Source: https://m.openjurist.org/321/us/590
Timestamp: 2020-01-26 16:33:06
Document Index: 229405346

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 207', '§ 207', '§ 151', '§ 16', '§ 274', '§ 400', '§ 400', 'art. 18', '§ 202']

321 U.S. 590 - Tennessee Coal Iron Co v. Muscoda Local No 123 Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co
MUSCODA LOCAL NO. 123, etc., et al. SLOSS-SHEFFIELD STEEL & IRON CO. v. SLOSS RED ORE LOCAL NO. 109, etc., et al. REPUBLIC STEEL CORPORATION v. RAIMUND LOCAL NO. 121, etc., et al.
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.18 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. Cf. Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, 316 U.S. 572, 62 S.Ct. 1216, 86 L.Ed. 1682; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 18 S.Ct. 383, 42 L.Ed. 780. See also Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U.S. 467, 31 S.Ct. 265, 55 L.Ed. 297, 34 L.R.A.,N.S., 671; J. I. Case Company v. National Labor Relations Board, 321 U.S. 332, 64 S.Ct. 576; Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 321 U.S. 342, 64 S.Ct. 582.
The legal question on the record before us lies within a narrow compass. Section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act commands the payment of compensation at a rate of not less than one and one-half times the regular rate for every employee under the Statute who is engaged 'for a workweek' longer than forty-four or forty-two hours during the first or the second year, respectively, after the effective date of the Section and forty hours thereafter. 52 Stat. 1060, 1063, 29 U.S.C. § 207, 29 U.S.C.A. § 207. Congress did not explicitly define 'workweek' and there is nothing in the available materials pertinent to construction that warrants a finding that 'workweek', as applied to the workers in the iron ore industry, had so settled a meaning at the time of the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act as to be deemed incorporated by reference. As a result, 'workweek' in this Statute, as applied to workers in this industry and on this record, has no technical meaning, that is, a meaning so well known to those in this particular industry as to be applied by courts in enforcing the Statute when invoked by men in the industry. For purposes of this case, in any event, when Congress used the word 'workweek', it used it colloquially—the term carries merely the meaning of common understanding.
An administrative agency for preliminary adjudication of issues arising under the Wages and Hours Law, like that established by the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., was not provided by Congress. And so, the application of this colloquial concept 'workweek' to the multifarious situations in American industry was left by Congress for ascertainment by judicial proceedings. These facts are to be found either by a jury or, as in this case, by a judge sitting without a jury. And so here it was the judge's duty to determine what time and energy on the part of the employees involved in this suit constituted a 'workweek' of these employees of the petitioners. After a trial which lasted for about three weeks, during which testimony covering 2,643 pages was heard and voluminous exhibits were introduced, the District Court made its findings of fact. A judgment for the employees based on these findings was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, D.C., 40 F.Supp. 4; 5 Cir., 135 F.2d 320.
What did Congress mean when it said, in Sec. 7(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, that 'No employer shall * * * employ any of his employees * * * for a workweek longer than forty hours * * * unless such employee receives compensation' for overtime at a specified rate? No other issue is presented.
The committee reports upon the bill, which became the Fair Labor Standards Act1 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)2 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.3
In this setting, therefore, we are to determine what Congress meant by the term 'workweek' when it prescribed the maximum number of hours of labor an employer might require to be rendered within any week at the standard wage. The Act does not define 'workweek', for the evident reason that Congress believed it had a conventional meaning which all would understand and to which all could conform their practices. The term combines two words in common use. A week is any period of seven days. In accepted usage a man's work means that which he does for his employer as the consideration of the wage he receives. The term is often used in a more general sense as when one is asked what he is doing and replies 'I am working for Jones'. Of course he does not mean that Jones is paying him for each hour of every week of his life. Men are not commonly paid for the time they sleep, the time they eat, or the time they take to go to, and return from, their employer's premises. Thus, although the phrase 'work' may refer to the calling pursued, or the identity of the employer, it is plainly not so used in this statute. Its collocation with the word 'week' and with the injunction as to minimum pay, maximum hours, and overtime for extra work, in any week shows that what Congress meant by work was what I have above described,—the actual service rendered to the employer for which he pays wages in conformity to custom or agreement.
'An eight hour day means eight hours work at the usual working places of all classes of employees. This shall be exclusive of the time required in reaching such working places in the morning and departing from the same at night.' In 1920 the report and award of the Bituminous Coal Commission, which was made the basis of agreement between operators and union miners, employed the language just quoted.
In 1934 Tennessee made an agreement with the Union representing its employes, which was renewed in 1935, and again in 1936. It is undisputed that all of these agreements excluded payment for travel time. On October 6, 1938, before the Fair Labor Standards Act was in effect, a collective bargaining agreement was made between the International Union, affiliated with the CIO, and the Tennessee Company. In this agreement it was provided:
'Section 4—Hours of Work. Eight (8) hours shall constitute a day's work and forty (40) hours shall constitute a week's work. Time and one-half shall be paid for all overtime in excess of eight (8) hours in any one day or for all overtime in excess of forty (40) hours in any one week.
Republic Steel has had no formal written agreement with its employes, but it has bargained with their union. As early as 1933 the union suggested that an arrangement be made whereby the men enter the mine on their own time and come out on company time, but the matter was not pressed. It came up again in 1934. After a strike, negotiations resulted in a return of the men to work on the face to face plan of payment. In 1935 the union proposed that the employes should enter on their own time and come out on company time, but in negotiations the matter was dropped. In 1936 the union wrote the company respecting an agreement and, in its proposal, said: 'The eight hour day means eight hours in or about the mines at the usual working places for all classes of work.' In 1939 the union proposed an agreement containing a like provision. In that year the union preferred charges before the National Labor Relations Board but these did not involve the face to face basis of wage computation. The complaint was settled by stipulation. The company continued to pay for a day's work on the face to face basis until May 1, 1941.
'As mines grow older, the working places move farther and farther away from the portal or opening of the mine, and as such conditions develop, it becomes necessary for provision to be made for transportation of the men over long distances to their working places.'
On March 23, 1941, the Administrator announced a modified portal to portal wage hour opinion in which he defined the work day in underground metal mining as starting when the miner reports at the collar of the mine, ends when he returns to the collar, and includes the time spent on the surface in obtaining and returning lamps, carbide, and tools and in checking in and out. Realizing that this was a complete change of opinion, the Administrator announced that he would not seek to compel payment of restitution from mine owners operating on a face to face basis but that he could not interfere with the right of employes or their representatives to sue for past overtime and penalties under § 16(b) of the Act. Thereupon the unions representing miners demanded payment of overtime for all travel time since the effective date of the Act, and invoked the penalties specified therein.
It is common knowledge that the issue of portal to portal pay was first nationally raised in connection with the mining industry after the nation was at war and in connection with disastrous coal strikes. And, indeed, the inspiration for the demand for portal to portal pay was furnished by the decision of the court below in this case. That decision was rendered on March 16, 1943. Three days later the National Policy Committee of the United Mine Workers changed its demanded definition of hours of labor so that existing demands, which, until then, had been on the traditional face to face basis of payment, should 'conform with the basic legal requirements of the industry and the maximum hours of work time provisions be amended to establish 'portal to portal' for starting and quitting time for all underground workers.' In presenting this demand it said: 'The Mine Workers desire to take advantage of the law which, under the Alabama decision, grants them the right to be paid for the time they are in the mines.' Thus it is plain that the decision under review was understood, as it must be, as a declaration of law by a court as to what is a work week under the Act and not a finding of fact based on the custom of the industry and the agreement of the parties. In August class actions were filed by the United Mine Workers in various district courts to obtain overtime compensation for portal to portal pay.
'There is nothing in the Act to outlaw agreements that travel time in getting to or from the agreed place of work is not work time. This is true though the employer may organize a means of transportation and make rules for its use. The agreements here that work time includes only time at the face of the ore bed are not illegal. Digging out the ore is what the miners agree to do, and for that they are paid. Getting their tools together and riding or walking to the agreed place of work is not, by force of any law, work done for the mine owner. No one, I suppose, would say that if a group of miners who had spent an hour riding to work decided of their own will not to dig any ore and spent another hour riding back, they had done any work for which they should be paid by force of the Act.
These actions were instituted under the Federal Declaratory Judgments Act, 48 Stat. 955, § 274d, 28 U.S.C. § 400, 28 U.S.C.A. § 400. They were consolidated for trial purposes and the District Court entered a single judgment.
The 'working face' is the place in the mine where the miners actually drill and load ore. The 'face to face' basis of compensation, advocated by petitioners, includes only the time spent at the working face. The 'portal to portal' basis, proposed by respondents, includes time spent in traveling between the portal or entrance to the mine and the working face and back again, as well as the time spent at the working face.
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, 487, 54 S.Ct. 292, 293, 78 L.Ed. 452, and cases cited.
The Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company has eight mines; Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company, two mines; and Republic Steel Corporation, two mines.
As the District Court pointed out, the conditions set forth by the record are not intended to be used to censure petitioners' manner of maintenance of their mines, 'for these conditions may well be normal conditions in iron ore mines and practically inevitable.' Moreover, the record indicates that the Spaulding mine of the Republic Company has been operated only intermittently and experimentally during the last 20 years and many of the conditions in the other mines are not present. The ore is close to the surface and miners can walk all the way to the working faces.
One of the Tennessee Company's superintendents stated that 'Whenever a man comes to the mine late, dragging along and encourages others to be late, he is setting a bad example. I want this understood thoroughly—men must be on time; we don't care whether they work here or not, but if they want to work here they will have to be on time or else they will be disciplined, even to discharge.'
An ore skip is an ordinary fourwheeled ore box car made of steel. It is normally used for transporting ore and its floor is often covered with muck from such haulings. When men are riding in the car it is known as a 'man skip trip.' It is used for such purposes in the mines of the Tennessee Company and the Republic Company.
Webster's New International Dictionary (2d ed., unabridged) defines work as follows: '1. To exert oneself physically or mentally for a purpose, esp., in common speech, to exert oneself thus in doing something undertaken chiefly for gain, for improvement in one's material, intellectual, or physical condition, or under compulsion of any kind, as distinguished from something undertaken primarily for pleasure, sport, or immediate gratification, or as merely incidental to other activities (as a disagreeable walk involved in going to see a friend, or the packing of a trunk for a pleasure trip). * * *' The word 'employ' is defined as follows: '2. To make use of the services of; to give employment to; to entrust with some duty or behest.'
Cf. Dollar v. Caddo River Lumber Co., D.C., 43 F.Supp. 822; Sirmon v. Cron & Gracey Drilling Corp., D.C., 44 F.Supp. 29; Bulot v. Freeport Sulphur Co., D.C., 45 F.Supp. 380; Walling v. Peavy-Wilson Lumber Co., D.C., 49 F.Supp. 846.
Walton v. Southern Package Corp., 320 U.S. 540, 64 S.Ct. 320; A. B. Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U.S. 517, 62 S.Ct. 1116, 86 L.Ed. 1638.
Fleming v. North Georgia Mfg. Co., D.C., 33 F.Supp. 1005; Travis v. Ray, D.C., 41 F.Supp. 6.
Walling v. Allied Messenger Service, Inc., D.C., 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, sec. 56-115; Utah Code Ann. (1943), sec. 49—3—2. The Supreme Court of Montana has construed Mont.Const. art. 18, sec. 4, and Mont.Rev.Code (1935), sec. 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), sec. 10237, provides that the limitation shall apply to travel one way. But Wyoming Rev.Stat. (1931), sec. 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. See also Section 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.'
Blackstone has said that one of the requisites of a valid custom is that 'it must have been peaceable, and acquiesced in; not subject to contention and dispute. For as customs owe their original to common consent, their being immemorially disputed, either at law or otherwise, is a proof that such consent was wanting.' 1 Commentaries 77. See also Pollock, First Book of Jurisprudence, 283 (6th ed.).
52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C.A. § 202(a).
United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 115, 117, 122, 125, 657, 61 S.Ct. 451, 457, 458, 461, 462, 85 L.Ed. 609, 132 A.L.R. 1430.