Court Opinion

ID: 9431595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:39.863294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:29.271724
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
The issue in this case is whether under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) an employer, in allocating available jobs among members of a bargaining unit at the conclusion of a strike, may discriminate against full-term strikers by giving preference to employees who crossed the picket line to return to work before the strike was over. Because I conclude that such discrimination on the basis of union activity is “inherently destructive” of the right to strike, as guaranteed by both the RLA and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), I dissent.
I
Notwithstanding the Court’s suggestion that the portion of the RLA at issue here addresses “primarily” the precerti-fication context, ante, at 440, it should be clear that under the RLA an employee’s right to strike is protected against coercion by her employer. The Court relies in part on Trainmen *444v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369 (1969), but it overlooks the clear teaching of that case:
“[EJmployees subject to the Railway Labor Act enjoy the right to engage in primary strikes over major disputes. . . . Whether the source of this right be found in a particular provision of the Railway Labor Act or in the scheme as a whole, it is integral to the Act.” Id., at 384-385 (footnote omitted).
The “particular provision,” we made clear, was §2 Fourth. Id., at 385, n. 20. While the issue in Jacksonville Terminal was the extent of a state court’s power to issue an antistrike injunction, we emphasized that the RLA’s guarantee of the right to strike was not limited to the context of interference by the State: “However, §2 Fourth of the RLA, added in 1934, was designed primarily, if not exclusively to prohibit coercive employer practices.” Ibid, (emphasis added). Whatever may have been the “primary” purpose of § 2 Fourth, it is too late in the day to suggest that this provision, at least when read in the context of the entire RLA, does not prohibit employer coercion of the right to strike.
The Court compounds its error in regard to the reach of § 2 Fourth with a more fundamental mistake when it appears to assume that the employer’s action in this case is sanctioned by the mere fact that it occurred during the “self-help” stage of the dispute. Ante, at 440-442. Clearly this cannot be the case. I am confident that the Court would agree, for example, that an employer could not legally discharge striking employees under the RLA. But if this is so, it must be because the RLA contains some injunction against employer interference with the right to strike, even when that interference consists of actions taken during the period of permissible self-help. Thus, the question is not whether the RLA protects the right to strike against employer coercion — for it surely does — but whether that protection goes so far as to prohibit the specific employer practice at issue here.
*445The key to this case is a fundamental command of the RLA and the NLRA alike, which in the case of the RLA is textually anchored in § 2 Fourth: the employer may not engage in discrimination among its employees — whether at the precer-tification stage, the bargaining stage, or during or after a strike — on the basis of their degree of involvement in protected union activity such as a strike.1 This case thus falls within the class of cases in which judicial intervention to enforce the right at issue is justified because “the scheme of the Railway Labor Act could not begin to work without judicial involvement.” Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Transportation Union, 402 U. S. 570, 595 (1971) (Brennan, J., dissenting). The “central theme” of the RLA is, of course, “to bring about voluntary settlement.” Ibid. But “unless the unions fairly represented all of their employees; unless the employer bargained with the certified representative of the employees; unless the status quo was maintained during the entire range of bargaining, the statutory mechanism could not hope to induce a negotiated settlement.” Ibid. The same is true here: the statutory scheme would be just as incapable of bringing about a negotiated settlement if the employer, in the name of “self-help,” impermissibly retaliated against employees because of their exercise of their right under the RLA to engage in protected union activity such as a strike.2
II
A
That the RLA broadly enjoins discrimination against strikers does not necessarily settle the issue, of course. In the context of the NLRA we have on occasion found reason to *446make an exception to that statute’s nondiscrimination provision in the name of the employer’s “necessity.” See NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U. S. 333 (1938). The RLA itself provides little guidance as to whether the employer is in any way privileged, in allocating jobs at the end of a strike, to give preference to bargaining unit members who crossed the picket line to return to work. As we have previously noted, “the Act is wholly inexplicit as to the scope of allowable self-help.” Jacksonville Terminal, 394 U. S., at 391.
While of course “the National Labor Relations Act cannot be imported wholesale into the railway labor arena,” id., at 383, we have frequently “referred to the NLRA for assistance in construing the Railway Labor Act.” Ibid. Given the paucity of RLA precedent on the specific issue before us, the Court quite properly looks to the NLRA for guidance. Ante, at 432-439. It arrives at an incorrect conclusion, however, because it mischaracterizes the employer’s action and because it appears unwilling to take seriously the protection Congress has seen fit to afford to the right to strike.
The Court’s conception of this case is most clearly expressed in a key paragraph that summarizes its discussion of the NLRA case law:
“To distinguish crossovers from new hires in the manner IFFA proposes would have the effect of penalizing those who decided not to strike in order to benefit those who did. . . . We see no reason why those employees who chose not to gamble on the success of the strike should suffer the consequences when the gamble proves unsuccessful. Requiring junior crossovers ... to be displaced by more senior full-term strikers is precisely to visit the consequences of the lost gamble on those who refused to take the risk.” Ante, at 438.
This understanding of the Union’s position contains a factual and a legal error, both of which infect the Court’s analysis of the case.
*447In the first place, refusing to discriminate in favor of crossovers is not to visit the consequences of the lost strike on “those who refused to take the risk,” but rather on those who rank lowest in seniority. Whether a given flight attendant chose to take the risk of the strike or not is wholly immaterial. Rather — as is virtually universally the case when work-force reductions are necessary for whatever reason in a unionized enterprise — it is the most junior employees, whether strikers or crossovers, who are most vulnerable. This is precisely the point of seniority.
More fundamental, I fear, is the legal mistake inherent in the Court’s objection to “penalizing those who decided not to strike in order to benefit those who did.” The Court, of course, does precisely the opposite: it allows TWA to single out for penalty precisely those employees who were faithful to the strike until the end, in order to benefit those who abandoned it. What is unarticulated is the Court’s basis for choosing one position over the other. If indeed one group or the other is to be “penalized,”3 what basis does the Court have for determining that it should be those who remained on strike rather than those who returned to work? I see none, unless it is perhaps an unarticulated hostility toward strikes. In any case the NLRA does provide a basis for resolving this question. It requires simply that in making poststrike reinstatements an employer may not discriminate among its employees on account of their union activity. That, in fact, is the holding of NLRB v. Mackay Radio, supra, at 346 — the more familiar teaching as to the employer’s right to hire permanent replacements having been dictum. If an employer may not discriminate — in either direction — on the basis of the employee’s strike activity, then it follows that the employer must make decisions about which employees to reinstate on *448the basis of some neutral criterion, such as seniority. That is precisely what the Union asks.4
B
We have recognized only a narrow exception to the general principle prohibiting discrimination against employees for exercising their right to strike. Since Mackay Radio it has been accepted that an employer may hire “permanent replacements” in order to maintain operations during a strike, and that these replacements need not be displaced to make room for returning strikers. The question here is whether the Mackay exception should be expanded to cover the present case, involving as it does members of the striking bargaining unit who have crossed the picket lines, rather than new hires from outside the bargaining unit. Despite the superficial similarity between the two situations, strong reasons counsel against applying the Mackay rule to crossover employees.
The employer’s promise to members of the bargaining unit that they will not be displaced at the end of a strike if they *449cross the picket lines addresses a far different incentive to the bargaining-unit members than does the employer’s promise of permanence to new hires. The employer’s threat to hire permanent replacements from outside the existing work force puts pressure on the strikers as a group to abandon the strike before their positions are filled by others. But the employer’s promise to members of the striking bargaining unit that if they abandon the strike (or refuse to join it at the outset) they will retain their jobs at strike’s end in preference to more senior workers who remain on strike produces an additional dynamic: now there is also an incentive for individual workers to seek to save (or improve) their own positions at the expense of other members of the striking bargaining unit. We have previously observed that offers of “individual benefits to the strikers to'induce them to abandon the strike . . . could be expected to undermine the strikers’ mutual interest and place the entire strike effort in jeopardy.” NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 230-231 (1963). Such a “divide and conquer” tactic thus “strike[s] a fundamental blow to union . . . activity and the collective bargaining process itself.” Ante, at 442.
In Erie Resistor we found the employer’s offer of super-seniority to new hires and crossovers to be “inherently destructive” of the right to strike and therefore in contravention of §§ 8(a)(1) and (a)(3) of the NLRA. 373 U. S., at 231-232. In my view the same conclusion should apply here. Beyond its specific holding outlawing superseniority, I read Erie Resistor to stand for the principle that there are certain tools an employer may not use, even in the interest of continued operations during a strike, and that the permissibility of discriminatory measures taken for that purpose must be evaluated by weighing the “necessity” of the employer’s action (i. e., its interest in maintaining operations during the strike) against its prejudice to the employees’ right to strike.5 It *450seems clear to me that in this case the result of such an analysis should be to forbid the employer to give preferential treatment to crossovers, because of the destructive impact of such an action on the strikers’ mutual interest. Thus, when an employer recalls workers to fill the available positions at the conclusion of a strike, it may not discriminate against either the strikers or the crossovers. Rather it must proceed according to some principle, such as seniority, that is neutral as between them.6 ' That TWA failed to do.7
*451III
Precedent under the NLRA clearly forbids an employer to burden the right to strike in the manner TWA has done in this case, and I see no reason why that conclusion should not apply equally under the RLA.
In a case like this it is not difficult to conjure up a parade of horribles to support either position. Forbidding an employer to discriminate in favor of crossovers, as I would do, makes it impossible for a junior employee who does not want to strike, and who is unable to persuade a majority of her colleagues to adopt that stance, to be sure that she can save her job. But that employee is in the same position she would be in if a layoff were necessary for other reasons beyond her control, such as an economic downturn. The principle of seniority is based on the notion that it is those employees who have worked longest in an enterprise and therefore have most at stake whose jobs should be most protected. Permitting the employer to give preference to crossovers, as the Court today does, will mean that an employee of only six months’ experience, who abandoned the strike one day before it ended, could displace a 20-year veteran who chose to remain faithful to the decision made collectively with her fellow workers until the group as a whole decided to end the strike. Unfortunately there will be individual injustices whichever *452rule we adopt. I would favor — and I believe Congress has provided for — the rule that errs on the side of preferring solidarity and seniority, rather than a rule that would permit the employer to discriminate on the basis of protected union activity.

 We have noted that §2 Fourth is “comparable” to §7 of the NLRA, which protects the right to engage in concerted activities. Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 385, n. 20 (1969).

 It is particularly difficult to discern any reason why judicial intervention should be necessary to enforce a union’s duty of fair representation under the RLA, see Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192 (1944), but not an employer’s duty to refrain from discrimination based on union activity.

 Of course, as explained in the preceding paragraph, the position the Union advocates does not “penalize” any employee on the basis of her decision to strike or not to strike.

 That some crossovers, like some strikers — in both cases the most junior members of the work force — may lose their jobs because of the collective decision to strike is simply a reflection of the employer’s right to hire “permanent replacements,” or perhaps of a downturn in business due to the strike or other factors. The Court’s argument that the crossovers should not be “penalized” rests on its apparent belief that they should not be denied the benefit of their individual decisions not to strike (although it should be noted that the Court apparently objects to “penalizing” even those crossovers who voted for the strike, as long as they repented of that decision before the strike ended). But “[u]nion activity, by its very nature, is group activity,” NLRB v. Textile Workers, 409 U. S. 213, 221 (1972) (Blackmun, J., dissenting), and inherent in the system of exclusive bargaining representatives, which is a fundament of our labor law, is the principle of majority decision — even where such decisions may impose costs on the dissenting minority. The contrary rule, moreover, would allow the employee who abandons the collectively taken decision to strike to become a free rider, enjoying the benefit of any gains won by the strike, but without sharing in its risk. See Pattern Makers v. NLRB, 473 U. S. 95, 129 (1985) (Blackmun, J., dissenting).

 Unlike Justice Blackmun, post, at 464-466, I would weigh necessity and prejudice in categories of situations rather than on a case-by-case *450basis. Thus, just as in Erie Resistor where we held grants of super-seniority to be per se illegal, regardless of the business necessity that might be found in the particular ease, I have no difficulty in determining that discrimination in favor of crossovers in poststrike callbacks — even if perhaps less egregious than grants of superseniority — is inherently destructive of the right to strike, notwithstanding whatever business purpose the employer might be able to assert in an individual case. I agree, in any event, with Justice Blackmun’s conclusion, post, at 466, that such employer conduct could rarely be shown to be “necessary” under the standard of Railway Clerks v. Florida East Coast R. Co., 384 U. S. 238 (1966).

 While there might be circumstances in which some neutral principle other than seniority might be acceptable as a basis for recalls (e. g., the employer’s need for particular skills), seniority is so well established in labor relations as the basis for such decisions that exceptions should be rare. Indeed we have described seniority as of “overriding importance” in “determining] who gets or who keeps an available job.” Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 346-347 (1964). In any case, TWA has made no pretense that its discriminatory recalls are justified by some other neutral principle.

 The NLRB, in an amicus brief, argues that the employer not only may, but must, accord preferential treatment to crossovers, on the ground that once the crossovers have resumed work — which they have a right to do if jobs are available — the positions they occupy are not “vacant” at the end of the strike. Brief for NLRB as Amicus Curiae 13-15; see also ante, at 438. This argument simply begs the question. If the employer is prohibited from discriminating among members of the bargaining unit on the basis of strike activity in allocating poststrike jobs, then the employer may not promise certain bargaining-unit members that the jobs will be theirs permanently, merely because those members returned to work during the strike. Whether or not the employer may do this is precisely the question this case presents, and the answer to that question cannot be assumed by *451stating it as a premise. Neither NLRB v. Fleetwood Trailer Co., 389 U. S. 375 (1967), nor Laidlaw Corp., 171 N. L. R. B. 1366 (1968), dealt with the conflicting rights of crossovers and full-term strikers.
Similarly, the Court’s concluding statement that “the decision to guarantee to crossovers the same protections lawfully applied to new hires was a simple decision to apply the pre-existing seniority terms of the collective bargaining agreement uniformly to all working employees,” ante, at 443 (emphasis added), again assumes what must be proved. If “working” refers to the poststrike period, which employees are working and which are not is a function of the employer’s decision to give preference to the crossovers; if instead it refers to the period prior to the strike’s end, the question remains whether the employer may make poststrike employment decisions on the basis of which employees were “working” during the strike.