Source: http://openjurist.org/print/29219
Timestamp: 2013-05-20 03:22:32
Document Index: 221417071

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 301', '§ 2', '§ 4', '§ 7', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 4', '§ 104', '§ 301', '§ 185', '§ 4', '§ 104']

398 US 235 Boys Markets Inc v. Retail Clerk's Union Local 770
An additional reason for not resolving the existing dilemma by extending Sinclair to the States is the devastating implications for the enforceability of arbitration agreements and their accompanying no-strike obligations if equitable remedies were not available.15 As we have previously indicated, a no-strike obligation, express or implied, is the quid pro quo for an undertaking by the employer to submit grievance disputes to the process of arbitration. See Textile Workers Union of America v. Lincoln Mills, supra, 353 U.S., at 455, 77 S.Ct. at 917.16 Any incentive for employers to enter into such an arrangement is necessarily dissipated if the principal and most expeditious method by which the no-strike obligation can be enforced is eliminated. While it is of course true, as respondent contends, that other avenues of redress, such as an action for damages, would remain open to an aggrieved employer, an award of damages after a dispute has been settled is no substitute for an immediate halt to an illegal strike. Furthermore, an action for damages prosecuted during or after a labor dispute would only tend to aggravate industrial strife and delay an early resolution of the difficulties between employer and union.17
Even if management is not encouraged by the unavailability of the injunction remedy to resist arbitration agreements, the fact remains that the effectiveness of such agreements would be greatly reduced if injunctive relief were withheld. Indeed, the very purpose of arbitration procedures is to provide a mechanism for the expeditious settlement of industrial disputes without resort to strikes, lockouts, or other self-help measures. This basic purpose is obviously largely undercut if there is no immediate, effective remedy for those very tactics that arbitration is designed to obviate. Thus, because Sinclair, in the aftermath of Avco, casts serious doubt upon the effective enforcement of a vital element of stable labor-menagement relations—arbitration agreements with their attendant no-strike obligations—we conclude that Sinclair does not make a viable contribution to federal labor policy.
We have also determined that the dissenting opinion in Sinclair states the correct principles concerning the accommodation necessary between the seemingly absolute terms of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and the policy considerations underlying § 301(a).18 370 U.S., at 215, 82 S.Ct., at 1339. Although we need not repeat all that was there said, a few points should be emphasized at this time.
The Norris-LaGuardia Act was responsive to a situation totally different from that which exists today. In the early part of this century, the federal courts generally were regarded as allies of management in its attempt to prevent the organization and strengthening of labor unions; and in this industrial struggle the injunction became a potent weapon that was wielded against the activities of labor groups.19 The result was a large number of sweeping decrees, often issued ex parte, drawn on an ad hoc basis without regard to any systematic elaboration of national labor policy. See Milk Wagon Drivers' Union, etc. v. Lake Valley Co., 311 U.S. 91, 102, 61 S.Ct. 122, 127, 85 L.Ed. 63 (1940).
In 1932 Congress attempted to bring some order out of the industrial chaos that had developed and to correct the abuses that had resulted from the interjection of the federal judiciary into union-management disputes on the behalf of management. See declaration of public policy, Norris-LaGuardia Act, § 2, 47 Stat. 70. Congress, therefore, determined initially to limit severely the power of the federal courts to issue injunctions 'in any case involving or growing out of any labor dispute * * *.' § 4, 47 Stat. 70. Even as initially enacted, however, the prohibition against federal injunctions was by no means absolute. See Norris-LaGuardia Act, §§ 7, 8, 9, 47 Stat. 71, 72. Shortly thereafter Congress passed the Wagner Act,20 designed to curb various management activities that tended to discourage employee participation in collective action.
The principles elaborated in Chicago River are equally applicable to the present case. To be sure, Chicago River involved arbitration procedures established by statute. However, we have frequently noted, in such cases as Lincoln Mills, the Steelworkers Trilogy, and Lucas Flour, the importance that Congress has attached generally to the voluntary settlement of labor disputes without resort to self-help and more particularly to arbitration as a means to this end. Indeed, it has been stated that Lincoln Mills, in its exposition of § 301(a), 'went a long way towards making arbitration the central institution in the administration of collective bargaining contracts.'21
The Sinclair decision, however, seriously undermined the effectiveness of the arbitration technique as a method peacefully to resolve industrial disputes without resort to strikes, lockouts, and similar devices. Clearly employers will be wary of assuming obligations to arbitrate specifically enforceable against them when no similarly efficacious remedy is available to enforce the concomitant undertaking of the union to refrain from striking. On the other hand, the central purpose of the Norris-LaGuardia Act to foster the growth and viability of labor organizations is hardly retarded—if anything, this goal is advanced—by a remedial device that merely enforces the obligation that the union freely undertook under a specifically enforceable agreement to submit disputes to arbitration.22 We conclude, therefore, that the unavailability of equitable relief in the arbitration context presents a serious impediment to the congressional policy favoring the voluntary establishment of a mechanism for the peaceful resolution of labor disputes, that the core purpose of the Norris-LaGuardia Act is not sacrificed by the limited use of equitable remedies to further this important policy, and consequently that the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not bar the granting of injunctive relief in the circumstances of the instant case.
Our holding in the present case is a narrow one. We do not undermine the vitality of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. We deal only with the situation in which a collective-bargaining contract contains a mandatory grievance adjustment or arbitration procedure. Nor does it follow from what we have said that injunctive relief is appropriate as a matter of course in every case of a strike over an arbitrable grievance. The dissenting opinion in Sinclair suggested the following principles for the guidance of the district courts in determining whether to grant injunctive relief—principles that we now adopt:
'A District Court entertaining an action under § 301 may not grant injunctive relief against concerted activity unless and until it decides that the case is one in which an injunction would be appropriate despite the Norris-LaGuardia Act. When a strike is sought to be enjoined because it is over a grievance which both parties are contractually bound to arbitrate, the District Court may issue no injunctive order until it first holds that the contract does have that effect; and the employer should be ordered to arbitrate, as a condition of his obtaining an injunction against the strike. Beyond this, the District Court must, of course, consider whether issuance of an injunction would be warranted under ordinary principles of equity—whether breaches are occurring and will continue, or have been threatened and will be committed; whether they have caused or will cause irreparable injury to the employer; and whether the employer will suffer more from the denial of an injunction than will the union from its issuance.' 370 U.S., at 228, 82 S.Ct., at 1346. (Emphasis in original.)
Congress in 1932 enacted the Norris-LaGuardia Act, § 4 of which, 29 U.S.C. § 104, with exceptions not here relevant, specifically prohibited federal courts in the broadest and most comprehensive language from issuing any injunctions, temporary or permanent, against participation in a labor dispute. Subsequently, in 1947, Congress gave jurisdiction to the federal courts in '(s) uits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization.' Although this subsection, § 301(a) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185(a), explicitly waives the diversity and amount-in-controversy requirements for federal jurisdiction, it says nothing at all about granting injunctions. Eight years ago this Court considered the relation of these two statutes: after full briefing and argument, relying on the language and history of the Acts, the Court decided that Congress did not wish this later statute to impair in any way Norris-LaGuardia's explicit prohibition against injunctions in labor disputes. Sinclair Refining Co. v. Atkinson, 370 U.S. 195, 82 S.Ct. 1328, 8 L.Ed.2d 440 (1962).
The legislative effect of the Court's reversal is especially clear here. In Sinclair the Court invited Congress to act if it should be displeased with the judicial interpretation of the statute. We said, 370 U.S., at 214—215, 82 S.Ct., at 1339:
'Strong arguments are made to us that it is highly desirable that the Norris-LaGuardia Act be changed in the public interest. If that is so, Congress itself might see fit to change that law and repeal the anti-injunction provisions of the Act insofar as suits for violation of collective agreements are concerned, as the House bill under consideration originally provided. It might, on the other hand, decide that if injunctions are necessary, the whole idea of enforcement of these agreements by private suits should be discarded in favor of enforcement through the administrative machinery of the Labor Board, as Senator Taft provided in his Senate bill. Or it might decide that neither of these methods is entirely satisfactory and turn instead to a completely new approach. The question of what change, if any, should be made in the existing law is one of legislative policy properly within the exclusive domain of Congress—it is a question for lawmakers, not law interpreters.'
Commentators on our holding found this invitation to legislative action clear, and judicial self-restraint proper. See Dunau, Three Problems in Labor Arbitration, 55 Va.L.Rev. 427, 464 465 (1969); Wellington & Albert, Statutory Interpretation and the Political Process: A Comment on Sinclair v. Atkinson, 72 Yale L.J. 1547, 1565—1566 (1963). Bills were introduced in Congress seeking to effect a legislative change. S. 3132, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965); H.R. 9059, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965). Congress, however, did not act, thus indicating at least a willingness to leave the law as Sinclair had construed it. It seems to me highly inappropriate for this Court now, eight years later, in effect to enact the amendment that Congress has refused to adopt. Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc., 346 U.S. 356, 74 S.Ct. 78, 98 L.Ed. 64 (1953); see also United States v. International Boxing Club of New York, Inc., 348 U.S. 236, 242—244, 75 S.Ct. 259, 262—263, 99 L.Ed. 290 (1955).
I do not believe that the principle of stare decisis forecloses all reconsiderations of earlier decisions. In the area of constitutional law, for example, where the only alternative to action by this Court is the laborious process of constitutional amendment and where the ultimate responsibility rests with this Court, I believe reconsideration is always proper. See James v. United States, 366 U.S. 213, 233—234, 81 S.Ct. 1052, 1062—1063, 6 L.Ed.2d 246 (1961) (separate opinion of Black, J.).* Even on statutory questions the appearance of new facts or changes in circumstances might warrant re-examination of past decisions in exceptional cases under exceptional circumstances. In the present situation there are no such circumstances. Congress has taken no action inconsistent with our decision in Sinclair. Girouard v. United States, 328 U.S. 61, 70, 66 S.Ct. 826, 830, 90 L.Ed. 1084 (1946). And, although bills have been introduced, cf. Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U.S. 106, 119—120, 60 S.Ct. 444, 451—452, 84 L.Ed. 604 (1940), Congress has declined the invitation to act.
The only 'subsequent event' to which the Court can point is our decision in Avco Corp. v. Aero Lodge 735, 390 U.S. 557, 88 S.Ct. 1235, 20 L.Ed.2d 126 (1968). The Court must recognize that the holding of Avco is in no way inconsistent with Sinclair. As we said in Avco, supra, at 561, 88 S.Ct., at 1237: 'The nature of the relief available after jurisdiction attaches is, of course, different from the question whether there is jurisdiction to adjudicate the controversy.' The Court contends, however, that the result of the two cases taken together is the 'anomalous situation' that no-strike clauses become unenforceable in state courts, and this is inconsistent with 'an important goal of our national labor policy.' Avco does make any effort to enforce a no-strike clause in a state court removable to a federal court, but it does not follow that the no-strike clause is unenforceable. Damages may be awarded; the union may be forced to arbitrate. And the employer may engage in self-help. The Court would have it that these techniques are less effective than an injunction. That is doubtless true. But the harshness and effectiveness of injunctive relief—and opposition to 'government by injunction'—were the precise reasons for the congressional prohibition in the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The effect of the Avco decision is, indeed, to highlight the limited remedial powers of federal courts. But if the Congress is unhappy with these powers as this Court defined them, then the Congress may act; this Court should not. The members of the majority have simply decided that they are more sensitive to the 'realization of an important goal of our national labor policy' than the Congress or their predecessors on this Court.
'(i) Advising, urging, or otherwise causing or inducing without fraud or violence the acts heretofore specified * * *.' § 4, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C. § 104.
See, e.g., Report of Special Atkinson-Sinclair Committee, A.B.A. Labor Relations Law Section—Proceedings 226 (1963) (hereinafter cited as A.B.A. Sinclair Report).
The legislative history of the federal question removal provision is meager, but it has been suggested that its purpose was the same as original federal question jurisdiction, enacted at the same time in the Judiciary Act of 1875, 18 Stat. 470, namely, to protect federal rights, see H. Hart & H. Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 727—733 (1953), and to provide a forum that could more accurately interpret federal law, see Mishkin, The Federal 'Question' in the District Courts, 53 Col.L.Rev. 157, 159 (1953). 113 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1096, 1098 and n. 17 (1965).
It is true that about one-half of the States have enacted so-called 'little Norris-LaGuardia Acts' that place various restrictions upon the granting of injunctions by state courts in labor disputes. However, because many States do not bar injunctive relief for violations of collective-bargaining agreements, in only about 14 jurisdictions is there a significant Norris-LaGuardia-type prohibition against equitable remedies for breach of no-strike obligations. See Bartosic, supra, n. 14, at 1001—1006; Keene, supra, n. 10, at 49 and nn. 79, 80.
We held in Local 174, Teamsters, etc. v. Lucas Flour Co., supra, that, even in the absence of an express no-strike clause in the collective-bargaining contract, an agreement that certain disputes 'will be exclusively covered by compulsory terminal arbitration' (369 U.S., at 106, 82 S.Ct., at 578) gives rise to an implied promise by the union not to strike during the term of the contract in response to these arbitrable disputes. Id., at 104 106, 82 S.Ct., at 577—578. In the present case, there was an express no-strike clause in the union-management contract. See n. 4, supra.
Other members of the Court have drawn the distinction between constitutional and statutory matters, and indicated that the correction of this Court's errors in statutory interpretation is best left to Congress. For example, Mr. Justice Douglas noted in dissent in Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111, 133—134, 86 S.Ct. 258, 271, 15 L.Ed.2d 194 (1965):
See also United Gas Improvement Co. v. Continental Oil Co., 381 U.S. 392, 406, 85 S.Ct. 1517, 1525, 14 L.Ed.2d 466 (1965) (Douglas, J., dissenting). Apparently, however, some members of the Court are willing to give greater weight to state decisis in constitutional than in statutory matters. See, e.g., Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 327—328, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 1097—1098, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969) (Harlan, J., concurring).
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