Court Opinion

ID: 9420535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:55:02.11369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:25.642243
License: Public Domain

.Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
whom Mr. Justice Burton and Mr. Justice Minton join, dissenting.
Wisconsin has provided that labor disputes in public utilities shall be resolved by conciliation or compulsory arbitration if:
(1) after exerting “every reasonable effort to settle labor disputes” by collective bargaining, the parties have reached a “state of impasse and stalemate,” and
*400(2) the labor dispute, if not settled, is “likely to cause interruption of the supply of an essential public utility service.” Wis. Stat., 1949, §§ 111.50-111.65.1
*401In the cases before us, the statute has been applied to prevent a halt in service by two utility companies.2 One furnishes heating and illuminating gas to the general public in the City and County of Milwaukee. The other provides bus and streetcar transportation in the same area. Both these companies give utility service only within the State of Wisconsin but have been found subject to the Taft-Hartley Act because their activities “affect commerce.” Compare Consolidated Edison Co. v. Labor Board, 305 U. S. 197; La Crosse Telephone Corp. v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 18. The question is whether the Wisconsin statute, so applied, conflicts with the Taft-*402Hartley Act, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §§ 141 et seq.
A claim of conflict between State and federal labor legislation presents a familiar problem. On eight occasions this Court has considered whether the Taft-Hartley Act, or its predecessor, the Wagner Act, 49 Stat. 449, so collided with State law as to displace it. We have sustained State laws which dealt with mass picketing and intermittent work stoppages. Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Board, 315 U. S. 740; International Union, United Automobile Workers v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 245. We have also upheld a State law which required a two-thirds vote for a maintenance-of-membership clause in collective agreements. Algoma Plywood Co. v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 301.
On the other hand, we have found in five cases that the State law could not consistently stand with the federal law. In Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538, the State was found to have interfered with the freedom in selecting bargaining agents as guaranteed by the federal act. In Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Board, 330 U. S. 767, the State recognized a foremen’s union contrary to established policy of the National Board. In La Crosse Telephone Corp. v. Wisconsin Board, supra, a conflict was found in the bargaining units determined under the State and federal acts. In Plankinton Packing Co. v. Wisconsin Board, 338 U. S. 953, a State superimposed upon federal outlawry of conduct as an “unfair labor practice” its own finding of unfairness. In International Union of United Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454, a State act covering all industry permitted strikes at a different time than the federal act and required, unlike federal law, a majority authorization for any strike. Also, these provisions were applied to only that portion of a bargaining unit, already determined under the federal act, located within the State of Michigan.
*403“The principle is thoroughly established that the exercise by the State of its police power, which would be valid if not superseded by federal action, is superseded only where the repugnance or conflict is so ‘direct and positive’ that the two acts cannot ‘be reconciled or consistently stand together.’ ” Chief Justice Hughes in Kelly v. Washington, 302 U. S. 1, 10. It is clear from the decisions just canvassed that the States are not precluded from enacting laws on labor relations merely because Congress has — to use the conventional phrase — entered the field. It is equally clear that the boundaries within which a State may act are determined by the terrain and not by abstract projection. Emphasis in the opinions has varied, but the guiding principle is still that set out in the first in the series of immediately relevant cases: whether “the state system of regulation, as construed and applied here, can be reconciled with the federal Act and . . the two as focused in this case can consistently stand together . . . .” Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Board, supra, at 751. The adjustment thus called for between State and National interests is not attained by reliance on uncritical generalities or rhetorical phrases unnour-ished by the particularities of specific situations.
At the outset it should be noted that the Taft-Hartley Act does not, in specific terms, deal with the problem of local strikes in public utilities even though such strikes, as a matter of constitutional law, may be brought under federal control. Congress considered and rejected special provision for settling public-utility disputes under federal law. See statement of Senator Taft, 93 Cong. Rec. 3835. So far as the statute and its legislative history indicate, however, Congress decided no more than that it did not wish to subject local utilities to the control of the Federal Government. Due regard for basic elements in our federal system makes it appropriate that Congress be explicit if it desires to remove from the orbit of State regulation *404matters of such intimate concern to a locality as the continued maintenance of services on which the decent life of a modern community rests.
The real issue before the Court is whether the Wisconsin legislation so conflicts with the specific terms or the policy fairly attributable to the provisions of the federal statute that the two cannot stand together. We are first met with the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act concerning the “right” to strike. Section 7 provides: “Employees shall have the right ... to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, . . . .” Section 13 provides: “Nothing in this Act, except as specifically provided for herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike, or to affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.” The word “right” is “one of the most deceptive of pitfalls.” Mr. Justice Holmes, in American Bank & Trust Co. v. Federal Bank, 256 U. S. 350, 358. We have several times rejected an invitation to decide cases upon the basis of an absolute right to strike. In International Union, United Automobile Workers v. Wisconsin Board, supra, we' found there was no “right” to strike in violation of a State law construed to prohibit intermittent work stoppages. In Southern Steamship Co. v. Labor Board, 316 U. S. 31, we found there was no “right” to strike in violation of a federal mutiny statute. In two other cases we held that employees who strike in violation of a collective agreement or engage in “sit-down” strikes are not protected under the federal statute. Labor Board v. Sands Mfg. Co., 306 U. S. 332; Labor Board v. Fansteel Corp., 306 U. S. 240. May the “right” to strike be also limited by an otherwise valid State statute aimed at preventing a breakdown of public-utility service?
“Public utility employer” is defined in the Wisconsin Act to mean an employer “engaged in the business of *405furnishing water, light, heat, gas, electric power, public passenger transportation or communication . . . .” § 111.51. Labor relations in such utilities have traditionally been subjected to regulation in a way that those in other industries have not. See Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332, 349. Compare Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act, 38 & 39 Viet., c. 86, par. 4 (1875). The range of control over business generally has been greatly extended by modern law. But the historic amenability to legal control of public callings is rooted deep. See Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of Industrial Relations, 262 U. S. 522, 543. A stoppage in utility service so clearly involves the needs of a community as to evoke instinctively the power of government. This Court should not ignore history and economic facts in construing federal legislation that comes within the area of interacting State and federal control. To derive from the general language of the federal act a “right” to strike in violation of a State law regulating public utilities is to strip from words the limits inherent in their context.
An attempt by a State to impose upon industry as a whole a drastic limitation upon the right to strike would conflict with the federal law. Compare United Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, supra. And even as to emergency disputes — those involving the obvious public services — it may be urged that the prospect of settlement by arbitration may tend to make one or both parties reluctant to reach an agreement by bargaining. See Kennedy, The Handling of Emergency Disputes, Proceedings of Second Annual Meeting of Industrial Relations Research Assn. 14, 21-22 (1949).
But the principle of hands-off collective bargaining is no more absolute than the right to strike. The “national emergency” provisions in the Taft-Hartley Act are an affirmative indication that the force of collective bargain*406ing may be limited in emergency situations. Title II of the Taft-Hartley Act provides for special mediation procedures, a cooling-off period, and ballot by employees on the final offer of the employer, in order to prevent a strike or lockout in “an entire industry or a substantial part thereof” if necessary to avoid peril to “the national health or safety.” § 206. And Congress apparently expected that additional laws would be enacted if necessary.3 The “national emergency” provisions were aimed at strikes of nation-wide significance. They have been applied in eight disputes from 1947 to 1950: twice in industry-wide or coast-wide maritime negotiations; three times in industry-wide bituminous-coal negotiations; and in disputes arising in the meat-packing industry, the national telephone industry, and the atomic-energy installation at Oak Ridge. U. S. Dept, of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Fact-Finding Boards and Boards of Inquiry (1950) 2.
Title II would be available for settlement of the disputes involved in the cases before us only if they were a part of a nation-wide utility dispute creating a national emergency.4 But the careful consideration given to the prob*407lem of meeting nation-wide emergencies and the failure to provide for emergencies other than those affecting the Nation as a whole do not imply paralysis of State police power. Rather, they imply that the States retain the power to protect the public interest in emergencies economically and practically confined within a State. It is not reasonable to impute to Congress the desire to leave States helpless in meeting local situations when Congress restricted national intervention to national emergencies.
Only one other of the petitioners’ arguments raises a substantial question of conflict.5 Section 111.58 of the *408Wisconsin Act prohibits the arbitrator from making an award “which would infringe upon the right of the employer to manage his business.” In No. 330, post, p. 416, the Wisconsin court affirmed the Board’s order refusing to make an award dealing with the composition of shifts. It is argued that this construction of the Wisconsin statute brings it in conflict with the Board position that parties must bargain on such an issue. See American National Insurance Co., 89 N. L. R. B. 185; Woodside Cotton Mills, 21 N. L. R. B. 42, 54-55. The term in the Wisconsin statute deals not with the scope of bargaining, but with the power of an arbitrator to make an award after bargaining has failed. The State law does nothing *409to relieve the employer of his duty to bargain under the federal act, nor is there any indication that the duty to bargain under the State act differs from that under the federal act.
Whether the State chose wisely in adopting arbitration rather than taking no measure or taking a more forceful measure to protect the public interest is not for us to decide. Seizure or martial law or other affirmative action by the State might be just as deleterious to collective bargaining as enforced arbitration, apart from raising other contentious issues. If there is legislative choice it is not for us to demand that what is chosen should commend itself to our private notions of wise policy. As to strikes creating a nation-wide emergency, the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act indicate that the principle of collective bargaining may to some extent be subordinated to the interest of the public. I find no indication in the statute that the States are not equally free to protect the public interest in State emergencies.
The claim that the Wisconsin statute violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was for me definitively answered thirty years ago by Mr. Justice Brandéis:
“Because I have come to the conclusion that both the common law of a State and a statute of the United States [the Clayton Act] declare the right of industrial combatants to push their struggle to the limits of the justification of self-interest, I do not wish to be understood as attaching any constitutional or moral sanction to that right. All rights are derived from the purposes of the society .in which they exist; above all rights rises duty to the community. The conditions developed in industry may be such that those engaged in it cannot continue their struggle without danger to the community. But it is not *410for judges to determine whether such conditions exist, nor is it their function to set the limits of permissible contest and to declare the duties which the new situation demands. This is the function of the legislature which, while limiting individual and group rights of aggression and defense, may substitute processes of justice for the more primitive method of trial by combat.” Duplex Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 488 (dissenting).

 Section 111.50 states the policy of the statute in the following terms:
“It is hereby declared to be the public policy of this state that it is necessary and essential in the public interest to facilitate the prompt, peaceful and just settlement of labor disputes between public utility employers and their employes which cause or threaten to cause an interruption in the supply of an essential public utility service to the citizens of this state and to that end to encourage the making and maintaining of agreements concerning wages, hours and other conditions of employment through collective bargaining between public utility employers and their employes, and to provide settlement procedures for labor disputes between public utility employers and their employes in cases where the collective bargaining process has reached an impasse and stalemate and as a result thereof the parties are unable to effect such settlement and which labor disputes, if not settled, are likely to cause interruption of the supply of an essential public utility service. The interruption of public utility service results in damage and injury to the public wholly apart from the effect upon the parties immediately concerned and creates an emergency justifying action which adequately protects the general welfare.”
“Public utility employer” is defined as any employer “engaged in the business of furnishing water, light, heat, gas, electric power, public passenger transportation or communication . . . .” § 111.51.
Section 111.52 imposes a duty on employers and employees to bargain collectively. If collective bargaining fails, the statute provides for a conciliation procedure. § 111.54. If the conciliator is unable to effect a settlement within 15 days,-the dispute is submitted to arbitration. § 111.55. Existing wages, hours, and conditions of employment are to be maintained during conciliation and arbitration. § 111.56.
Standards for the arbitrator are set forth in the statute, § 111.57, and he is forbidden to make an award which “would infringe upon the right of the employer to manage his business” or “would interfere with the internal affairs of the union.” § 111.58. The arbitrator’s award becomes binding on the parties “together with such agreements as the parties may themselves have reached.” § 111.59. It may be *401changed, by “mutual consent or agreement of the parties,” § 111.59, and is subject to judicial review. § 111.60.
The statute makes it unlawful for any group of public-utility employees “acting in concert” to call a strike or go out on strike or cause a work stoppage or slowdown which would cause an interruption of an essential service. The statute also makes it unlawful for a public utility employer to lock out his employees if such action would cause an interruption of essential service. § 111.62. Such unlawful action on the part of either employer or employees may be enjoined in an action instituted by the State Board. § 111.63. Section 111.64 makes clear that only a- concerted refusal to work is made unlawful, and provides that no court shall issue process “to compel an individual employe to render labor or service or to remain at his place of employment without his consent.”

 The situation before us involves solely the interruption in essential services of a public utility. Any attempt by Wisconsin to apply its arbitral scheme to a labor dispute that does not clearly involve such an essential utility operation is not now in issue. This makes it unnecessary for us to consider whether the Wisconsin law might be constitutionally applied to a strike of clerical employees such as that involved in Wisconsin Telephone Co. v. Wisconsin Board, 253 Wis. 584, 34 N. W. 2d 844. In that case the Wisconsin Court did not uphold application of the statute to the particular dispute. It held only that the State Board’s action in appointing a conciliator was a preliminary order and hence, under principles of administrative law, not reviewable.

 See S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 15: “In most instances the force of public opinion should make itself sufficiently felt in [the] 80-day period [during which the strike is enjoined] to bring about a peaceful termination of the controversy. Should this expectation fail, the bill provides for the President laying the matter before Congress for whatever legislation seems necessary to preserve the health and safety of the Nation in the crisis.” The reference is to § 210 of the Taft-Hartley Act, which provides that if the injunction is discharged, “the President shall submit to the Congress a full and comprehensive report of the proceedings, including the findings of the board of inquiry and the ballot taken by the National Labor Relations Board, together with such recommendations as he may see fit to make for consideration and appropriate action.”

 It is clear that the national emergency provisions were not meant to cover local strikes such as those involved in the cases now before *407us. See S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 14: “While the committee is of the opinion that in most labor disputes the role of the Federal Government should be limited to mediation, we recognize that the repercussions from stoppages in certain industries are occasionally so grave that the national health and safety is imperiled. An example is the recent coal strike in which defiance of the President by the United Mine Workers Union compelled the Attorney General to resort to injunctive relief in the courts. The committee believes that only in national emergencies of this character should the Federal Government be armed with such power.”
There might of course be a conflict if the Wisconsin Act were held applicable by her courts to a threatened strike which was only a part of a nation-wide utility dispute to which the provisions of Title II had been applied. But our task is to decide the case before us and not to conjure up difficulties that may never arise. See Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Board, 315 U. S. 740, 746.
The Wisconsin statute is not in conflict with the provisions of Title II of the Taft-Hartley Act creating a mediation and conciliation service. The federal act takes account of state mediation facilities, and the federal officials are directed “to avoid attempting to mediate disputes which would have only a minor effect on interstate commerce if State or other conciliation services are available to the parties.” §203 (b).

 A further argument is based upon § 111.56 of the Wisconsin Act which requires that the status quo as to terms of employment be maintained during conciliation and arbitration. The Taft-Hartley Act requires the parties to continue terms of an existing contract for only 60 days after notice of termination has been given or until the *408expiration date of the contract, whichever is later. § 8 (d) (4). The additional restriction of the Wisconsin Act is imposed in order to assure the effectiveness of the arbitration system and presents no problem of conflict in administration of the two statutes. The only objections to the status quo provisions are the arguments against the incompatibility of the federal act and any system of compulsory arbitration. These have been discussed in the text.
Two additional arguments are based upon hypothetical conflicts not raised by the present cases. Section 111.52 of the Wisconsin Act requires that the parties “exert every reasonable effort” in order to settle the labor dispute. It is claimed that this language may be construed to require the parties to make concessions during the bargaining process — something which § 8 (d) of the Taft-Hartley Act says they do not have to do. The second argument is that, from §111.57 of the Wisconsin Act, it appears that arbitration might be required where negotiations were underway to amend an existing contract. Under § 8 (d) of the Taft-Hartley Act, there is no duty to bargain concerning amendment of a contract still in effect. It is a sufficient answer to these contentions to note the broad separability provision in § 111.65 of the Wisconsin Act, and repeat what we said in Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Board, 315 U. S. 740, 746: “We deal . . . not with the theoretical disputes but with concrete and specific issues raised by actual cases. ... Nor will we assume in advance that a State will so construe its law as to bring it into conflict with the federal Constitution or an act of Congress.”