Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/450/728
Timestamp: 2015-10-04 22:22:20
Document Index: 277242225

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 6', '§ 392', 'Art. 50', '§ 785', '§ 6', '§ 16', '§ 201', '§ 8', '§ 6', '§ 4', '§ 6', '§ 4', '§ 4', 'Art. 50', '§ 4', '§ 790', '§ 6', '§ 7', '§ 6', '§ 4']

Lloyd BARRENTINE et al., Petitioners, v. ARKANSAS-BEST FREIGHT SYSTEM, INC., et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Lloyd BARRENTINE et al., Petitioners, v. ARKANSAS-BEST FREIGHT SYSTEM, INC., et al.
450 U.S. 728 (101 S.Ct. 1437, 67 L.Ed.2d 641)
[HTML] dissent, BURGER, REHNQUIST
[HTML] Syllabus Petitioner truckdrivers are not paid for the time spent conducting a required pre-trip safety inspection of respondent employer motor carrier's trucks and transporting trucks that fail such inspection to the employer's on-premises repair facility. Petitioners' union submitted a wage claim for petitioners' pretrip inspection and transportation time to a joint grievance committee pursuant to its collective-bargaining agreement with petitioners' employer. The joint committee rejected the claim without explanation. Petitioners then filed an action in Federal District Court, alleging that the pretrip safety inspection and transportation time was compensable under § 6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and that they were therefore entitled to the statutory remedy of actual and liquidated damages, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees. They also alleged that respondent union had breached its duty of fair representation, and sought to have the joint grievance committee's decision set aside and to have proper compensation awarded under the collective-bargaining agreement. The District Court addressed only the fair-representation claim and rejected it. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and also held that the District Court was correct in not addressing the FLSA claim, concluding that petitioners' voluntary submission of their grievances to arbitration barred them from asserting their statutory wage claims in the subsequent court action.
The issue in this case is whether an employee may bring an action in federal district court, alleging a violation of the minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., after having unsuccessfully submitted a wage claim based on the same underlying facts to a joint grievance committee pursuant to the provisions of his union's collective-bargaining agreement.
* Petitioner truckdrivers are employed at the Little Rock terminal of respondent Arkansas-Best Freight Systems, Inc., an interstate motor carrier of freight. In accordance with federal regulations and Arkansas-Best's employment practices, petitioners are required to conduct a safety inspection of their trucks before commencing any trip, and to transport any truck failing such inspection to Arkansas-Best's on-premises repair facility. See 49 CFR §§ 392.7, 392.8 (1980). Petitioners are not compensated by their employer for the time spent complying with these requirements.
They alleged that Art. 50 of the collective-bargaining agreement, which requires Arkansas-Best to compensate its drivers "for all time spent in its service,"
entitled them to compensation for the pre-trip inspection and transportation time.
and that they were accordingly entitled to the statutory remedy of actual and liquidated damages, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees.
The District Court addressed only the fair representation claim. While it conceded that "the evidence seems . . . rather to predominate in favor of the finding that there was a side agreement" as petitioners alleged, it found that the existence of such an agreement did not in itself give rise to a breach of the union's duty of fair representation, because the labor laws permit "parties by their own actions . . . to fill in the gaps that always arise with a written instrument when you apply that instrument to a multiplicity of situations and practices." App. to Pet. for Cert. 8a, 9a. This ruling was affirmed by a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 615 F.2d 1194, 1202 (1980), and is not challenged here.
The national policy favoring collective bargaining and industrial self-government was first expressed in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq. (the Wagner Act). It received further expression and definition in the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U.S.C. 141 et seq. (the Taft-Hartley Act). Predicated on the assumption that individual workers have little, if any, bargaining power, and that "by pooling their economic strength and acting through a labor organization freely chosen by the majority, the employees of an appropriate unit have the most effective means of bargaining for improvements in wages, hours, and working conditions," NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 175, 180, 87 S.Ct. 2001, 2006, 18 L.Ed.2d 1123 (1967), these statutes reflect Congress' determination that to improve the economic well-being of workers, and thus to promote industrial peace, the interests of some employees in a bargaining unit may have to be subordinated to the collective interests of a majority of their co-workers. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 182, 87 S.Ct. 903, 912, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967); 29 U.S.C. 159(a). The rights established through this system of majority rule are thus
"protected not for their own sake but an an instrument of the national labor policy of minimizing industrial strife 'by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.' 29 U.S.C. 151." Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Org., 420 U.S. 50, 62, 95 S.Ct. 977, 984, 43 L.Ed.2d 12 (1975).
Thus, courts ordinarily defer to collectively bargained-dispute resolution procedures when the parties' dispute arises out of the collective-bargaining process. See, e. g., Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U.S. 554, 562-563, 96 S.Ct. 1048, 1055-1056, 47 L.Ed.2d 231 (1976); Gateway Coal Co. v. Mine Workers, 414 U.S. 368, 377-380, 94 S.Ct. 629, 636-638, 38 L.Ed.2d 583 (1974); Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U.S. 650, 652-653, 85 S.Ct. 614, 616-617, 13 L.Ed.2d 580 (1965); Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 596, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 1360, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960); Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 577-578, 582-583, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1352-1353, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960); Steelworkers v. American Manufacturing Co., 363 U.S. 564, 566, 568, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 1345, 1346, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1960); Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 458-459, 77 S.Ct. 923, 922, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957).
This Court reversed, concluding that an employee's statutory right to a trial de novo under Title VII is not foreclosed by the prior submission of his discrimination claim to final arbitration under a collective-bargaining agreement. The Court found that in enacting Title VII, Congress had granted individual employees a nonwaivable, public law right to equal employment opportunities that was separate and distinct from the rights created through the "majoritarian processes" of collective bargaining. Id., at 51, 94 S.Ct., at 1021. Moreover, because Congress had granted aggrieved employees access to the courts, and because contractual grievance and arbitration procedures provided an inadequate forum for enforcement of Title VII rights, the Court concluded that Title VII claims should be resolved by the courts de novo.
Respondents would distinguish Gardner-Denver on the ground that because petitioners' FLSA claim is based on a dispute over wages and hours, subjects at the heart of the collective-bargaining process, their claim is particularly well suited to resolution through collectively bargained grievance and arbitration procedures. But this contention misperceives the nature of petitioners' FLSA claim.
The principal congressional purpose in enacting the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was to protect all covered workers from substandard wages and oppressive working hours, "labor conditions that are detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being of workers." 29 U.S.C. 202(a).
In contrast to the Labor Management Relations Act, which was designed to minimize industrial strife and to improve working conditions by encouraging employees to promote their interests collectively, the FLSA was designed to give specific minimum protections to individual workers and to ensure that each employee covered by the Act would receive " 'a fair day's pay for a fair day's work' " and would be protected from "the evil of 'overwork' as well as 'underpay.' " Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, 316 U.S. 572, 578, 62 S.Ct. 1216, 1220, 86 L.Ed. 1682 (1942), quoting 81 Cong.Rec. 4983 (1937) (message of President Roosevelt).
The statutory enforcement scheme grants individual employees broad access to the courts. Section 16(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. 216(b), which contains the principal enforcement provisions, permits an aggrieved employee to bring his statutory wage and hour claim "in any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction." No exhaustion requirement or other procedural barriers are set up, and no other forum for enforcement of statutory rights is referred to or created by the statute.
This Court's decisions interpreting the FLSA have frequently emphasized the nonwaivable nature of an individual employee's right to a minimum wage and to overtime pay under the Act. Thus, we have held that FLSA rights cannot be abridged by contract or otherwise waived because this would "nullify the purposes" of the statute and thwart the legislative policies it was designed to effectuate. Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 707, 65 S.Ct. 895, 902, 89 L.Ed. 1296 (1945); see D. A. Schulte, Inc. v. Gangi, 328 U.S. 108, 114-116, 66 S.Ct. 925, 928, 929, 90 L.Ed. 1114 (1946); Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, Inc., 323 U.S. 37, 42, 65 S.Ct. 11, 14, 89 L.Ed. 29 (1944); Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, supra, at 577, 62 S.Ct., at 1219; see 29 CFR § 785.8 (1974).
Moreover, we have held that congressionally granted FLSA rights take precedence over conflicting provisions in a collectively bargained compensation arrangement. See, e. g., Martino v. Michigan Window Cleaning Co., 327 U.S. 173, 177-178, 66 S.Ct. 379, 381-382, 90 L.Ed. 603 (1946); Walling v. Harnischfeger Corp., 325 U.S. 427, 430-432, 65 S.Ct. 1246, 1248-1249, 89 L.Ed. 1711 (1945); Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. Mine Workers, 325 U.S. 161, 166-167, 170, 65 S.Ct. 1063, 1066-1068, 89 L.Ed. 1534 (1945).
As we stated in Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590, 602-603, 64 S.Ct. 698, 705-706, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944) (footnote omitted):
"The Fair Labor Standards Act was not designed to codify or perpetuate industry customs and contracts. . . . Congress intended, instead, to achieve a uniform national policy of guaranteeing compensation for all work or employment engaged in by employees covered by the Act. Any custom or contract falling short of that basic policy, like an agreement to pay less than the minimum wage requirements, cannot be utilized to deprive employees of their statutory rights."
There are two reasons why an employee's right to a minimum wage and overtime pay under the FLSA might be lost if submission of his wage claim to arbitration precluded him from later bringing an FLSA suit in federal court. First, even if the employee's claim were meritorious, his union might, without breaching its duty of fair representation, reasonably and in good faith decide not to support the claim vigorously in arbitration. Wage and hour disputes that are subject to arbitration under a collective-bargaining agreement are invariably processed by unions rather than by individual employees. Since a union's objective is to maximize overall compensation of its members, not to ensure that each employee receives the best compensation deal available, cf.Gardner-Denver, 415 U.S., at 58, n. 19, 94 S.Ct., at 1024, n. 19, a union balancing individual and collective interests might validly permit some employees' statutorily granted wage and hour benefits to be sacrificed if an alternative expenditure of resources would result in increased benefits for workers in the bargaining unit as a whole.
Second, even when the union has fairly and fully presented the employee's wage claim, the employee's statutory rights might still not be adequately protected. Because the "specialized competence of arbitrators pertains primarily to the law of the shop, not the law of the land," id., at 57, 94 S.Ct., at 1024; see Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S., at 581-582, 80 S.Ct., at 1352-1353, many arbitrators may not be conversant with the public law considerations underlying the FLSA.
FLSA claims typically involve complex mixed questions of fact and lawe. g., what constitutes the "regular rate," the "workweek," or "principal" rather than "preliminary or postliminary" activities. These statutory questions must be resolved in light of volumes of legislative history and over four decades of legal interpretation and administrative rulings. Although an arbitrator may be competent to resolve many preliminary factual questions, such as whether the employee "punched in" when he said he did, he may lack the competence to decide the ultimate legal issue whether an employee's right to a minimum wage or to overtime pay under the statute has been violated.
"if an arbitral decision is based 'solely upon the arbitrator's view of the requirements of enacted legislation,' rather than on an interpretation of the collective-bargaining agreement, the arbitrator has 'exceeded the scope of the submission,' and the award will not be enforced." Ibid., quoting Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S., at 597, 80 S.Ct., at 1361.
Because the arbitrator is required to effectuate the intent of the parties, rather than to enforce the statute, he may issue a ruling that is inimical to the public policies underlying the FLSA, thus depriving an employee of protected statutory rights.
Finally, not only are arbitral procedures less protective of individual statutory rights than are judicial procedures, see Gardner-Denver, supra, at 57-58, 94 S.Ct., at 1024-1025, but arbitrators very often are powerless to grant the aggrieved employees as broad a range of relief. Under the FLSA, courts can award actual and liquidated damages, reasonable attorney's fees, and costs. 29 U.S.C. 216(b). An arbitrator, by contrast, can award only that compensation authorized by the wage provision of the collective-bargaining agreement. He "is confined to interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement" and his "award is legitimate only so long as it draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement." Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., supra, at 597, 80 S.Ct., at 1361. It is most unlikely that he will be authorized to award liquidated damages, costs, or attorney's fees.
"In submitting his grievance to arbitration, an employee seeks to vindicate his contractual right under a collective-bargaining agreement. By contrast, in filing a lawsuit under the statute, an employee asserts independent statutory rights accorded by Congress. The distinctly separate nature of these contractual and statutory rights is not vitiated merely because both were violated as a result of the same factual occurrence. And certainly no inconsistency results from permitting both rights to be enforced in their respectively appropriate forums." 415 U.S., at 49-50, 94 S.Ct., at 1020-1021.
The Court today movesrather blithely, so it seems to me, and unnecessarilyin a direction counter to the needs and interests of workers and employers and contrary to the interests of the judicial system. It does so on the theory that this result advances congressional policy, but careful analysis reveals that Congress, if anything, has mandated the contrary. With funds appropriated by Congress, the Executive Branch, through the Department of Justice, and the Judicial Branch have undertaken studies and pilot programs to remove just such routine and relatively modest-sized claims as this from the courts. Today, the Court moves in precisely the opposite direction, ignoring the objectives of Congress, the agreement of the parties, and the common sense of the situation. It moves toward making federal courts small claims courts contrary to the constitutional concept of these courts as having special and limited jurisdiction.
* I agree, of course, that the congressionally created right of individual workers to a minimum wage under § 6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 206, may not be waived through a collective-bargaining agreement between an employer and the workers' union or through a direct agreement between an individual worker and the employer. Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 707, 65 S.Ct. 895, 902, 89 L.Ed. 1296 (1945). I also agree that the Act creates a private cause of action to vindicate the right to a minimum wage. Fair Labor Standards Act § 16, 29 U.S.C. 216. But it is a differentindeed, a totally different proposition to say that employees and employers may not agree to a means of enforcing the employees' routine wage claims outside the costly, cumbersome judicial process of the federal courts and, specifically, that employees, acting through their union in an arm's-length negotiation with the employer, may not bind themselvesas the petitioners did hereto submit to final and binding arbitration "any controversy that might arise." App. 24, rather than resolve it through litigation in the federal courts. The existence of a right and the provision of a judicial forum do not necessarily make either nonwaivable; if that were so, all the holdings of this Court and countless decisions of federal and state courts that parties are bound by contracts to arbitrate are placed in doubt. "The question of whether the statutory right may be waived depends upon the intention of Congress as manifested in the particular statute." Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, supra, at 705, 65 S.Ct., at 901.
Unfortunately, neither the parties nor the United States as amicus curiae can point to a clear answer to this question in the legislative history of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is hornbook law, however, that there is a strong congressional policy favoring grievance procedures and arbitration as a method of resolving labor disputes. See Labor Management Relations Act, §§ 201(b), 203(d), 29 U.S.C. 171(b), 173(d); Norris-LaGuardia Act, § 8, 29 U.S.C. 108. This Court has acknowledged that policy in the past. See, e. g., Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 578, and n. 4, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1350, and n. 4, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960); Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 596, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 1360, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960); Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 458-459, 77 S.Ct. 923, 918-919, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957). The Court today pays lipservice to that congressional policy, ante, at 734-736, but thenparadoxicallyignores it.
The policy of favoring extrajudicial methods of resolving disputes is reflected in other areas as well. With federal courts flooded by litigation increasing in volume, in length, and in a variety of novel forms,
the National Institute of Justice, under the leadership of Attorney General Griffin Bell, in 1979 launched a multimillion-dollar program of field studies to test whether mediation at a neighborhood level could resolve small disputes out of courts in a fashion satisfactory to the parties. Neighborhood Justice Centers Field Test: Final Evaluation Report 7-8 (1980). The results of this studyand other similar studies financed by private sources
confirmed what many had long suspected: small disputes may be resolved more swiftly and to the satisfaction of the parties without employing the cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive processes of litigation.
The National Institute of Justice recommended further study and implementation of similar procedures. Neighborhood Justice Centers Field Test, supra, at 108-109. Congress itself has recognized this problem and authorized such studies. Dispute Resolution Act, 94 Stat. 17.
By rejecting binding arbitration for resolution of this relatively simple wage claim arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Court thereby rejects as well a policy Congress has followed for at least half a century throughout the field of labor relations and now being applied in other areas as well. To reach that strange result, the Court relies on our holding in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974). But that case in no sense compels today's holding. The congressionally created right under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., was aimed at guaranteeing a workplace free from discrimination, racial and otherwise. That fundamental right is not and should not be subject to waiver by a collective-bargaining agreement negotiated by a union. But there obviously is a vast difference between resolving allegations of discrimination under the Civil Rights Act and settling a relatively typical and simple wage dispute such as we have here when the parties have expressly agreed to resolve such grievances by arbitration.
The long history of union discrimination against minorities and women, now happily receding,
led Congress to forbid discrimination by unions as well as employers. See 42 U.S.C. 2003e-2(c). Against a background of union discrimination, Congress was aware that, in the context of claims under the Civil Rights Act, unions sometimes had been the adversary of workers. Plainly, it would not comport with the congressional objectives behind a statute seeking to enforce civil rights protected by Title VII to allow the very forces that had practiced discrimination to contract away the right to enforce civil rights in the courts. For federal courts to defer to arbitral decisions reached by the same combination of forces that had long perpetuated invidious discrimination would have made the foxes guardians of the chickens. But this case is not a discrimination case.
A dispute over wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act arises in an entirely different historical and legal context. In that setting, the union and the employee are the traditional allies, united in enforcing wage claims of employees individually as well as collectively. The Court distorts the possibility that union leadership might fail to protect members' interests in a wage dispute. Ante, at 742. If this rare exception arose, protection of the employee is abundantly available by way of the cause of action for breach of the union's duty of fair representation. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967).
This elementary wage dispute falls well within the scope of traditional arbitration as it exists under countless collective-bargaining agreements, which the Court now channels into the federal courts. For years the labor movement has developed panels of persons acceptable to both sides who are familiar with "the law of the shop . . . and the demands and norms of industrial relations." Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., supra, 415 U.S., at 57, 94 S.Ct., at 1024. The Court's generalizations about the powers of arbitrators, ante, at 744-745, are irrelevant; arbitrators have whatever power the parties confer upon them. Here, that power extends to "any controversy that might arise," App. 24 (emphasis added). Surely a wage claim is covered.
Allowing one party to such an elementary industrial dispute unilaterally to resort to the federal courts when an established, simplified, less costly procedure is availableand desired, as here, by the employer and the employee's unioncan only increase costs and consume judicial time unnecessarily. It makes neither good sense nor sound law to read the broad language of Gardner-Denverwritten in a civil rights discrimination caseto govern a routine wage dispute over a matter traditionally entrusted by the parties' arm's-length bargaining to binding arbitration.
Petitioners principally relied upon § 6(a) of the FLSA, 52 Stat. 1062, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 206(a), which provides:
Alternatively, they relied upon § 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 amendments to the FLSA, 61 Stat. 86, 29 U.S.C. 254, which provides:
"(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) of this section which relieve an employer from liability and punishment with respect to an activity, the employer shall not be so relieved if such activity is compensable by either
Section 16(b) of the Act, 52 Stat. 1069, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 216(b), provides:
As an alternative ground in support of affirmance, respondents assert that petitioners' claims should be barred because petitioners failed to comply with 29 U.S.C. 216(b), which provides:
Cf. U. S. Bulk Carriers, Inc. v. Arguelles, 400 U.S. 351, 357, 91 S.Ct. 409, 412, 27 L.Ed.2d 456 (1971) (seaman may assert wage claim in federal court under the Seaman's Wage Act, 46 U.S.C. 596, even though he had not previously pursued arbitral remedies provided by contractual grievance procedures); McKinney v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., 357 U.S. 265, 268-270, 78 S.Ct. 1222, 1224, 1225, 2 L.Ed.2d 1305 (1958) (employee returning from military service need not pursue grievance and arbitration procedure prior to asserting seniority rights in federal court under Universal Military Training and Service Act).
There are three components to petitioners' FLSA claim. First, they contend that the pre-trip inspection and transportation time is compensable under § 6 of the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. 206, because it constitutes "principal" rather than "preliminary" activity under § 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U.S.C. 254. See Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247, 76 S.Ct. 330, 100 L.Ed. 267 (1956). Second, they contend that even if it is preliminary activity, it is compensable under § 4(b)(1) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U.S.C. 254(b)(1), because it constitutes "time spent in the service of the Employer" under Art. 50 of the collective-bargaining agreement. Third, they contend that even if it is preliminary activity, and even if it is not compensable under "an express provision of a written [collective bargaining agreement]," 29 U.S.C. 254(b)(1), it is compensable under § 4(b)(2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U.S.C. 254(b)(2), because there is "a custom or practice in effect" between Arkansas-Best and drivers in other terminals whereby those drivers are compensated for their pretrip inspection and transportation time.
The threshold question in this action, then, is whether petitioners were engaged in "activities which are preliminary to [their] principal activity," 29 U.S.C. 254(a)(2), when they conducted the pretrip safety inspections of their vehicles. Resolution of that question requires inquiry into whether the inspection and transportation procedures "are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for which [petitioners] are employed." Steiner v. Mitchell, supra, at 256, 76 S.Ct., at 335 (changing clothes and showering are "principal" activities of employees working with dangerously caustic and toxic materials); see Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U.S. 260, 263, 76 S.Ct. 337, 339, 100 L.Ed. 282 (1956) (knife sharpening is "principal" activity of butchers in meatpacking plant); 29 CFR §§ 790.7, 790.8 (1980). For the reasons that follow, we conclude that this is a question of statutory construction that must be resolved by the courts.
Congress enacted the FLSA under its commerce power, having found that the existence of such "detrimental" labor conditions would endanger national health and efficiency and consequently would interfere with the free movement of goods in interstate commerce. See United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 109-110, 61 S.Ct. 451, 454-455, 85 L.Ed. 609 (1941); 29 U.S.C. 202(a).
In mandatory language, Congress provided in § 6(a) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. 206(a), that "[e]very employer shall pay to each of his employees . . . wages at the following rates. . . ." It provided in § 7(a)(2) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(2), that "no employer shall employ any of his employees . . . for a workweek longer than forty hours . . . unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed."
To encourage employees to enforce their FLSA rights in court, and thus to further the public policies underlying the FLSA, see Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 709, 65 S.Ct. 895, 903, 89 L.Ed. 1296 (1945), Congress has permitted individual employees to sue for back wages and liquidated damages and to receive reasonable attorney's fees and costs. 29 U.S.C. 216(b). In addition, Congress has empowered the Secretary of Labor to bring judicial enforcement actions under the Act. 29 U.S.C. 216(c), 217.
But see 29 U.S.C. 216(c).
It is true that the FLSA, as amended, includes a number of references to collective-bargaining agreements. See Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscode Local No. 123, 321 U.S., at 602, n. 18, 64 S.Ct., at 705, n. 18. Sections 7(b)(1) and (2) of the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. 207(b)(1) and (2), state that an employer need not pay overtime under the Act for an employee's performance of work in excess of the statutory maximum, if the employee is employed "in pursuance of an agreement [containing alternative maximum hours provisions] made as a result of collective bargaining by representatives of employees certified as bona fide by the National Labor Relations Board." Section 3(o) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U.S.C. 203(o), excludes from the definition of "hours worked" under §§ 6 and 7 of the FLSA, "any time spent in changing clothes or washing at the beginning or end of each workday" if that time was noncompensable "under a bona fide collective-bargaining agreement." And § 4(a)(2) of that Act, 29 U.S.C. 254(a)(2), which excludes from compensable time "preliminary" or "postliminary" working activities, requires compensation under the minimum wage provisions if a collective-bargaining agreement in effect between the employer and the employee's union makes that time compensable. See also 29 U.S.C. 207(e)(7), (f). Where plaintiff's claim depends upon application of one of these exceptions, we assume without deciding that a court should defer to a prior arbitral decision construing the relevant provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement. In this case, however, petitioners' threshold claim does not depend upon application of any of those exceptions. The contention that petitioners were engaged in compensable "principal" activity when conducting the pretrip safety inspections is a claim that arises wholly independently of the collective-bargaining agreement. Accordingly, deference to the prior arbitral decision in this case would be inappropriate. See n. 13, supra.
Of 3,947 "cases"i. e., mattersvoluntarily referred to these centers in the three study cities (Atlanta, Kansas City, and Los Angeles), 45% were resolved in some form, either through a hearing or simply by placing the parties in contact with each other. Neighborhood Justice Centers Field Test: Final Evaluation Report 26 (1980). Resolution came within a matter of days or weeks. Ibid. Interviews were conducted with one or both disputants in 63% of the mediated cases six months later. For both complainants and respondents, 88% were satisfied with the experience; 80% of complainants and 83% of respondents were satisfied with the agreement reached. In addition, over two-thirds felt that the adverse party had kept the bargain, and fewer than 30% felt that additional problems had arisen. Id., at 45-50.