Opinion ID: 110041
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Lack of Evidence of Congressional Intent to Alter the Policy of the NLRA

Text: The challenged provisions of the New York law cannot, consistently with prior decisions of this Court, be brought within the local feeling and responsibility exception to the pre-emption doctrine. The principles of Morton and Machinists therefore require pre-emption in this case unless in some other law Congress has modified the policy of the NLRA. The plurality, acknowledging the need to look beyond the NLRA to support its conclusion, relies primarily on the Social Security Act. In that Act, adopted only five weeks after the passage of the NLRA, it finds an indication that Congress did intend that the States be free to make unemployment compensation payments part of the collective-bargaining relationship structured by the NLRA. But it is extremely unlikely that little over a month after enacting a detailed and carefully designed statute to structure industrial relations, the Congress would alter so dramatically the balance struck in that law. It would be even more remarkable if such a change were made, as the plurality suggests, without any explicit statutory expression, and indeed absent any congressional discussion whatever of the problem. The Social Security Act, as the plurality acknowledges, ante, at 540, is silent on the question, neither authorizing the States to provide unemployment compensation for strikers nor prohibiting the States from making such aid available. Congress did explicitly forbid the States to condition unemployment compensation benefits upon acceptance of work as strikebreakers, or membership in a company union, or nonmembership in any labor union, [14] thereby indicating an intention to prohibit interference with the collective-bargaining balance struck in the NLRA. Nor does the legislative history of the Social Security Act reflect any congressional intention to allow unemployment compensation for strikers. [15] Senator Wagner, a sponsor of the proposed legislation, made no reference to any such feature of the Social Security Act in his remarks to the Senate Finance Committee. Hearings on S. 1130 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 1-30 (1935). [16] Although the suggestion that the Act should contain an explicit prohibition of unemployment compensation to strikers was included in several written submissions to the Senate Committee, there is no evidence whatever that the Committee considered the suggestion. [17] Indeed, it is clear that the problem never received congressional attention, for the subject is mentioned nowhere in the Committee Reports or the congressional debates on the Social Security Act. H. R. Rep. No. 615, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935); S. Rep. No. 628, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935); 79 Cong. Rec. 5467-5478, 5528-5563, 5579-5606, 5678-5715, 5768, 5771-5817, 5856-5909, 5948-5994, 6037-6068, 9191, 9267-9273, 9282-9297, 9351-9362, 9366, 9418-9438, 9440, 9510-9543, 9625-9650, 11320-11343 (1935). [18] Faced with the absence of any specific indications in the Social Security Act or its legislative history that Congress intended for the States to have the authority to upset the NLRA's collective-bargaining relationship by paying compensation to strikers, the plurality relies on the general policy embodied in the Social Security Act of leaving to the States the determination of eligibility requirements for compensation. Ante, at 537-538, 542, and n. 42. [19] That policy supports the narrow interpretation of the few conditions on eligibility imposed on the States by the Social Security Act itself. Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U. S. 471, 475 n. 3, 482-489 (1977). But there is no indication in that Act or its legislative history that Congress thought that this general policy relieved the States of constraints imposed by other federal statutes such as the NLRA. [20] In particular, it would be difficult indeed to infer from this feature of the Act that Congress intended to leave the States free to require employers to fund unemployment compensation for their striking employees without regard to the effect on the bargaining relationship structured by the NLRA. The plurality holds, nonetheless, that New York may require employers to pay unemployment compensation to strikers amounting to some 50% of their average wage. Nothing in the plurality's opinion, moreover, limits such compensation to 50% of average wages, for the plurality indicates that the Social Security Act gives the States complete control over this aspect of their unemployment compensation programs. Accordingly, New York and other States are free not only to increase compensation to 100% but also to eliminate the waiting period now imposed on striking employees. [21] The plurality's sweeping view of the Act thus lays open the way for any State to undermine completely the collective-bargaining process within its borders. A much more cautious approach to implied amendments of the NLRA is required if the Court is to give proper effect to the legislative judgments of the Congress. Having once resolved the balance to be struck in the collective-bargaining relationship, and having embodied that balance in the NLRA, Congress should not be expected by the Court to reaffirm the balance explicitly each time it later enacts legislation that may touch in some way on the collective-bargaining relationship. Absent explicit modification of the NLRA, or clear inconsistency between the terms of the NLRA and a subsequent statute, the Court should assume that Congress intended to leave the NLRA unaltered. [22] This assumption is especially appropriate in considering the intent of Congress when it enacted the Social Security Act just five weeks after completing its deliberations on the NLRA.