Court Opinion

ID: 9459023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:08:13.34208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:58.856326
License: Public Domain

STEVENS, Circuit Judge
(concurring) .
In my opinion neither the timing of the union’s § 6 notice nor the fact that this dispute involves the same subject matter as the dispute in Shore Line is of critical importance. Instead, the controlling consideration is the fact that neither party makes a substantial claim that its position is justified by the existing contract.
In the dispute arising out of the transfer of the St. Louis terminal to Lang in 1955, the union contended that the move was prohibited by the contract. As I understand the record, the railroad did not argue that the move was authorized by contract; it took the position, which the Board accepted, that the dispute was outside the coverage of the contract. Under the parties’ understanding of the law prior to Shore Line, it followed that the unilateral change in working conditions was therefore permissible.
The same analysis explains Judge Regan’s disposition of the dispute arising out of the designation of the A. O. Smith plant as a new assignment point in 1966. Again the union affirmatively relied on the contract and, I believe, correctly stated that the company took “the position that the designation of home terminals, points of assignment and on-duty location points is not a matter of present existing agreement. . . . ”1 Since the union’s position rested entirely on an interpretation of the existing contract as prohibiting the new assignment, Judge Regan properly held that the dispute was minor notwithstanding the service of a § 6 notice.
*381Not until after Shore Line, as I read the record, did the railroad ever argue that its right to designate new assignment points was affirmatively authorized by the existing contract. It is true that it now argues that Article 9 impliedly includes such authorization, but I find no substance to that contractual defense.2 The express language of the agreement does not support it,3 and the past practice, when properly analyzed, demonstrates that the railroad for many years consistently and affirmatively contended that this kind of dispute was not covered by the contract.4
Since the union’s formal notice of March 29, 1971, did not rely on the contract, but rather initiated negotiations for an agreement on a subject not then covered by contract, the dispute which ensued was major. See Elgin J. & E. Railway Co. v. Burley, 325 U.S. 711, 722-723, 65 S.Ct. 1282, 89 L.Ed.2d 1886.

. App. 142. (Emphasis added.) The quotation is from the union’s § 6 notice dated March 4, 1966. The railroad did not object to this characterization of its position. Prior to the Shore Line decision in 1969, the railroad appears to have consistently urged that the designation of new assignment points was not covered by existing agreement.

. Cf. Airlines Stewards & Stewardesses Assn., Local 550 v. Carribbean Atlantic Airlines, Inc., 412 F.2d 289, 291 (1st Cir. 1969).

. Article 9 merely provides: “Payment of yardmen shall continue until they return to tlie point of their assignment.” The written agreement is completely silent on the question of designating starting points although other provisions in the contract make it clear that Federal and McKinley Junction are recognized assignment points.

. Of course, if the contract authorized the railroad to designate a new assignment point, the union would still have the right to initiate a § 6 proceeding by requesting a change in that contract provision. On that hypothesis, however, the “working condition” which could not be altered during the pendency of the § 6 proceeding would be the railroad’s contractual right to change starting points, rather than the particular starting points which happened to be in use at the time.