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Tennessee Coal Co Vs Muscoda Local No 123 - Citation 97676 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Tennessee Coal Co. Vs. Muscoda Local No. 123 - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/97676CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnMar-27-1944Case Number321 U.S. 590AppellantTennessee Coal Co.RespondentMuscoda Local No. 123Excerpt:
tennessee coal co. v. muscoda local no. 123 - 321 u.s. 590 (1944)
1. the fair labor standards act is remedial and humanitarian in nature, and must not be interpreted or applied in a narrow, grudging manner. p.
2. sections 7(a), 3(g) and 3(j) of the fair labor standards act are necessarily indicative of a congressional intention to guarantee either regular or overtime compensation for all actual work or.....Judgment:
2. Sections 7(a), 3(g) and 3(j) of the Fair Labor Standards Act are necessarily indicative of a Congressional intention to guarantee either regular or overtime compensation for all actual work or employment. P.
3. In the absence of a contrary legislative expression, it must be assumed that Congress, in the Fair Labor Standards Act, was referring to work or employment as those words are commonly used -- as meaning physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business. P.
4. Underground travel by iron ore miners to and from the "working face" of the mines
upon the facts of this case as found by
both courts below, to constitute work. Such underground travel time is includible in the workweek within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and must be compensated accordingly. P.
5. Although such underground travel of the iron ore miners is in a strict sense nonproductive, they are nevertheless engaged during such travel time in a "process or occupation necessary to . . . production," within the meaning of § 3(j) of the Act. P.
321 U. S. 599
6. The facts relating to underground travel by miners in iron ore mines in this case leave no doubt as to its character as work within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the requirement of the Act that it be compensated accordingly cannot be rendered inapplicable by any contrary custom or contract. P.
iron ore mines within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C. § 201,
This question, which is one of first impression, arises out of conflicting claims based upon the actual activities pursued and upon prior custom and contract in the iron ore mines. Such an issue can be resolved only by discarding formalities and adopting a realistic attitude, recognizing that we are dealing with human beings and with a statute that is intended to secure to them the fruits of their toil and exertion.
Three iron ore mining companies, petitioners herein, filed declaratory judgment actions [
] to determine whether time spent by iron ore miners in traveling underground in mines to and from the "working face" [
] constitutes work or employment for which compensation must be paid under the Act. The respondent labor unions and their officials, representing petitioners' employees, were named as defendants, and the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor was allowed to intervene. The actual controversy relates only to the hours of employment during the period intervening between the effective date of the Act, October 24, 1938, and the dates when the respective actions were initiated in April, 1941. [
After extended hearings, the District Court found that the travel time "bears in a substantial degree every indicia of worktime: supervision by the employer, physical and mental exertion, activity necessary to be performed for the employers' benefit, and conditions peculiar to the occupation of mining." The court accordingly ruled that the travel time, as well as the time spent at the surface obtaining and returning tools, lamps, and carbide and checking in and out, was included within the workweek. 40 F.Supp. 4. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed as to the travel time, holding that the District Court's findings on that matter were supported by substantial evidence. The judgment was modified by the Circuit Court, however, by excluding from the workweek the time spent in the activities at the surface. 135 F.2d 320,
137 F.2d 176. The importance of the problem as to the travel time led us to grant certiorari. [
mines in Jefferson County, Alabama, [
] and that the general pattern of facts underlying the findings of the courts below is essentially the same in each of these mines. [
The miners begin their day by arriving on the company property at a scheduled hour [
] and going to the bath house, where they change into working clothes. [
] They then walk to the tally house near the mine entrance or portal; there, they check in and hang up individual brass checks, furnished by petitioners, on a tally or check-in board. This enables the foreman and other officials to tell at a glance those individuals who have reported for work and those production and service crews that are incomplete and in need of substitutes. Vacancies are filled, and the head miners and crews receive any necessary instructions. In addition, each miner either rents a battery lamp for the day or buys a can of carbide each day or two for underground illumination purposes. And, at some of the mines,
The miners thereupon are required to report at the loading platform at the mine portal and await their turn to ride down the inclined shafts of the mines. Originally the miners could reach the working faces entirely by foot, but, as the shafts increased in length, petitioners provided transportation down the main shafts. The miners accordingly ride part of the way to the working faces in ore skips [
] or regular man trips, [
] which operate on narrow gauge tracks by means of cables or hoisting ropes. The operation of the skips and man trips is under the strict control and supervision of the petitioners at all times, and they refuse to permit the miners to walk, rather than ride. Regular schedules are fixed; loading and unloading are supervised; the speed of the trips is regulated, and the conduct of the miners during the rides is prescribed.
To hold that an employer may validly compensate his employees for only a fraction of the time consumed in actual labor would be inconsistent with the very purpose and structure of those sections of the Act. It is vital, of course, to determine first the extent of the actual workweek. Only after this is done can the minimum wage and maximum hour requirements of the Act be effectively applied. And, in the absence of a contrary legislative expression, we cannot assume that Congress here was referring to work or employment other than as those words are commonly used -- as meaning physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business. [
Such travel, furthermore, is not primarily undertaken for the convenience of the miners, and bears no relation whatever to their needs or to the distance between their homes and the mines. [
] Rather, the travel time is spent for the benefit of petitioners and their iron ore mining operations. The extraction of ore from these mines, by its very nature, necessitates dangerous travel in petitioners' underground shafts in order to reach the working faces, where production actually occurs. Such hazardous travel is thus essential to petitioners' production. It matters not that such travel is, in a strict sense, a nonproductive benefit. Nothing in the statute or in reason demands that every moment of an employee's time devoted to the service of his employer shall be directly productive. Section 3(j) of the Act expressly provides that it is sufficient if an employee is engaged in a process or occupation necessary to production. Hence, employees engaged in such necessary, but not directly productive activities as watching and guarding a building, [
] waiting for work, [
] and standing by on call [
] have been held to be engaged in work necessary to production and entitled to the benefits of the Act. Iron ore miners traveling underground are no less engaged in a "process or occupation" necessary to actual production. They do more than "stand and wait,"
Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. United States,
231 U. S. 119
Cf. Bountiful Brick Co. v. Giles,
. Theirs is a fossorial activity bearing all the indicia of hard labor.
See also Sunshine Mining Co. v. Carver,
41 F.Supp. 60. In addition, statutes of several important metal mining states provide that the eight-hour per day limitation upon work includes travel underground. [
Petitioners, however, rely mainly upon the alleged "immemorial custom and agreements arrived at by the practice of collective bargaining" which are said to establish "the
face to face' method as the standard and measure
Likewise there was substantial, if not conclusive, evidence that, prior to 1938, petitioners recognized no independent labor unions and engaged in no
collective bargaining with an eye toward reaching agreements on the workweek. Contracts with company-nominated unions and discriminatory actions toward the independent unions are poor substitutes for "contracts fairly arrived at through the process of collective bargaining." The wage payments and work on a tonnage basis, as well as the contract provisions as to the workweek, were all dictated by petitioners. The futile efforts by the miners
to secure at least partial compensation for their travel time and their dissatisfaction with existing arrangements, moreover, negative the conclusion that there was any real custom as to the workweek and compensation therefor. A valid custom cannot be based on so turbulent and discordant a history; it requires something more than unilateral and arbitrary imposition of working conditions. [
] We thus cannot say that the District Court's findings as to custom and contract are so clearly erroneous as to compel us to disregard them.
But, in any event, it is immaterial that there may have been a prior custom or contract not to consider certain work within the compass of the workweek or not to compensate employees for certain portions of their work. The Fair Labor Standards Act was not designed to codify or perpetuate those customs and contracts which allow an employer to claim all of an employee's time while compensating him for only a part of it. 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
Cf. Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel,
See also Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley,
No review has been sought of the exclusion from the workweek of the activities at the surface. We therefore do not discuss that issue in this case.
Alexander v. Cosden Pipe Line Co.,
290 U. S. 484
290 U. S. 487
Cf. Dollar v. Caddo River Lumber Co.,
Sirmon v. Cron & Gracey Drilling Corp.,
44 F.Supp. 29;
Bulot v. Freeport Sulphur Co.,
45 F.Supp. 380;
Walton v. Southern Package Corp.,
320 U. S. 540
Fleming v. North Georgia Mfg. Co.,
33 F.Supp. 1005;
Travis v. Ray,
41 F.Supp. 6.
Walling v. Allied Messenger Service, Inc.,
47 F.Supp. 773.
Arizona and Utah statutes specifically include all the travel time within the eight-hour limitation. Ariz.Code Ann. (1939), vol. 4, § 56-115; Utah Code Ann. (1943), § 49-3-2. The Supreme Court of Montana has construed Mont.Const. art. 18, § 4, and Mont.Rev.Code (1935), § 3071, which provide for eight hours of work per day in underground mines, to include all travel time,
Butte Miners' Union No. 1 v. Anaconda Copper Mining Co.,
112 Mont. 418, 118 P.2d 148. Nevada Comp.Laws (1929), § 10237, provides that the limitation shall apply to travel one way. But Wyoming Rev.Stat. (1931), § 63-107, specifically excludes underground travel from the limitation; a like result has been reached by interpretation of California Stats.1909, ch. 181, p. 279, in
Matter of Application of Martin,
157 Cal. 59, 106 P. 238. Alabama and Tennessee fix no limitation on hours, while maximum hour statutes of other metal mining states are inconclusive insofar as the inclusion of travel time is concerned.
§ 5(2) of the English Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act (1872), 35 & 36 Vict., c. 77, which provides that "The period of each employment shall be deemed to begin at the time of leaving the surface, and to end at the time of returning to the surface."
1 Commentaries 77.
Pollock, First Book of Jurisprudence, 283 (6th ed.).
Congress was not unaware of the effect that collective bargaining contracts might have on overtime pay. It expressly decided to give effect to two kinds of collective agreements, as specified in Section 7(b)(1) and (2) of the Act.
Section 8(c). It thus did not intend that other collective agreements should relieve employers from paying for overtime in excess of an actual workweek of 40 hours, regardless of the provisions of such contracts.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc. v. Ray-O-Vac Co.,
Williams Manufacturing Co. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp.,
316 U. S. 364
316 U. S. 367
The committee reports upon the bill, which became the Fair Labor Standards Act, [
] make it clear that the sole purpose was to increase employment, to require a fair day's pay for a fair day's work by raising the wages of the
most poorly paid workers and reducing the hours of those most overworked, and thus correct inequalities in the cost of producing goods and prevent unfair competition in commerce. The reports disclose no other purpose. The Congressional findings and declaration of policy embodied in Sec. 2(a) [
] exhibit no intent to deal with any matter other than substandard conditions in industry stemming from wage and hour practices. The Act will be searched in vain for a mandate respecting any subject other than minimum wages and maximum hours of work. This court has construed it as dealing only with these subjects. [
On July 9, 1940, the director of the legal department of the United Mine Workers of America, in a letter to the Administrator of the Act, requested that he accept the definition of working time contained in the Appalachian agreement, which the letter said embodied "the custom and traditions of the bituminous mining industry." That definition was the same as that quoted from the Tennessee agreement,
The letter further said, respecting the face to face method:
I cannot better characterize the result in this case than by quoting from what Judge Sibley said in his dissenting opinion below: [
"If it would be better to include travel time in work time, it ought to be done by a new bargain in which rates of pay are also reviewed. If the change is to be by a special statute (some western States have such statutes), it will operate justly
and not by unexpected penalty, as here."