Opinion ID: 510613
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: labor policy and the shipping laws

Text: 104 On the merits, the principal dispute between the parties concerns the extent, if any, to which the Commission is required to take labor policy considerations into account in determining the validity of the Rules under the Shipping Act. Petitioners have also preserved for review their challenge to the Commission's conclusion that, when only transportation conditions are considered, the tariffs incorporating the Rules are unreasonable and unjustly discriminatory. We briefly consider this latter argument first. 105 The validity of the Rules as tariffs when only transportation conditions are considered has not been briefed thoroughly by any of the parties to this proceeding. The petitioners have, instead, referred us to the brief they filed before the Commission in connection with its review of the ALJ's decision. Consequently, the only arguments before us are directed to the points raised by the Commission's Hearing Counsel and by the opponents of the Rules, and not to the Commission's disposition of them. Nonetheless, we have reviewed petitioners' arguments in light of the FMC's later opinion. 106 Both the ALJ and the Commission held that [t]he refusal to release containers to consolidators or to accept them without stripping and restuffing [as required by the Rules,] ... since ... unjustified by transportation conditions, would, without more, violate [the shipping laws.] Initial Decision, 22 Shpg.Reg.Rep. at 1684; see 50-Mile Rules, 24 Shpg.Reg.Rep. at 461-67. The ALJ further concluded: 107 The rules at issue here have as their sole basis the preservation of work for members of the ILA. They are arbitrary in the sense that the nature of the commodity has no bearing on the application of the rules and the conditions of transportation are at best incidental to the purpose of the rule. The Rules were not prompted by conditions attendant to the transportation of cargoes affected by them.... 108 Initial Decision, 22 Shpg.Reg.Rep. at 1687. 109 Before the Commission, the petitioners argued that the case made out by the opponents of the Rules suffered from numerous and pervasive errors of law, and was unsupported by substantial evidence. Specifically, they argued that (1) NVOs and other entities against which the Rules allegedly discriminate are not shippers entitled to the protections of the shipping laws; (2) there was no unlawful discrimination because the Rules do not require disparate treatment of similarly situated entities; (3) those against whom the Rules allegedly discriminate had failed to establish the injury upon which they predicate their case; and (4) the opponents failed to prove that the Rules were unreasonable. 110 None of these contentions truly addresses transportation conditions that would justify otherwise discriminatory practices; instead, they challenge the rather obvious conclusions that can be gleaned from examination of the Rules. On their face, the Rules require disparate treatment of various classes of shippers without reference to any transportation needs that even arguably support the distinctions made. We, therefore, find it unnecessary to discuss any of the petitioners' contentions in detail. The Commission's lengthy decision clearly shows that each is utterly without support in Commission precedent or relevant judicial decisions. With respect to the sufficiency of the evidence before the Commission, we agree with the agency that, [u]nder the circumstances of this case, in which carriers publishing facially discriminatory and burdensome tariffs have not attempted to defend them by reference to transportation considerations, it is sufficient that the testimony supports and confirms the evidence provided by the text of the Rules themselves. 50-Mile Rules, 24 Shpg.Reg.Rep. at 460. Thus, in order to prevail in this case, the petitioners must demonstrate that the Commission erred in confining its inquiry to transportation considerations and refusing to consider labor policies. 111 The petitioners contend that the Commission's refusal to consider labor policies was erroneous for a number of reasons. First, they argue that this issue was definitively resolved by our decision in CONASA and that the Commission is therefore precluded from relitigating it here. Relatedly, petitioners claim that even if principles of issue preclusion do not apply, CONASA and other decisions have demonstrated at least that some consideration of labor policies is required in cases of this type. Finally, they contend that, notwithstanding section 5 of the MLAA, federal agencies have a duty to harmonize diverse statutory programs in such a way as to give effect to the distinct, even conflicting, policies and objectives underlying those programs. In their view, the requirements of the shipping laws, which prohibit only unreasonable, unjust, or unfair practices and unjust or undue discrimination, can be interpreted in such a way as to accommodate both shipping policies and labor policies. In refusing to fashion such an accommodation, they argue, the Commission has unlawfully shirked its responsibilities. 112 The Commission, for its part, argues first that this court's decision in CONASA does not control this case, and that in any event, the passage of the MLAA, which by its terms did not apply in CONASA, prohibits it from considering labor factors as a justification for carrier practices that otherwise violate the shipping laws as the Commission has historically applied them. Alternatively, the Commission contends that the labor tests proposed by the petitioners are unworkable and irreconcilable with the policies of the shipping laws. Finally, assuming that it is required to reconcile the policies of the labor laws with the policies of the shipping laws, the Commission argues that the remedy it has ordered does precisely that because it avoids impinging upon the process of collective bargaining between the ILA and its employers more than is necessary to effectuate the policies of the shipping laws. We consider these opposing arguments in turn. 113
114 In CONASA, as we have seen, the court held that the Commission properly exercised jurisdiction over the Rules. We remanded the case, however, because 115 [t]he Commission did not examine the implications of two recent Supreme Court decisions, [PMA ], which asserts the importance of labor policy in reaching substantive shipping law decisions, 435 U.S. at 57 [98 S.Ct. at 937] ... and [ILA I ], which discusses the role of collective bargaining in resolving the problems created by technological job displacement. In the interests of justice, the FMC should have the opportunity to reconsider its previous determination in light of these two decisions. 116 CONASA, 672 F.2d at 189. 117 On remand, the Commission reaffirmed its decision and terminated the proceedings. We then vacated the Commission's order on remand, concluding: 118 It appears that the Commission is now engaged in a broad scale proceeding examining the lawfulness of practices of numerous carriers ... arising out of the '50-mile rules' contained in the present ... collective bargaining agreements. The Commission has referred that proceeding to an Administrative Law Judge for detailed fact-finding based on a full evidentiary record. 119 Because the information developed in that investigation may shed further light on the shipping law issues involved in [this case], and because action by the Supreme Court [on a petition for certioari in this case] might affect the Commission's jurisdiction over these cases, we vacate the Commission's order that these proceedings be discontinued. The Commission should defer further action [in this case] until it has reached its final decision in its [other investigation] and until the Supreme Court has concluded its action in this case. 120 CONASA, Supplemental Order on Remand, 21 Shpg.Reg.Rep. (P & F) 1057 (D.C.Cir. July 2, 1982). 121 From the order of remand and this supplemental order on remand, petitioners conclude that CONASA clearly mandated consideration of labor factors and therefore precludes the Commission from relitigating the matter. They seize upon two footnotes in our initial opinion in CONASA. In one we said that [a]lthough the legislative standards are different, some of the policy factors germane to the NLRB's decision should also be taken into account by the FMC in its shipping law determination. 672 F.2d at 181 n. 80. In the other, we stated that [t]he necessity of the collective bargaining provisions at issue is a factor that the FMC should consider in making its substantive determination of legality. Id. at 188 n. 135. 122 The doctrine of issue preclusion forecloses relitigation of both issues of law and issues of fact if those issues were conclusively determined in a prior action. United States v. Stauffer Chemical Co., 464 U.S. 165, 170-71, 104 S.Ct. 575, 578, 78 L.Ed.2d 388 (1984). An issue of law is conclusively determined if, in a prior action between the parties, it has been actually litigated and determined by a valid and final judgment, and the determination is essential to [that] judgment. Hastings v. Judicial Conference of the United States, 829 F.2d 91, 98 (D.C.Cir.1987) (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS Sec. 27 (1982)); see also Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153, 99 S.Ct. 970, 973, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979); National Treasury Employees Union v. IRS, 765 F.2d 1174, 1176 (D.C.Cir.1985). 123 We cannot agree that CONASA precludes the Commission from litigating the question whether it is required to factor labor policies into its substantive shipping law analysis. That this important question under the shipping laws was not actually litigated in CONASA was made plain in our opinion. We explicitly noted that the merits of the FMC's decision [were] not before us upon review. CONASA, 672 F.2d at 179 n. 67; see id. at 179 (Petitioners ... have addressed their briefs solely to the jurisdictional question....). Thus, the court itself neither vetted nor even discussed the implications of PMA and of ILA I in either its initial opinion or its Supplemental Opinion on Remand. We remanded the case, moreover, not because we decided that the Commission had improperly excluded labor policies in its decision on the merits, but because the Commission had not had an opportunity to consider whether intervening Supreme Court decisions required it to accommodate shipping policies to labor policies. Hence, we instructed the Commission to examine the implications, if any, of the Supreme Court's decisions in PMA and ILA I; we did not order the Commission to apply a legal rule that the court itself discerned from those intervening cases. 7 CONASA was, therefore, not a case in which a remand was necessary because intervening legal developments determined, or even clearly affected, the question in issue, viz. whether the Commission is required to factor labor policies into its substantive shipping analysis. 124 In ILA I, for example, the Supreme Court had expressly declined to consider any shipping law considerations. 447 U.S. at 512, 100 S.Ct. at 2317. In PMA, the Court had noted that [b]ecause the Commission also has the power to approve filed agreements [under section 15 of the 1916 Act], even though anticompetitive, the Commission may also take into account any special needs of labor-management relationships in the shipping industry. 435 U.S. at 63, 98 S.Ct. at 940 (emphasis added). Plainly, neither of these decisions resolved the issue presently before us. 125 The petitioners also point to representations the Commission made to this court in its motion for summary affirmance of its order discontinuing the CONASA investigation. In that motion, the Commission argued that the investigation reviewed in CONASA was properly discontinued because the agency's newly instituted investigation in Docket No. 81-11, the action presently before this court, would be a much more appropriate vehicle for any meaningful further action with respect to carriers' implementation of the 50-mile rules. More to the petitioners' point, however, the Commission also stated that [f]ollowing this Court's opinion ... the 'Interim Report and Order' [in Docket No. 81-11] was modified to ensure that 'the parties may present evidence and otherwise address the nature and extent of any labor policy consideration which might affect the lawfulness of the Container Rules under the sections of the Shipping Acts here at issue....'  126 Our Supplemental Opinion on Remand, like the initial opinion, makes clear that we did not determine what standards the Commission was required to apply in its investigation; instead, that opinion reflects only our agreement with the Commission that Docket No. 81-11 was a much more appropriate vehicle for a complete and thorough examination of the question. See CONASA, Supplemental Opinion on Remand, 21 Ship.Reg.Rep. at 1058. That being the case, we vacated the Commission's admittedly less than thorough decision on that issue on remand. The grounds for our decision in both the initial decision and the Supplemental Opinion on Remand were substantially identical; given the importance of the labor policy issue to the administration of the shipping laws, the Commission had not given appropriate or thorough consideration to the question. The Commission, after considering the effect of intervening legal developments, remained entirely free, as far as the court was concerned, to bring its best judgment to bear in the first instance on the argument that labor policy considerations must play an integral part in its shipping law calculus. The appropriate allocation of authority between agencies and the courts demanded no less, and a fair reading of our opinions in CONASA suggests no more. 127 We proceed to consider petitioners' other objections to the Commission's decision. 128
129 Petitioners, claiming that every court to have addressed the issue has said that labor factors should be taken into account by the Commission, direct our attention to PMA; Volkswagenwerk, 390 U.S. at 283-91, 88 S.Ct. at 941-45 (Harlan, J., concurring); and New York Shipping Ass'n v. FMC, 495 F.2d 1215, 1222 (2d Cir.1974). The first-cited decision endorsed the Commission's practice of exempting certain collective bargaining agreements from the filing requirement of Section 15, in deference to national labor policy; it did not consider whether the Commission is required to analyze non-exempt agreements, or carrier practices implementing them, in any way different than it would other filings under section 15. In Volkswagenwerk, the Court reversed the Commission's decision to exempt from filing under section 15 an agreement among carriers to impose a per-ton charge upon shippers in order to fund an obligation, agreed to in collective bargaining, to mitigate the impact upon employees of technological unemployment. In his separate opinion, Justice Harlan allowed that the ensuing Commission review must be circumscribed by the existence of labor problems that it is not equipped to resolve. Volkswagenwerk, 390 U.S. at 287, 88 S.Ct. at 943. Far from indicating that the FMC should specifically consider the labor context underlying a filing, however, Justice Harlan was clear that [t]he real difficulty in this case is ... to define the Commission's jurisdiction in such a way that ... the Commission will not improperly be brought into labor matters where it does not belong. Id. at 286, 88 S.Ct. at 943. 130 As for New York Shipping Ass'n, the dictum there that labor interests demand the Commission's continuing attention throughout the process of investigating the status of the agreement under [sections] 16 and 17, and the court's attempt to identify each portion of the agreement as having relatively more impact on the collective bargaining process and relatively less on competitive conditions in the industry, or vice versa, so that some would be subject to and some exempt from the requirements of the shipping laws, are not helpful either to petitioners or to this court. That was a section 15 case of pre-implementation review of a collective bargaining agreement, a procedure dropped from the law by the 1984 Act because of the problems it created for collective bargaining. 131 In sum, there is no guiding, much less binding, precedent on the point before us. 132
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
139 Passing the claim that the MLAA bars consideration of labor matters under the shipping laws, the Commission's alternative argument is that, under those laws, labor policies may be considered only in fashioning an appropriate remedy for practices that cannot be justified by reference to traditional transportation factors. In other words, labor policies are relevant not to the liability, but only to the remedial, phase of the proceeding. Before turning to its merits, we address briefly the standard under which we review this interpretation of the shipping laws.
140 The applicable provisions of the shipping laws make no mention of labor policies; nor does any party maintain that the legislative history of these statutes provides a clear indication of a congressional purpose with respect to the question we must presently answer. Absent some authoritative guidance from Congress, or another controlling consideration, it would seem that our task under the second step in Chevron is to decide only whether the Commission's interpretation of the statutes it is entrusted to administer is a permissible or reasonable one. 141 The petitioners argue that the deferential test of Chevron does not apply, however, because the question presented is a pure question of law. They further contend that the requirements of the shipping laws must be reconciled with the policies of the labor laws, and that the process of doing so is peculiarly a judicial function, since it requires the weighing and harmonizing of different congressional goals and policies. In their view, we must review the Commission's interpretation of the shipping laws de novo. 142 We do not disagree that the Commission should not trench unnecessarily upon the policies underlying the federal labor laws. When the purposes of the shipping laws it administers can otherwise be accomplished, the Commission must take care not to create tension between the labor and shipping law obligations of carriers. See Burlington Truck Lines v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 172-74, 83 S.Ct. 239, 247-48, 9 L.Ed.2d 207 (1962). It does not follow, however, that in order to ensure against that possibility we must review the Commission's interpretation of its organic legislation under a more stringent standard of review than is mandated by Chevron. 143 Whatever weight labor policies must be given in this case, the matter under review remains the Commission's application of the shipping laws to the Rules, not a pronouncement on the validity of the Rules under the labor statutes. Although the manner in which the Commission has interpreted the shipping laws may have important consequences for the collective bargaining relationship between the ILA and the carriers, so too may the interpretation given a myriad of laws by many different agencies concerned with such matters as pensions, taxation of benefits, antitrust policy, and so on. In this case, the legality of the Rules as a matter of labor law has been established conclusively by the Supreme Court; there may be many other laws that the Rules, with equal certainty, do not offend. Our concern, and that of the Commission before us, is solely with the requirements of the shipping laws, and such allowance, if any, as the shipping laws make to accommodate national labor policy. 144 Thus, in this case as in any other, the shipping laws constitute[ ] the immediate frame of reference within which the Commission operates ... and the policies expressed in [them] must be the basic determinants of its action. Denver & R.G.W.R. Co. v. United States, 387 U.S. 485, 493-94, 87 S.Ct. 1754, 1760, 18 L.Ed.2d 905 (1967) (quoting McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, 321 U.S. 67, 80, 64 S.Ct. 370, 377, 88 L.Ed. 544 (1944)). And [i]t is the Commission that in the first instance must determine whether, because of certain compelling considerations, a carrier is relieved of its usual statutory duty.... See Local 1976, United Bhd. of Carpenters and Joiners, 357 U.S. 93, 109, 78 S.Ct. 1011, 1021, 2 L.Ed.2d 1186 (1958) (hereinafter Sand Door ). That being the case, and because the Commission may not in any event abandon an independent inquiry into the requirements of its own statute and mechanically accept standards elaborated by another agency under a different statute for wholly different purposes, id. at 111, 78 S.Ct. at 1022, our review remains a matter of checking the Commission against the terms of the shipping laws. This is precisely the type of appellate exercise governed by Chevron; our review must be correlatively deferential. 10 145 Congress has unmistakeably delegated to the Commission initial authority to resolve the kind of issue before us today, subject to our review for fidelity to the broad purposes of the shipping laws. For, as we have seen, the Rules at issue must be published in a signatory carrier's tariff, and thus, fall within the jurisdiction of the Commission pursuant to section 5 of the MLAA. The Commission has applied the laws it administers to the Rules, and our only task is to determine whether, in doing so, the Commission has interpreted the statute in a manner not in derogation of the Congressional policies it expresses. It matters not whether the issue before us can be characterized as a pure question of law or something else; Congress has not spoken to the question, and since it can fairly be characterized as falling within the authority Congress has delegated to the Commission, we are simply not at liberty to substitute our judgment for that of the agency that must administer these laws on a day-to-day basis. United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 23, 108 S.Ct. at 426-27 (Scalia, J., concurring); cf. Burlington Truck Lines, 371 U.S. at 169, 83 S.Ct. at 246. Reasonableness, therefore, is the measure of our review. 146 Nonetheless, this case does differ in one respect from the generality of cases in which we are called upon to review an agency's interpretation of a statute pursuant to Chevron. The FMC has not been commissioned to effectuate the policies of the [shipping laws] so single-mindedly that it may wholly ignore other and equally important Congressional objectives. Southern Steamship Co. v. NLRB, 316 U.S. 31, 47, 62 S.Ct. 886, 894, 86 L.Ed. 1246 (1942). As the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized, [f]requently the entire scope of Congressional purpose calls for careful accommodation of one statutory scheme to another, and it is not too much to demand of an administrative body that it undertake this accommodation without excessive emphasis upon its immediate task. Id.; see FTC v. A.P.W. Paper Co., 328 U.S. 193, 202, 66 S.Ct. 932, 936, 90 L.Ed. 1165 (1946); McLean Trucking, 321 U.S. at 80, 64 S.Ct. at 377. 147 Therefore, for its interpretation of the shipping laws to be considered permissible or reasonable, the Commission must adequately explain not only why its interpretation is consistent with the shipping laws, but also why it accomplishes the accommodation required (or, alternatively, why no accommodation is possible), and why any alternative, more accommodating interpretations were rejected. 148 In order to do this, the Commission must identify the relevant labor policies that are to be accommodated, a task quite clearly beyond the Commission's claim of expertise and outside Chevron 's rationale for deferential review. Hence, we give no special deference to its interpretation and identification of those policies. See Sand Door, 357 U.S. at 108-10, 78 S.Ct. at 1020-21; Department of the Treasury v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, 837 F.2d 1163, 1167 (D.C.Cir.1988) ([W]hen an agency interprets a statute other than that which it has been entrusted to administer, its interpretation is not entitled to deference.); Professional Airways Sys. Specialists v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, 809 F.2d 855, 857 n. 6 (D.C.Cir.1987). It necessarily follows that if the Commission has interpreted the labor laws in a fashion that undervalues or overlooks the policies those laws seek to promote, its attempt to determine whether and to what extent those policies can be reconciled within the framework of the shipping laws cannot be considered reasonable. See Southern Steamship Co., 316 U.S. at 46-48, 62 S.Ct. at 894-95. 149
150 As we have seen, both the ALJ and the Commission concluded that the Rules were unreasonable and unjustly discriminatory when analyzed, as tariffs must be, under the transportation considerations that have historically informed the Commission's substantive shipping law analysis. The ALJ went on to conclude, however, that these violations may be excused if: (1) the practices were the product of good faith collective bargaining; (2) the bargaining was over a subject of legitimate labor concern; (3) there was no conspiracy between labor and management; and, most significantly, (4) the resulting harm to shippers from allowing the practices to be implemented is outweighed by the harm to labor interests in enjoining the practices. Initial Decision, 22 Shpg.Reg.Rep. at 1683. 151 On review, the Commission rejected the ALJ's analysis for several reasons. First, relying on cases decided under the Interstate Commerce Act, the Commission noted that 152 common carriers in other transportation modes have not been excused from their statutory obligations on the basis of collective bargaining agreements with their employees.... [A] common carrier may not bargain away such duties in a labor agreement and then defend its actions on the grounds that it served a greater public interest by avoiding a strike and preserving labor peace. 153 50 Mile Rules, 24 Shpg.Reg.Rep. at 455. 154 Second, the Commission concluded that, in order for an outwardly discriminatory or burdensome practice to be considered reasonable within the meaning of the shipping laws, it must be justified by recognized transportation conditions ... such as peculiarities in the nature of the transportation needs of the cargo, competition from other carriers, insufficient cargo to warrant service at a particular port, or conditions at a port or other facility that truly are beyond the carrier's control. In the Commission's view, a collective bargaining agreement and labor peace on the docks should [not] be considered together with 'traditional' transportation factors in determining whether the Rules are reasonable. To do so would permit the carriers to bargain with the union without any incentive to safeguard their fundamental common carrier obligations. Id. at 455-56. 155 Finally, the Commission regarded the four-part test used by the ALJ as contrary to the policies underlying the MLAA, because [it] would require [the agency] to return once again to making findings of fact regarding the collective bargaining process and to rendering interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act. Id. at 456. More fundamentally, however, the Commission rejected the ALJ's purported comparison of benefits and burdens as totally unworkable because it requires the Commission to compare inherently unlike factors, such as labor gains against shipping losses. Id. at 459. 156 Nonetheless, the Commission recognized that it should, if possible, interpret the shipping laws in a manner that gives effect to the policies underlying both these laws and the labor laws. It concluded, however, that in this case, because the National Labor Relations Act does not apply ... in either its terms or its underlying policies, there exists only ... a 'false conflict' that the FMC is not obliged to resolve by attempting to blend the two bodies of law. Id. at 459. The Commission also concluded that even if it were appropriate to accommodate labor interests, there was no reasonable or feasible methodology by which this could be done, consistent with its obligations under the shipping laws. Id. at 459. 11 The Commission also recognized that any remedy it ordered would affect the collective bargaining relationship between the ILA and the carriers. It concluded that labor policies could be considered in fashioning a remedy, and that the remedy chosen should be precise and narrowly drawn so as to minimize the impact upon that relationship. 157 The primary thrust of petitioners' challenge to the Commission's conclusions, as outlined above, is that the exclusion of labor factors from the Commission's analysis prior to its remedial stage creates unnecessary conflict between the shipping laws and the labor laws, in derogation of the Commission's duty to accommodate the two regimes. More specifically, they contend that the Commission's conclusion that the labor laws are not implicated in this case is nothing less than an ostrich-like denial of reality, because in declaring the Rules unlawful, the Commission effectively nullified the rights of ILA members to preserve their work. Such a result, they argue, is necessary neither to vindicate the policies of the shipping laws nor to ensure that the technological efficiencies of containerization are made fully available to the shipping public. They further contend that the Commission's exclusion of labor policies contravenes the Supreme Court's express instructions to administrative agencies in McLean Trucking, 321 U.S. at 80, 64 S.Ct. at 377. 158 [I]n executing th[e] policies [of its organic statute, an agency] may be faced with overlapping and at times inconsistent policies embodied in other legislation enacted at different times and with different problems in view. When this is true, it cannot, without more, ignore the latter. The precise adjustments which it must make, however, will vary from instance to instance depending on the extent to which Congress indicates a desire to have those policies leavened or implemented in the enforcement of the various specific provisions of the legislation with which the [agency] is primarily and directly concerned. 159 The petitioners point out that in the shipping laws, the relevant portions of which are reproduced in Appendix B to this opinion, Congress chose not to make it unlawful for a carrier to burden or discriminate among shippers under any and all circumstances, but only when the result is unjust, undue, or unreasonable. Thus, they argue, the proscriptions of the shipping laws are not hard and fast rules, and a carrier's obligations under those laws are not in any sense absolute. The capacity and suppleness of the statutory language make it clear, they suggest, that Congress intended that the Commission would make the type of precise adjustments for labor policies in its shipping law determinations that the Court held the ICC was required to make for antitrust policies in McLean Trucking. They conclude that 160 since the Rules vindicate work preservation rights guaranteed by Congress, the Commission must uphold them unless they go beyond the realm of reasonableness. Evaluation of reasonableness requires consideration of a variety of factors, including the history of the challenged provisions, the evil they seek to remedy, the underlying reasons for their adoption, the ends they seek to achieve, and the effects of their implementation. 161 In short, the issue before us is the extent to which the Commission must consider petitioners' interests in work preservation when evaluating the reasonableness of the Rules. 162 We discern three types of cases that raise the question whether an agency is required to accommodate the policies of another statutory regime within the framework of the legislation it administers. In the first category, a regulated party argues that conduct that violates the terms of the agency's organic statute is privileged under the terms of another statute. These may be styled false conflict cases, because there is no anomaly if conduct privileged under one statute is nonetheless condemned by another; we expect persons in a complex regulatory state to conform their behavior to the dictates of many laws, each serving its own special purpose. In cases of this type, an administrative agency need not make any accommodation to the constraints that other laws place upon the regulated person. 163 The second category differs from the first in one critical respect: the regulated party's conduct, in violation of the agency's organic statute, is not merely privileged under another statute; it discharges an affirmative obligation or involves the exercise of a right guaranteed thereunder. The agency enforcing its statute is thus faced with what we shall call a true conflict, although it is not to be confused with that phrase as it used in other contexts. In such a case, the agency must fully enforce the requirements of its own statute, but must do so, insofar as possible, in a manner that minimizes the impact of its actions on the policies of the other statute. 164 In the third category of cases, an agency is required by its own organic law to consider congressional policies articulated in other statutes. Its mandate to regulate in the public interest incorporates an obligation to consult those aspects of the public interest reflected in statutes administered by others. These incorporation cases differ from cases of alleged conflict principally in that the question for the court is not whether an agency accommodation is required, but whether Congress intended the agency to consult the public interest more broadly than an exclusive focus on the purposes served by its organic legislation would allow. 165 The false conflict category is illustrated by a series of cases in which regulated common carriers entered into hot cargo agreements with the union representing their employees. 12 In Galveston Truck Line Corp. v. Ada Motor Lines, Inc., 73 M.C.C. 617 (1957), a motor carrier complained to the ICC that connecting trunk-line carriers had refused to accept and forward interline shipments tendered to them by short-line carriers. The trunk-line carriers claimed that their actions were justified by reason of the [hot cargo] terms of their labor contracts, and the labor situation in existence at the time. 73 M.C.C. at 620. The ICC rejected these arguments, concluding that the carriers 166 gave preferential effect to the demands of the union representatives over their duties and obligations to the public, and their claim that their actions were in the best interests of the public as a whole, in that they were able to continue service to most of their many customers, is shallow indeed, even assuming that they had a right to make a determination as to which customers to serve and which to refuse. 167 Id. at 628. 168 The crucial import of Galveston is that a regulator of common carriers will not condone conduct that violates the terms of its organic statute merely because that conduct may be lawful under another statutory regime. As the ICC noted, [w]e are here concerned, not with the legality of the 'hot cargo' clauses as such, but with the actions of the defendant carriers in relation to their obligations under the Interstate Commerce Act to the public, without regard to the terms of any contract which they may have executed with a third party. Galveston, 73 M.C.C. at 625-26; see also Merchandise Warehouse Co. v. A.B.C. Freight Forwarding Corp., 165 F.Supp. 67, 76 (S.D.Ind.1958) (carrier must insist upon contractual terms with the Union that will permit [it] to fulfill i[ts] duties under applicable regulatory laws); Pickup and Delivery Restrictions, California, Rail, 303 I.C.C. 579, 594 (1958). 169 In Sand Door, the Supreme Court approved and generalized the foundation upon which Galveston rested by emphasizing that the policies of diverse statutory regimes are best preserved if each agency scrupulously avoids deciding questions of law or policy that more properly lie within the jurisdiction of another agency, when a more limited inquiry into the requirements of its own statute is sufficient to dispose of the question before it. Thus, the Court, per Justice Frankfurter, endorsed the ICC's approach: 170 It is significant to note the limitations that the Commission was careful to draw about its decision in the Galveston case. It was not concerned to determine, as an abstract matter, the legality of hot cargo clauses, but only to enforce whatever duty was imposed on the carriers by the Interstate Commerce Act and their certificates. The Commission recognized that it had no general authority to police such contracts, and its sole concern was to determine whether a hot cargo provision could be a defense to a charge that the carriers had violated some specific statutory duty. 171 357 U.S. at 109, 78 S.Ct. at 1021. By the same token, the Court disapproved the NLRB's contention that hot cargo provisions contained in collective bargaining agreements should be deemed unlawful, not solely because of policies underlying the labor laws, but also because, by entering a contract not to handle the goods the [employer] carrier violates its obligations under the Interstate Commerce Act to provide nondiscriminatory service and to observe just and reasonable practices. Id. at 109, 78 S.Ct. at 1021. The Court approached the question not in terms of whether the NLRB's interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Act was correct, but in terms of its institutional competence to interpret that Act at all: 172 [O]ther agencies of government, in interpreting and administering the provisions of statutes specifically entrusted to them for enforcement, must be cautious not to complicate the [ICC's] administration of its own act.... 173