Opinion ID: 2785104
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Aircraft Service and Its Fuelers

Text: The central argument of the majority is that an injunction ought not to have issued because Aircraft Service failed to “make any efforts” to settle the dispute. There is no district court finding of fact to that effect. All we have are three affidavits, two from Aircraft Service and one from Working Washington. The Aircraft Service representative at Sea-Tac says that he met with Popescu in person, joined by a human resources area manager by phone, but Popescu cursed at the area manager, threw his chair across the room, left, and slammed the door behind him. That cannot be a failure to “make any effort” by the employer. Working Washington’s campaign director says that Popescu supporters called the company’s human resources department throughout one evening and into the following morning and received no response. These events amount to the company’s unsuccessful attempt to settle with Popescu, and a few other employees’ attempts to settle Popescu’s issues with the company. We lack authority, as an appellate court, to make a finding of fact, as the majority appears to do, that the company made no effort to settle. They met with Popescu, and he threw a chair and walked out. 75 Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen v. Akron & Barberton Belt R.R. Co., 385 F.2d 581, 614 (D.C. Cir. 1967). AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 57 If, as the majority appears to believe, the affidavits are treated as establishing facts, then there would be sufficient evidence that Aircraft Service made the reasonable efforts required by Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. We held in Switchmen’s Union of North America v. Southern Pacific Co. that a carrier fulfilled its obligation under Section 8 when there was “no unfair surprise,” and “the company, in good faith, [had] attempted to confer on the issue prior to the incident which led to the strike.”76 No employee could claim to be “unfairly surprised” by a suspension for “cussing out” his boss. Aircraft Service’s refusal immediately to reinstate Popescu upon demand appears to have generated the vote to strike, but all three affidavits show that Aircraft Service attempted, in good faith, to confer with Popescu after his suspension and prior to the fuelers threatening to strike. The real nub here, for Working Washington as well as Popescu and the six fuelers who wrote on his behalf, appears to be the company’s refusal to meet and attempt to settle with them, not Popescu. The company, after all, did meet with Popescu. Aircraft Service’s position was that it had no obligation to negotiate with Working Washington or those fuelers who made phone calls the night after Popescu was suspended. The National Mediation Board’s position was that it too had no mediation available for the six Popescu supporters. They were both right. Working Washington, as its campaign director says in his affidavit, is not a union and has not been selected as a representative by Aircraft Service’s employees. Working Washington has many constituents including “neighborhood associations, immigrant groups, labor unions, civil rights 76 398 F.2d 443, 447 (1968). 58 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. organizations, and people of faith.” Aircraft Service cannot assume that Working Washington represents its employees. Working Washington selected them, instead of the employees selecting Working Washington. Perhaps Working Washington would be looking out solely for the interests of Aircraft Service’s employees, or perhaps it would be serving its constituents’ interests and preferences and not Aircraft Service’s fuelers’ interests. Likewise, the fuelers who allegedly called the human resources department, and the six fuelers who wrote to the National Mediation Board, have not established a right to represent all the other fuelers. The company’s affidavit says that employees wanted to get rid of Popescu because they feared he might damage their vehicles and his irrational rages created a safety threat to them. Perhaps more fuelers wanted to get rid of Popescu than wanted to keep him, because they feared for their own safety on account of Popescu’s erratic behavior. Perhaps Aircraft Service has been protecting the interests of most of its employees, while Working Washington is sacrificing their safety to some other agenda. We have no idea. Proper selection of a representative answers the question whether some group or entity represents the employees. An unsupported claim to speak on their behalf does not. The Supreme Court held in Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R. Co. that the Railway Labor Act “imposes upon the carrier ‘the affirmative duty to treat only with the true representative, and hence the negative duty to treat with no other.’”77 The affirmative and the negative duty both arise out of the “essential foundation 77 320 U.S. 323, 335 (1943) (quoting Virginian Ry. Co. v. Sys. Fed’n No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 548 (1937)). AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 59 of the statutory scheme,” “[f]reedom of choice in the selection of representatives.”78 The majority’s expansive reading of Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act would repeal this central feature of the Railway Labor Act and deprive Aircraft Service’s employees of what the Supreme Court characterized as a “liberty [that] should be safeguarded.”79 That is the liberty of the employees to choose their own representative rather than having a representative forced upon them. That right to pick the representative rather than having one imposed is why the Railway Labor Act creates a process for employees to select a mediation representative,80 even if they are not unionized and do not choose to be represented by a union.81 Any question of whether Popescu’s supporters, or Working Washington, ought to be negotiated with, or mediated or arbitrated with, is to be settled under the statute by the detailed procedures for designating representatives.82 That explains why the National Mediation Board rejected the request for mediation by six individual fuelers. After all, suppose the company negotiated and mediated, and reached an agreement satisfying Working Washington and Popescu’s supporters, perhaps to reinstate Popescu with back pay. That might leave a majority of the fuelers at what they considered too much risk to their personal safety from Popescu. And 78 Id. at 329–30. 79 Id. at 330. 80 45 U.S.C. § 152, Third, Ninth. 81 Id. § 152, Fifth. 82 Id. § 152, Ninth. 60 AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. Working Washington might be subordinating Aircraft Service’s employees interests to the interests and preferences of the “labor unions, civil rights organizations, and people of faith” that comprise it. A company is not obligated to, and may not, under Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R. Co.,83 negotiate and try to settle its employee disputes with an organization its workers have not chosen, that may be serving interests conflicting with the interests of most of its employees. The statute requires that “not less than 50 percent of the employees in the craft or class” select a representative.84 Perhaps Working Washington, or the employees who support Popescu, or both, should represent the fuelers and can be trusted to represent their interests, not others. They can. All they need to do is follow the Railway Labor Act’s straightforward process to get certified as their representative. Without that, they are in the position of a lawyer settling a case on behalf of a client who has not chosen to be represented by that lawyer, who perhaps represents someone else with a conflicting interest. The record is uncontradicted that the company met with Popescu to discuss his suspension, but he slammed the door and walked out. Even were there some issue of fact about this, the injunction would still be within the district court’s discretion. A fair reading of the Railway Labor Act and the Supreme Court decisions interpreting that law’s relationship to the Norris-LaGuardia Act compels the conclusion that an injunction would still properly issue, compelling both sides to submit to the Railway Labor Act’s dispute resolution 83 320 U.S. 323 (1943). 84 45 U.S.C. § 152, Twelfth. AIRCRAFT SERVICES INT’L V. WORKING WASH. 61 procedures before any strike could take place. That reading would be consistent with the Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh and District of Columbia Circuit’s interpretation of the Railway Labor Act’s Section 152, First. Delaying an injunction until findings can be made on which side is the more unreasonably hardheaded, and denying an injunction if the petitioner is the more unreasonable, defeats the Railway Labor Act’s first stated purpose, which is “to avoid any interruption to commerce.” That is why the district court quoted Section 152, First of the Railway Labor Act and explained that “Defendant’s interpretation would wholly frustrate the [Railway Labor Act’s] overriding mandate, which is to impose a duty on carriers and their employees to ‘settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of such agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce . . . .’” The district court was right.