Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/321/342
Timestamp: 2014-04-24 23:42:36
Document Index: 318384421

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 153', '§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 156', '§ 3', '§ 153']

ORDER OF RAILROAD TELEGRAPHERS v. RAILWAY EXPRESS AGENCY, Inc. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews ORDER OF RAILROAD TELEGRAPHERS v. RAILWAY EXPRESS AGENCY, Inc.
321 U.S. 342 (64 S.Ct. 582, 88 L.Ed. 788)
Argued: Nov. 10, 1943.
[HTML] Mr. William G. McRae, of Atlanta, Ga., for petitioner.
In 1930, the Express Company began to handle new business consisting mainly of carload shipments of perishables which formerly had been handled by the railroad company as freight. The Express Company thought the change in volume and character of its shipments warranted an adjustment of rates of pay applicable to certain of the agencies where the shipments originated. The Railway Labor Act of 1926, then in effect, provided that carriers and representatives of employees should give at least thirty days written notice of an intended change affecting rates of pay, rules, or working conditions, and should agree upon time and place of conference.
The local chairman of the union protested and insisted that collective bargaining must control the compensation of the agents. The Express Company declined to accede to the claims, and the union's claim that the agents must be compensated under the collective agreement remained unadjusted. Attempts to adjust were renewed by the general chairman, but no voluntary Board of Adjustment was agreed upon as provided under § 3 of the 1926 Act.
The statutory Board was created in 1934,
the Company refused to join the union in a petition, and the union on October 8, 1935, gave notice of its intention to refer the dispute to the Board. The Company challenged the Board's jurisdiction, a hearing was had, the bi-partisan board deadlocked, a referee was named, and in 1936 objections to jurisdiction were overruled and a hearing on the merits was directed. After the hearing the Board again deadlocked, again a referee was chosen, and on December 15, 1937, an award sustaining the claims that the agents were entitled to the compensation provided by the collectively bargained agreement was made, accompanied by a holding that the individual contracts were ineffective. The Company failed to comply with the award and in December 1939, after almost two years, the present action was commenced in the United States District Court. The district courts are given jurisdiction to enforce awards of the Board, its orders and findings being declared to be 'prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated.' Laws 1934, c. 691, § 3, First (p), 48 Stat. 1192, 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, First (p). In June 1942 decision was rendered by which the district court enforced the Adjustment Board's award. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed upon the ground that the collective agreement had been superseded validly by the individual contracts and upon the further ground that the claims under collective agreements were barred by the statute of limitations.
These questions are unsettled ones important to the administration of the current Railway Labor Act, and we granted certiorari.
Collective bargaining was not defined by the statute which provided for it, but it generally has been considered to absorb and give statutory approval to the philosophy of bargaining as worked out in the labor movement in the United States.
From the first the position of labor with reference to the wage structure of an industry has been much like that of the carriers about rate structures.
It is insisted that exceptional situations often have an importance to the whole because they introduce competitions and discriminations that are upsetting to the entire structure. Hence effective collective bargaining has been generally conceded to include the right of the representatives of the unit to be consulted and to bargain about the exceptional as well as the routine rates, rules, and working conditions. Collective bargains need not and do not always settle or embrace every exception. It may be agreed that particular situations are reserved for individual contracting, either completely or within prescribed limits. Had this proposed rate of pay been submitted to the collective bargaining process it might have been settled thereby or might have resulted in an agreement that the company should be free to negotiate with the agents severally. But the Company did not observe the right of the representatives of the whole unit to be notified and dealt with concerning a matter which from an employee's point of view may not be exceptional or which may provide a leverage for taking away other advantages of the collective contract.
If the action brought in 1939 had been a common-law action to recover wages, like that in Moore v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 312 U.S. 630, 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089, a quite different question of limitations would be presented. The action as brought, however, was not a common-law action but one of statutory origin to enforce the award of an administrative tribunal. A special two-year limitation from the time of award was prescribed by the federal statute,
and this action was brought within that period. It is clear that as an action to enforce the award the suit was not barred, and it must therefore have been the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals that the statute barred the administrative tribunal from making an award on claims so old. There is no federal statute of limitations applicable to unadjusted claims which the Adjustment Board may consider. It is difficult to see how state statutes of limitations can restrict the power of the federal administrative tribunal to consider and adjust claims. Moreover, even if the six-year statute did apply to the claims under the collective contract, as we think it did not, proceedings on these claims were initiated before the Board well within that time.
§ 6, 44 Stat. 582. This provided: 'Carriers and the representatives of the employees shall give at least thirty days' written notice of an intended change affecting rates of pay, rules, or working conditions, and the time and place for conference between the representatives of the parties interested in such intended changes shall be agreed upon within ten days after the receipt of said notice, and said time shall be within the thirty days provided in the notice. * * *' The 1934 Act contains a similar provision. § 6, 48 Stat. 1197, 45 U.S.C. 156, 45 U.S.C.A. § 156.
Cf. H. J. Heinz Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 311 U.S. 514, 523526, 61 S.Ct. 320, 324, 325, 326, 85 L.Ed. 309.
Act of 1934, § 3, First (q), 48 Stat. 1192, 45 U.S.C. 153, First (q), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, First (q): 'All actions at law based upon the provisions of this section shall be begun within two years from the time the cause of action accrues under the award of the division of the Adjustment Board, and not after.'