Court Opinion

ID: 9428859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:00.098809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:17.719548
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Burger,
with whom Justice Powell joins, dissenting.
I
This case in no sense involves or grows out of a labor dispute as that term is defined in § 13(c) of the Norris-La Guardia Act, 29 U. S. C. § 113(c). See ante, at 709-710, n. 9. Section 13(c) defines a labor dispute as “any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment. . . -”1 The dispute in this case is a political dispute and has no relation to any controversy concerning terms or conditions of em*725ployment. If Congress had intended to bar federal courts from issuing injunctions in political disputes, it could have simply prohibited federal courts from enjoining strikes rather than limiting its prohibition to controversies concerning terms or conditions of employment. Accordingly, I disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the Norris-La Guardia Act bars a federal court from enjoining this politically motivated work stoppage.
The International Longshoremen’s Association objects to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. As a consequence, it announced that it would not handle any cargo bound to, or coming from, the Soviet Union, or any cargo carried on Soviet ships. This case commenced after the union, pursuant to its political position, refused to load superphos-phoric acid onto certain ships bound for the Soviet Union. The union has no objection to any terms or conditions of employment; it would have loaded the superphosphoric acid on any non-Soviet ship bound for a destination other than the Soviet Union. No one has suggested that the union’s action is actually motivated to obtain concessions concerning employment conditions. The union refused to handle the cargo simply because a foreign country invaded a neighboring country and the union desired to express its opposition to the invasion. Thus the plain meaning of § 13(c) leads to the conclusion that this case does not involve or grow out of a labor dispute because the union members are not seeking to change their terms or conditions of employment.
As the Court recognizes, we have held that the test of whether the Norris-La Guardia Act applies is whether "the employer-employee relationship [is] the matrix of the controversy.” Columbia River Packers Assn., Inc. v. Hinton, 315 U. S. 143, 147 (1942); quoted ante, at 712-713. Federal Courts of Appeals have stated that unions are protected by the Norris-La Guardia Act when they act to advance the economic interests of their members. See, e. g., Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 362 F. 2d *726649, 654 (CA5 1966). These cases illustrate the plain meaning of §13(c)’s definition of labor dispute — the Norris-La Guardia Act protects union organizational efforts and efforts to improve working conditions.
The Court errs gravely in finding that the matrix of this controversy is the union’s relationship with the petitioners. The union’s dispute with the petitioners merely flows from its decision to demonstrate its opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan. No economic interests of union members are involved; indeed, the union’s policy is contrary to its members’ economic interests since it reduces the amount of available work.2 Thus, the cases generally explicating the meaning of § 13(c) lend no support to the notion that this case involves a labor dispute.
The federal courts have consistently recognized that the Norris-La Guardia Act does not apply to politically motivated work stoppages concerning subjects over which employers have no control. These courts, in cases which are for all practical purposes indistinguishable from this case — and which often involved the International Longshoremen’s Association — properly concluded that the Act only applies to economic disputes.3 This Court has never before held, as it *727holds here, that the Norris-La Guardia Act protects strikes resulting from political disputes rather than from labor disputes. Since the meaning of the words of the statute is plain, and since the applicable precedent supports the conclusion that this is not a labor dispute, we ought to conclude that politically motivated strikes are outside the coverage of the Norris-La Guardia Act.4
Finally, the Court argues that a common-sense interpretation of the meaning of the term “labor dispute” supports its conclusion. But the “common-sense” meaning of a term is not controlling when Congress has provided, as it provided in § 13(c), an explicit definition of a labor dispute. “Common sense” and legislative history ought not change the meaning of the unambiguous words of a statute. It is not contended that any act of petitioners to improve the terms or conditions *728of employment would have persuaded the union to load the ships. Hence there is no labor dispute under the Norris-La Guardia Act.
II
This case, together with our recent decision in Longshoremen v. Allied International, Inc., 456 U. S. 212 (1982), illustrates the inherent flaw in the holding in Buffalo Forge Co. v. Steelworkers, 428 U. S. 397 (1976). If the Court cannot give to ordinary words their ordinary meaning and grasp that the dispute in this case is a purely political dispute rather than having any relation to a labor dispute, it should overrule Buffalo Forge.
The controversy in Allied International also resulted from the International Longshoremen’s Association’s protest over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There we held that the union’s refusal to unload shipments from the Soviet Union was a secondary boycott prohibited by § 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158(b)(4). The union is therefore liable for damages as a result of its refusal to unload the shipments. Yet the Court today holds that the union may not be enjoined from refusing to load cargo onto ships bound for the Soviet Union.
This is all the more perplexing because the union entered into an agreement with petitioners which contained an unequivocal no-strike clause: “During the term of this Agreement, . . . the Union agrees there shall not be any strike of any kind or degree whatsoever, ... for any cause whatsoever.” (Emphasis added.) Ante, at 706. In Allied International this union was found liable for damages caused to a party with which it had no such agreement. Here, however, despite the existence of the no-strike agreement between petitioners and the union, the Court holds that the union’s illegal acts may not be enjoined.
To reach this strange result, the Court first decides that this case involves a labor dispute rather than a political dispute, and therefore is within the scope of the Norris-*729La Guardia Act. The Court then contradicts itself and concludes that, since the dispute is really a political protest over Soviet aggression, it may not be enjoined under the Buffalo Forge exception to the rule of Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks, 398 U. S. 235 (1970), since a federal court cannot resolve the actual dispute. This case, together with Allied International, persuades me that the artificial Buffalo Forge exception should be abolished. Rather than continuing to engage in mechanical and contradictory analyses as to the character of disputes such as this one, we should hold that a federal court may enjoin a strike pending arbitration when the striking union has agreed to a contract with a no-strike clause such as the one agreed to by petitioners and the ILA. That is what we seemed to hold in Boys Markets, and we should not have tinkered with that holding in Buffalo Forge..
There is no rational way to reconcile this holding with Allied International. If we must overrule Buffalo Forge to come to a consistent result, we should do so.
Justice Powell,
dissenting.
The no-strike clause agreed to by the parties in this case could scarcely be more emphatic: “During the term of this Agreement, . . . the Union agrees there shall not be any strike of any kind or degree whatsoever, ... for any cause whatsoever” (emphasis added). Ante, at 706. Such a clause is one of the most significant provisions in the bargaining agreement. One can fairly assume that the employer gave considerable ground in other areas of the agreement to gain this apparent guarantee that all disagreements would go first to arbitration. Thus, under the plain language of the agreement of the parties, the strike by the respondents should have been enjoined pending arbitration.
But in labor law — since this Court’s decision in Buffalo Forge Co. v. Steelworkers, 428 U. S. 397 (1976) — plain language agreed to by a union does not bind it. Buffalo Forge is an aberration. It cannot be reconciled with labor law pol*730icy of encouraging industrial peace through arbitration. It severely undercuts Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks, 398 U. S. 235 (1970). In a word, Buffalo Forge should be overruled.
The internal contradictions in today’s decision by the Court further illustrate absence of principle in Buffalo Forge’s, reasoning. The Court argues that now we must divide the dispute in this case into the “underlying” dispute over Soviet policy and the “other” dispute over the scope of the no-strike clause. I consider this method of analysis artificial and unprincipled. On the one hand, the Court must characterize the dispute in this case as a labor dispute — involving the scope of the no-strike clause — to bring the dispute within the scope of the Norris-La Guardia Act. But on the other hand, Buffalo Forge requires the Court to contradict itself by insisting that the dispute is “really” over Soviet aggression and therefore that the rule of Boy’s Market, and the federal policy in support of arbitration, are inapplicable.
The Court should not have it both ways. So long as it adheres to the aberrant analysis in Buffalo Forge, I agree with The Chief Justice that the dispute in this case must be viewed as a political dispute outside the scope of the Norris-La Guardia Act. I therefore join his dissenting opinion.
Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
For the reasons stated in Part I of The Chief Justice’s dissenting opinion in this case, as well as the reasons stated in Part I of my dissenting opinion in Buffalo Forge Co. v. Steelworkers, 428 U. S. 397, 415-424, I respectfully dissent.

 Section 18(c) also includes union organizational activity within its definition of labor dispute, but this case clearly does not involve such activity.

 The Court’s reliance on New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 308 U. S. 552 (1938), is misplaced. Ante, at 714-715. The picketers in that case might not have been seeking to better their own personal economic position, but their purpose was to affect the terms and conditions of employment of the picketed store, since their object was to persuade the store to employ Negroes. Section 13(c) explicitly states that the coverage of the Act does not depend on whether “the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.” Ante, at 710, n. 9.

 See Khedivial Line, S. A. E. v. Seafarers International Union, 278 F. 2d 49, 50-51 (CA2 1960) (politically motivated blacklist of Egyptian ships to retaliate for Egyptian blacklist of American ships that dealt with Israel is not “labor dispute” triggering Norris-La Guardia); West Gulf Maritime Assn. v. International Longshoremen’s Assn., 413 F. Supp. 372 (SD Tex. 1975), summarily aff’d, 531F. 2d 574 (CA5 1976) (union’s refusal, on political grounds, in violation of a no-strike agreement, to load grain on a ship bound for the Soviet Union does not present a “labor dispute”).

 The excerpts from the legislative history relied upon by the Court fall short of the clear evidence required to overcome the plain language of § 13(c). See, e. g., Bread Political Action Committee v. FEC, 455 U. S. 577, 581 (1982). In 1947, Congress declined to amend the federal labor laws so that strikes protesting “disagreement with some governmental policy” would not be protected by the Norris-La Guardia Act. H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., § 2(13)(B) (1947), 1 Legislative History of the LMRA 168 (1947); ante, at 717. However, the language of the rejected House version of the amendment was quite broad. There are cases in which unions might disagree with governmental policy and properly take collective action protesting it in order to advance the legitimate economic interests of union members if the terms or conditions of their employment would be affected. Congress might have rejected the House version because of fear that its broad reach would render legitimate union activity unprotected.
In 1932, Congress rejected an amendment which would have permitted federal courts to enjoin acts “performed or threatened for an unlawful purpose or with an unlawful intent. . . .” 75 Cong. Rec. 5507 (1932); ante, at 716-717. This amendment would have swept more broadly than the plain language of § 13(c) as adopted. Indeed, Representative Beck’s amendment could have rendered the Norris-La Guardia Act a nullity, since federal judges in the 1930’s would have been able to enjoin a strike merely by finding it motivated by an “unlawful purpose.” Thus the legislative history does not lead to or compel a conclusion in this case contrary to the plain language of § 13(c).