Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/345/330/
Timestamp: 2018-06-22 21:16:33
Document Index: 102898879

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 157', '§ 157', '§ 160', '§ 160', '§ 151', '§ 861']

FORD MOTOR CO. v. HUFFMAN et al. INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTWORKERS OF AMERICA, CI v. HUFFMAN et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
FORD MOTOR CO. v. HUFFMAN et al. INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTWORKERS OF AMERICA, CI v. HUFFMAN et al.
345 U.S. 330 (73 S.Ct. 681, 97 L.Ed. 1048)
Argued: Dec. 18, 19, 1952.
These proceedings were begun in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky by respondent Huffman, acting individually and on behalf of a class of about 275 fellow employees of the Ford Motor Company, petitioner in Case No. 193 (here called Ford). His complaint is that his position, and that of each member of his class, has been lowered on the seniority roster at Ford's Louisville works, because of certain provisions in collective-bargaining agreements between Ford and the International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, CIO, petitioner in Case No. 194 (here called International). He contends that those provisions have violated his rights, and those of each member of his class, under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, as amended. 2 He contends that also that International's acceptance of those provisions exceeded its authority as a collective-bargaining representative under the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. 3 He asks, accordingly, that the provisions be declared invalid insofar as they prejudice the seniority rights of members of his class, and that appropriate injunctive relief be granted against Ford and International. After answer, both sides asked for summary judgment. 4
The pleadings allege further that Huffman and the members of his class all have been laid off or furloughed from their respective employments at times and for periods when they would not have been so laid off or furloughed except for the provisions complained of in the collective-bargaining agreements. Those provisions state, in substance, that after July 30, 1946, in determining the order of retention of employees, all veterans in the employ of Ford 'shall receive seniority credit for their period of service, subsequent to June 21, 1941 in the land or naval forces or Merchant Marine of the United States or its allies, upon completion of their probationary period' of six months. 6
The effect of these provisions is that whereas Huffman's seniority, and that of the members of his class, is computed from their respective dates of employment by Ford and they have been credited with their subsequent military service, if any, yet in some instances they are now surpassed in seniority by employees who entered the employ of Ford after they did but who are credited with certain military service which they rendered before their employment by Ford. 7
In the absence of limiting factors, the above purposes, including 'mutual aid or protection' and 'other conditions of employment', are broad enough to cover terms of seniority. The National Labor Relations Act, as passed in 1935 and as amended in 1947, exemplifies the faith of Congress in free collective bargaining between employers and their employees when conducted by freely and fairly chosen reporesentatives of appropriate units of employees. That the authority of bargaining representatives, however, is not absolute is recognized in Steele v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 198199, 65 S.Ct. 226, 230, 89 L.Ed. 173, in connection with comparable provisions of the Railway Labor Act. Their statutory obligation to represent all members of an appropriate unit requires them to make an honest effort to serve the interests of all of those members, without hostility to any. Id., 323 U.S. at page 198, 202204, 65 S.Ct. 230, 231232; Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 323 U.S. 210, 211, 65 S.Ct. 235, 236, 89 L.Ed. 187; Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard, 343 U.S. 768, 72 S.Ct. 1022, 96 L.Ed. 1283.
The National Labor Relations Act, as amended, gives a bargaining representative not only wide responsibility but authority to meet that responsibility. We have held that a collective-bargaining representative is within its authority when, in the general interest of those it represents, it agrees to allow union chairmen certain advantages in the retention of their employment, even to the prejudice of veterans otherwise entitled to greater seniority. Aeronautical Indus. Dist. Lodge v. Campbell, supra, 337 U.S. at pages 526529, 69 S.Ct. 12891291.
The above considerations took concrete form in the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944 which added the requirement that credit for military service be given by every civilian federal agency, whether the military service preceded or followed civilian employment. 8 Apparently recognizing the countless variations in conditions affecting private employment, Congress, however, did not make credit for such pre-employment military service compulsory in private civilian employment. A little later, the Administrator of the Retraining and Reemployment Administration of the United States Department of Labor assembled a representative committee to recommend principles to serve as guides to private employers in their employment of veterans and others. 9 Among 15 principles developed by that committee, and 'wholeheartedly' endorsed by the Secretary of Labor, in 1946, were the following:
'13. Newly hired veterans who qualified for employment should be allowed seniority credit, at least for purposes of job retention, equal to time spent in the armed services plus time spent in recuperation from serviceconnected injuries or disabilities either through hospitalization or vocational training.' 10
The provisions before us reflect such a policy. 11 It is not necessary to define here the limits to which a collective-bargaining representative may go in accepting proposals to promote the long range social or economic welfare of those it represents. Nothing in the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, so limits the vision and action of a bargaining representative that it must disregard public policy and national security. Nor does anything in that Act compel a bargaining representative to limit seniority clauses solely to the relative lengths of employment of the respective employees. Aeronautical Indus. Dist. Lodge v. Campbell, supra, 337 U.S. at pages 526, 528 529, 69 S.Ct. 1289, 12901291, note 5. For examples of negotiated provisions protecting veterans from loss of seniority upon their return to private civilian employment, recognized by the National War Labor Board as coming within the proper scope of collective bargaining, in 1945, see, In re American Can Co., 27 War Lab.Rep. 634, 28 War Lab.Rep. 764, and In re Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 24 War Lab.Rep. 322, 28 War Lab.Rep. 483. See also, Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Collective Bargaining Contracts (1941), 369 et seq.
49 Stat. 452, 61 Stat. 140, 65 Stat. 601, 29 U.S.C. (Supp.V) §§ 157159, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 157159.
In No. 194, International also questions the jurisdiction of the District Court. International recognizes that one issue in the case is whether it engaged in an unfair labor practice when it agreed to the allowance of credit for pre-employment military service in computations of employment seniority. It then argues that the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 146, 29 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 160(a), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(a), vests the initial jurisdiction over such an issue exclusively in the National Labor Relations Board. This question was not argued in the Court of Appeals nor mentioned in its opinion and, in view of our position on the merits, it is not discussed here. Our decision interprets the statutory authority of a collective-bargaining representative to have such breadth that it removes all ground for a substantial charge that International, by exceeding its authority, committed an unfair labor practice. As to a somewhat comparable question considered in connection with the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., see Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 323 U.S. 210, 65 S.Ct. 235, 89 L.Ed. 187; Steele v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 204207, 65 S.Ct. 226, 232234, 89 L.Ed. 173.
'Section 13* * *.
'Sec. 12. In any reduction in personnel in any civilian service of any Federal agency, competing employees shall be released in accordance with Civil Service Commission regulations which shall give due effect to tenure of employment, military preference, length of service, and efficiency ratings: Provided, That the length of time spent in active service in the armed forces of the United States of each such employee shall be credited in computing length of total service: * * *.' 58 Stat. 390, 5 U.S.C. 861, 5 U.S.C.A. § 861.
Reemployment of Veterans Under Collective Bargaining, United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, October, 1947, Statement of Employment Principles dated October 7, 1946, App. D, pp. 4648; and see Bulletin of Retraining and Reemployment Administration, United States Department of Labor, October 10, 1946, p. 5; Harbison, Seniority Problems During Demobilization and Reconversion, Industrial Relations Section, Department of Economics and Social Institutions, Princeton University (1944) 1214.
Collective Bargaining ProvisionsSeniority, Bull. No. 908 11, United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (1949), quotes many seniority clauses as examples of those then in use and including many factors other than length of employment. Among those quoted is the following: