Opinion ID: 391158
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: HRL and the RLA

Text: 38 Finally, we consider the airlines' contention that the HRL was preempted by the RLA. 18 The RLA governs the collective bargaining agreements between the airlines and their employees pursuant to which the disability plans at issue here were established. Plaintiffs argue that by mandating pregnancy coverage not otherwise available under its collective bargaining agreements, the HRL unlawfully alters the terms of those agreements and impermissibly interferes with the collective bargaining processes established by the RLA. We disagree. 19 39 In San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959), the Supreme Court set forth the basic framework of analysis for questions of federal labor law preemption. First, (w)hen it is clear or may fairly be assumed that the activities which a State purports to regulate are either protected or proscribed by federal law, then due regard for the federal enactment requires that state jurisdiction must yield. Id. at 244, 79 S.Ct. at 779. Second, even if a state law touches upon conduct arguably governed by the federal scheme, the state may nevertheless regulate that conduct if it is a merely peripheral concern of the federal law, or if it involves interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, (the court) could not infer that Congress had deprived the States of the power to act. Id. at 243-44, 79 S.Ct. at 778-79 (footnote omitted). Courts must carefully examine both the state interest in regulating the conduct at issue and the potential for interference with the federal regime. Farmer v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, Local 25, 430 U.S. 290, 297, 300-01, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 1061, 1063-64, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977). Ultimately, however, the question is one of congressional intent. Garmon, supra, 359 U.S. at 239-40, 79 S.Ct. at 776-77. 40 At the outset, the airlines raise a contention that would divert us from this task of statutory analysis. Relying upon Railway Employees' Dep't v. Hanson, 351 U.S. 225, 76 S.Ct. 714, 100 L.Ed. 1112 (1956), and California v. Taylor, 353 U.S. 553, 77 S.Ct. 1037, 1 L.Ed.2d 1034 (1957), they argue that the terms of their collective bargaining agreements, by themselves, override the HRL. Quoting Hanson, plaintiffs assert: 41 A union agreement made pursuant to the Railway Labor Act has ... 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. 42 351 U.S. at 232, 76 S.Ct. at 718. See also Taylor, supra, 353 U.S. at 561, 77 S.Ct. at 1042 (RLA collective bargaining agreement would take precedence over conflicting provisions of state law). Because the airlines' collective bargaining agreements were negotiated pursuant to the RLA, they contend that the agreements themselves supersede state law, so that New York was powerless to require the insertion, through the HRL, of terms concerning disability benefits that the parties themselves had omitted. 43 Hanson and Taylor do not stand for so sweeping a proposition. Hanson involved the application of a state right to work law, which forbade agreements requiring employees to join a union, to a collective bargaining agreement that contained an express union shop clause requiring union membership. The RLA expressly permitted unions to negotiate such union shop agreements (n) otwithstanding any ... statute or law ... of any State. 45 U.S.C. § 152 (Eleventh). The essential point was that the state law conflicted with the terms of the RLA itself, not merely with an agreement negotiated under the RLA. Taylor involved an attempt by state authorities to subject employees of a state-owned railroad to the state civil service law, which forbade collective bargaining, despite the fact that the employees were then covered by a collective bargaining agreement negotiated with the state pursuant to the RLA. The Court held that the RLA applied to the state as employer, and that its conflicting civil service laws were therefore preempted. 353 U.S. at 561-68, 77 S.Ct. at 1042-46. As the Taylor Court's discussion of Hanson makes plain, the existing collective bargaining agreement would take precedence over the state civil service laws because those laws were invalid, as applied to the railroad, under the RLA itself. Id. at 560-61, 77 S.Ct. at 1041-42. We must therefore determine the validity of the New York statute by ascertaining the intent of Congress, not merely by perusing the airlines' agreements with their workers. 44 Nothing in the RLA clearly addresses the permissibility of state regulation such as the HRL. Among other things, the RLA places upon employers a duty to bargain, empowers employees to organize and select representatives, establishes administrative bodies for the resolution of disputes, and prescribes certain rules concerning union security agreements, dues check-offs, and the like. 45 U.S.C. §§ 152, 153, 154. With very few exceptions, it permits parties to collective bargaining to adopt whatever terms are mutually satisfactory. We must therefore scrutinize the New York statutes in terms of their potential for interfering with the federal scheme and the strength of the state interests they reflect. See, e. g., Garmon, supra; Farmer, supra. 45 The RLA protects and vigorously promotes the collective bargaining process. See, e. g., Taylor, supra, 353 U.S. at 559, 77 S.Ct. at 1040, and cases cited. Thus, the airlines' most telling argument against the HRL is that it impermissibly curbs the parties' freedom to bargain over fringe benefits, a concededly valuable item of compensation. As the airlines note, (t)he inclusion or noninclusion of a substantial economic benefit in a collectively bargained compensation package goes to the heart of the bargaining process. (Brief on Appeal at 38). Moreover, it is generally true that state laws designed to alter the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, see Lodge 76, Int'l Ass'n of Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n, 427 U.S. 132, 153, 96 S.Ct. 2548, 2559, 49 L.Ed.2d 396 (1976), or to adjust the economic relations of parties to collective bargaining, see Local 24, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U.S. 283, 297, 79 S.Ct. 297, 305, 3 L.Ed.2d 312 (1959), are inconsistent with federal policies protecting the bargaining process. At first glance, therefore, the HRL does seem to intrude impermissibly upon an area that Congress has reserved for private negotiation. 46 Nonetheless, closer inspection of the complex of state and federal interests at stake persuades us that the HRL is fully valid under the RLA. First, it is consistent with prevailing federal policies concerning employment relations. The RLA, like other federal labor statutes, does not address the problem of employment discrimination. Colorado Anti-Discrimination Comm'n v. Continental Air Lines, Inc., 372 U.S. 714, 83 S.Ct. 1022, 10 L.Ed.2d 84 (1963). See also Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974) (Title VII remedies operate independently of arbitration process established under collective bargaining agreement). Thus the fact that state antidiscrimination laws have some effect on collective bargaining under the RLA does not automatically invalidate them. We must look to other federal laws that govern employment discrimination in order to gauge their harmony with the overall federal scheme. Cf. Malone v. White Motor Corp., 435 U.S. 497, 504-05, 98 S.Ct. 1185, 1189-90, 55 L.Ed.2d 443 (1978) (federal pension legislation provides far more reliable guide to legislative intent than does the National Labor Relations Act in determining validity of state statute affecting pension plan established by collective bargaining). Title VII, the principal federal employment discrimination law, indicates that the HRL is and was in accordance with the federal scheme. Although the practices prohibited by the state statute were not prohibited by Title VII prior to its amendment in 1978, see General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, supra, Title VII permits the states to adopt antidiscrimination measures more stringent than its own, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-7, and vigorous enforcement of state fair employment laws by state agencies is an integral part of the federal scheme, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b), (c), (d), (e). The HRL is precisely the sort of state law that Congress had in mind. It provides protections beyond the federal minimum and establishes orderly administrative procedures for enforcing those protections. Thus, far from offending the principal federal regime in point, the HRL actually promoted it. 47 Furthermore, the statute reflects strong state interests and policies. As Title VII itself recognizes, the states have an abiding interest in eradicating employment discrimination. Title VII permits the states to act not only against forms of discrimination that have afflicted the nation as a whole, but also against those that are peculiarly local in character or peculiarly harmful in their local effects. New York has decided that the denial of certain minimum benefits for workers disabled by pregnancy contravenes its own policy of sheltering women from the economic dislocations otherwise attendant upon childbirth. Brooklyn Union Gas Co., supra; Union Free School District No. 6 v. New York State Human Rights Appeal Board, 35 N.Y.2d 371, 362 N.Y.S.2d 139, 320 N.E.2d 859 (1974). Nothing in that choice offends the RLA. 48 Accordingly, we hold that the HRL was not preempted by the RLA.