Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-36026/USCOURTS-ca9-12-36026-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 740
Nature of Suit: Railway Labor Act
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

AIRCRAFT SERVICE INTERNATIONAL,

INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF

TEAMSTERS, AFL-CIO, LOCAL 117,

Defendant,

and

WORKING WASHINGTON; ALEX

POPESCU; JONATHAN ROSENBLUM,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 12-36026

D.C. No.

2:12-cv-01729-

JLR

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Washington

James L. Robart, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted En Banc

September 18, 2014—San Francisco, California

Filed March 10, 2015

Before: Alex Kozinski, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, Andrew

J. Kleinfeld, Barry G. Silverman, Susan P. Graber, Richard

A. Paez, Marsha S. Berzon, Richard C. Tallman, Andrew

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2 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

D. Hurwitz, John B. Owens, and Michelle T. Friedland,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Owens;

Concurrence by Judge Berzon;

Dissent by Judge Kleinfeld

SUMMARY*

Labor Law

The en banc court reversed and vacated the district court’s

preliminary injunction under the Railway Labor Act against

a strike by aircraft fuelers at Seattle-Tacoma International

Airport.

The en banc court held that the district court erred in

failing to consider whether, prior to seeking a preliminary

injunction, the fuelers’ employer had made “every reasonable

effort to settle [the labor] dispute either by negotiation or with

the aid of anyavailable governmental machineryof mediation

or voluntary arbitration,” as required by Section 8 of the

Norris-LaGuardia Act. In addition, the record lacked any

evidence that the employer had done so. The en banc court

held that the Railway Labor Act creates an exception to the

Norris-LaGuardia Act, but this exception is limited and does

not include Section 8.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 3

Concurring, Judge Berzon, joined by Judges Paez and

Graber, agreed with the majority that the district court erred

in granting an injunction, as the employer had not complied

with its duty under Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. 

Judge Berzon wrote to explain that, in her view, even if the

employer had complied with its duty under Section 8, it still

would not have been entitled to an injunction because the

labor dispute was not governed by the dispute resolution

provisions of the Railway Labor Act.

Dissenting, Judge Kleinfeld, joined by Judges

O’Scannlain, Silverman, and Tallman, wrote that the district

court’s order should be affirmed because the strike was

barred by the Railway Labor Act, and the

jurisdiction-stripping provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act

did not apply.

COUNSEL

Dmitri Iglitzin, Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin &Lavitt,

LLP, Seattle, Washington; David P. Dean (argued), Kathy L.

Krieger, Darin M. Dalmat, and Ryan E. Griffin, James &

Hoffman, P.C., Washington, D.C., for DefendantsAppellants.

Douglas W. Hall (argued), FordHarrison LLP, Washington,

D.C., for Plaintiff-Appellee.

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4 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

OPINION

OWENS, Circuit Judge:

Aircraft Service International, Inc., doing business as

Aircraft Service International Group (“ASIG”), sought and

obtained a preliminary injunction from the district court in

October 2012 prohibiting ASIG’s employees from striking at

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (“Sea-Tac”). Section 8

of the Norris-LaGuardia Act (“NLGA”) strips district courts

of jurisdiction to enter such an injunction unless the party

seeking relief has made “every reasonable effort to settle such

dispute either by negotiation or with the aid of any available

governmental machinery of mediation or voluntary

arbitration.” 29 U.S.C. § 108. Because the district court

failed to consider whether ASIG satisfied this provision and

the record lacks any evidence that ASIG did so, we reverse

and vacate the preliminary injunction.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

ASIG is responsible for refueling about 75 percent of the

airplanes at Sea-Tac. The dispute at issue arose when ASIG

indefinitely suspended one of its fuelers, Alex Popescu, on

September 14, 2012. Popescu and other ASIG fuelers allege

that he was suspended “in retaliation for his leadership on

workplace safety issues, including testifying at a public

hearing of the Seattle Port Commission.” ASIG counters that

Popescu was suspended “so it could investigate reports that

[he] had engaged in inappropriate conduct at the workplace.”

After his suspension, Popescu and other ASIG fuelers

decided to organize a “group response” to press for his

reinstatement. WorkingWashington, a local coalition “united

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AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 5

in support of quality jobs and a fair economy,” was heavily

involved in this effort. Jonathan Rosenblum is Working

Washington’s “Campaign Director.” After unsuccessfully

advocating for Popescu’s reinstatement for two weeks, and at

Working Washington’s recommendation, the fuelers began

distributing strike ballots on September 28. “[B]y an

overwhelming margin,” the fuelers voted to approve a strike

to “get Alex Popescu back to work and to protest retaliation

and intimidation by ASIG.” Working Washington held a

press conference soon after to publicize the fuelers’ vote. 

Two days after this press conference, ASIG filed a complaint

in the Western District of Washington seeking to enjoin any

anticipated strike. This chain of events is summarized as

follows:

• September 14, 2012: ASIG suspends Popescu.

• September 17, 2012: Popescu meets with the local

ASIG station manager to discuss reinstatement and

investigatory process.

• September 25, 2012: Several ASIG fuelers allegedly

call ASIG’s Human Resources Department to ask for

Popescu’s reinstatement.

• September 28–30, 2012: Working Washington

distributes and collects strike ballots.

• September 30, 2012: The strike ballots are counted.

• October 3, 2012: Working Washington holds a press

conference publicizing the strike vote.

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• October 5, 2012: ASIG files a complaint for

injunctive and declaratory relief.

The district court issued a temporary restraining order on

October 5, 2012, prohibiting the fuelers from engaging in any

strike activity “or other concerted action which is intended to

interfere with ASIG’s operations.” After a hearing, the

district court issued the following preliminary injunction on

October 18, 2012:

Alex Popescu, Working Washington,

Jonathan Rosenblum, and John Does 1–100,

and their officers, agents, employees, and

members are hereby preliminarily enjoined

from in any manner or by any means

directing, calling, causing, authorizing,

inducing, instigating, conducting, continuing,

encouraging, or engaging in any strike, work

stoppage, sick-out, slow-down, work-to-rule

campaign, or other concerted action in

violation of the [Railway Labor Act] which is

intended to interfere with ASI[G]’s normal

operations.

(footnote omitted).

In granting this preliminary injunction, the district court

assessed whether ASIG had satisfied the four prongs of the

Winter test: (1) the moving party is likely to succeed on the

merits; (2) irreparable harm is likely if the injunction is not

granted; (3) the balance of equities tips in the moving party’s

favor; and (4) an injunction is in the public interest. Winter

v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). 

Acknowledging that the “parties spen[t] very little time

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AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 7

briefing the other three criteria,” the district court devoted the

lion’s share of its analysis to the first prong—in particular,

Defendants’ contention that the Railway Labor Act (“RLA”)

does not govern the dispute. The district court relied on both

the RLA’s stated purpose of avoiding interruptions to

commerce and its prohibition on “strike-first tactics” in

concluding that the Act prohibited Defendants’ proposed

strike.

The district court then addressed Defendants’ argument

that it had “no authority to issue an injunction because the

NLGA forbids it from doing so.” Citing Burlington Northern

Railroad v. Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes,

481 U.S. 429 (1987), and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad v.

Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 491 U.S. 490 (1989), the

district court concluded that the RLA trumped the NLGA.

The district court entered the injunction without analyzing or

citing Section 8 of the NLGA.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

“We review the legal determination of whether the district

court had the power to issue an injunction de novo, but

review the district court’s exercise of that power for abuse of

discretion.” Cont’l Airlines, Inc. v. Intra Brokers, Inc.,

24 F.3d 1099, 1102 (9th Cir. 1994). “Abuse-of-discretion

review is highly deferential to the district court,” but “[w]hen

a district court makes an error of law, it is an abuse of

discretion.” Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc., 696 F.3d 872,

881 (9th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). We

review all legal interpretations underlying an injunction de

novo. Id.

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8 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

III. DISCUSSION

The NLGA generally divests federal courts of jurisdiction

to “issue any restraining order or temporary or permanent

injunction in a case involving or growing out of a labor

dispute, except in a strict conformity with the provisions of

[the NLGA].” 29 U.S.C. § 101. Two provisions of the

NLGA are relevant to this case: Section 4 and Section 8. 

Under Section 4, “in any case involving or growing out of

any labor dispute,” federal courts are prohibited from issuing

an injunction to prohibit any person from “[c]easing or

refusing to perform any work,” i.e., striking. Id. § 104(a). 

Under Section 8, federal courts are prohibited from issuing

injunctive relief to “any complainant who has failed to

comply with any obligation imposed by law which is

involved in the labor dispute in question, or who has failed to

make every reasonable effort to settle such dispute either by

negotiation or with the aid of any available governmental

machinery of mediation or voluntary arbitration.” Id. § 108. 

Section 8 is called the NLGA’s “clean hands” provision. 

Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen, Enter. Lodge, No. 27 v. Toledo, P. &

W. R.R., 321 U.S. 50, 60 (1944) (quoting 75 Cong. Rec. 5464

(1932) (statement of Rep. John O’Connor)) (internal

quotation marks omitted).

The parties do not dispute that this case involves a “labor

dispute” for purposes of the NLGA. Accordingly, the district

court lacked jurisdiction to issue a preliminary injunction

unless it could overcome the restrictions of Sections 4 and 8.

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A. Background of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and the

Railway Labor Act

The Norris-LaGuardia Act was enacted to “tak[e] the

federal courts out of the labor injunction business.” 

Jacksonville Bulk Terminals, Inc. v. Int’l Longshoremen’s

Ass’n, 457 U.S. 702, 712 (1982) (emphasis omitted). Before

its passage in 1932, “federal courts routinely enjoined labor

picketing at the behest of employers.” Burlington N. Santa

Fe Ry. Co. v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters Local 174, 203 F.3d

703, 707 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc); see Milk Wagon Drivers’

Union, Local No. 753 v. Lake Valley Farm Prods., 311 U.S.

91, 102 (1940) (citing congressional report that

“approximately 300 [injunctions] were issued in connection

with the railway shopmen’s strike of 1922”). “This practice

was derisively dubbed ‘government by injunction.’” 

Burlington N. Santa Fe Ry. Co., 203 F.3d at 707 (quoting

Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union, 311 U.S. at 102).

Seeking injunctive relief was popular among employers

because of its “unique effectiveness in stifling labor

disputes.” Id. “[P]reliminary injunctions enabled employers

to defeat unions instantly by preventing them from using selfhelp and destroying the momentum of strikes before

substantive legal rights were litigated.” Id.; see also Felix

Frankfurter & Nathan Greene, The Labor Injunction 17 &

n.71 (1930). Employers typically sought relief in federal

courts because “federal judges tended to be more hostile to

labor than state court judges.” Burlington N. Santa Fe Ry.

Co., 203 F.3d at 708. Rather than attempt to amend the

substantive law to remedy this “extraordinary problem,”

Congress felt compelled to take the “extraordinary step of

divesting federal courts of equitable jurisdiction” over these

disputes. Burlington N. R.R. v. Bhd. of Maint. of Way

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Employes, 481 U.S. 429, 437 (1987). Thus was born the

NLGA.

The Railway Labor Act was enacted with a different goal

in mind: “[t]o avoid any interruption to commerce or to the

operation of any carrier engaged therein.” 45 U.S.C. § 151a. 

Passed in 1926, the RLA was intended to quell the persistent

labor unrest that “threaten[ed] disruption of transportation.” 

Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen v. Chi. River & Ind. R.R., 353 U.S. 30,

40 (1957). Finding existing voluntary mechanisms

inadequate, the major railroad carriers and unions came

together to craft a mandatory system of dispute resolution. 

Id. The result was the RLA’s “virtually endless” process of

“negotiation, mediation, voluntary arbitration, and

conciliation.” Burlington N. R.R., 481 U.S. at 444 (internal

quotation marks omitted). The hope was that future labor

disputes would be resolved through this process, and not

through disruptive strikes. See id. at 451. Congress extended

the “same benefits and obligations” of this process to the

fledgling air transportation industry in 1936. Int’l Ass’n of

Machinists v. Cent. Airlines, Inc., 372 U.S. 682, 685 (1963);

see 45 U.S.C. §§ 181–188.

B. Interplay Between the Railway Labor Act and the

Norris-LaGuardia Act

The relationship between the RLA—with its goal of

keeping the trains and planes running—and the NLGA—with

its goal of keeping federal courts out of the labor injunction

business—has always been somewhat unclear. See 75 Cong.

Rec. 5504 (1932) (statement of Rep. Fiorello LaGuardia)

(inquiring about an apparent “tie-up” between the provisions

of the RLA and the NLGA). Although Section 4 of the

NLGA is phrased in absolute language, the Supreme Court

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consistently has held that the “competing demands of the

RLA and the Norris-LaGuardia Act” must be

“accommodate[d].” Burlington N. R.R., 481 U.S. at 445; see

also Int’l Ass’n of Machinists v. Street, 367 U.S. 740, 772–73

(1961); Graham v. Bhd. of Locomotive Firemen &

Enginemen, 338 U.S. 232, 239–40 (1949); Virginian Ry. Co.

v. Sys. Fed’n No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 563 (1937). In practice,

this means that the RLA has been read as creating an

exception to the NLGA. Yet the boundaries of this exception

are narrow. Although the “specific provisions of the Railway

Labor Act take precedence over the more general provisions

of the Norris-LaGuardia Act,” Pittsburgh & Lake Erie R.R.

v. Ry. Labor Execs.’ Ass’n, 491 U.S. 490, 513 (1989) (internal

quotation marks omitted), “[t]his exception is necessarily a

limited one,” Burlington N. R.R., 481 U.S. at 446. In fact,

“[e]ven when a violation of a specific mandate of the RLA is

shown,” courts should “hesitate” to grant an injunction

“unless that remedy alone can effectively guard the plaintiff’s

right.” Id. (quoting Int’l Ass’n of Machinists, 367 U.S. at

773) (internal quotation mark omitted).

The district court concluded that the RLA applied to this

dispute, and that this meant that no provision of the NLGA

could apply—thus allowing the district court to issue the

preliminary injunction without considering whether Section

8 of the NLGA was satisfied. This blanket conclusion,

however, elided the distinction between Sections 4 and 8 of

the NLGA. Although the Supreme Court has “held that the

NLGA § 4 general limitation on district courts’ power to issue

injunctions in labor disputes must be accommodated to the

more specific provisions of the RLA,” Pittsburgh & Lake

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Erie R.R., 491 U.S. at 513 (emphasis added),1neither this

court nor the Supreme Court has held that the same is true

with respect to Section 8.

The vast majority of courts to consider this question have

applied Section 8 to disputes that the RLA governs.2Indeed,

1 This is not to suggest that the RLA applies to this dispute, in which

ASIG’s employees are non-unionized, or that Section 4 of the NLGA does

not apply. We do not reach those intertwined questions. The dissent’s

reliance on the fuelers’ obligations under Section 2, First of the RLA is

thus misplaced. We assume, for the purposes of this opinion only, that

this provision binds the fuelers—and that this obligation supersedes

Section 4 of the NLGA.

2

See Grand Trunk W. R.R. v. Bhd. of Maint. of Way Emps. Div.,

497 F.3d 568, 571–73 (6th Cir. 2007) (requiring that a carrier must satisfy

Section 8 before obtaining an injunction under the RLA); Nw. Airlines

Corp. v. Ass’n of Flight Attendants–CWA (In re Nw. Airlines Corp.),

483 F.3d 160, 166–67, 177 (2d Cir. 2007) (“While [the NLGA] generally

admits of only limited exception, the Supreme Court has held that the

NLGA does not preclude courts from enforcing the mandates of the RLA.

Even so, however, a party seeking an injunction under the NLGA must

have clean hands.” (citation omitted)); Air Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l v.

United Air Lines, Inc., 802 F.2d 886, 900–02 (7th Cir. 1986) (“In making

its ruling, the district court correctly noted that any party seeking

injunctive relief under the RLA must comply with section 8 of the

Norris-LaGuardia Act.” (citation omitted)); PiedmontAviation, Inc. v. Air

Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l, 416 F.2d 633, 638–39 (4thCir. 1969); Bhd. of R.R.

Trainmen v. Akron & Barberton Belt R.R., 385 F.2d 581, 613–14 (D.C.

Cir. 1967) (“That principle of accommodationmeans that actions to enjoin

violations of the Railway Labor Act may be maintained without regard to

Section 4 of the Norris-La Guardia Act, and yet be subject to Section 8 of

that Act.”); Consol. Rail Corp. v. Bhd. of Maint. of Way Emps., 735 F.

Supp. 1265, 1268–70 (E.D. Pa. 1990); E. Air Lines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots

Ass’n, Int’l, 710 F. Supp. 1342, 1347 (S.D. Fla. 1989). But see Bhd. of

R.R. Trainmen v. Denver & Rio Grande W. R.R., 290 F.2d 266, 270 (10th

Cir. 1961).

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over the years our court has treated Sections 4 and 8 as

independent limitations on a district court’s power to issue an

injunction, even when the RLA applied. See, e.g., Trans Int’l

Airlines, Inc. v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 650 F.2d 949,

957–58, 961–67 (9th Cir. 1980) (Kennedy, J.) (considering

whether the “clean hands” requirement had been satisfied

independently of analysis of whether the RLA trumped

Section 4); Switchmen’s Union of N. Am. v. S. Pac. Co.,

398 F.2d 443, 447 (9th Cir. 1968) (considering whether

Section 8 had been satisfied after determining that the RLA

trumped Section 4); Order of Ry. Conductors & Brakemen v.

Spokane, Portland & Seattle Ry. Co., 366 F.2d 99, 104–05

(9th Cir. 1966) (noting that, even if the RLA trumped Section

4, the Supreme Court’s Toledo decision “foreclose[d] the

railroad, which positively rejected mediation, from claiming

an injunction”); Butte, Anaconda & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Bhd. of

Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 268 F.2d 54, 60 & n.10

(9th Cir. 1959) (noting that Section 8 would have barred

injunctive relief even if the RLA had trumped Section 4); see

also Rutland Ry. Corp. v. Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs,

307 F.2d 21, 39–40 (2d Cir. 1962) (relying in part on Butte

At least two other circuits have issued seemingly conflicting decisions

with respect to this question. Compare Ry. Express Agency, Inc. v. Bhd.

of Ry., Airline &S.S. Clerks, Freight Handlers, 437 F.2d 388, 393–94 (5th

Cir. 1971), and Itasca Lodge 2029 v. Ry. Express Agency Inc., 391 F.2d

657, 667–69 (8th Cir. 1968), with Atlanta & W. Point R.R. v. United

Transp. Union, 439 F.2d 73, 79–80 (5th Cir. 1971), and Bhd. of R.R.

Carmen of Am., Local No. 429 v. Chi. & N.W. Ry. Co., 354 F.2d 786,

794–96 (8th Cir. 1965).

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for the proposition that, even if the RLA trumps Section 4, a

partymust complywith Section 8 to obtain injunctive relief).3

This approach to the relationship between the RLA and

Section 8 is consistent with the Supreme Court’s past efforts

to “accommodate” the RLA and Section 4 of the NLGA. As

noted above, the RLA creates only a “limited” exception to

Section 4—one restricted to situations in which an injunction

is the only remedy that can safeguard a right that the RLA

grants. Burlington N. R.R., 481 U.S. at 446; see also

Graham, 338 U.S. at 239–40 (rejecting a construction of

Section 4 that would leave federal courts “powerless to

enforce” rights granted by the RLA); Fed. Express Corp. v.

Teamster Union, Local No. 85, 617 F.2d 524, 526 (9th Cir.

1980) (“[W]hile federal courts may issue injunctions in labor

disputes to compel the parties to fulfill their obligations under

the RLA, when no such duties exist, the Norris-LaGuardia

Act controls.”). For example, in Brotherhood of Railroad

Trainmen v. Chicago River & Indiana Railroad, a union

chose to strike rather than submit to the dispute resolution

procedures of the RLA. 353 U.S. at 32–33. If the Supreme

Court had chosen to strictly enforce Section 4 in those

circumstances, the railroad would have effectively been left

with a right under the RLA without a remedy. Accordingly,

the Court instead permitted the injunction to stand despite

Section 4 to prevent the specific provisions of the RLA from

being rendered “nugatory.” See id. at 40–42 (quoting

Virginian Ry. Co., 300 U.S. at 563). Only in such a case of

“irreconcilable conflict between” the RLA and the NLGA is

 

3 We also have recognized that Section 4 of the NLGA is conceptually

distinct from Section 8 in other contexts. See Camping Constr. Co. v.

Dist. Council of Iron Workers, 915 F.2d 1333, 1348 (9th Cir. 1990).

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it necessary to choose between the RLA and the NLGA. See

Chi. & N.W. Ry. Co., 402 U.S. at 582 n.18.

Section 8, however, does not conflict with any provision

of the RLA. On the contrary, as the D.C. Circuit recognized

years ago, strict enforcement of Section 8 does “not trammel,

but . . . rather further[s] the effectuation of that Railway

Labor Act, for it ensures compliance by complainant carrier

or union which cannot seek an injunction until and unless it

has discharged the obligations imposed by the RailwayLabor

Act.” Akron &Barberton Belt R.R., 385 F.2d at 614; see also

Local 553, Transp. Workers Union of Am. v. E. Air Lines,

Inc., 695 F.2d 668,679 (2d Cir. 1982) (“Section 8 of the

Norris-LaGuardia Act, however, does not conflict with the

RLA. . . . Since section 8 is congruent with the RLA, Local

553 should be held to section 8’s requirements . . . .”); Local

553, Transp. Workers Union of Am. v. E. Air Lines, Inc.,

544 F. Supp. 1315, 1331 (E.D.N.Y. 1982) (“[Section] 8 does

not conflict with the mandatory status quo provisions of the

RLA. Rather, [Section] 8 is in harmony with the purposes of

the RLA.”), modified on other grounds, 695 F.2d 668. In

applying Section 8 in Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen,

Enterprise Lodge, No. 27 v. Toledo, P. & W. R.R.—a case

that involved the RLA—the Supreme Court said the same:

“The policy of the Railway Labor Act was to encourage use

of the nonjudicial processes of negotiation, mediation and

arbitration for the adjustment of labor disputes. The over-all

policy of the Norris-LaGuardia Act was the same. . . . It is

dominant and explicit in Section 8.” 321 U.S. at 58–59

(citations omitted); see also In re Dist. No. 1—Pac. Coast

Dist., Marine Eng’rs Beneficial Ass’n (AFL-CIO), 723 F.2d

70, 80 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (noting that Toledo held that Section

8 had not been satisfied “without even mentioning [Section]

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4”). There is thus no need to read another exception into the

NLGA to accommodate the RLA.4

 

4

 The dissent relies on two Supreme Court cases interpreting Section 4

for the proposition thatthe “jurisdiction-stripping provisions ofthe NorrisLaGuardia Act do not apply to disputes, such as this one, where the parties

have not first engaged in any ofthe procedures of the Railway Labor Act.” 

Dissent at 44. Again, neither of these cases speak to the proper

accommodation between Section 8 and the RLA. The Court in Chicago

River did not discuss the applicability of Section 8 to the case before it. 

And in Chicago & North Western Railway Co. v. United Transportation

Union, the Court considered only the “question [of] whether § 4 of the

Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibit[ed] the use of a strike injunction.” 

402 U.S. 570, 581 (1971) (footnote omitted); see also Brief for the

Petitioner at 8 n.6, Chi. & N.W. Ry. Co., 402 U.S. 570 (No. 70-189), 1970

WL 136733 (noting that the “lower courts never reached the question [of

whether Section 8 barred the injunction at issue], and it is not pertinent to

the issue presented here”). We address a question left unanswered by

those cases.

The dissent also fails to engage with any of the cases cited above that

give Section 8 a much wider scope, instead claiming that our position

“creates a circuit split.” Dissent at 35. Yet three of the cases cited by the

dissent never mention Section 8. This could perhaps mean that these

courts assumed without comment that the RLA trumped Section 8—but

it could just as easily mean that, like the Fifth Circuit, these courts did not

consider whether “[Section] 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act” applied

because it “was not advanced as a basis for denying an injunction against

the strike,” Nat’l Airlines, Inc. v. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace

Workers, 416 F.2d 998, 1003 n.4 (5thCir. 1969) (citing Butte’s discussion

of Section 8 but recognizing that “[w]e take the case as we find it”). 

Moreover, the lone case in this purported “split” that does discuss Section

8 actually cuts against the dissent’s position. In United Airlines—

immediately following the sentence quoted by the dissent—the court

reaffirmed the Seventh Circuit’s longstanding position that the RLA does

not categorically supersede Section 8, noting that things would have been

different if the union had a “stronger case for barring the injunction under

[Section] 8 of the NLGA.” 243 F.3d at 365 & n.11. But even if we were

to read these four cases as the dissent suggests, they merely add to the

circuit split, and possible intra-circuit splits, noted above.

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Consistent with our own precedent and that of many other

courts, we reaffirm that a party seeking an injunction under

the RLA is not relieved of its obligation to comply with the

provisions of Section 8 of the NLGA.5

C. Application of Section 8 to this Dispute

Section 8 provides in relevant part that “[n]o restraining

order or injunctive relief shall be granted to any complainant

. . . who has failed to make every reasonable effort to settle

such dispute either by negotiation or with the aid of any

available governmental machinery of mediation or voluntary

arbitration.” 29 U.S.C. § 108. Though the precise

requirements of this obligation vary from case to case, there

are “certain minimum steps” that are usually required:

Unfair surprise should be avoided whenever

possible. The representatives of management

should meet with those of labor. Each side

should listen to the contentions of the other

side and each side should explain its position

clearly and honestly, but not for as long a time

as is customary in full-scale bargaining. In

short, men of good faith must in good faith get

together in a sincere effort to resolve their

differences.

5 Section 8 also prohibits an injunction if the complainant “has failed to

comply with any obligation imposed by law which is involved in the labor

dispute in question.” Though Defendants do not invoke this provision

here, the dissent does not explain why—in a different case involving the

RLA—Congress would have intended to allow carriers or employees to

escape the obligation to follow the law before seeking injunctive relief.

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Rutland Ry. Corp., 307 F.2d at 41. These basic requirements

are consistent with the Supreme Court’s broad construction

of Section 8. See Toledo, 321 U.S. at 57 (“One must not only

discharge his legal obligations. He must also go beyond them

and make all reasonable effort . . . .”).

Our past decisions construing Section 8 have fleshed out

these principles. In Switchmen’s Union of North America, we

faced a dispute over the “bumping” of a railroad yardmaster. 

398 F.2d at 445–47. In dismissing the union’s argument that

Section 8 divested the district court of authority to issue an

injunction, we concluded that the carrier had fulfilled its

obligations both because “there was no unfair surprise” in the

bumping of the yardmaster and because the carrier had

attempted, “in good faith,” “to confer on the issue prior to the

incident which led to the strike.” Id. at 447. San Antonio

Community Hospital v. Southern California District Council

of Carpenters concerned a union’s decision to display a

banner disparaging the cleanliness of the workplace. 

125 F.3d 1230, 1233 (9th Cir. 1997). Considering the Section

8 issue, we held that it was sufficient that the employer “had

engaged the Union on a number of occasions in an effort to

resolve this dispute before seeking an injunction.” Id. at

1238.

In this case, nothing in the record permits us to hold that

ASIG satisfied Section 8’s “reasonable effort” requirement. 

Although the district court erred by failing to undertake a

Section 8 analysis, the record reveals that ASIG sought an

injunction from the district court without first attempting to

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settle the dispute.6 Even if the employees lacked an identified

union representative, that did not relieve ASIG of its

obligations under Section 8 to make “everyreasonable effort”

to resolve the disagreement before seeking the injunction. 

We need not map out the precise contours of Section 8 here

because ASIG’s failure to make any efforts to settle the

dispute fell short of what Section 8 requires, and thus the

district court erred by entering the injunction.7

The dissent responds by seeking to divert attention away

from the conduct of ASIG. As far as we can tell, however,

there is no authority for the dissent’s proposition that the

actions of the employees may relieve the carrier from

satisfying Section 8’s prerequisites. The dissent cites

Switchmen’s Union of North America, Trans International

Airlines, Order of Railway Conductors & Brakemen, and

Butte as support for this proposition, but not one of these

cases mentions the employees’ conduct as relevant to the

Section 8 inquiry. In Switchmen’s Union of North America,

we rejected the union’s Section 8 argument because the

carrier had “performed its obligations under . . . the Railway

Labor Act.” 398 F.2d at 447. In Trans International

6 The dissent chides us because there is “no district court finding of fact

to that effect,” dissent at 56, but ASIG’s explicit “position is that it had no

obligation to negotiate unless and until a representative was certified.” 

ASIG has never contended—as the dissent does now—that its single

meeting with Popescu satisfied Section 8’s requirements.

7 Like the dissent, ASIG argues that even if it did not comply with

Section 8 “the balancing of hardships and the public interest weigh in

favor of issuing the injunction.” See United Air Lines, Inc. v. Int’l Ass’n

of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, 243 F.3d 349, 365 n.11 (7th Cir.

2001). This court, however, has never recognized a public interest

exception to the plain language of Section 8, and we decline to do so here.

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Airlines, we rejected the union’s Section 8 argument because

the carrier’s “own conduct” was “not sufficiently likely to be

found illegal or otherwise wrongful that [it] should be

prevented from seeking injunctive relief.” 650 F.2d at 957. 

In Order of Railway Conductors, we noted that the carrier

could not “claim[] an injunction against a strike” because the

carrier had “positively rejected mediation.” 366 F.2d at 105. 

In Butte, we noted that the carrier was “also necessarily

denied” from seeking an injunction because the carrier “had

not exhausted its administrative remedies.” 268 F.2d at 60 &

n.10. Neither these cases nor the dissent can deny the Toledo

rule that a carrier must establish that it made every reasonable

effort before seeking an injunction. 321 U.S. at 56-57 (“If a

complainant has failed . . . to make every reasonable effort to

settle the dispute, he is forbidden relief.” (emphasis added)). 

In the absence of any efforts by ASIG to comply with Section

8, the dissent’s discussion of what the employees did or did

not do is simply a red herring.

8

We emphasize that our conclusion is modest: we hold that

a party must comply with Section 8 of the NLGA before

seeking an injunction under the RLA. The dissent’s

8 We do not hold, as the dissent suggests, that injunctions are never

available in RLA labor disputes. If a party seeking an injunction has

exercised “every reasonable effort” to resolve the disagreement, Section

8 will not serve as a bar. What constitutes “every reasonable effort” will

vary from case to case, and will depend in part on the actions (or

inactions) of the opposing side. See Rutland Ry. Co., 307 F.2d at 40-41. 

The dissent is thus wrong to suggest that we hold that employers are

barred from obtaining injunctions even if the employees refuse to

negotiate or even if the employees are too fractured to engage in any

meaningful negotiation. We hold only that employers must exercise

“every reasonable effort” before seeking an injunction; no “reasonable”

effort, which is what we face here, cannot be “every reasonable effort.” 

As noted supra, not even ASIG claims its efforts were reasonable.

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suggestion that our holding will disrupt commerce is

fundamentally mistaken. As the Supreme Court has

explained, “the purpose” of Section 8 “is to head off strikes,”

not encourage them. Toledo, 321 U.S. at 65 (emphasis

added). Section 8’s salutary mandate that parties make all

reasonable efforts to settle labor disputes before seeking

judicial intervention will help prevent, not cause,

interruptions to commerce. By contrast, allowing injunctions

when the necessary steps “have not been taken, not only

violates the section’s terms,” but encourages parties to act

unilaterally and avoid the reasonable steps that “when

achieved, make unnecessary invocation of the court’s aid.” 

Id. This not only “defeats the purposes” of the NLGA, id.,

but those of the RLA as well. As noted above, the “over-all

policy” of the RLA and the NLGA is the same: “to encourage

use of the nonjudicial processes of negotiation, mediation and

arbitration for the adjustment of labor disputes.” Id. at 58

(emphasis added). Permitting a carrier to obtain an injunction

to block a strike without pursuing these nonjudicial

processes—as the dissent would have it—frustrates the goals

of both statutes.

IV. CONCLUSION

Our decision will neither summon monsters from the deep

nor rain frogs from the heavens to “destroy” the North

American transportation system. We do not hold that courts

are prohibited from enjoining airport strikes. Rather, our

narrow holding—compelled by Toledo and consistent with

that of the vast majority of courts confronting this

issue—merely requires carriers to abide by Section 8’s

requirements before seeking an injunction. Because the

record lacks evidence that ASIG made everyreasonable effort

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to settle the dispute, we reverse the district court’s order and

vacate the preliminary injunction.

REVERSED and VACATED.

BERZON, Circuit Judge, with whom Judges PAEZ and

GRABER join, concurring:

I agree with the majority that the district court erred in

granting an injunction, as Aircraft Service International

Group (“ASIG”) has not complied with its duty under Section

8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act (“NLGA”) to make “every

reasonable effort to settle [its] dispute” with the fuelers before

seeking an injunction prohibiting the planned work stoppage. 

29 U.S.C. § 108. I write only to explain that, in my view,

even if ASIG had complied with its duty under Section 8,

ASIG still would not have been entitled to an injunction.

The conflict underlying this case is undisputably a “labor

dispute” for purposes of the NLGA.1 As I explain below, it

is not a dispute governed by any of the specific dispute

resolution provisions of the Railway Labor Act (“RLA”),

45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. As the disagreement between ASIG

and the fuelers falls wholly outside the RLA’s regulatory

framework, there is no federal labor statute that supersedes

the NLGA’s otherwise applicable prohibition on federal court

injunctions during labor disputes. The district court therefore

1 The parties agree that the conflict underlying this case is a “labor

dispute” for purposes of the NLGA. See 29 U.S.C. § 113(c) (“The term

‘labor dispute’ includes any controversy concerning terms or conditions

of employment . . . .”).

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lacks authority to enjoin the prospective work stoppage, even

if ASIG complies with NLGA Section 8.

The majority does not say otherwise. But this is an

instance in which the narrow ruling may simply prolong

litigation by inviting a second motion for an injunction,

preliminary or permanent, after Section 8 compliance. I

would prefer to put this case to rest now.

I.

The NLGA severelyconstrains federal courts’jurisdiction

to issue injunctions concerning labor disputes, see 29 U.S.C.

§§ 101–115, including entirely eliminating jurisdiction to

issue injunctions in certain instances, see id. § 104.2

 

2

 Section 104 of the NLGA provides:

No court of the United States shall have

jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or temporary

or permanent injunction in any case involving or

growing out of any labor dispute to prohibit any person

or persons participating or interested in such dispute (as

these terms are herein defined) from doing, whether

singly or in concert, any of the following acts:

(a) Ceasing or refusing to perform any work or to

remain in any relation of employment;

(b) Becoming or remaining a member of any labor

organization or of any employer organization,

regardless of any such undertaking or promise as is

described in section 103 of this title;

(c) Paying or giving to, or withholding from, any

person participating or interested in such labor dispute,

any strike or unemployment benefits or insurance, or

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24 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

As the majority states, see Maj. Op. at 11–12, where the

RLA unambiguously applies, the jurisdictional bar of the

NLGA, 29 U.S.C. § 104, can give way. See, e.g., Burlington

N. R.R. Co. v. Bhd. of Maint. of Way Emps., 481 U.S. 429,

445 (1987). But “[t]his exception is necessarily a limited

one,” and is applicable only where a party violates an

unambiguous, applicable provision of the RLA. Id. at

446–47. Given the express divestment of authority of NLGA

Section 4, “the command of the [RLA]should be explicit and

the purpose to afford a judicial remedy plain” before a court

other moneys or things of value;

(d) By all lawful means aiding any person participating

or interested in any labor dispute who is being

proceeded against in, or is prosecuting, any action or

suit in any court of the United States or of any State;

(e) Giving publicity to the existence of, or the facts

involved in, any labor dispute, whether by advertising,

speaking, patrolling, or by any other method not

involving fraud or violence;

(f) Assembling peaceably to act or to organize to act in

promotion of their interests in a labor dispute;

(g) Advising or notifying any person of an intention to

do any of the acts heretofore specified;

(h) Agreeing with other persons to do or not to do any

of the acts heretofore specified; and

(i) Advising, urging, or otherwise causing or inducing

without fraud or violence the acts heretofore specified,

regardless of any such undertaking or promise as is

described in section 103 of this title.

29 U.S.C. § 104.

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may grant injunctive relief to enforce an obligation under the

RLA. Gen. Comm. of Adjustment of Bhd. of Locomotive

Eng’rs for Mo.-Kan.-Tex. R.R. v. Mo.-Kan.-Tex. R. Co.,

320 U.S. 323, 337 (1943) (“M-K-T”). This stringent rule

recognizes that, “[f]aced with a choice between [an]

ambiguity in the RLA and the unambiguous mandate of the

[NLGA], we [are to] choose the latter.” Burlington, 481 U.S.

at 447. Any ambiguity eliminates federal courts’ equitable

jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief.3

II.

The RLA does not regulate all relations between carriers

and their employees. For example, a state-law wrongful

discharge claim is not subject to the RLA’s minor dispute

resolution provision unless the dispute is grounded in the

interpretation or application of a collective bargaining

agreement. Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. v. Norris, 512 U.S. 246,

265–66 (1994). And the RLA does not regulate jurisdictional

disputes between unions over the “overlapping . . . interests

of two crafts. ” M-K-T, 320 U.S. at 334–37. Instead, the

RLA encompasses only “three classes of labor disputes and

establishes a different dispute resolution procedure for each.” 

W. Airlines, Inc. v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 480 U.S. 1301,

1302 (1987) (O’Connor, J., in chambers).

Specifically, the RLA governs “[m]ajor,” “[m]inor,” and

“[r]epresentation” disputes. W. Airlines, 480 U.S. at 1302. 

“Major disputes” comprise a “class” of disputes “concerning

‘rates of pay, rules or working conditions,’ . . . [and] relate to

‘the formation of collective [bargaining] agreements or

3 The NLGA does not affect federal courts’ jurisdiction to grant other

relief, such as damages.

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26 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

efforts to secure them.’” Norris, 512 U.S. at 252 (quoting

Consol. Ry. Corp. (Conrail) v. Ry. Labor Execs.’ Ass’n,

491 U.S. 299, 302 (1989)) (last alteration in original). “The

second class of disputes, known as ‘minor’ disputes, ‘gro[w]

out of grievances . . . .’” Id. (quoting 45 U.S.C. § 151a) (first

alteration in original). These involve “‘controversies over the

meaning of an existing collective bargaining agreement in a

particular fact situation.’” Id. at 253 (quoting Trainmen v.

Chicago R. & I.R. Co., 353 U.S. 30, 33 (1957)). Therefore,

under Congress’s scheme, “major disputes seek to create

contractual rights, minor disputes to enforce them.” Conrail,

491 U.S. at 302. Finally, “‘representation’ disputes involve

defining the bargaining unit and determining the employee

representative for collective bargaining.” W. Airlines, Inc.,

480 U.S. at 1302. The dispute between ASIG and the fuelers

here falls into none of the three relevant RLA categories.

The closest fit is the “minor” dispute category. The

fuelers’ concern is with the suspension of a fellow worker,

i.e., Popescu. The RLA’s mandatory arbitration mechanism

applies, inter alia, to the resolution of minor “disputes

between an employee or group of employees and a carrier . . .

growing out of grievances,” 45 U.S.C. § 153, First (i)

(emphasis added), and thus can cover many disputes

concerning whether a certain employee should have been

disciplined or discharged. Indeed, employee discipline issues

are often the subject of RLA minor disputes. See, e.g., Union

Pac. R.R. Co. v. Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs &Trainmen Gen.

Comm. of Adjustment, 558 U.S. 67, 72–76 (2009); United

Transp. Union v. BNSF Ry. Co., 710 F.3d 915 (9th Cir.

2013); Ass’n of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO v. Horizon Air

Indus., Inc., 280 F.3d 901 (9th Cir. 2002). But Hawaiian

Airlines, Inc. v. Norris made clear that the word “grievances”

in the RLA minor dispute resolution provisions refers only to

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“disputes involving the application or interpretation of a

CBA.” 512 U.S. at 255. Left outside the RLA—and so

subject to resolution under state law—are quotidian

workplace disputes that do not concern the application or

interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement, such as

the one at hand. Precisely because the dispute here is so

similar to a traditional grievance and could well be a minor

dispute were a collective bargaining agreement in place

between ASIG and the fuelers, it cannot be a major dispute,

i.e., one involving employees seeking the formation of a

future-oriented collective bargaining agreement.

The underlying dispute in this case is not a representation

dispute for essentially the same reason—the workers are not

seeking to collectively bargain regarding future terms and

conditions of employment, and have no interest in choosing

a representative of their group at this time. RLA Sections 2,

Third, Fourth, and Ninth regulate the means by which

employees may bind themselves to a representative for the

purpose of negotiating with an employer. See 45 U.S.C.

§ 152, Third, Fourth, and Ninth. But none of those provisions

contains an unambiguous obligation to select a representative

where there is no desire to negotiate terms and conditions of

employment with the employer. See Burlington, 481 U.S. at

447.

Section 2, Third, could conceivably be read in isolation to

require that the employees elect a representative:

“Representatives, for the purposes of this chapter, shall be

designated by the respective parties without interference

. . . .” 45 U.S.C. § 152, Third. The immediately following

section, however, Section 2, Fourth, states that “[e]mployees

shall have the right to organize,” rather than the duty to

organize. 45 U.S.C. § 152, Fourth. In other words, Section

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2, Fourth, gives the employees “the right to determine who

shall be the representative of the group or, indeed, whether

they shall have any representation at all.” Bhd. of Ry. & S.S.

Clerks v. Ass’n for Benefit of Non-Contract Emps., 380 U.S.

650, 670 (1965). Read in combination with Section 2,

Fourth, then, Section 2, Third, does not require

representation. Rather, it prohibits both the employer and the

employees from “in anyway interfer[ing] with, influenc[ing],

or coerc[ing] the other in its choice of representatives.” 

45 U.S.C. § 152, Third. As the Fifth Circuit concluded,

“employees were given the right under the Act not only to opt

for collective bargaining, but to reject it as well . . . . [T]he

implicit message throughout the Act is that the ‘complete

independence’ of the employees necessarilyincludes the right

to reject collective representation. Indeed, the concept of

‘complete independence’ is inconsistent with forced

representation.” Russell v. Nat’l Mediation Bd., 714 F.2d

1332, 1343 (5th Cir. 1983), reh’g denied, 721 F.2d 819, cert.

denied, 467 U.S. 1204 (1984) (quoting 45 U.S.C. § 151a).

Nor does Section 2, Ninth compel the fuelers to seek

union representation where they do not wish to be so

represented. Section 2, Ninth, provides, in part:

If any dispute shall arise among a carrier’s

employees as to who are the representatives of

such employees designated and authorized in

accordance with the requirements of this

chapter, it shall be the duty of the Mediation

Board, upon request of either party to the

dispute, to investigate such dispute and to

certify to both parties, in writing, within thirty

days after the receipt of the invocation of its

services, the name or names of the individuals

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or organizations that have been designated

and authorized to represent the employees

involved in the dispute, and certify the same

to the carrier. Upon receipt of such

certification the carrier shall treat with the

representative so certified as the

representative of the craft or class for the

purposes of this chapter.

45 U.S.C. § 152, Ninth. In terms, Section 2, Ninth, is limited

to disputes “among a carrier’s employees as to who are the

representatives of such employees,” and does not apply

where there is no such dispute among the employees. Id.

(emphasis added). For that reason, the D.C. Circuit has

explained that the representation dispute mechanisms of

Section 2, Ninth, may only be initiated by employees where

“the requisite ‘dispute’ [among employees] . . . arise[s]”:

“Section 2, Ninth does not contemplate [an] action-initiating

role[] . . . for carriers.” Ry. Labor Execs. Ass’n v. Nat’l

Mediation Bd., 29 F.3d 655, 665 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (en banc),

amended by 38 F.3d 1224, cert. denied sub nom. Burlington

N. R.R. Co. v. Ry. Labor Execs. Ass’n, 514 U.S. 1032 (1995).

The Second Circuit’s opinion in Summit Airlines, Inc. v.

Teamsters Local Union No. 295, 628 F.2d 787, 795 (2d Cir.

1980) is consistent with this understanding. In Summit

Airlines, the Second Circuit held that the representation

dispute mechanisms of Section 2, Ninth are not “optional”

where a union “seek[s] to represent” a class or craft. Id.

(emphasis added). Consequently, a union cannot “resort

directly to economic coercion” of a carrier where its object is

to induce the carrier voluntarily to recognize the union as the

representative of its employees. Id. Unless a union formally

seeks and obtains certification as the employees’ chosen

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representative, the employer’s duty to “treat” with, i.e.

recognize, the representative, is not triggered. Id. at 793, 795. 

Thus, although an employer may voluntarily recognize a

representative of a group of employees, the employer’s duty

to treat with a representative arises only where a

representative is chosen through Section 2, Ninth’s

procedures. Id.; see also Galveston Wharves, 4 N.M.B. 200,

203 (1962).

In fact, according to the National Mediation Board, the

fuelers at Sea-Tac are incapable of choosing among

themselves a representative for dealing with their employer,

as they are not a nationwide craft or class. See Aircraft Serv.

Int’l Group, 40 N.M.B. 43, 49 (Nov. 20, 2012). The National

Mediation Board’s “longstanding practice is to conduct

elections across a carrier’s entire system,” i.e. for class or

craft units that are “system-wide” or “nation-wide” if the

carrier operates nationally. Delta Air Lines Global Servs.,

28 N.M.B. 456, 460, 461 (2001). Because “[t]he craft or

class must include all of the employees working in the

classification deemed eligible, regardless of work locations,”

Aircraft Serv. In’l Group, 40 N.M.B. at 48, and because

ASIG’s employees are part of a “nationwide” system, id. at

52, the fuelers at Sea-Tac could not elect a representative for

the group under Section 2, Ninth, even if they wished to do

so.

It would thus be doubly nonsensical to require the fuelers

to seek representation under Section 2, Ninth, where the RLA

imposes no such unambiguous duty and the Sea-Tac fuelers

could not validly elect a representative of themselves as a

group. As the dissenter to the original panel decision in this

case concluded, “[w]hereastheRLAsimplygrants employees

a right to organize, [there is no] obligation on the employees

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to seek unwanted representation.” Aircraft Serv. Int’l, Inc. v.

Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters Local 117, 742 F.3d 1110, 1128 (9th

Cir. 2014) (M. Smith, J., dissenting). Rendering unionization

compulsory violates the directive to favor “the unambiguous

mandate of the [NLGA]” regarding enjoining labor disputes

where there is “ambiguity in the RLA,” and would impose an

illogical and impossible-to-fulfill condition on the fuelers. 

Burlington, 481 U.S. at 447.

The district court nonetheless held that the fuelers’

decision to strike was prohibited by the RLA because to hold

otherwise would “wholly frustrate” RLA Section 2, First,

which requires covered employers and employees “to exert

every reasonable effort . . . to settle all disputes, whether

arising out of the application of . . . agreements [concerning

rates of pay, rules, and working conditions] or otherwise.” 

45 U.S.C. § 152, First. But as the Supreme Court has

explained, Section 2, First, is not a stand-alone provision. See

M-K-T, 320 U.S. at 334.

Longstanding precedent confirms that Section 2, First

does not impose duties to refrain from acts not connected to

those covered elsewhere in the RLA. M-K-T held that

Section 2, First, “merely states the policy [of the RLA] which

those other provisions [of the RLA] buttress with more

particularized commands.” 320 U.S. at 334. While Chicago

& North Western Railway v. United Transportation Union,

402 U.S. 570 (1971), determined that Section 2, First, is

judicially enforceable in some circumstances, that case held

only that a party breaches the duty described in Section 2,

First, where that duty implements some other command in the

RLA.

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Specifically, in Chicago & North Western Railway, after

“the parties ha[d] exhausted the formal procedures of the

Railway Labor Act,” the union threatened to strike. 402 U.S.

at 571, 573. The carrier persuaded a district court to enjoin

any such strike, arguing that the union had not engaged in a

good faith effort to discharge the obligations described in

other RLA provisions, including the Union’s alleged refusal

to bargain with the carrier. Id. at 574. Chicago & North

Western Railway held that such an injunction would be

generally permissible, describing the content of the duty

imposed by Section 2, First, by repeated analogy to “the duty

under the National Labor Relations Act to bargain in good

faith,” which authorizes courts to “‘pass[] judgment upon the

quality of the negotiations.’” Id. at 574–75 (quoting

Archibald Cox, The Duty to Bargain in Good Faith, 71 Harv.

L. Rev. 1401, 1412–13 (1958)). It was in this sense—

because it required parties to satisfy in good faith their more

particularized duties—that the Court concluded that

“[section] 2 First was intended to be more than a mere

statement of policy or exhortation to the parties.” Id. at 577.

Chicago & North Western Railway, then, rejected only

the suggestion that M-K-T precluded reading Section 2, First

as imposing a good faith requirement as to other, express

duties elsewhere delineated in the RLA. Id. Chicago &

North Western Railway left untouched the Supreme Court’s

pronouncement in M-K-T that Section 2, First, does not create

a freestanding, independent duty.

Cases both before and after M-K-T and Chicago & North

Western Railway confirm the understanding that RLASection

2, First, is enforceable only in conjunction with another RLA

provision. Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation No.

40, 300 U.S. 515, 548–49 (1937), for example, held that there

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is a duty to negotiate a first collective bargaining agreement,

relying on the combination of RLA Section 2, First, and the

obligation imposed by RLA Section 2, Ninth to “treat with”

the properly chosen majority representative. Summit Airlines

similarly determined that there is a duty to settle a demand for

recognition as a collective bargaining representative in the

combination of RLA Section 2, Ninth, which governs the

resolution of dispute resolution mechanism, and Section 2,

First. 628 F.2d at 791–95.

Accordingly, there is no basis for interpreting the word

“dispute” in Section 2, First, as carrying a meaning entirely

divorced from the particular disputes described elsewhere in

the RLA. Where, as here, a dispute falls into none of the

categories contemplated elsewhere in the RLA, Section 2,

First, imposes no obligation to settle it, in good faith or

otherwise.

III.

This conclusion has negative as well as beneficial

consequences for the fuelers. Although the RLA does not

forbid them to strike, it does not protect that activity, either. 

“No private cause of action exists under the RLA for a group

of employees who assert retaliatory conduct based upon

employee activities which bear no relationship to establishing

a union . . . .” Herring v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 894 F.2d

1020, 1023 (9th Cir. 1990); accord Gullickson v. Sw. Airlines

Pilots’ Ass’n, 87 F.3d 1176, 1186–87 (10th Cir. 1996);

Rachford v. Evergreen Int’l Airlines, Inc., 596 F. Supp. 384,

386 (N.D. Ill. 1984). Where, as here, employees have

disclaimed any effort to form a union, and in fact are

incapable of electing a representative under the RLA, see

Aircraft Serv. Int’l Group, 40 N.M.B. at 48–49, they have no

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34 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

recourse to the RLA if their employer retaliates against them

for striking.

IV.

In sum, the fuelers “do not need to find a particular

provision in the RLA to justify [striking]. [Rather,] [t]he

affected [carrier] must find a specific mandate of the RLA

that prohibits the [strike]” to be entitled to an injunction. Ry.

Labor Execs. Ass’n v. Wheeling & Lake Erie Ry. Co.,

914 F.2d 53, 56 (4th Cir. 1990). As no specific mandate of

the RLA prohibits nonunionized employees from engaging in

a strike as a first step of self-help, ASIG is not entitled to an

injunction against this behavior. Accordingly, the injunction

should be vacated for that reason, as well as for the reason

endorsed by the majority.

KLEINFELD, Senior Circuit Judge, joined by

O’SCANNLAIN, SILVERMAN and TALLMAN, Circuit

Judges dissenting:

We should affirm. The district court and the panel

opinion got it right.

The Railway Labor Act protects the public from the

consequences of some labor strife with an especially grave

impact on those other than the companies and employees

involved. That is why it mandates extensive negotiation,

mediation, and arbitration procedures in any major

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transportation dispute1before allowing lockouts or strikes. 

The anti-injunction provisions of the later Norris-LaGuardia

Act cannot be read into the Railway Labor Act before that

settlement process is undertaken, without gutting the Railway

Labor Act. By expanding the reach of the Norris-LaGuardia

Act this way, the majority creates a circuit split.2 Shutting

down the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (“Sea-Tac”)

amounts to the blockade of a major American port which

imposes harms on nonparticipants in the labor dispute that

vastly outweigh the interests of the company and its

employees. That is why injunctions are available to enforce

the RailwayLabor Act notwithstanding the Norris-LaGuardia

Act.

The injunction, together with the Railway Labor Act

conciliation process, provides the statutory means Congress

prescribed for making labor and management negotiate,

whether they choose to or not. The Railway Labor Act and

the traditional four-part test for injunctions3together ensure,

as they did in the district court, that airports be kept open

while negotiations go on, regardless of whether one side or

both may be unreasonable. The final Winter4consideration,

1 Elgin, Joliet & E. Ry. Co. v. Burley, 325 U.S. 711, 723–24 (1945)

(defining “major disputes” as those where employees “seek to create

rather than enforce contractual rights” and “minor disputes” as those

relating to “the meaning or proper application” of a collective agreement).

2 Compare United Air Lines, Inc. v. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists &

Aerospace Workers, 243 F.3d 349, 365 (7th Cir. 2001).

 

3 Cf. Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008).

 

4

Id. at 26.

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36 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

the public interest, is in effect written into the Railway Labor

Act.

I. Facts

The company in this case, Aircraft Service International

Group, Inc. (“Aircraft Service”), refuels about 75% of the

airplanes at Sea-Tac. The company suspended one of its

aircraft fuelers, Alex Popescu. The company says it

suspended Mr. Popescu because employees were concerned

about their safety on account of his “blowups” at work,

episodes that he attributed to a medical condition. The

general manager reported receiving complaints from

employees that Popescu “went into a fit of rage” that

appeared “borderline psychotic” and “was out of control and

repeatedly had screamed obscenities at a supervisor.” When,

after suspension, the company tried to discuss Popescu’s

situation with him, he again yelled obscenities, “threw his

chair across the room, and slammed the door as he left the

room.”

The employees have not voted to be represented by any

union, so no labor union is involved. So far as the record

shows, no one is authorized to speak for Popescu but Popescu

himself, and the company’s attempt to speak with him failed

because he walked out and slammed the door. One of the

adverse parties in this case is “Working Washington,” which

is not a union, but a group that describes itself as “a coalition

of individuals, neighborhood associations, immigrant groups,

labor unions, civil rights organizations, and people of faith.” 

Working Washington’s “Campaign Director” says that

although Working Washington “is not seeking to become the

bargaining representative” of the employees and has not

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sought recognition, it advocates for better treatment of

workers at the airport.

Working Washington’s campaign director says that the

employees are compelled to work with unsafe and inadequate

equipment and that the company suspended Popescu because

he had become a leader in public advocacy for safer and

better equipment for the fuelers. According to the campaign

director, the obscenity incident was a mutual exchange of

yelled obscenities when Popescu complained of a broken

drive shaft and the supervisor accused him of sabotaging it. 

The campaign director alleges that Working Washington

distributed and collected strike ballots and held a press

conference to announce that the fuelers had authorized a

strike against Aircraft Service.

Working Washington’s campaign director further states

in his affidavit that the fuelers, at a gathering organized by

Working Washington, “called the company’s Human

Resources Department in Denver to request an immediate end

to [Popescu’s] suspension.” He states, “I believe that similar

calls continued throughout the evening and into the next

morning.” The fuelers did not get a response. The record

does not contain any non-hearsay evidence about these calls,

or for that matter, evidence that there were even any company

personnel in the Denver office “throughout the evening and

into the next morning” to receive such calls. This alleged

barrage of phone calls appears to be the basis for the

majority’s view that the employees sought to negotiate and

that it was the company that stonewalled them.

Neither Working Washington nor the fuelers asked the

National Mediation Board to intervene at that time. Neither

did the company. A few weeks after the strike

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38 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

announcement, and after the temporary restraining order and

preliminary injunction, six of the employees, including

Popescu, wrote to the National Mediation Board, in their

capacity as unrepresented individual employees, asking

whether it provided any sort of dispute resolution services. 

The Board replied that it provided mediation services to

carriers and to designated bargaining representatives of their

employees, but not to individual employees or groups, so

services were not available to the six employees because they

had not been designated as the bargaining representatives for

all the employees.

We do not know, there being no findings of fact on the

point, whether Popescu’s supporters really did try to meet

with or call the company representatives, or whether the

company acted unreasonably in not meeting with whoever

claimed to represent its employees. The majority says the

strike cannot be enjoined because the company made no

“reasonable effort” to settle the dispute. That purported fact

is not established. But it does not matter. The Railway Labor

Act generally requires both partiesto negotiate, mediate, and

arbitrate, before either of them can shut down the airport. 

The point of the statute is to protect the public against the

externalities of the labor dispute, not merely to protect

management or labor against hardheads on the other side of

the table.

II. The Statutes

The Railway Labor Act is among the first statutes

protecting labor and encouraging union organization. Its first

two objectives, written into the statutory language, are “to

avoid any interruption of commerce” and “to forbid any

limitation upon freedom of association among employees or

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any denial . . . of the right of employees to join a labor

organization.”

5 The Act, though encouraging unionization,

applies to unrepresented employees as well, such as the

fuelers in this case. The plain text of the Railway Labor Act

defines “employee” as “every person in the service of a

carrier.”6 Both carriers and “employees,” whether unionized

or not, must try to settle their disputes “to avoid any

interruption to commerce”7:

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 out of the application of such

agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any

interruption to commerce or to the operation

of any carrier growing out of any dispute

between the carrier and the employees

thereof.8

The Act generally requires the parties to confer, mediate, and

arbitrate their disputes:

The [Railway Labor Act] provides a detailed

framework to facilitate the voluntary

 

5

 45 U.S.C. § 151a.

 

6

Id. § 151, Fifth.

 

7

Id. § 151a.

 

8

Id. § 152, First.

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40 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

settlement of major disputes. A party desiring

to effect a change of rates of pay, rules, or

working conditions must give advance written

notice. The parties must confer, and if

conference fails to resolve the dispute, either

or both may invoke the services of the

National Mediation Board, which may also

proffer its services sua sponte if it finds a

labor emergency to exist. If mediation fails,

the Board must endeavor to induce the parties

to submit the controversy to binding

arbitration, which can take place, however,

only if both consent. If arbitration is rejected

and the dispute threatens ‘substantially to

interrupt interstate commerce to a degree such

as to deprive any section of the country of

essential transportation service, the Mediation

Board shall notify the President,’ who may

create an emergency board to investigate and

report on the dispute. While the dispute is

working its way through these stages, neither

party may unilaterally alter the status quo.9

The fuelers, or at least those persuaded by Working

Washington, proposed to strike without going through these

procedures, and they claim that they can do this because they

are not unionized and because the company has not made a

reasonable effort to settle the dispute. Judge N.R. Smith in

the panel opinion noted:

9 Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369, 378

(1969) (citations omitted).

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Here, the Employees are unwilling to even ‘go

through the motions’ under the [Railway

Labor Act]; rather, they wish not to bargain

but to strike. In so doing, they present the

very situation for which Congress enacted the

[Railway Labor Act]: carrier employees

collectively threatening a strike capable of

single-handedly interrupting interstate

commerce by shutting down an airport.10

These statutory duties are clear enough. But what

happens if one or both parties do not do what the Railway

Labor Act says they should do?

The subsequently enacted Norris-LaGuardia Act,

promulgated in 1932, might have been read to categorically

prohibit injunctions to enforce compliance with Railway

Labor Act settlement procedures.11 After all, the NorrisLaGuardia Act generally strips federal courts of jurisdiction

to issue injunctions in labor disputes.12 This could have been

read as a limit on remedies available under the RailwayLabor

Act.

10 Aircraft Serv. Int’l Inc. v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 742 F.3d 1110,

1120 (9th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted).

11 29 U.S.C. § 101 (“No court of the United States, as defined in this

chapter, shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or temporary

or permanent injunction in a case involving or growing out of a labor

dispute, except in a strict conformity with the provisions of this chapter;

nor shall any such restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction

be issued contrary to the public policy declared in this chapter.”).

 

12 Id.

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But the Supreme Court did not read it that way. 

Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Chicago River Indiana

Railroad Co.13held that the Railway Labor Act procedures

are compulsory14and the district courts do indeed have

jurisdiction to enjoin noncompliance.15 The Court explained

that amendments strengthening the Railway Labor Act in

1934, subsequent to the Norris-LaGuardia Act, repaired the

“major weakness” or “lack of any compulsion” in the 1926

version of the Railway Labor Act.16

The Court further held that “the specific provisions of the

Railway Labor Act take precedence over the more general

provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act,”17

because the

Norris-LaGuardia Act protects workers generally, but the

RailwayLabor Act “channel[s]” the economic forces of labor

and management “into special processes intended to

compromise them.”18 The Court explained that injunctions

prohibited by the Norris-LaGuardia Act “strip[] labor of its

primary weapon without substituting any reasonable

alternative.”19 The Railway Labor Act, by contrast, provides

labor with a “reasonable alternative,” the mediation and

 

13 353 U.S. 30 (1957).

 

14 See id. at 34.

 

15 Id. at 42.

 

16 Id. at 35.

 

17 Id. at 42.

 

18 Id. at 40–41.

 

19 Id. at 41.

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settlement process set out in the Act. It applies to “all”

disputes regarding “rates of pay, rules, or working

conditions”20and to “every person in the service of the

carrier.”21 This reasonable alternative eliminates the need for

the Norris-LaGuardia Act’s jurisdiction-stripping provisions

to even the playing field.

22 The employees need not be a

member of a union to invoke the Railway Labor Act because

it facilitates selection of a representative for mediation

regardless, so they need not have a dispute under a collective

bargaining agreement to invoke it. The Railway Labor Act

establishes that employees as well as carriers must make

every reasonable effort to settle disputes “whether arising out

of such agreements or otherwise.”23 The “or otherwise”

language means that a collective bargaining agreement is not

a prerequisite to the Act’s application.

Any question about the breadth of Chicago River was

answered by the Court in Chicago & North Western Railway

Co. v. United Transportation Union.

24 There, the Court held

that “strike injunctions may issue when such a remedy is the

only practical, effective means of enforcing the duty to exert

every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements.”25

Such a holding gives effect to the broad congressional policy

 

20 45 U.S.C. § 151a(4).

 

21 Id. § 151 Fifth.

 

22 See Chi. River and Indiana R.R. Co., 353 U.S at 41–42.

 

23 45 U.S.C. § 152 First (emphasis added).

 

24 402 U.S. 570 (1971).

 

25 Id. at 583.

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“[t]o avoid any interruption to commerce” by premature labor

strikes.26Indeed, the Chicago & North Western Court was

particularly aware of the dangers of such interruptions.27 We

now know, if we did not before this pair of cases, that the

jurisdiction-stripping provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act

do not apply to disputes, such as this one, where the parties

have not first engaged in any of the procedures of the

Railway Labor Act.

Chicago &North Western28and Chicago River29both rely

heavily on legislative history in interpreting the Railway

Labor Act. Such history merely confirms the meaning of the

clear text of the statute. The Court held that statements

during the Railway Labor Act hearings by “spokesmen of the

two parties” should be given great weight in construing the

Act.30 These statements confirm that petitioners cannot evade

the Act’s settlement procedures simply because they are not

unionized.

Senator Watson declared that both attorneys for labor and

management agreed on the scope of the law: “They all state

to me that beyond any doubt in the world[,] all classes and

groups and individuals are covered . . . every individual

employee who has a grievance, or any group of employees,

or any organization of employees, or any person not a

 

26 45 U.S.C. § 151a (emphasis added).

 

27 See Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co., 402 U.S. at 581 n.14.

 

28 See id. at 576–78, 580–82.

 

29 See 353 U.S. at 35–39.

 

30 Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co., 402 U.S. at 576.

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member of any organization of employees.”31 During the

House debates over the 1934 amendments, the topic

resurfaced since it was “rumored . . . that this Senate

amendment require[s] the employees of every railroad . . . to

be unionized before they can get any benefit.” This

supposition was again rejected, with Representative Crosser

firmly stating that the amendment would “not require any

such thing.”

32

Even when an injunction is the only practical, effective

means of enforcing duties under the Railway Labor Act, the

Supreme Court has held, in some cases, that Section 8 of the

Norris-LaGuardia Act33

does indeed qualify issuance of an

injunction with a codified clean hands requirement. The

Court held in Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen v. Toledo,

Peoria & Western Railroad Co.34that Section 8’s “unclean

hands” provision prohibited the district court from enjoining

a strike under the RailwayLabor Act because the railroad had

failed to make every reasonable effort to settle the dispute.

31 1 The Railway Labor Act of 1926: A Legislative History 689–91

(Michael H. Campbell & Edward C. Brewer III eds., 1988) [hereinafter

Legislative History] (emphasis added).

 

32 Legislative History, supra note 31, at 1021.

33 29 U.S.C. § 108 (“No restraining order or injunctive relief shall be

granted to any complainant who has failed to comply with any obligation

imposed by law which is involved in the labor dispute in question, or who

has failed to make every reasonable effort to settle such dispute either by

negotiation or with the aid of any available governmental machinery of

mediation or voluntary arbitration.”)

 

34 321 U.S. 50 (1944).

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The difference between the situation in Toledo, Peoria

and our case is that the railroad and the union in Toledo,

Peoria had indeed gone through the Railway Labor Act

process prior to the strike. In our case, the order of events is

strike first, mediation maybe later, maybe never. In Toledo,

Peoria, it was Railway Labor Act procedures first, strike

later, when the railroad refused to complete the Railway

Labor Act process by arbitrating. What made the unclean

hands provision of Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act

applicable was the railroad’s rejection of “the final and

crucial step of arbitration.”35

We have similarly interpreted Section 8 to apply in

situations where both parties have engaged in the Railway

Labor Act procedures, but then one of them has abandoned

the process in bad faith. In Switchmen’s Union of North

America v. Southern Pacific Co., we upheld a carrier’s

injunction notwithstanding Section 8 because the carrier had

not “failed to perform its obligations under . . . the Railway

Labor Act, or . . . lacked good faith in attempting to settle this

dispute.”36In Trans International Airlines, Inc. v.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters, we rejected both the

union and the carrier’s clean hands arguments in a dispute

where the carrier and union had negotiated and mediated, but

the union had refused arbitration.37In Order of Railway

Conductors & Brakemen v. Spokane, Portland & Seattle

Railway Co., we prohibited the carrier’s injunction when the

 

35 Id. at 64.

 

36 398 F.2d 443, 447 (1968).

37 650 F.2d 949, 953–54, 957 (9th Cir. 1980) (Kennedy, J.) (upholding

one injunction and reversing another on different grounds).

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union sought mediation, but the carrier declined.38In Butte,

Anaconda & Pacific Railway Co. v. Brotherhood of

Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, we prohibited the

carrier’s injunction under Section 8 when the carrier

abandoned mediation.39 To get the benefit of Toledo, Peoria

and to be able to bar the injunction, employees must

participate in the Railway Labor Act dispute resolution

process, as the unions and carriers did in these earlier cases.

The majority argues that our emphasis on the conduct of

the fuelers is a “red herring” because Section 8 only applies

to the “complainant,” and that “no authority” relieves a

carrier from the mandates of Section 8. That reading

eviscerates the statutory command that “[i]t shall be the duty

of . . . employees,” not just carriers, “to exert every

reasonable effort . . . to settle all disputes . . . in order to avoid

any interruption to commerce . . . .”40 The majority cites no

case in this or any other circuit where Section 8 of the NorrisLaGuardia Act barred a Railway Labor Act injunction, where

the employees went on strike without first engaging in any of

the Railway Labor Act procedures. There is no such case

because such an application would frustrate the purposes of

the Railway Labor Act. The majority’s “modest” rule allows

employees of a carrier to strike without fear of injunction as

long as they are not unionized and some rump group without

representational authority makes some late night phone calls

demanding talks with the carrier.

 

38 366 F.2d 99, 105 (9th Cir. 1966).

 

39 268 F.2d 54, 57, 60 n.10 (9th Cir. 1959).

 

40 45 U.S.C. § 152 First.

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Like Chicago River and Chicago & North Western,

Toledo, Peoria relies on legislative history in construing

Section 8 narrowly in the Railway Labor Act context. 

Representative LaGuardia assured Congress that the Railway

Labor Act “provides every detail for the settlement of

disputes” and that “[t]he workers could not and would not

think of going on strike before all the remedies provided in

the law have been exhausted.”41 Recognizing this, the Court

in Toledo, Peoria establishes that a carrier must have had the

opportunity to engage in the Railway Labor Act procedures

before Section 8 would apply:

[I]n response to an inquiry whether or not

Section 8’s requirements would apply where

it might be impossible to move for settlement

by negotiation, mediation or arbitration,

[Representative LaGuardia] stated: “The

answer to that is simple. In seeking a

restraining order a party believed to be

aggrieved comes into court and under a

certain state of facts, which are enumerated in

the bill itself, asks for a restraining order. If

time has not permitted him or the corporation

to avail itself of the existing governmental

machinery for the settlement of a labor

dispute, he recites that as one of his facts,

which is a full compliance, of course, with the

provisions of section 8, which makes it a

condition precedent that every remedy must

 

41 See 75 Cong. Rec. 5504; Toledo, Peoria, 321, U.S. at 59.

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be exhausted to settle the strike before the

injunction will issue.”42

Contemporary methods of statutory construction might

not rely as heavily on legislative history as the Supreme Court

did in Chicago River, Chicago &North Western, and Toledo,

Peoria. But the Court did so rely, and in Chicago & North

Western held that because the Railway Labor Act was a

“legislative product devised by the parties themselves, which

Congress enacted,”43it should be construed with “particular

attention . . . to the legislative history of the Act.”44 We are

thus required by Chicago & North Western to use legislative

history to construe the Railway Labor Act. Doing so, we

should join the Seventh Circuit’s United Air Lines decision,45

construing the relationship of the Norris-LaGuardia clean

hands provision to the Railway Labor Act as Representative

LaGuardia said it should be construed. United Air Lines

holds that Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not

relieve employees of their duties under the Railway Labor

Act to settle disputes and avoid interruptions to commerce. 

It further holds that a carrier may be entitled to an injunction

even where negotiation has not yet taken place. United Air

Lines explains that to “requir[e] a carrier to seek a negotiated

solution before moving to enjoin an illegal work action would

enable unions to use such actions to extort concessions from

42 Toledo, Peoria, 321 U.S. at 59 n. 16 (quoting 74 Cong. Rec. 5508)

(emphasis added).

 

43 Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co., 402 U.S. at 589.

 

44 Id. at 588.

45 United Air Lines, Inc. v. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace

Workers, 243 F.3d 349, 365 (7th Cir. 2001).

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the carrier during the negotiation process. Such a result

would render the union’s duty under 45 U.S.C. § 152, First a

nullity . . . .”46 Today, the majority does indeed render the

employees’ duty to follow the Railway Labor Act procedures

a nullity, by depriving the courts of the ability to enforce the

Railway Labor Act.

III. The Public Interest

The reason injunctions are so important to the Railway

Labor Act conciliation system is that strikes in the

transportation industry have so great an impact upon

uninvolved parties:

Railway (and airline) labor disputes typically

present problems of national magnitude. A

strike in one State often paralyzes

transportation in an entire section of the

United States, and transportation labor

disputes frequently result in simultaneous

work stoppages in many States.47

A little bit of concrete history shows this impact. In 1934,

Alaska and many other West Coast states suffered the effects

of a massive longshoremen’s strike. On May 9, 1934, West

Coast longshoremen not covered by the Railway Labor Act48

called a strike that effectively closed the port of Seattle and

 

46 Id.

 

47 Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. at 381.

48 Longshoremen are only covered by the Railway Labor Act if they are

employees of a carrier. See 45 U.S.C. § 151.

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AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 51

every other major port on the West Coast.49In less than a

week, Alaska lost mail service.50 After two weeks, the

Anchorage Chamber of Commerce estimated that the city had

only 10 more days’ supply of eggs, butter, and flour, and that

the whole territorywould be without general supplies in thirty

to sixty days.51 Members of the general public bore the

immense costs of the strike. Sixteen mills closed in

Washington and Oregon and an estimated 10,000 people lost

their jobs because the mills could not “get raw materials or

send products by water.”52 By the end of the 86-day strike,53

eight lives had been lost.54 The financial stake disputed by

the union and carriers was doubtless a small fraction of the

$200,000,000 in total lost revenue at ports from Bellingham

49 Longshoremen Out on Strike; Shipping Halted, The Seattle Daily

Times, May 9, 1934, at 10. This and other issues of The Seattle Daily

Times cited in this opinion are available online through the newspaper

collections of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, University

of Washington, http://depts.washington.edu/dock/34strike_

news_coverage.shtml.

50 Alaska Mail Held; Sound Mills Quit; U.S. Action Asked, The Seattle

Daily Times, May 15, 1934, at 1.

51 Strikers Receive Ultimatum; To Load U.S. Alaska Ship, The Seattle

Daily Times, May 24, 1934, at 10.

52 Ryan’s Order to Relieve Alaska is ‘Mandatory,’ The Seattle Daily

Times, May 25, 1934, at 15.

53 3,000 Back on Job Here As Maritime Tie-Up Ends, The Seattle Daily

Times, July 31, 1934, at 1.

54 Strikers Work in All Ports on Pacific Coast, The Seattle Daily Times,

July 31, 1934, at 5.

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52 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

to San Diego, not including additional losses to individuals

and local businesses.55

Three of our sister circuits56have upheld injunctions

under the Railway Labor Act’s Section 152, First,

notwithstanding the Norris-LaGuardia Act’s jurisdictionstripping provisions, because of the devastating impacts on

the public associated with transportation strikes. Though

these decisions evidently did not find it necessary to

explicitly discuss Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, they

illustrate the proposition that the employees of a carrier have

a separate enforceable duty under the Railway Labor Act to

resolve disputes to avoid interruption of commerce, and that

they should not be allowed to strike if they disregard this

statutory duty.

The Eleventh Circuit held in Delta Airlines v. Air Line

Pilots Association that “when a specific provision of the

[Railway Labor Act] is implicated, and there is no other

effective wayto enforce [it], the [Norris-LaGuardia Act] does

not prohibit a federal court from issuing an appropriate

injunction.”57 The Eleventh Circuit reasoned that “[w]hen the

public interest, commerce and a clear statutory provision are

implicated, we will not shy away from holding the parties to

 

55 Id.

56 See Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Transport Workers Union of

America, 373 F.3d 121 (D.C. Cir. 2004); Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry.

Co. v. BMWE, 286 F.3d 803 (5th Cir. 2002); Delta Airlines, Inc., v. Air

Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l, 238 F.3d 1300 (11th Cir. 2001).

 

57 Delta Airlines, 238 F.3d at 1307.

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AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 53

their duties under the [Railway Labor Act]so as to avoid ‘any

interruption to commerce.’”58

In Delta Airlines, Delta pilots engaged in a concerted

effort to decline taking “open time” flights.59 As a result,

Delta had to cancel many flights and the “traveling public”

suffered immeasurable losses of time and money from delays

and cancellations.60 The Eleventh Circuit rejected the

argument that the union had no duty to try to stop the pilots

because the union had not sanctioned their actions. To the

contrary, the Eleventh Circuit held that the union did have

such a duty,

61

and if it could not prevent the strike, the district

court had jurisdiction to enjoin the individual pilots’

concerted action.62

In National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Transport

Workers Union of America, the District of Columbia Circuit

upheld a strike injunction,63despite the Norris-LaGuardia

Act,64even though the “dispute [was] not amenable to

resolution via the procedures of the [Railway Labor Act].”65

 

58 Id. at 1308 (quoting § 152, First).

 

59 Id. at 1302.

 

60 Id. at 1309.

 

61 Id. at 1309.

 

62 Id. at 1311 (citing § 152, First).

 

63 Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 373 F.3d at 127.

 

64 Id. at 123.

 

65 Id. at 126.

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54 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

In that case, when federal Amtrak subsidies fell below

expected levels, five unions representing Amtrak employees

called a strike.66 The district court had held that the Railway

Labor Act did not bar the strike “because the Unions’ dispute

with Congress and with the administration over Amtrak

funding cannot be resolved by negotiation, mediation or

arbitration with Amtrak.”

67 The D.C. Circuit disagreed:

“[T]he possibility that a politically tinged dispute cannot be

‘resolved’ by negotiation does not warrant a wholesale

exception to the mandates of the [RailwayLabor Act].”68 The

D.C. Circuit enjoined the strike because it had the “same

adverse effect on interstate commerce as a strike motivated

by more conventional labor concerns.”69

The Fifth Circuit similarly held in Burlington Northern v.

Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees that the

Railway Labor Act’s requirement to “‘exert every reasonable

effort to make and maintain’” agreements could be enforced

by injunction whenever there is a threat of “‘any interruption

to commerce.’”70 The Fifth Circuit was persuaded “by the

plain text of the statute, by the reasoning of the District of

 

66 Id. at 122.

 

67 Id. at 123 (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis in original).

 

68 Id. at 126.

 

69 Id. (internal quotations omitted).

70 286 F.3d 803, 807 (2002) (quoting 45 U.S.C. § 152, First) (citation

omitted).

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AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 55

Columbia and Eleventh Circuits, and by the desirability of

avoiding a circuit split.”71

Therefore, notwithstanding the anti-injunction provisions

of the Norris-LaGuardia Act it is clear that: (1) when the

public interest, interruption of commerce, and a clear

statutory provision of the Railway Labor Act are implicated,

federal courts can enjoin concerted action by transportation

employees acting without a union;72

and (2) negotiation prior

to an injunction is not a precondition to enjoining a strike

since all transportation strikes can have catastrophic effects

on interstate commerce.73

The Seventh Circuit and the District of Columbia Circuit

have held that a public interest exception to Section 8 of the

Norris-LaGuardia Act allows injunctions under the Railway

Labor Act, even when Section 8’s requirements are not

satisfied, because of the catastrophic effects of transportation

strikes on interstate commerce. United Air Lines holds that

“the imperatives of the [Railway Labor Act] may override

§ 8, and that a party’s lack of ‘clean hands’ under § 8 ‘may be

overcome by a balancing of the interests, particularly where

it is the public interest involved.’”74 Brotherhood of Railroad

Trainmen v. Akron &Barberton Belt Railroad also holds that

 

71 Id.

72

See Delta Airlines, 238 F.3d 1300; accord Burlington N. & Santa Fe

Ry. Co., 286 F.3d 803.

 

73 See Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 373 F.3d at 123.

74 United Air Lines, Inc. v. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace

Workers, 243 F.3d 349, 365 n.11 (7th Cir. 2001) (quoting Air Line Pilots

Ass’n v. United Air Lines, Inc. 802 F.2d 886, 901 (7th Cir. 1986)).

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56 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

“a lack of clean hands may be overcome by a balancing of

interests, particularly where it is the public interest involved

. . . and that [a] restraining order should issue forthwith to

avoid jeopardizing the Railway Labor Act.”75 The majority

omits consideration of the public interest in whether the

primary air hub in the Northwest is shut down.

IV. Aircraft Service and Its Fuelers

The central argument of the majority is that an injunction

ought not to have issued because Aircraft Service failed to

“make any efforts” to settle the dispute. There is no district

court finding of fact to that effect. All we have are three

affidavits, two from Aircraft Service and one from Working

Washington. The Aircraft Service representative at Sea-Tac

says that he met with Popescu in person, joined by a human

resources area manager by phone, but Popescu cursed at the

area manager, threw his chair across the room, left, and

slammed the door behind him. That cannot be a failure to

“make any effort” by the employer. Working Washington’s

campaign director says that Popescu supporters called the

company’s human resources department throughout one

evening and into the following morning and received no

response. These events amount to the company’s

unsuccessful attempt to settle with Popescu, and a few other

employees’ attempts to settle Popescu’s issues with the

company. We lack authority, as an appellate court, to make

a finding of fact, as the majority appears to do, that the

company made no effort to settle. They met with Popescu,

and he threw a chair and walked out.

75 Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen v. Akron & Barberton Belt R.R. Co., 385 F.2d

581, 614 (D.C. Cir. 1967).

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If, as the majority appears to believe, the affidavits are

treated as establishing facts, then there would be sufficient

evidence that Aircraft Service made the reasonable efforts

required by Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. We held

in Switchmen’s Union of North America v. Southern Pacific

Co. that a carrier fulfilled its obligation under Section 8 when

there was “no unfair surprise,” and “the company, in good

faith, [had] attempted to confer on the issue prior to the

incident which led to the strike.”76 No employee could claim

to be “unfairly surprised” by a suspension for “cussing out”

his boss. Aircraft Service’s refusal immediately to reinstate

Popescu upon demand appears to have generated the vote to

strike, but all three affidavits show that Aircraft Service

attempted, in good faith, to confer with Popescu after his

suspension and prior to the fuelers threatening to strike.

The real nub here, for Working Washington as well as

Popescu and the six fuelers who wrote on his behalf, appears

to be the company’s refusal to meet and attempt to settle with

them, not Popescu. The company, after all, did meet with

Popescu. Aircraft Service’s position was that it had no

obligation to negotiate with Working Washington or those

fuelers who made phone calls the night after Popescu was

suspended. The National Mediation Board’s position was

that it too had no mediation available for the six Popescu

supporters. They were both right.

Working Washington, as its campaign director says in his

affidavit, is not a union and has not been selected as a

representative by Aircraft Service’s employees. Working

Washington has many constituents including “neighborhood

associations, immigrant groups, labor unions, civil rights

 

76 398 F.2d 443, 447 (1968).

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58 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

organizations, and people of faith.” Aircraft Service cannot

assume that Working Washington represents its employees. 

WorkingWashington selected them, instead of the employees

selecting Working Washington. Perhaps Working

Washington would be looking out solely for the interests of

Aircraft Service’s employees, or perhaps it would be serving

its constituents’ interests and preferences and not Aircraft

Service’s fuelers’ interests. Likewise, the fuelers who

allegedly called the human resources department, and the six

fuelers who wrote to the National Mediation Board, have not

established a right to represent all the other fuelers.

The company’s affidavit says that employees wanted to

get rid of Popescu because they feared he might damage their

vehicles and his irrational rages created a safety threat to

them. Perhaps more fuelers wanted to get rid of Popescu than

wanted to keep him, because they feared for their own safety

on account of Popescu’s erratic behavior. Perhaps Aircraft

Service has been protecting the interests of most of its

employees, while Working Washington is sacrificing their

safety to some other agenda. We have no idea. Proper

selection of a representative answers the question whether

some group or entity represents the employees. An

unsupported claim to speak on their behalf does not.

The Supreme Court held in Brotherhood of Locomotive

Engineers v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R. Co. that the

RailwayLabor Act “imposes upon the carrier ‘the affirmative

duty to treat only with the true representative, and hence the

negative duty to treat with no other.’”77 The affirmative and

the negative duty both arise out of the “essential foundation

77 320 U.S. 323, 335 (1943) (quoting Virginian Ry. Co. v. Sys. Fed’n No.

40, 300 U.S. 515, 548 (1937)).

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AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 59

of the statutory scheme,” “[f]reedom of choice in the

selection of representatives.”78 The majority’s expansive

reading of Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act would

repeal this central feature of the Railway Labor Act and

deprive Aircraft Service’s employees of what the Supreme

Court characterized as a “liberty [that] should be

safeguarded.”79 That is the liberty of the employees to choose

their own representative rather than having a representative

forced upon them.

That right to pick the representative rather than having

one imposed is why the Railway Labor Act creates a process

for employees to select a mediation representative,80

even if

they are not unionized and do not choose to be represented by

a union.81 Any question of whether Popescu’s supporters, or

Working Washington, ought to be negotiated with, or

mediated or arbitrated with, is to be settled under the statute

by the detailed procedures for designating representatives.82

That explains why the National Mediation Board rejected the

request for mediation by six individual fuelers. After all,

suppose the company negotiated and mediated, and reached

an agreement satisfying Working Washington and Popescu’s

supporters, perhaps to reinstate Popescu with back pay. That

might leave a majority of the fuelers at what they considered

too much risk to their personal safety from Popescu. And

 

78 Id. at 329–30.

 

79 Id. at 330.

 

80 45 U.S.C. § 152, Third, Ninth.

 

81 Id. § 152, Fifth.

 

82 Id. § 152, Ninth.

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60 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH.

Working Washington might be subordinating Aircraft

Service’s employees interests to the interests and preferences

of the “labor unions, civil rights organizations, and people of

faith” that comprise it. A company is not obligated to, and

may not, under Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R. Co.,

83

negotiate

and try to settle its employee disputes with an organization its

workers have not chosen, that may be serving interests

conflicting with the interests of most of its employees.

The statute requires that “not less than 50 percent of the

employees in the craft or class” select a representative.84

Perhaps Working Washington, or the employees who support

Popescu, or both, should represent the fuelers and can be

trusted to represent their interests, not others. They can. All

they need to do is follow the Railway Labor Act’s

straightforward process to get certified as their representative. 

Without that, they are in the position of a lawyer settling a

case on behalf of a client who has not chosen to be

represented by that lawyer, who perhaps represents someone

else with a conflicting interest.

The record is uncontradicted that the company met with

Popescu to discuss his suspension, but he slammed the door

and walked out. Even were there some issue of fact about

this, the injunction would still be within the district court’s

discretion. A fair reading of the Railway Labor Act and the

Supreme Court decisions interpreting that law’s relationship

to the Norris-LaGuardia Act compels the conclusion that an

injunction would still properly issue, compelling both sides

to submit to the Railway Labor Act’s dispute resolution

 

83 320 U.S. 323 (1943).

 

84 45 U.S.C. § 152, Twelfth.

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procedures before any strike could take place. That reading

would be consistent with the Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh and

District of Columbia Circuit’s interpretation of the Railway

Labor Act’s Section 152, First. Delaying an injunction until

findings can be made on which side is the more unreasonably

hardheaded, and denying an injunction if the petitioner is the

more unreasonable, defeats the Railway Labor Act’s first

stated purpose, which is “to avoid any interruption to

commerce.” That is why the district court quoted Section

152, First of the Railway Labor Act and explained that

“Defendant’s interpretation would wholly frustrate the

[Railway Labor Act’s] overriding mandate, which is to

impose a duty on carriers and their employees to ‘settle all

disputes, whether arising out of the application of such

agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to

commerce . . . .’” The district court was right.

V. Conclusion

The district court had jurisdiction and properly exercised

it, by enjoining a strike unless and until the parties proceeded

through the Railway Labor Act’s dispute resolution process. 

Keeping a major American airport open is too important to

allow an evasion of that process by a rump group of

employees or a purported spokesman that the employees have

never authorized to speak for them. Congress passed the

Railway Labor Act to protect against the harm such a strike

would impose on uninvolved people all over North America. 

Today’s decision destroys that protection.

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