Opinion ID: 430563
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: National Labor Policy and Union Discipline

Text: 15 Our national labor policy is built on the premise that employees can bargain most effectively for improvements in wages, hours, and working conditions by pooling their economic strength and acting through freely chosen labor organizations. NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co., 388 U.S. 175, 180, 87 S.Ct. 2001, 2006-07, 18 L.Ed.2d 1123 (1967). 16 Congress embraced this policy when it passed the Wagner Act in 1935 because the history of the labor movement demonstrated that employees who acted collectively were far more successful in improving their lot than those who faced employers individually. See A. Cox, D. Bok & R. Gorman, Cases and Materials on Labor Law 15-17 (8th ed. 1977). But to ensure that a union could not abuse its position as an exclusive bargaining representative, Congress also enacted the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and the Landrum-Griffith Act of 1959. These laws made unfair labor practices out of union conduct coercing employees in the exercise of their Sec. 7 rights, see 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(b)(1)(A) (1976), and preventing union members from participating fully in union affairs, see id. Sec. 411(a)(2). Moreover, the Supreme Court read the labor laws as requiring a union to represent every employee in its bargaining unit fairly and adequately. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 182, 87 S.Ct. 903, 912-13, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967); Steele v. Louisville & N.R.R., 323 U.S. 192, 202-03, 65 S.Ct. 226, 231-32, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944). 17 In imposing these substantial fiduciary obligations on labor organizations, however, neither Congress nor the Court gave individual members license to avoid union rules designed to protect the welfare of the bargaining unit. 18 Congress, therefore, enacted the proviso to Sec. 8(b)(1)(A), 4 which reserves to unions the power to make reasonable rules regarding the retention and acquisition of membership. Allis-Chalmers, 388 U.S. at 181, 87 S.Ct. at 2007; 263 N.L.R.B. 984, 985 (1982) (plurality opinion). This power 19 is particularly vital when the members engage in strikes. The economic strike against the employer is the ultimate weapon in labor's arsenal for achieving agreement upon its terms, and [t]he power to fine or to expel strikebreakers is essential if the union is to be an effective bargaining agent .... Provisions in union constitutions and bylaws for fines and expulsion of recalcitrants, including strikebreakers, are therefore commonplace and were commonplace at the time of the Taft-Hartley amendments. 20 Allis-Chalmers, 388 U.S. at 181-82, 87 S.Ct. at 912-13 (footnotes omitted) (quoting Summers, Legal Limitations on Union Discipline, 64 Harv.L.Rev. 1049, 1049 (1951)). 21 In short, federal labor policy restricts the individual employee's absolute power to order his relations with management. Instead, it vests this power in a collective representative who must protect the interests of everyone in the bargaining unit. As a result, 22 [t]he complete satisfaction of all who are represented is hardly to be expected. A wide range of reasonableness must be allowed a statutory bargaining representative in serving the unit it represents, subject always to complete good faith and honesty of purpose in the exercise of its discretion. 23 Allis-Chalmers, 388 U.S. at 180, 87 S.Ct. at 2006-07 (emphasis added) (quoting Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 338, 73 S.Ct. 681, 686, 97 L.Ed. 1048 (1953)). 24