. J. Heinz Co. v. Labor Board, 311 U.
S. 514,
311 U. S.
523-526.
[
Footnote 7]
See Lenhoff, The Present Status of Collective Contracts
in the American Legal System, 39 Mich.L.Rev. 1109; Daugherty, Labor
Problems in American Industry (1933) p. 415; Taylor, Labor Problems
and Labor Law (1938) p. 85
et seq.; Golden and Ruttenberg,
The Dynamics of Industrial Democracy (1942) p. 23-26, 82
et
seq.
[
Footnote 8]
Act of 1934, § 3, First (q), 48 Stat. 1192, 45 U.S.C. § 153,
First (q):
"All actions at law based upon the provisions of this section
shall be begun within two years from the time the cause of action
accrues under the award of the division of the Adjustment Board,
and not after."