delivered the opinion of the Court.
What began as a dispute over renewal of a collective-bargaining agreement between a small railroad in Maine and some of its employees expanded to picketing and threats of strike activity at railroad facilities around the country. A Federal District Court then enjoined the picketing of any railroads other than those involved in the primary dispute. The question we must decide is whether a federal court has jurisdiction to issue such an injunction.
*432 I — i
Respondent Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWE) represents railroad employees nationwide. Its members include employees of the Maine Central Railroad and the Portland Terminal Company, subsidiaries of Guilford Transportation Industries, Inc. (Guilford). Guil-ford also owns two other railroads, the Delaware Hudson Railway Company, and the Boston and Maine Corporation. The Guilford system covers some 4,000 miles of track in the northeast United States, east from Buffalo to Maine, and north from Washington, D. C., to Montreal. The Guilford system is not as large, however, as some other railroads, and Guilford depends on other railroads to carry much of its traffic.
The crux of the dispute between Maine Central and BMWE was Maine Central’s decision, following its acquisition by Guilford in 1981, to abolish over a 5-year period the jobs of roughly 300 out of 400 employees represented by BMWE. The collective-bargaining agreement between BMWE and Maine Central expired in 1984, before the parties were able to reach agreement either on the problem of job losses or on various questions of wages, hours, and working conditions. A dispute “over the formation of collective agreements or efforts to secure them” is a “major dispute” in the parlance of railway labor law,
Elgin, J. & E. R. Co.
v.
Burley,
*433 It first appeared to BMWE that its strike was having the desired effect of slowing traffic on Guilford’s lines. But Guilford’s supervisors took on some of the responsibilities of the striking workers, and after several weeks the volume of traffic on Guilford’s lines began to increase. BMWE received information that led it to believe that Guilford was receiving financial assistance from other railroads (a belief that later proved mistaken), and observed non-Guilford locomotives moving on Guilford lines. BMWE also perceived that Maine Central had become less willing to negotiate.
In early April, BMWE decided to extend its strike beyond Guilford’s subsidiaries. It first attempted to picket other railroads in the east with which Guilford interchanged a significant volume of traffic. This picketing was enjoined by two federal-court orders. 2 On April 8, 1986, BMWE notified the president of the American Association of Railroads of its plans to picket the facilities of other carriers and to ask other carriers’ employees to withdraw from service until Maine Central’s willingness to bargain increased. In addition, BMWE began to picket “strategic locations through which Guilford’s traffic flowed, such as Chicago,” Brief for Respondents 4, and to picket the Los Angeles facilities of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, based on the belief (again later proved mistaken) that Union Pacific supervisors were assisting on Guilford lines.
On April 9, 62 railroads (not including petitioner Burlington Northern Railroad Company (Burlington Northern)), filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a temporary restraining order against the picketing. Their request was denied the next day. Alton & Southern R. Co. v. BMWE, Civ. No. 86-0977 (1986). Meanwhile, also on April 9, Burlington Northern sought and *434 obtained ex parte a temporary restraining order from the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, enjoining BMWE from picketing or striking Burlington Northern. The six other railroad petitioners here quickly filed notices of dismissal in the District of Columbia and then filed new actions against BMWE on April 10 and 11 in the Northern District of Illinois. On April 11, that District Court issued temporary restraining orders in each of these cases enjoining BMWE from picketing and striking the facilities of these seven railroads.
The Illinois District Court then consolidated the cases and held a single hearing on the railroads’ motion for a preliminary injunction on April 21, 1986. On April 23, the District Court entered a preliminary injunction. The court noted that §§ 1 and 4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U. S. C. §§ 101, 104, bar federal courts from issuing injunctions against secondary activity “growing out of any labor dispute.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a-28a. The court held that these sections were inapplicable, however, because this case did not “grow out of a labor dispute” as that phrase is defined in § 13(a) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 113(a). In limiting the range of activity that could be considered to grow out of a labor dispute, the court employed the “substantial alignment” test of
Ashley, Drew & N. R. Co.
v.
United Transportation Union and Its Affiliated Local No. 1121,
The Court of Appeals reversed.
*436 While these judicial proceedings were pending, Congress and the Executive Branch took steps to resolve the controversy. On May 16, 1986, pursuant to § 10 of the RLA, 45 U. S. C. §160, the President issued Executive Order No. 12557, 51 Fed. Reg. 18429 (1986). Under this Order, Presidential Emergency Board No. 209 was convened and given the task of investigating the dispute and reporting to the President within 30 days. Section 10 provides that during this 30-day period, and for 30 days after the report is delivered, the parties to the controversy must return to and maintain the status quo prior to the dispute. The Presidential Emergency Board issued its report and recommendations on June 20, 1986. Its recommendations are not binding, however, and the parties did not accept them. On August 21, 1986, Congress passed a joint resolution establishing an advisory board to perform a second investigation and make a report. Four weeks later, on September 8, this board advised Congress that it should enact legislation binding the parties to the recommendation of Presidential Emergency Board No. 209. Congress promptly passed a joint resolution to this effect on September 23,1986, and seven days later the President signed the bill into law. Pub. L. 99-431,100 Stat. 987. 4
We granted certiorari,
*437 II
“The Norris-LaGuardia Act . . . expresses a basic policy against the injunction of activities of labor unions.”
Machinists
v.
Street,
“(a) Ceasing or refusing to perform any work or to remain in any relation of employment;
“(e) Giving publicity to the existence of, or the facts involved in, any labor dispute, whether by advertising, speaking, patrolling, or by any other method not involving fraud or violence.” 29 U. S. C. §§ 104(a), 104(e).
The congressional debates over the Norris-LaGuardia Act disclose that the Act’s sponsors were convinced that the extraordinary step of divesting federal courts of equitable jurisdiction was necessary to remedy an extraordinary problem. According to the sponsors, federal courts had refused to abide by the clear command of § 20 of the Clayton Act, which stated in part:
“[N]o . . . restraining order or injunction shall prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, . . . from ceasing to perform any work or labor, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of [so recommending and persuading]; ... or from peaceably assembling in a lawful manner, and for lawful purposes . . . .” 29 U. S. C. §52.
*438
The language of the Clayton Act was broad enough to encompass all peaceful strike activity, whether directed at the primary employer or at neutral “secondary” employers. Nevertheless, in
Duplex Printing Press Co.
v.
Deering,
The Norris-LaGuardia Act responded directly to the construction of the Clayton Act in
Duplex,
and to the pattern of injunctions entered by federal judges. “The underlying aim of the Norris-LaGuardia Act was to restore the broad purpose which Congress thought it had formulated in the Clayton Act but which was frustrated, so Congress believed, by unduly restrictive judicial construction.”
United States
v.
Hutcheson,
“Gentlemen, there is one reason why this legislation is before Congress, and that one reason is disobedience of the law on the part of whom? On the part of organized *439 labor? No. Disobedience of the law on the part of a few Federal judges. If the courts had been satisfied to construe the law as enacted by Congress, there would not be any need of legislation of this kind. If the courts had administered even justice to both employers and employees, there would be no need of considering a bill of this kind now. If the courts had not emasculated and purposely misconstrued the Clayton Act, we would not today be discussing an anti-injunction bill.” 75 Cong. Rec. 5478 (1932). 5
The Act thus reflects Congress’ decision to “abolis[h], for purposes of labor immunity, the distinction between primary activity between the ‘immediate disputants’ and secondary activity in which the employer and the members of the union do not stand ‘in the proximate relation of employer and employee.’”
Woodwork Manufacturers
v.
NLRB,
H-1 H-t
We first consider petitioners’ argument that § 4’s ban on injunctions is inapplicable to this case because the controversy is not one “involving or growing out of” a “labor dispute” under §4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act.
Section 13(c) of the Norris-LaGuardia Act states that “[t]he term ‘labor dispute’ includes any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment . . . regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.” 29 U. S. C. § 113(c). Section 13(a) provides in pertinent part that: “[a] case shall be held to involve or to grow out of a labor dispute when the case involves persons who are engaged in the same industry . . . .” § 113(a). If this statutory language is accorded its plain meaning, BMWE’s dispute with Maine Central over the terms and conditions of employment is unquestionably a labor dispute, and the secondary activity against petitioners grows out of that dispute.
Petitioners argue, however, that this Court should adopt a test of “substantial alignment” to narrow the scope of labor
*441
disputes under § 13(c). Petitioners rely on several lower court decisions in which the term “labor dispute” has been applied only to disputes where the picketed employer is “substantially aligned” with the primary employer. See
Ashley, Drew & N. R. Co.
v.
United Transportation Union,
We reject these narrow constructions of § 13(c) for several reasons. First, we have long recognized that “Congress made the definition [of “labor dispute”] broad because it wanted it to be broad. . . . Congress attempted to write its bill in unmistakable language because it believed previous measures looking toward the same policy against nonjudicial intervention in labor disputes had been given unduly limited constructions by the Courts.”
Telegraphers
v.
Chicago & N. W. R. Co.,
*442
Accordingly, we have consistently declined to construe § 13(c) narrowly. For example, we have interpreted § 13(c) to embrace disputes “having their genesis in political protests” as opposed to economic self-interest.
Jacksonville Bulk Terminals, Inc.
v.
Longshoremen,
Adoption of some variant of the substantial-alignment test would be contrary to the Act in yet another way. The focus of the substantial-alignment test — whether labor activity will “furthe[r] the union’s economic interest in a labor dispute,” Ashley, Drew, supra, at 1363 — requires courts to second-guess which activities are truly in the union’s interest. As the Court of Appeals explained:
“No union engages in secondary conduct without expecting to advance its economic interests. . . . Unions do not lightly call in their chips and impose burdens on other workers who find their own pay and working conditions satisfactory. . . . Under the ‘substantial alignment’ test of Ashley, Drew the court must . . . weig[h] the economic gains to the union’s members from secondary pressure against the losses the secondary conduct imposes on others in society. It is only a small exaggeration to say that this is exactly what courts were doing *443 before 1932, exactly why Congress passed the Norris-LaGuardia Act.”793 F. 2d, at 806 .
Finally, nothing in the Norris-LaGuardia Act or the RLA distinguishes permissible from impermissible secondary activity. As we observed in
Trainmen
v.
Jacksonville Terminal Co.,
“No cosmic principles announce the existence of secondary conduct, condemn it as an evil, or delimit its boundaries. These tasks were first undertaken by judges, intermixing metaphysics with their notions of social and economic policy. And the common law of labor relations . . . has drawn no lines more arbitrary, tenuous, and shifting than those separating ‘primary’ from ‘secondary’ activities.”
For the railway industry, unlike other industries covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), Congress has provided “neither usable standards nor access to administrative expertise” to facilitate the difficult task of distinguishing primary and secondary activity. Id., at 392. Given the inherent indeterminacy of these concepts and the lack of congressional guidance, it is obvious that any judicial attempt to limit the language of § 13 would make “the lawfulness of a strike . . . depend upon judicial views of social and economic policy.” Jacksonville Bulk Terminals, Inc., supra, at 715. Even if we were confident that our mixture of metaphysics and social policy, unlike that of our predecessors earlier in this century, would produce a construction of § 13(c) that would substantially align with Congress’ contemporary views, the fact remains that Congress passed the Norris-LaGuardia Act to forestall judicial attempts to narrow labor’s statutory protection. Accordingly, we refuse to narrow the definition of “labor dispute” under § 13(c) to exclude those battles involving secondary activity.
*444 > i — 1
In certain limited circumstances, the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not prevent a court from enjoining violations of the specific mandate of another labor statute. Petitioners claim that the injunction here was valid because, under the RLA, it is illegal for a union to resort to secondary picketing after the parties have exhausted the major dispute resolution procedures. To evaluate this argument, we must briefly review the RLA.
The Railway Labor Act “cannot be appreciated apart from the environment out of which it came and the purposes which it was designed to serve.”
Elgin, J. & E. R. Co.
v.
Burley,
If the RLA is to function as its framers intended, compliance with its mandates obviously is essential. To accommodate the competing demands of the RLA and the Norris-LaGuardia Act, our cases establish that the Norris-LaGuardia Act
“does not deprive the federal court of jurisdiction to enjoin compliance with various mandates of the Railway Labor Act. Virginian R. Co. v. [Railway Employees],300 U. S. 515 ; Graham v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen,338 U. S. 232 .” Machinists v. Street,367 U. S., at 772-773 ; see also Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Transportation Union,402 U. S. 570 , 581-582 (1971). 11
*446 This exception is necessarily a limited one. Even when a violation of a specific mandate of the RLA is shown, “[cjourts should hesitate to fix upon the injunctive remedy . . . unless that remedy alone can effectively guard the plaintiff’s right.” Machinists, supra, at 773.
Petitioners concede, as they must, that the RLA does not contain an express mandate limiting the scope of self-help available to a union once the RLA’s major dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted. They argue, however, that the drafters of the RLA did not need to insert an express prohibition of secondary picketing because in 1926 federal law clearly prohibited such picketing. Because language banning that which was already illegal would have been superfluous, petitioners construe the RLA to adopt the limits on self-help that existed at the time the RLA became law. 12
*447 Petitioners read too much, however, into the silence of the Act. The RLA’s silence could just as easily signify an intent to allow the parties to resort to whatever self-help is legally available at the time a dispute arises. Faced with a choice between the ambiguity in the RLA and the unambiguous mandate of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, we choose the latter. 13
Indeed, this Court has already refused to find in the silence of the RLA an intent to prohibit secondary picketing. In
Trainmen
v.
Jacksonville Terminal Co., supra,
we held that state courts may not enjoin secondary picketing in a railway dispute after parties exhaust the RLA’s procedures. We noted that Congress had not provided the courts with the standards needed to distinguish primary from secondary picketing, and that “parties who have unsuccessfully exhausted the Railway Labor Act’s procedures for resolution of a major dispute . . . [may] employ the full range of whatever peaceful economic power they can muster, so long as its use conflicts with no other obligation imposed by federal law.”
Petitioners note that our decision in Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co. did not require us to determine the scope of federal-court injunctive power under the RLA, nor to assess the applicability of the Norris-LaGuardia Act to either the state- or federal-court injunctive power. See id., at 382, n. 18. Nevertheless, the primary rationale for our decision — that “we have been furnished by Congress neither usable standards nor access to administrative expertise” in evaluating the lawfulness of secondary picketing — remains equally persuasive today, for in the 18 years since our decision Congress has provided no guidance on the subject. Where the Judiciary lacks manageable standards, federal courts should not enter where state courts are forbidden to tread.
Petitioners next maintain that when, as here, the RLA does not provide a clear answer to a particular problem, this Court has looked to the NLRA “for assistance in construing” the RLA.
Trainmen
v.
Jacksonville Terminal Co.,
The NLRA does not contain a “sweeping prohibition” of secondary activity; instead it “describes and condemns specific union conduct directed to specific objectives.”
Carpenters
v.
NLRB,
Petitioners next argue that in some cases the Court has allowed an injunction to issue to enforce a duty that is merely
inferred
from the language and structure of the RLA. In
Trainmen
v.
Chicago R. & I. R. Co.,
*450 Turning to this case, petitioners argue that a ban on secondary picketing may be inferred from the general language of § 2 First. Section 2 First states that:
“It shall be the duty of all carriers, their officers, agents, and employees to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of such agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier growing out of any dispute between the carrier and the employees thereof.” 45 U. S. C. § 152 First.
Petitioners place particular emphasis on the duty this section places on employees to attempt to settle disputes and thereby avoid any interruption to interstate commerce. This duty, petitioners correctly note, is consistent with the major purpose of Congress in passing the RLA: “ ‘[T]o prevent, if possible, wasteful strikes and interruptions of interstate commerce.’” Brief for Petitioners 14, quoting
Shore Line,
Although we agree with petitioners that the primary goal of the RLA is to settle strikes and avoid interruptions to commerce, we see nothing in the RLA to indicate that Congress intended to permit federal courts to enjoin secondary activity as a means toward that end. An injunction does not settle a dispute — it simply disables one of the parties. Moreover, “in view of the interests of both parties in avoiding a strike,”
Virginian R. Co.
v.
Railway Employees,
“Underlying the entire statutory framework is the pressure born of the knowledge that in the final instance traditional self-help economic pressure may be brought to bear if the statutory mechanism does not produce agreement. ... As the statutory machinery nears termination without achieving settlement, the threat of economic self-help and the pressures of informed public opinion create new impetus toward compromise and agreement.” Chicago & North Western,402 U. S., at 597-598 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
Furthermore, as this case illustrates, § 10 of the RLA provides a ready mechanism for the Executive Branch to intervene and interrupt any self-help measures by invoking an Emergency Board and thereby imposing at a minimum a 60-day cooling-off period. If the Board’s recommendations are not initially accepted by the parties, Congress has the power to enforce the Board’s recommendation by statute, as it has done here. Allowing secondary picketing in the self-help period is thus not inconsistent with the structure or purpose of the Act, and may in fact increase the likelihood of settlement prior to self-help. This is therefore not a case in which “the scheme of the Railway Labor Act could not begin to work without judicial involvement.” Chicago & North Western, supra, at 595 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
While opinions regarding the RLA’s success in meeting its goals have varied over time, it does appear that under the RLA labor and management have been able to resolve most conflicts without resort to secondary picketing.
16
We de
*453
cline, at this advanced stage of the RLA’s development, to find in it an implied limit on a union’s resort to secondary activity. Instead, “if Congress should now find that abuses in the nature of secondary activities have arisen in the railroad industry ... it is for the Congress, and not the Courts, to strike the balance ‘between the uncontrolled power of management and labor to further their respective interests.’”
Trainmen
v.
Jacksonville Terminal Co.,
V
“Th[e] judge-made law of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was based on self-mesmerized views of economic and social theory . . . and on statutory misconstruction.”
Trainmen
v.
Jacksonville Terminal Co., supra,
at 382. It may be that the evolution of judicial attitudes toward labor in “the decades since the Norris-LaGuardia Act was passed has dissipated any legitimate concern about the impartiality of federal judges in disputes between labor and management.”
Buffalo Forge Co.
v.
Steelworkers,
It is so ordered.
Notes
Guilford unsuccessfully attempted to enjoin this extension of the strike. BMWE v. Guilford Industries, Inc., No. 86-0084-P (D Me. Apr. 2,1986).
Consolidated Rail Carp.
v.
BMWE,
Civ. No. 86-0318T (WDNY Apr. 6, 1986), vacated,
In the alternative, the District Court ruled that it had jurisdiction to issue an injunction because BMWE’s activity violated the Interstate Commerce Act. 49 U. S. C. § 11101(a). As the Court of Appeals explained,
In addition, the District Court held that even if the secondary picketing grew out of a labor dispute for purposes of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the secondary picketing could also be viewed as a major dispute under the RLA between BMWE and
the secondary railroads;
the picketing could then be enjoined because BMWE and these railroads had not yet exhausted the RLA’s major dispute procedures. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument,
These developments do not moot this controversy. Because these same parties are reasonably likely to find themselves again in dispute over the issues raised in this petition, and because such disputes typically are resolved quickly by executive or legislative action, this controversy is one that is capable of repetition yet evading review. See
Weinstein
v.
Bradford,
See also 75 Cong. Rec. 5470 (1932) (statement of Rep. Browning) (“[I]nstead of that [Clayton] act. . . being construed as what the Congress intended, it was denatured, emasculated, and tortured into an instrument for further oppression of those whom we sought to relieve. ... As an example ... I refer you to the famous Duplex case”);
id.,
at 5468 (statement of Rep. Beedy);
id.,
at 5464 (statement of Rep. O’Connor);
id.,
at 5488 (statement of Rep. Celler); H. R. Rep. No. 669, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 2-11 (1932); S. Rep. No. 163, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 7-14, 16-18 (1932);
United States
v.
Hutcheson,
See also United States v. Hutcheson, supra, at 231 (“[T]he Act . . . established that the allowable area of union activity was not to be restricted, as it had been in the Duplex case, to an immediate employer-employee relation”).
The Norris-LaGuardia Act was not Congress’ last word on secondary picketing. The 1947 Taft-Hartley and 1959 Landrum-Griffin amendments to the National Labor Relations Act provided the National Labor Relations Board with exclusive authority to seek injunctions in federal court against some forms of secondary activity. 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(b)(4), 160. But as we explain infra, at 448-449, Congress exempted railroad employers and employees from these amendments, § 152, and so the Norris-LaGuardia Act’s prohibition on injunctions applies to railway disputes today, as it did in 1932.
See also
Marine Cooks & Stewards
v.
Panama S.S. Co.,
See,
e. g.,
G. Eggert, Railroad Labor Disputes (1967); L. Lecht, Experience Under Railway Labor Legislation 14-57 (1955);
Machinists
v.
Street,
The RLA’s procedures for resolving a major dispute, such as the one between BMWE and Guilford, were summarized by the Court in
Trainmen
v.
Jacksonville Terminal Co.,
“The Act provides a detailed framework to facilitate the voluntary settlement of major disputes. A party desiring to effect a change of rates of pay, rules, or working conditions must give advance written notice. § 6. The parties must confer, § 2 Second, and if conference fails to resolve the dispute, either or both may invoke the services of the National Mediation Board, which may also proffer its services sua sponte if it finds a labor emergency to exist. § 5 First. If mediation fails, the Board must endeavor to induce the parties to submit the controversy to binding arbitration, which can take place, however, only if both consent. §§ 5 First, 7. If arbitration is rejected and the dispute threatens ‘substantially to inter *445 rupt interstate commerce to a degree such as to deprive any section of the country of essential transportation service, the Mediation Board shall notify the President,’ who may create an emergency board to investigate and report on the dispute. § 10. While the dispute is working its way through these stages, neither party may unilaterally alter the status quo. §§2 Seventh, 5 First, 6, 10.”
In
Virginian R. Co.,
for example, the Court held that § 2 Ninth of the Act was a “command to the employer to ‘treat with’ the authorized representative of the employees,” and that this legal obligation was enforceable
*446
in equity notwithstanding the Norris-LaGuardia Act.
Petitioners argue that the legislative history of the Norris-LaGuardia Act supports this view. As we noted supra, at 439-440, however, Congress rejected Representative Beck’s amendment exempting railroads from the Norris-LaGuardia Act. Petitioners argue that Congress did so on the understanding that secondary picketing was already illegal under the Railway Labor Act and that nothing in the Norris-LaGuardia Act would change that. Reply Brief for Petitioners 14-17. But nowhere in the legislative debates does any Representative state that secondary activity is illegal under the RLA. Rather, in response to Representative Beck’s proposed amendment, Representative LaGuardia stressed that the RLA “provided the machinery ... for settling labor disputes,” and that the RLA “takes care of the whole labor situation pertaining to the railroads.” 75 Cong. Rec. 5499 (1932). These statements do not necessarily imply that the RLA bans secondary activity, but rather suggest that the *447 RLA’s dispute resolution procedures already provided a mechanism by which to avoid secondary activity in the railway industry. We thus are not persuaded that Congress rejected Representative Beck’s amendment on the understanding that courts had the power under the RLA to enjoin secondary picketing during the period of self-help.
The circumstances surrounding the passage of the RLA suggest another reason to reject petitioners’ construction. Unlike the legislation that preceded it, the RLA was negotiated and agreed to by the railroads and the Brotherhoods, and is “probably unique in having been frankly accepted as such by the President and Congress.”
Elgin, J. & E. R. Co.
v.
Burley,
Petitioners also rely on a third case,
Railway Clerks
v.
Florida E. C. R. Co.,
It is of course appropriate to construe a particular provision of an Act in light of the Act’s structure and purpose.
United States
v.
Heirs of Boisdoré,
In
Chicago River,
for example, our point of departure was the express language of § 3 First, which unambiguously compelled arbitration of minor disputes; the only inference drawn was that a strike was incompatible with this explicit obligation. “[T]he
Chicago River
case [thus] held that a strike could be enjoined to prevent a plain violation of a basic command of the Railway Labor Act. . . .”
Telegraphers
v.
Chicago & N. W. R. Co.,
In Chicago & North Western, we began by noting that the express language of § 2 First creates a duty to “exert every reasonable effort” to settle disputes, The only inference we drew here was that this duty was a legal obligation enforceable by injunction under certain circumstances. The language of § 2 First does not contain, however, either an express proscription of secondary activity or a suggestion that the scope of self-help is limited. Our currently narrow exception to the Norris-LaGuardia Act’s prohibition on injunctions would expand to swallow the rule were we to permit courts to enforce by injunction the obligation petitioners infer here.
“In the history of the Railway Labor Act there have been only three widely-known labor disputes in which rail unions have undertaken any secondary economic activity.” Brief for National Railway Labor Conference as
Amicus Curiae
27. In making this statement,
amicus
refers to the Florida East Coast Railway dispute of the early 1960’s, see
Trainmen
v.
Jacksonville Terminal Co.,