Source: http://openjurist.org/489/us/426
Timestamp: 2015-09-04 03:56:05
Document Index: 746981077

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 6', '§ 156', '§ 152', '§ 155', '§ 151', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 158', '§ 152', '§ 157']

489 US 426 Trans World Airlines Inc v. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants | OpenJurist
489 U.S. 426 - Trans World Airlines Inc v. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants Home
489 US 426 Trans World Airlines Inc v. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants 489 U.S. 426
109 S.Ct. 1225
103 L.Ed.2d 456
TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., Petitionerv.INDEPENDENT FEDERATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS.
Although petitioner airline (TWA) and respondent flight attendants' union (IFFA) pursued all the required dispute resolution mechanisms of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), their negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement were unsuccessful. The parties bargained over wages and working conditions but not over the existing agreement's seniority system, which ensured that the most senior qualified attendant who bid on a vacant job assignment, flight schedule, or base of operation (domicile) would obtain it, and would be least affected by periodic furloughs. During the IFFA's subsequent strike, TWA continued operations by hiring permanent replacements for strikers, by continuing to employ attendants who chose not to strike, and by rehiring strikers who abandoned the strike, and filled strike-created vacancies by application f the existing seniority bidding system to all working attendants. After the strike ended, and pursuant to its preannounced policy, TWA refused to displace permanent replacements or junior nonstriking attendants ("crossover" employees) with senior full-term strikers, many of whom were therefore left without an opportunity to return to work. Although a poststrike arbitral agreement guaranteed that all reinstated full-term strikers would be returned to work as vacancies arose and with precisely the seniority they would have had if no strike had occurred, the IFFA filed the instant action contending that, even assuming the strike was economic, the full-term strikers were entitled to displace the newly hired replacements and the less senior crossover attendants either under the terms of the prestrike collective bargaining agreement or under the RLA itself. The District Court denied relief for the most part, but the Court of Appeals, relying on its reading of the prestrike agreement and on judicial interpretation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), reversed the lower court's ruling that the more senior full-term strikers could not displace junior crossovers.
(a) Nothing in the federal common labor law developed under the NLRA, which may provide guiding precedent in RLA cases, indicates that TWA's crossover policy is unlawful. In fact, under NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333, 58 S.Ct. 904, 82 L.Ed. 1381, and its progeny, it is not an unfair labor practice under the NLRA for an employer to refuse to discharge replacement employees in order to make room for strikers at the end of an economic strike. The IFFA's argument that the Mackay Radio rule is inapplicable to junior crossovers because those workers must be treated differently than newly hired permanent replacements (who, the union concedes, need not be displaced) is rejected, since full-term strikers at TWA, once reinstated, have lost no seniority either in absolute or relative terms, and will be able to displace junior flight attendants—whether new hires, crossovers, or full-term strikers—with regard to future reductions in force, vacancies in desirable assignments or domiciles, or periodic bids on job scheduling, and since any "cleavage" between junior crossovers and reinstated full-term strikers is merely the inevitable effect of TWA's lawful use of the economic weapons available to it during a period of self-help. NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U.S. 221, 83 S.Ct. 1139, 10 L.Ed.2d 308, distinguished. To differentiate between crossovers and new hires in the manner the IFFA proposes would have the effect of penalizing those who exercised their right not to strike, which is protected both by the RLA and the NLRA, in order to benefit those who did strike, a result that is not required by the NLRA. Pp. 432-439
(b) TWA's crossover policy is not forbidden by the RLA itself, which, in fact, provides greater avenues of self-help to parties that have exhausted the statute's extensive dispute resolution mechanisms than would be available under the NLRA. Section 2 Fourth of the RLA—which prohibits carriers from "influenc[ing] or coerc[ing] employees . . . not to join . . . any labor organization"—does not prohibit the policy, since that section is addressed primarily to the precertification rights of unorganized employees to organize and choose their representatives, with the intent of protecting the dispute resolution procedures' effectiveness by assuring that the employees' putative representative is not subject to employer control and that neither party will be able to enlist the courts to further its own partisan ends. Where, as here, the parties have exhausted those procedures and have reached an impasse, they are free, without threat of judicial involvement, to turn to any peaceful, self-help measures that do not strike a fundamental blow to union or employer activity and the collective bargaining process itself. Moreover, as the IFFA concedes, nothing in the collective bargaining agreement or any poststrike agreement prohibits TWA's crossover policy. Pp. 439-442
* In March 1984, Trans World Airlines, Inc. (TWA), and the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants (IFFA or Union) began negotiations pursuant to § 6 of the RLA, 45 U.S.C. § 156, on a new collective bargaining agreement to replace their prior agreement due to expire on July 31, 1984. The existing collective bargaining agreement created a complex system of bidding the general effect of which was to insure that those flight attendants with the greatest seniority would have the best opportunity to obtain their preferred job assignments, flight schedules, and bases of operation as vacancies appeared, and to insure that senior flight attendants would be least affected by the periodic furloughs endemic to the airline industry. Thus, for example, should a job vacancy appear at the highly desirable Los Angeles or San Francisco bases of operation or "domiciles," the most senior qualified flight attendant who bid on such a vacancy would be entitled to it. Conversely, should a reduction in force eliminate a position in the Los Angeles domicile, the furloughed flight attendant could opt to displace the most junior attendant of equal rank in the entire system or the most junior attendant of lower rank either at the same domicile or in the entire system. 1981-1984 TWA/IFFA Collective Bargaining Agreement, Arts. 12-13, 18-A, 18-B, reprinted in App. 31-62.
For two years TWA and the Union unsuccessfully bargained over wages and working conditions not including the seniority bidding system. They pursued all the required dispute resolution mechanisms of the RLA, including direct negotiation, 45 U.S.C. § 152 Second, mediation, 45 U.S.C. § 155 First, and the final 30-day "cooling off" period. Ibid. By early 1986 a strike seemed imminent, and on March 7, 1986, the Union went out on strike.
In an effort to reinstate all the full-term strikers by displacing the newly hired flight attendants and less senior crossover employees, the Union proceeded on two fronts. First, it brought an injunction action alleging that the full-term strikers were not "economic strikers" but "unfair labor practice strikers" entitled to reinstatement by application of principles this Court has developed in interpreting the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. See Mastro Plastics Corp. v. NLRB, 350 U.S. 270, 76 S.Ct. 349, 100 L.Ed. 309 (1956). The District Court ultimately ruled against the Union on this claim. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 682 F.Supp. 1003 (WD Mo.1988), appeal pending, No. 88-1984M (CA8). At the same time, the Union filed the instant action contending that, even assuming the strike was economic, the full-term strikers were entitled to reinstatement either under the terms of the prestrike collective bargaining agreement or under the RLA itself. On cross motions for partial summary judgment, the District Court held that the full-term strikers were not entitled to displace either the junior crossovers or the 1,220 new hires employed by TWA immediately after the strike commenced. (The motions did not require the District Court to rule on the status of the remaining new hires.) The District Court also held that 463 new hires not fully trained by the end of the strike could be displaced by full-term strikers. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 643 F.Supp. 470 (WD Mo.1986).
We first considered the reinstatement rights of strikers under the NLRA in NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333, 58 S.Ct. 904, 82 L.Ed. 1381 (1938). In Mackay Radio, radio and telegraph operators working in the San Francisco offices of a national telecommunications firm went on strike. In order to continue operations, the employer brought employees from its other offices to fill the strikers' places. At the conclusion of the strike, the striking operators sought to displace their replacements in order to return to work. We held that it was not an unfair labor practice under § 8 of the NLRA for the employer to have replaced the striking employees with others "in an effort to carry on the business," or to have refused to discharge the replacements in order to make room for the strikers at the conclusion of the strike. Id., at 345-346, 58 S.Ct., at 910-11. As we there observed, "[t]he assurance by [the employer] to those who accepted employment during the strike that if they so desired their places might be permanent was not an unfair labor practice nor was it such to reinstate only so many of the strikers as there were vacant places to be filled." Id., at 346, 58 S.Ct., at 911. On various o casions we have reaffirmed the holding of Mackay Radio. See NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U.S. 221, 232, 83 S.Ct. 1139, 1147, 10 L.Ed.2d 308 (1963) ("We have no intention of questioning the continuing vitality of the Mackay rule . . ."); NLRB v. Fleetwood Trailer Co., 389 U.S. 375, 379, 88 S.Ct. 543, 546, 19 L.Ed.2d 614 (1967) (Employers have " 'legitimate and substantial business justifications' for refusing to reinstate employees who engaged in an economic strike . . . when the jobs claimed by the strikers are occupied by workers hired as permanent replacements during the strike in order to continue operations"); Belknap, Inc. v. Hale, 463 U.S. 491, 504, n. 8, 103 S.Ct. 3172, 3180, n. 8, 77 L.Ed.2d 798 (1983) ("The refusal to fire permanent replacements because of commitments made to them in the course of an economic strike satisfies the requirement . . . that the employer have a 'legitimate and substantial justification' for its refusal to reinstate strikers").
TWA asks us to apply this line of cases decided under the NLRA to determine the status under the RLA of those prestrike flight attendants who were working at the conclusion of the strike. TWA argues that it would be completely anomalous to hold that full-term strikers may displace junior crossovers when, as the Union has conceded, they may not displace newly hired permanent replacements under either statute. The Union, by contrast, argues that the rule of Mackay Radio is inapplicable to junior crossovers because of differences between the RLA and the NLRA and because, even under the NLRA, junior crossovers would be treated differently from newly hired permanent replacements.1
The Union relies on Erie Resistor, supra, to distinguish junior crossovers from new hires under the NLRA. In Erie Resistor we struck down an employer's award of 20 years' superseniority to new hires and crossovers as an unfair labor practice within the meaning of § 8(a)(1) and § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA. 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(1), 158(a)(3). We observed:
". . . Unlike the replacement granted in Mackay which ceases to be an issue once the strike is over, the [superseniority] plan here creates a cleavage in the plant continuing long after the strike is ended. Employees are henceforth divided into two camps: those who stayed with the union and those who returned before the end of the strike and thereby gained extra seniority. This breach is reemphasized with each subsequent layoff and stands as an ever-present reminder of the dangers connected with striking and with union activities in general." 373 U.S., at 230-231, 83 S.Ct., at 1147.
Nevertheless, IFFA argues that TWA's refusal to displace junior crossovers will create a "cleavage" between junior crossovers and reinstated full-term strikers at TWA "long after the strike is ended." Id., at 231, 83 S.Ct., at 1147. This is the case because desirable job assignments and domiciles that would have been occupied by the most senior flight attendants had there been no strike will continue to be held by those who did not see the strike through to its conclusion. For example, the senior full-term striker who worked in the Los Angeles domicile before the strike may have been replaced by a junior crossover. As poststrike vacancies develop in TWA's work force, permitting reinstatement of full-term strikers, they are not likely to occur in the most desirable domiciles. Thus, it is unlikely that the senior full-term striker would be reinstated back to her preferred domicile. Resentful rifts among employees will also persist after the strike, the Union argues, because TWA's prestrike assurance of nondisplacement to junior crossovers, unlike the same assurance to new hires, "set up a competition among those individuals who participated in the original decision to strike, and thereby undermined the group's ability to take the collective action that it is the very purpose of the [RLA] to protect." Brief for Respondent 36-37.
We reject this effort to expand Erie Resistor. Both the RLA and the NLRA protect an employee's right to choose not to strike. 45 U.S.C. § 152 Fourth; 29 U.S.C. § 157, and, thereby, protect employees' rights to "the benefit of their individual decisions not to strike. . . ." Post, at 448, n. 4 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting).2 Accordingly, in virtually every strike situation there will be some employees who disagree with their union's decision to strike and who cannot be required to abide by that decision. It is the inevitable effect of an employer's use of the economic weapons available during a period of self-help that these differences will be exacerbated and that poststrike resentments may be created. Thus, for example, the employer's right to hire permanent replacements in order to continue operations will inevitably also have the effect of dividing striking employees between those who, fearful of permanently losing their jobs, return to work and those who remain stalwart in the strike. In such a situation, apart from the "pressure on the strikers as a group to abandon the strike," to which the dissent refers, post, at 439 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting), a "competition" may arise among the striking employees to return to work in order to avoid being displaced by a permanent replacement. Similarly, employee awareness that an employer may decide to transfer working employees to necessary positions previously occupied by more senior striking employees will isolate employees fearful of losing those positions and employees coveting those positions from employees more committed to the strike. Conversely, a policy such as TWA employed here, in creating the incentive for individual strikers to return to work, also "puts pressure on the strikers as a group to abandon the strike," ibid., in the same manner that the hiring of permanent replacements does.
To distinguish crossovers from new hires in the manner IFFA proposes would have the effect of penalizing those who decided not to strike in order to benefit those who did. Because permanent replacements need not be discharged at the conclusion of a strike in which the union has been unsuccessful, a certain number of prestrike employees will find themselves without work. We see no reason why those employees who chose not to gamble on the success of the strike should suffer the consequences when the gamble proves unsuccessful. Requiring junior crossovers, who cannot themselves displace the newly hired permanent replacements, and "who rank lowest in seniority," post, at 447 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting), to be