Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/351/225
Timestamp: 2018-01-22 00:47:50
Document Index: 700324454

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 13', '§ 2', '§ 152', '§ 1257', '§ 152', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 48', '§ 14', '§ 164']

RAILWAY EMPLOYES' DEPARTMENT, American Federation of Labor, International Association of Machinists, et al., Appellants, v. Robert L. HANSON, Horace A. Cameron, Harold J. Grau, et al. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
351 U.S. 225 (76 S.Ct. 714, 100 L.Ed. 1112)
Argued: May 2, 1956.
Syllabus from pages 225-226 intentionally omitted
The employees claim that the union shop agreement violates the 'right to work' provision of the Nebraska Constitution, Art. XV, § 13, which provides: 1
The answers deny that the Nebraska Constitution and laws control and allege that the union shop agreement is authorized by § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U.S.C. 152, Eleventh, 45 U.S.C.A. § 152, subd. 11, which provides that, notwithstanding the law of 'any State,' a carrier and a labor organization may make an agreement requiring all employees within a stated time to become a member of the labor organization, provided there is no discrimination against any employee and provided that membership is not denied nor terminated 'for any reason other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.' 2
The Nebraska trial court issued an injunction. The Supreme Court of Nebraska affirmed. It held that the union shop agreement violates the First Amendment in that it deprives the employees of their freedom of association and violates the Fifth Amendment in that it requires the members to pay for many things besides the cost of collective bargaining. The Nebraska Supreme Court, therefore, held that there is no valid federal law to supersede the 'right to work' provision of the Nebraska Constitution. 160 Neb. 669, 71 N.W.2d 526. The case is here by appeal. 28 U.S.C. 1257(1) and (2), 28 U.S.C.A. § 1257(1, 2). We noted probable jurisdiction. 350 U.S. 910, 76 S.Ct. 195.
The union shop 3 provision of the Railway Labor Act was written into the law in 1951. Prior to that date the Railway Labor Act prohibited union shop agreements. 48 Stat. 1186, 45 U.S.C. 152, Fourth and Fifth, 45 U.S.C.A. § 152, subds. 4, 5; 40 Op.Atty.Gen. 254. Those provisions were enacted in 1934 when the union shop was being used by employers to establish and maintain company unions, 'thus effectively depriving a substantial number of employees of their right to bargain collectively.' S.Rep.No. 2262, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., p. 3. By 1950, company unions in this field had practically disappeared. Id. Between 75 and 80% of railroad employees were members of labor organizations. H.R.Rep.No.2811, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., p. 4. While nonunion members got the benefits of the collective bargaining of the unions, they bore 'no share of the cost of obtaining such benefits.' Id., at p. 4. As Senator Hill, who managed the bill on the floor of the Senate, said, 'The question in this instance is whether those who enjoy the fruits and the benefits of the unions should make a fair contribution to the support of the unions.' 96 Cong.Rec., Pt. 12, p. 16279.
The union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act is only permissive. Congress has not compelled nor required carriers and employees to enter into union shop agreements. The Supreme Court of Nebraska nevertheless took the view that justiciable questions under the First and Fifth Amendments were presented since Congress, by the union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act, sought to strike down inconsistent laws in 17 States. Cf. Hudson v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 242 N.C. 650, 89 S.E.2d 441; Otten v. Baltimore & O.R. Co., 2 Cir., 205 F.2d 58. The Supreme Court of Nebraska said, 'Such action on the part of Congress is a necessary part of every union shop contract entered into on the railroads as far as these 17 states are concerned for without it such contracts could not be enforced therein.' 160 Neb. at page 698, 71 N.W.2d at page 547. We agree with that view. If private rights are being invaded, it is by force of an agreement made pursuant to federal law which expressly declares that state law is superseded. Cf. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 663, 64 S.Ct. 757, 764, 88 L.Ed. 987. In other words, the federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed. 4 Cf. Steele v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 198199, 204, 65 S.Ct. 226, 230, 232, 89 L.Ed. 173; Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard, 343 U.S. 768, 72 S.Ct. 1022, 96 L.Ed. 1283; Public Utilities Commission of District of Columbia v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 462, 72 S.Ct. 813, 820, 96 L.Ed. 1068. The enactment of the federal statute authorizing union shop agreements is the governmental action on which the Constitution operates, though it takes a private agreement to invoke the federal sanction.
As already noted, the 1951 amendment, permitting the negotiation of union shop agreements, expressly allows those agreements notwithstanding any law 'of any State.' § 2, Eleventh. 5 A union agreement made pursuant to the Railway Labor Act has, therefore, the imprimatur of the federal law upon it and, by force of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, could not be made illegal nor vitiated by any provision of the laws of a State.
The choice by the Congress of the union shop as a stabilizing force seems to us to be an allowable one. Much might be said pro and con if the policy issue were before us. Powerful arguments have been made here that the longrun interests of labor would be better served by the development of democratic traditions in trade unionism without the coercive element of the union or the closed shop. Mr. Justice Brandeis, who had wide experience in labor-management relations prior to his appointment to the Court, wrote forcefully against the closed shop. He feared that the closed shop would swing the pendulum in the opposite extreme and substitute 'tyranny of the employee' for 'tyranny of the employer.' 6 But the question is one of policy with which the judiciary has no concern, as Mr. Justice Brandeis would have been the first to concede. Congress, acting within its constitutional powers, has the final say on policy issues. If it acts unwisely, the electorate can make a change. The task of the judiciary ends once it appears that the legislative measure adopted is relevant or appropriate to the constitutional power which Congress exercises. The ingredients of industrial peace and stabilized labor-management relations are numerous and complex. They may well vary from age to age and from industry to industry. What would be needful one decade might be anathema the next. The decision rests with the policy makers, not with the judiciary.
It is said that the right to work, which the Court has frequently included in the concept of 'liberty' within the meaning of the Due Process Clauses (see Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 36 S.Ct. 7, 60 L.Ed. 131; Takahashi v. Fish & Game Commission, 334 U.S. 410, 68 S.Ct. 1138, 92 L.Ed. 1478), may not be denied by the Congress. The question remains, however, whether the long-range interests of workers would be better served by one type of union agreement or another. That question is germane to the exercise of power under the Commerce Clausea power that often has the quality of police regulations. See Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14, 19, 67 S.Ct. 13, 15, 91 L.Ed. 12. One would have to be blind to history to assert that trade unionism did not enhance and strengthen the right to work. See Webb, History of Trade Unionism; Gregory, Labor and the Law. To require, rather than to induce, the beneficiaries of trade unionism to contribute to its costs may not be the wisest course. But Congress might well believe that it would help insure the right to work in and along the arteries of interstate commerce. No more has been attempted here. The only conditions to union membership authorized by § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act are the payment of 'periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments.' The assessments that may be lawfully imposed do not include 'fines and penalties.' The financial support required relates, therefore, to the work of the union in the realm of collective bargaining. No more precise allocation of union overhead to individual members seems to us to be necessary. The prohibition of 'fines and penalties' precludes the imposition of financial burdens for disciplinary purposes. If 'assessments' are in fact imposed for purposes not germane to collective bargaining, 7 a different problem would be presented.
Wide-ranged problems are tendered under the First Amendment. It is argued that the union shop agreement forces men into idelogical and political associations which violate their right to freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and freedom of thought protected by the Bill of Rights. 8 It is said that once a man becomes a member of these unions he is subject to vast disciplinary control 9 and that by force of the federal Act unions now can make him conform to their ideology.
Nearly fifty years ago, the railroads successfully attacked the constitutionality of a vital feature of the Act of June 1, 1898, whereby Congress made it a criminal offense to bar employment in interstate railroads merely because of labor union membership. Adair v. United States, 1908, 208 U.S. 161, 28 S.Ct. 277, 52 L.Ed. 436. It is fair to say that this decision marks the nadir of denial to Congress of the power to regulate the conditions for assuring the Nation's dependence on the peaceful and effective operation of its railroads. The criticisms that the case aroused, see, e.g., Richard Olney, Discrimination Against Union LaborLegal?' 42 Amer.L.Rev. 161 (1908), and Roscoe Pound, Liberty of Contract, 18 Yale L.J. 454 (1909), were reflected in later decisions of the Court. Neither the Commerce Clause nor the Due Process Clause was thereafter conceived, at least so far as they restrain railroad labor regulation, to be confined within such doctrinaire and frozen bounds as were confined the assumptions which underlay the decision in the Adair case. Thus, the Court sustained the Adamson Law, which was enacted to avert the threatened nation-wide railroad strike of 1916, Wilson v. New, 1917, 243 U.S. 332, 37 S.Ct. 298, 61 L.Ed. 755; Title III of the Transportation Act of 1920, Pennsylvania R. Co. v. United States Railroad Labor Board, 1923, 261 U.S. 72, 43 S.Ct. 278, 67 L.Ed. 536, and the Railway Labor Act of 1926, Texas & New Orleans R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railway & Steamship Clerks, 1930, 281 U.S. 548, 50 S.Ct. 427, 74 L.Ed. 1034; but see Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton R. Co., 1935, 295 U.S. 330, 55 S.Ct. 758, 79 L.Ed. 1468.
'Where there is, or generally is believed to be, an important ground of public policy for restraint, the Constitution does not forbid it, whether this court agrees or disagrees with the policy pursued. It cannot be doubted that to prevent strikes, and, so far as possible, to foster its scheme of arbitration, might be deemed by Congress an important point of policy, and I think it impossible to say that Congress might not reasonably think that the provision in question would help a great deal to carry its policy along. But suppose the only effect really were to tend to bring about the complete unionizing of such railroad laborers as Congress can deal with, I think that object alone would justify the act. I quite agree that the question what and how much good labor unions do, is one on which intelligent people may differ; I think that laboring men sometimes attribute to them advantages, as many attribute to combinations of capital disadvantages, that really are due to economic conditions of a far wider and deeper kind; but I could not pronounce it unwarranted if Congress should decide that to foster a strong union was for the best interest, not only of the men, but of the railroads and the country at large.' 208 U.S. at pages 191192, 28 S.Ct. at page 287.
This constitutional provision is implemented by Neb.Rev.Stat.1943, § 48217, which provides:
'Eleventh. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Act, or of any other statute or law of the United States, or Territory thereof, or of any State, any carrier or carriers as defined in this Act and a labor organization or labor organizations duly designated and authorized to represent employees in accordance with the requirements of this Act shall be permitted
The parallel provision in § 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 61 Stat. 151, 29 U.S.C. 164(b), 29 U.S.C.A. § 164(b), makes the union shop agreement give way before a state law prohibiting it.
CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION, LOCAL NO. 1, AFT, AFL-CIO, et al., Petitioners v. Annie Lee HUDSON et al.