Opinion ID: 510613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Does the MLAA Alter Substantive Shipping Law Analysis?

Text: 133 The Commission ruled that, in enacting the MLAA, Congress intended to preclude the agency from considering labor policies under the shipping laws. 50-Mile Rules, 24 Shpg.Reg.Rep. at 440. The petitioners, by contrast, argue that because the MLAA is solely concerned with the scope of the Commission's jurisdiction over matters contained in or related to maritime labor agreements, [i]t necessarily does not implicate the substantive provisions of the shipping laws. 134 Not a word in the text of the MLAA supports the view that it bars the Commission from considering labor policies. Indeed, the Commission's argument is essentially that the MLAA implicitly amended the substantive provisions of the shipping laws. 8 Such an indirectly accomplished amendment is not lightly to be inferred, of course, in any case. Cf. Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 550-51, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 2482-83, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974). It is quite impossible in this case, where the legislative history clearly demonstrates that Congress intended the MLAA to have no effect on the substantive provisions of the shipping laws. 135 The bill that became the MLAA was introduced in response to complaints from both labor and management that the Supreme Court's decisions in Volkswagenwerk and PMA undermined the national labor policy of encouraging the peaceful resolution of labor disputes through collective bargaining by transforming such bargaining into a process of adjudicatory confrontation before the Federal Maritime Commission. S.REP. NO. 854, supra, at 9. They therefore argued that maritime labor contracts and all agreements among carriers implementing such contracts should be categorically exempt from the Commission's jurisdiction under section 15 of the 1916 Act. This position was adopted in the House bill. See H.R.REP. NO. 876, supra, at 2 (This legislation will eliminate the jurisdiction of the FMC to review or require the filing of collective bargaining agreements and agreements incidental to collective bargaining.). 136 Recall, however, that the Senate received testimony from those opposing a blanket exemption from the Commission's jurisdiction for all practices contained in or related to collective bargaining agreements. Such an exemption, they argued, went beyond what was necessary to protect the collective bargaining process and seriously undermined the protections available to shippers under the shipping laws. The Senate responded to these concerns by amending the House bill to include the tariff matter provision. In doing so, the Senate Report stated that, while the purpose of the MLAA is to ensure that the maritime industry is not deprived of the express national policy of free and unfettered bargaining without government intervention, the tariff matter provision likewise guaranteed that the Commission's jurisdiction is preserved to the extent necessary to ensure equal treatment of shippers, cargo, and localities, and to prevent abuses made possible by ... concerted activity of ocean carriers and others. S.REP. NO. 854, supra, at 10. The Report went on to emphasize that, in preserving the Commission's jurisdiction over tariff matters, the bill retains the existing protections of the Shipping Act for shippers, carriers and localities which may be adversely affected by shipping practices which may arise out of maritime labor agreements. Id. at 11 (emphasis added). It is thus clear that Congress did not contemplate that the MLAA would effect any substantive change in the shipping law standards to be applied by the Commission in determining the validity of carrier practices that must be published in tariffs. We therefore cannot accept the Commission's argument that the MLAA bars it from considering labor policies under the shipping laws. 137 We note with interest that this is not a case in which the Commission lays claim to any deference for its interpretation under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-45, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-83, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). In light of the foregoing legislative history, such deference would be inadequate to the Commission's purpose in any event. But it would also be inappropriate for us to defer to the agency where, as here, it is interpreting not the meaning of a statute that Congress has charged it to administer, but rather a statute merely delimiting its jurisdiction as against that of the authorities charged with administration of the labor laws. Judicial deference to an agency's interpretation of a statute is required under Chevron when Congress has not spoken clearly to the precise question the agency must consider in the course of its administration of that statute. While it is true that Congress was silent in the MLAA regarding the Commission's responsibility to accommodate labor policies, the statutes that the Commission administers in determining whether carrier practices are unjust, undue or unreasonable is not the MLAA but the substantive shipping laws. Thus, congressional silence on this issue in this statute does not make it ambiguous in any way relevant to the issue, and does not authorize the Commission to fetter itself with imaginative interpretations shielded from de novo review. 9 138