Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/426/407/case.php
Timestamp: 2019-10-14 18:34:39
Document Index: 370470680

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 158', '§ 164', '§ 8', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 8', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 152', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 158', '§ 8', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 2', 'art, 253', '§ 563', '§ 152']

OIL WORKERS V. MOBIL OIL CORP., 426 U. S. 407 (1976) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 426 > OIL WORKERS V. MOBIL OIL CORP., 426 U. S. 407 (1976)
OIL WORKERS V. MOBIL OIL CORP., 426 U. S. 407 (1976)
Subscribe to Cases that cite 426 U. S. 407
(a) Insofar as § 8(a)(3) deals with union and agency shop agreements, it focuses both in effect and purpose on post-hiring conditions, conditions that have a major impact on the job situs. Pp. 426 U. S. 414-416. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
MARSHALL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, WHITE, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a concurring statement, post, p. 426 U. S. 421. BURGER, C.J.,concurred in the judgment. POWELL, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 426 U. S. 421. STEWART, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p. 426 U. S. 422. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3), permits employers, as a matter of federal law, to enter into agreements with unions to establish union or agency shops. [Footnote 1] Section 14(b) of the Act, 61 Stat. 151, 29 U.S.C. § 164(b), however, allows individual States and Territories to exempt themselves from § 8(a)(3) and to enact so-called "right-to-work" laws prohibiting union or agency shops. [Footnote 2] We must decide chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Uncontested evidence was presented at trial concerning the relevant locations of various aspects of the relationship chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
between the Union, the respondent, and the seamen. Because this evidence bears heavily on the contentions of the parties, we shall summarize it in some detail. Respondent is a division of Mobil Oil Corp., a New York corporation, and operates a fleet of eight oceangoing tankers which transport respondent's petroleum products from Texas to Atlantic coast ports. Respondent is headquartered in Beaumont, Tex., and maintains its personnel records there. Sixty percent of the applications to be unlicensed seamen on respondent's ships are made in Beaumont, and 40% in New York. The final hiring decisions are made in Beaumont. Of the 289 unlicensed seamen who are employed to man the tankers, 123 maintain residence in Texas, and 60 in New York. [Footnote 5] One hundred and fifty-two of the seamen list Beaumont as their shipping port -- a designation that determines travel allowances to and from a seaman's residence -- and the remainder list either New York or Providence, R.I. Seamen can elect to be paid their wages aboard ship, to have their paychecks sent from the Beaumont office to designated recipients, or to use a combination of these two schemes. The collective bargaining agreement whose agency shop provision is at issue here was negotiated and executed in New York. It was reexecuted in Texas.
Based on the above evidence, fully reflected in its chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
All parties are agreed that the central inquiry in this case is whether § 14(b) permits the application of Texas' right-to-work laws to the agency shop provision in the collective bargaining agreement between the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Union and respondent. [Footnote 6] Only if it is to be so read is the agency shop provision unenforceable. [Footnote 7] The parties are similarly agreed that a State can apply its right-to-work laws only with respect to employment relationships with which the State has adequate contact. The crux of the differences between the parties concerns whether the contacts between Texas and the employment relationship in this case are sufficient to come under § 14(b).
The Union, as well as the United States as amicus curiae, argues that the nature of the concerns at which § 14(b) is directed mandates that job situs be the controlling factor in determining the applicability of § 14(b), and that, since, in this case, the employees' principal job situs is on the high seas -- outside the territorial bounds of the State -- the agency shop provision at issue is valid. Respondent contends that "[t]he sufficiency of a state's interest in applying its law is to be determined by looking to the whole employment relationship." Brief for Respondent 15. Giving weight to all the contacts between Texas and the employment relationship, see supra at 426 U. S. 410-411, respondent concludes that Texas can validly apply its right-to-work laws under chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
"Provided, That nothing in this subchapter or in any other statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with
Like its decision to ban closed-shop agreements, Congress' decision in § 8(a)(3) to provide these safeguards reflects a concern with compulsory unionism. But, in stark contrast to closed-shop agreements, these safeguards and the agency or union shop agreements to which they apply are not focused on the hiring process. Rather, they are directed at conditions that must be fulfilled by an employee only after he is already hired, at least 30 days after he is already working at the jobsite. [Footnote 9] Moreover, quite apart from the safeguards that it chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
While § 8(a)(3) articulates a national policy that certain union security agreements are valid as a matter of federal law, § 14(b) reflects Congress' decision that any chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
State or Territory that wishes to may exempt itself from that policy. Section 14(b) allows a State or Territory to ban agreements "requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment." [Footnote 10] We have recognized that, with respect to those state laws which § 14(b) permits to be exempted from § 8(a)(3)'s national policy,
The centrality of job situs to Congress' concern in § 14(b) is also suggested by the House Committee Report on the bill that contained the substance of what was chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Two practical considerations bolster our conclusion that the employees' predominant job situs should determine the applicability of a State's right-to-work laws under § 14(b). First, the use of a job situs test will minimize the possibility of patently anomalous extraterritorial applications of any given State's right-to-work laws. Use of a job situs test will insure that the laws of a State with a continuing and current relationship chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
with the employees in question will govern the validity vel non of any union shop or agency shop provision. On the other hand, if place of hiring were to be the determinative factor, Texas, for instance, could apply its right-to-work laws to employees who work solely in Connecticut simply because the relevant hiring decisions were made -- perhaps many years ago -- in Texas. We cannot believe that it was Congress' purpose in passing § 14(b) to sanction such a result.
A test, such as the one adopted by the Court of Appeals, that evaluates all of a jurisdiction's employment relationship contacts in order to determine the applicability of its right-to-work laws under § 14(b) might not result in irrational extraterritorial applications. But such a test does suffer the disadvantages of being both less predictable and more difficult of application than a job situs test. Under a job situs test, parties entering a collective bargaining agreement will easily be able to determine in virtually all situations whether a union or agency shop provision is valid. By contrast, bargaining parties would often be left in a state of considerable uncertainty if they were forced to identify and evaluate all the relevant contacts of a jurisdiction in order to determine the potential validity of a proposed union security provision. The unpredictability that such a test would inject into the bargaining relationship, as well as the burdens of litigation that would result from it, make us unwilling to impute to Congress any intent to adopt such a test. [Footnote 11] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Having concluded that predominant job situs is the controlling factor in determining whether, under § 14(b), a State can apply its right-to-work laws to a given employment relationship, the disposition of this case is clear. Because most of the employees' work is done on the high seas, outside the territorial bounds of the State of Texas, Texas' right-to-work laws cannot govern the validity of the agency shop provision at issue here. It is immaterial that Texas may have more contacts than any other State with the employment relationship in this case, since there is no reason to conclude under § 14(b) that, in every employment situation, some State or Territory's law with respect to union security agreements must be applicable. [Footnote 12] Federal policy favors permitting such agreements unless a State or Territory with a sufficient interest in the relationship expresses a contrary policy via right-to-work laws. It is therefore fully consistent with national labor policy to conclude, if the predominant job situs is outside the boundary of any State, that no State chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
504 F.2d 272, 280-281 (1974). It further observed, pointing to the 1951 amendment to the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 152 Eleventh, that, "when Congress has decided to supersede section 14(b) and state right to work laws, it has done so expressly." 504 F.2d 281. In applying a job situs test to this case, we create no "exemption" from § 14(b) for the maritime industry. Under this test, a State can still apply its right-to-work laws to maritime workers, such as longshoremen, whose job situs is within the State. Moreover, the Railway Labor Act amendments are simply irrelevant to this case. The issue that we decide here is not whether § 14(b) has been superseded, but rather whether it applies in the first instance.
The petitioner Maritime Local 8-801 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union represents the 289 blue-water seamen who man the tankers. When this lawsuit began, 123 of these 289 employees claimed Texas as their residence, [Footnote 2/1] and 152 of them had requested chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The District Court, agreeing with Mobil that Texas was more intimately involved with the employment relationship than any other State, held that Texas' right-to-work laws applied to the agreement. It accordingly declared the agency shop provision invalid and unenforceable. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit initially reversed this judgment, 483 F.2d 603 (1973), but, on rehearing en banc, that court affirmed chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Sections 8(a)(3) and 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(3) and 164(b), delineate the federal interest in union security arrangements. The first proviso of Section 8(a)(3) [Footnote 2/3] says chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
These provisions modified § 8(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452, which permitted not only union shops, but closed shops, as well. See NLRB v. General Motors Corp., supra at 373 U. S. 739-740; S.Rep. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1947); H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 41 (1947). Section 8(a)(3) was designed to curb the abuses of compulsory unionism, which "create[d] too great a barrier to free employment," S.Rep. No. 105, supra at 6, but, at the same time, to continue to afford unions a measure of security by enabling them to prevent "free riders." Id. at 7. As the Court stated in the General Motors case, supra at 373 U. S. 740-741:
It is undisputed that Texas law forbids union shop agreements. [Footnote 2/4] The issue presented by this case, then, is whether this Texas law may extend to bar the security provision contained in the collective bargaining agreement between the petitioners and the respondent. The petitioners contend that the applicability of state right-to-work laws depends upon where the work is to be performed. They conclude that, because the employees in question perform 80% to 90% of their work on the high seas, the federal policy "favoring" union shop provisions should prevail. [Footnote 2/5] The Government, as amicus curiae, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The language of § 14(b) provides no clear guidance for determining whose law should prevail in a multi-jurisdictional situation. Section 14(b) does prescribe a threshold: in order to apply its right-to-work laws, a State must be the place of "execution" or "application" of the union security agreement. "Execution" and "application" are, however, broadly inclusive nouns. It is hardly conceivable that a State would wish to enforce its right-to-work laws unless the collective bargaining agreement was in some sense either executed or applied in the State. Yet clearly each of a number of States in a multistate situation could plausibly argue that it is the situs of "application" or "execution." The State chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The specific legislative history of § 14(b) is of no greater aid in resolving the dilemma. [Footnote 2/6] Congress simply did not address the choice of law problems that would inevitably arise in multistate workforce situations. We are, however, not entirely without signposts. When Congress legislated with respect to union security agreements in 1947, it did not write on a clean slate, for few issues in American labor history had been as controverted as the moral legitimacy, and, indeed, the legality, of union security agreements. It is unnecessary for the purpose of this case to review the history of that long controversy. [Footnote 2/7] It is sufficient only to realize that Congress chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In the light of these purposes, I agree with the District Court and the Court of Appeals that the laws of Texas govern the union security agreement in this case. It is true that a number of States might legitimately assert an interest in the hiring process. The State where the employees reside, the State where the conditions of employment were negotiated, and the State where the hiring decision actually took place all have their claims. I believe, however, that the State where chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
the hiring actually takes place is, so far as the issue now before us goes, the most relevant jurisdiction for choice of law purposes, and that State, in this case, is Texas. [Footnote 2/9]
Against this analysis, both the Government, as amicus, and the petitioners contend that job situs should be the determining factor in applying right-to-work laws. The parties do not explain, however, what the relevance of job situs is to laws that concern themselves exclusively chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
with the hiring process. Cf. A. Von Mehren & D. Trautman, The Law of Multistate Problems 779, 102-105 (1965). Indeed, the place where work is actually performed is probably the least relevant factor in the entire employment relationship for resolving conflicts over the legality of union security agreements. It is undeniable, as the petitioners point out, that the job situs is where most of the day-to-day contact between employer and employees occurs. But right-to-work laws do not reflect a concern with job safety, or work rules, or hours of employment, or grievance procedures, or other similar conditions of employment with which the jurisdiction where the work actually takes place is legitimately concerned. [Footnote 2/10] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The petitioners suggest alternative and somewhat inconsistent theories to justify the intrusion of "federal law" into this case. The first is that the high seas are, like the District of Columbia, a federal territory over which Congress exercises exclusive, preemptive jurisdiction. [Footnote 2/11] This theory is untenable. Congress undoubtedly has power under the Admiralty Clause, Art. III, § 2, to chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
preempt the entire field of maritime law. E.g., Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U. S. 375, 264 U. S. 386 (1924); Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149, 253 U. S. 160 (1920); see G. Gilmore & C. Black, The Law of Admiralty 4547 (1975); Currie, Federalism and the Admiralty: "The Devil's Own Mess," 1960 Sup.Ct.Rev. 158, 158-165. It has exercised this power liberally to regulate, for example, various aspects of maritime employment. See 46 U.S.C. §§ 563-568. Nevertheless, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter stated for the Court in Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U. S. 354, 358 U. S. 373 (1959):
It is unnecessary here to delineate the "wide scope" within which the States may legislate about things maritime. To refute the notion that the high seas are a species of federal enclave, it is sufficient to point out that the Court has found state legislation preempted only when the nature of the problem required the application of a uniform rule or when the state law unduly hampered maritime commerce. See, e.g., Askew v. American Waterways Operators, Inc., 411 U. S. 325, 411 U. S. 337-344 (1973); Kossick v. United Fruit Co., 365 U. S. 731, 365 U. S. 738-739 (1961); Huron Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 362 U. S. 444 (1960). The Court has never struck chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
When Congress has in the past determined that the nature of an interstate industry requires application of a uniform rule to govern union security agreements, it has not hesitated to act. For example, before 1951, the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 152 Fifth, prohibited the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is conceded that these state laws prohibit an agency shop agreement of the kind here involved. See 426 U. S. 4, infra.
"(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization: Provided, That nothing in this subchapter, or in any other statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization (not established, maintained, or assisted by any action defined in this subsection as an unfair labor practice) to require as a condition of employment membership therein on or after the thirtieth day following the beginning of such employment or the effective date of such agreement, whichever is the later, (i) if such labor organization is the representative of the employees as provided in section 159(a) of this title, in the appropriate collective bargaining unit covered by such agreement when made; and (ii) unless following an election held as provided in section 159(e) of this title within one year preceding the effective date of such agreement, the Board shall have certified that at least a majority of the employees eligible to vote in such election have voted to rescind the authority of such labor organization to make such an agreement: Provided further, That no employer shall justify any discrimination against an employee for nonmembership in a labor organization (A) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that such membership was not available to the employee on the same terms and conditions generally applicable to other members, or (b) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership was denied or terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership. . . ."