Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/261/72/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 20:52:15+00:00

Document:
1. Under Title III, § 307, of the Transportation Act, 1920, the Railroad Labor Board has jurisdiction to hear and decide a dispute over rules and working conditions upon the application of either side when the parties have failed to agree upon a settlement under § 301 and no adjustment board has been organized under § 302. P. 261 U. S. 80.
2. In authorizing such application by any "organization of employees . . . directly interested in the dispute," (§ 307), the act includes labor unions. P. 261 U. S. 81.
3. The Board has jurisdiction to decide who may represent employees in conferences under § 301 or in applying for hearings under § 307, and to make reasonable rules in advance for ascertaining the will of the employees in this regard. § 308. P. 261 U. S. 82.
4. The Board was created not as a tribunal to determine the legal rights and obligations of railway employers and employees or to protect and enforce these, but to decide how such rights ought to be exercised for cooperation in running a railroad; its decisions have no other sanction than that of public opinion. P. 261 U. S. 84.
5. The making of decisions and publication of violations in accordance with the procedure and within the discretion defined by the statute cannot be enjoined by the courts. Id.
This case involves the construction of Title III of the Transportation Act of 1920. c. 91, 41 Stat. 456, 469. The title provides for the settlement of disputes between railroad companies engaged in interstate commerce and their employees, and, as a means of securing this, it creates a Railroad Labor Board and defines its functions and powers.
Northern District of Illinois, where the Board has its office, averring that the suit involved more than $3,000, and praying an injunction against the defendants' alleged unlawful proceedings under the act and especially against their threatened official publication under § 313 of the title that the Railroad Company had violated the Board's decision under the act.
The defendants moved to dismiss the bill on the ground that the suit was one against the United States without its consent, and also for want of equity and a lack of a cause of action. They also filed an answer making the same objections to the bill as in the motion and setting forth by exhibits more in detail the proceedings before the Board and its decisions. The district court heard the case on the bill, motion, and answer, and granted the injunction as prayed. The Board appealed to the circuit court of appeals, which reversed the decree and directed the dismissal of the bill. The decree of the circuit court of appeals not being made final by the statutes, the case is brought here by appeal under § 241 of the Judicial Code.
"5. The right of such lawful organization to act toward lawful objects through representatives of its own choice, whether employees of a particular carrier or otherwise, shall be agreed to by management."
"15. The majority of any craft or class of employees shall have the right to determine what organization shall represent members of such craft or class. Such organization shall have the right to make an agreement which shall apply to all employees in such craft or class. No such agreement shall infringe, however, upon the right of employees not members of the organization representing the majority to present grievances either in person or by representatives of their own choice. "
On June 27, 1921, the Board announced that some carriers in conference with their employees had agreed upon rules and working conditions and others had not. As to the latter, the Board continued the old rules and working conditions until it should render a decision as to them.
conditions agreed upon by them would be void. It further appeared that the votes cast on the company's ballots were something more than 3,000 out of more than 33,000 employees entitled to vote. The Federation had advised its members not to vote on the company's ballots. What the result was in the vote of the Federation ballots did not appear. The persons chosen by the 3,000 votes on the company's ballots conferred with the Pennsylvania Company's representatives and agreed upon rules and working conditions. The Board in its decision ordered a new election, for which rules were prescribed and a form of ballot was specified, on which labor organizations as well as individuals could be voted for as representatives at the option of the employee.
The company, on September 16, 1921, applied to the Board to vacate this decision on the ground that there was no dispute before the Board of which by Title III of the Transportation Act the Board was given jurisdiction. After a hearing, the Board declined to vacate its order, but said that it would allow the company to be heard on the question of the ratification of its shop craft rules by representatives of the crafts concerned when fairly selected.
Title III of the Transportation Act of 1920 bears the heading, "Disputes between Carriers and Their Employees and Subordinate Officials."
"in conference between representatives designated and authorized so to confer by the carriers, or the employees or subordinate officials thereof, directly interested in the dispute. "
"If any dispute is not decided in such conference, it shall be referred by the parties thereto to the board which under the provisions of this title is authorized to hear and decide such dispute."
Section 302 provides for the establishment of railroad boards of adjustment by agreement between any carrier, group of carriers, or the carriers as a whole, and any employees or subordinate officials of carriers, or organization or groups of organizations thereof. No such boards of adjustment were established when this controversy arose.
Section 303 provides for hearing and decision by such boards of adjustment upon petition of any dispute involving only grievances, rules or working conditions not decided as provided in § 301.
Sections 304, 305, and 306 provide for the appointment and organization of the "Railroad Labor Board" composed of nine members, three from the Labor Group, three from the Carrier Group, and three from the Public Group.
working conditions which is not decided as provided in § 301."
Paragraph (b) of the same section provides for a hearing and decision of disputes over wages.
"All decisions of the Labor Board shall be entered upon the records of the Board and copies thereof, together with such statement of facts bearing thereon as the Board may deem proper, shall be immediately communicated to the parties to the dispute, the President, each Adjustment Board, and the [Interstate Commerce] Commission, and shall be given further publicity in such manner as the Labor Board may determine."
Paragraph (d) requires that decisions of the Board shall establish standards of working conditions which in the opinion of the Board are just and reasonable.
Section 308 prescribes other duties and powers of the Labor Board, among which is that of making "regulations necessary for the efficient execution of the functions vested in it by this title."
"An party to any dispute to be considered by an Adjustment Board or by the Labor Board shall be entitled to a hearing either in person or by counsel."
"The Labor Board, in case it has reason to believe that any decision of the Labor Board or of an Adjustment Board is violated by any carrier, or employee or subordinate official, or organization thereof, may, upon its own motion after due notice and hearing to all persons directly interested in such violation, determine whether, in its opinion, such violation has occurred and make public its decision in such manner as it may determine. "
of the controversy and arouses public criticism of the side thought to be at fault. The function of the Labor Board is to direct that public criticism against the party who it thinks justly deserves it.
The main and controlling question in this case is whether the members of the Board exceeded their powers on the facts as disclosed in the bill and answer.
It is contended by the carrier that the Labor Board cannot obtain jurisdiction to hear and decide a dispute until it is referred by the parties to the Board after they have conferred and failed to agree under § 301. Undoubtedly the act requires a serious effort by the carrier and his employees to adjust their differences as the first step in settling a dispute, but the subsequent sections dispel the idea that the jurisdiction of the Board to function in respect to the dispute is dependent on a joint submission of the dispute to it. If adjustment boards are not agreed upon, then, under § 307, either side is given an opportunity to bring its complaint before the Labor Board, which then is to summon everyone having an interest, and after a full hearing is to render a decision. A dispute existed between all the carriers and the officers of the national labor unions as to rules and working conditions in the operation of the railroads. By order of the Labor Board, this dispute, which had arisen before the passage of the Transportation Act, and before the government had turned back the railroads to their owners, was continued for settlement before the Labor Board. That Board had been obliged to postpone the decision of the controversy until it could give it full hearing, and meantime had ordered that the existing rules and conditions should be maintained as a modus vivendi.
were turned back to their owners, each company had the right to make its own rules and conditions and to deal with its own employees under § 301, and that the jurisdiction of the Board did not attach until a dispute as to such rules and conditions between the company and its employees had thereafter arisen.
We are not called upon to pass upon the propriety or legality of what the Labor Board did in continuing the existing rules and labor conditions which had come over from the Railroad Administration, or in hearing an argument as to their amendment by its decision. It suffices for our decision that the Labor Board, at the instance of the carriers, finally referred the whole question of rules and labor conditions to each company and its employees to be settled by conference under § 301; that such conferences were attempted in this case, and that thereafter the matter was brought before the Board by Federation No. 90 of Shop Crafts of the Pennsylvania System under § 307. It is the alleged invalidity of this proceeding, thus initiated, which is really the basis of the bill of complaint of the company herein, and it is this only which we need consider.
of employees" used in the act was not intended by Congress to include labor unions. We find nothing in the act to impose any such limitation if the organization in other respects fulfills the description of the act. Congress has frequently recognized the legality of labor unions, United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U. S. 344, and no reason suggests itself why such an association, if its membership is properly inclusive, may not be regarded as among the organizations of employees referred to in this legislation.
The next objection made by the company to the jurisdiction of the Board to entertain the proceeding initiated by the Federation is that it did not involve the kind of dispute of which the Board could take cognizance under the act. The result of the conferences between the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and its employees under § 301 appears in the statement of the case. By a vote of 3,000 out of more than 30,000 employees, a representative committee was appointed with which the officers of the company made an agreement as to rules and working conditions. Federation No. 90, for its members, objected to the settlement on the ground that it had not been made by properly chosen representatives of the employees, and brought this dispute before the Labor Board. The Pennsylvania Company was summoned and appeared before the Board, and the issue was heard.
an easy opportunity to defeat the operation of the act and to prevent the Labor Board from considering any dispute. It would tend to make the act unworkable. If the Board has jurisdiction to hear representatives of the employees, it must of necessity have the power to determine who are proper representatives of the employees. That is a condition precedent to its effective exercise of jurisdiction at all. One of its specific powers conferred by § 308 is to "make regulations necessary for the efficient execution of the functions vested in it by this title." This must include the authority to determine who are proper representatives of the employees and to make reasonable rules for ascertaining the will of the employees in the matter.
Again, we think that this question of who may be representatives of employees, not only before the Board, but in the conferences and elsewhere, is and always has been one of the most important of the rules and working conditions in the operation of a railroad. The purpose of Congress to promote harmonious relations between the managers of railways and their employees is seen in every section of this Act, and the importance attached by Congress to conferences between them for this purpose is equally obvious. Congress must have intended, therefore, to include the procedure for determining representatives of employees as a proper subject matter of dispute to be considered by the Board under § 307. The act is to be liberally construed to effect the manifest effort of Congress to compose differences between railroad companies and their employees, and it would not help this effort to exclude from the lawful consideration of the Labor Board a question which has so often seriously affected the relations between the companies and their employees in the past, and is often encountered on the very threshold of controversies between them.
compels the railroad company to recognize labor unions as factors in the conduct of its business. The counsel for the company insist that the right to deal with individual representatives of its employees as to rules and working conditions is an inherent right which cannot be constitutionally taken from it. The employees, or at least those who are members of the labor unions, contend that they have a lawful right to select their own representatives, and that it is not within the right of the company to restrict them in their selection to employees of the company or to forbid selection of officers of their labor unions qualified to deal with, and protect their interests. This statute certainly does not deprive either side of the rights claimed.
But Title III was not enacted to provide a tribunal to determine what were the legal rights and obligations of railway employers and employees or to enforce or protect them. Courts can do that. The Labor Board was created to decide how the parties ought to exercise their legal rights so as to enable them to cooperate in running the railroad. It was to reach a fair compromise between the parties without regard to the legal rights upon which each side might insist in a court of law. The Board is to act as a board of arbitration. It is to give expression to its view of the moral obligation of each side as members of society to agree upon a basis for cooperation in the work of running the railroad in the public interest. The only limitation upon the Board's decisions is that they should establish a standard of conditions which, in its opinion, is just and reasonable. The jurisdiction of the Board to direct the parties to do what it deems they should do is not to be limited by their constitutional or legal right to refuse to do it. Under the act, there is no constraint upon them to do what the Board decides they should do except the moral constraint, already mentioned, of publication of its decision.
It is not for this or any other court to pass upon the correctness of the conclusion of the Labor Board if it keeps within the jurisdiction thus assigned to it by the statute. The statute does not require the railway company to recognize or to deal with or confer with labor unions. It does not require employees to deal with their employers through their fellow employees. But we think it does vest the Labor Board with power to decide how such representatives ought to be chosen with a view to securing a satisfactory cooperation and leaves it to the two sides to accept or reject the decision. The statute provides the machinery for conferences, the hearings, the decisions, and the moral sanction. The Labor Board must comply with the requirements of the statute, but, having thus complied, it is not in its reasonings and conclusions limited as a court is limited to a consideration of the legal rights of the parties.
The propriety of the Board's announcing in advance of litigated disputes the rules of decision as to them is not before us except as to principles 5 and 15 of Decision No. 119, so far as they determine the methods by which representatives of employees should be selected. They were applied and followed in the form of ballot prescribed by Decision 218. These decisions were necessary in order that conferences should be properly begun under § 301, and that disputes there arising should be brought before the Board. They were therefore not premature. It is not for us to express any opinion upon the merits of these principles and decisions. All that we may do in this case is to hold, as we do, that they were within the lawful function of the Board to render, and, not being compulsory, violate no legal or equitable right of the complaining company.
opinions, and that the court of appeals was right in reversing the district court and in directing a dismissal of the bill. We do not find it necessary, therefore, to consider the questions raised at the bar as to whether the Railroad Labor Board is a corporation under the act and capable of suing or being sued, without the consent of the United States, and whether the Board's publication of its opinions in matters beyond its jurisdiction could be properly enjoined by a court of equity.

References: § 307
 § 301
 § 302
 § 301
 § 307
 § 308
 § 313
 § 241
 § 301
 § 301
 § 301
 § 307
 § 301
 § 301
 § 307
 v. 
 § 301
 § 308
 § 307
 § 301