325 U.S. 538 | SCOTUS | 1945
Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The only question we find it necessary to decide in this case is whether a Florida statute
The Attorney General of Florida filed a bill for injunction against the petitioner union and its business agent, Hill, in a state court. He sought to restrain both of them
It is apparent that the Florida statute has been so construed and applied that the union and its selected representative are prohibited from functioning as collective bargaining agents, or in any other capacity, except upon conditions fixed by Florida. The declared purpose of the Wagner Act, as shown in its first section, is to encourage collective bargaining, and to protect the “full freedom” of workers in the selection of bargaining representatives of their own choice. To this end Congress made it illegal for an employer to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in selecting their representatives. Congress attached no conditions whatsoever to their freedom of choice in this respect. Their own best judgment, not that of someone else, was to be their guide. “Full freedom” to choose an agent means freedom to pass upon that agent’s qualifications.
Section 4 of the Florida Act circumscribes the “full freedom” of choice which Congress said employees should possess. It does this by requiring a “business agent” to prove to the satisfaction of a Florida Board that he measures up to standards set by the State of Florida as one who, among other things, performs the exact function of a collective bargaining representative. To the extent that § 4 limits a union’s choice of such an “agent” or bargaining representative, it substitutes Florida’s judgment for the workers’ judgment.
Since the Labor Board has held that an employer must bargain with a properly selected union agent despite his failure to secure a Florida license, it is argued that the state law does not interfere with the collective bargaining process. But here, this agent has been enjoined, and if the Florida law is valid he could be found guilty of a contempt for doing that which the act of Congress permits him to do. Furthermore, he could, under § 14 of the state law, be convicted of a misdemeanor and subjected to fine and imprisonment. The collective bargaining which Congress has authorized contemplates two parties free to bargain, and cannot thus be frustrated by state legislation. We hold that § 4 of the Florida Act is repugnant to the National Labor Relations Act.
Nor can it be argued that our decision in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, forecloses such result. In that case we did not have, as here, to deal with such a direct impediment to the free exercise of the federally established right to collective bargaining.
Our holding is that the National Labor Relations Act and §§ 4 and 6 of the Florida Act as here applied cannot “move freely within the orbits of their respective purposes without impinging upon one another.” Union Brokerage Co. v. Jensen, 322 U. S. 202, 207.
Reversed and remanded.
House Bill No. 142, Laws of Florida, 1943, Chap. 21968, 565.
The National Labor Relations Act applies only to activities which affect interstate commerce. Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 29, 30. The original bill for an injunction prayed that this union might be restrained from functioning as a union in connection with employees of the St. Johns River Shipbuilding Co. of Jackson
Concurrence Opinion
I concur in so much of the opinion as finds conflict between the licensing provisions of the Florida statute and the National Labor Relations Act. I do so only on the ground that the command of § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act that “employees shall have the right . . . to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing” conflicts with the licensing provisions of the Florida Act purporting to fix the qualifications of business agents of labor organizations.
This, of course, does not mean that labor unions or their officers are immune, in other respects, from the exercise of the state's police power to punish fraud, violence, or other forms of misconduct, either because of the commerce clause or the National Labor Relations Act. It is familiar ground that the commerce clause does not itself preclude a state from regulating those matters which, not being themselves interstate commerce, nevertheless affect the commerce, California v. Thompson, 313 U. S. 109, 113-114, 116, and cases cited; Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341, 360, and cases cited, and that the state’s authority is curtailed only as Congress may by law prescribe in the exercise of the commerce power. United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 119, and cases cited. I can find nothing in
For the same reasons, the National Labor Relations Act does not preclude a state from requiring a labor union, or its officers and agents, as such, to procure licenses or make reports or perform other duties which do not materially obstruct the exercise of rights conferred by the National Labor Relations Act or other federal legislation. Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 542. But it is quite another matter to say that a state may fix standards or qualifications for labor unions and their officers and agents which would preclude any of them from being chosen and from functioning as bargaining agents under § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. The right conferred on employees to bargain collectively through a representative of their own choosing is the foundation of the National Labor Relations Act. Without that right, or if it were restricted by state action, the Act as drawn would have little scope for operation. The fact that the National Labor Relations Act imposes sanctions on the employer alone does not mean that it did not, by § 7, confer the right on employees as against others as well as the employer to make an uninhibited choice of their bargaining agents. Cf. United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219. Section 7 confers the right of choice generally on employees and not merely as against the employer.
Notwithstanding the conflict between the commerce clause or the federal statute and the local regulation which was found in Western Union Co. v. Massachusetts, 125 U. S. 530, 554, and St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Arkansas, 235 U. S. 350, 368, I can find no logical or persuasive legal ground or practical reason for saying that Congress by the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act intended to preclude the state from exercising to the utmost extent its sovereign power to enforce the lawful demands of § 6 of the Florida Act. There is no more occasion for implying such a Congressional purpose where the union is prevented from functioning by punishment or injunction, for a violation of a valid state law, than for saying that Congress, by the National Labor Relations Act, intended to forbid the states to arrest and imprison a labor leader for the violation of any other valid state law, because that would prevent his or the union’s functioning under the National Labor Relations Act. The question is wholly one of state power. Here the state power is not restricted by the commerce clause standing alone, nor, so far as I can see, by any Congressional intention expressed
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The Court is striking down a State law not because such a statute in and of itself is beyond the power of a State to enact. The Florida statute is nullified because, so Florida is told, Congress has barred Florida from this lawmaking, although Congress has neither expressly nor by fair inference forbidden Florida to deal with the matter with which Florida has dealt and Congress has not. Concretely, Congress by protecting employees in their right to choose representatives for collective bargaining free from the coercion or influence of employers did not impliedly wipe out the right of States under their police power to require qualifications appropriate for union officials having fiduciary duties.
It was settled early in our constitutional history that the mere fact that Congress has power to regulate commerce among the several States does not exclude State legislation in the exercise of the police power, even though it may affect such commerce, where the subject matter does not demand a nation-wide rule. Willson v. Blackbird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245; Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, 319. The States, in short, may speak on matters even in the general domain of commerce so long as Congress is silent. But when Congress has spoken, although not as fully as the Constitution authorizes, that is, when a federal enactment falls short of the Congressional power to legislate touching commerce, the States may still speak where Congress is still silent. The real question is: Has Congress spoken so as to silence the States? The same regard for the harmonious balance of our federal system, whereby the States may protect local interests despite the dormant Commerce Clause, allows State legislation for the protection of local interests so
But conflicts between State laws regulating aspects of business enterprise and federal enactments relating to such aspects were few and far between in the first hundred years of our history. Apart from taxes and tariffs, the regulation of fisheries, and measures dealing with the coastwise trade, there was little intervention by federal legislation'in the affairs of men until, in 1887, the Interstate Commerce Act initiated the tide of federal regulation. Since then, this Court has often had to deal with the claim that a federal statute, though only partially regulating a particular phase of commerce, superseded State legislation in the exercise of the police power bearing upon that phase.
In a great variety of cases, the Court has applied the accommodation formulated in Sinnot v. Davenport, supra, and either reasserted or reinforced that policy. The emphasis has been on recognizing that both the State law and the federal statute must be allowed to prevail if they may prevail together — that is, if they do not, as a
1. “May not these statutory provisions stand without obstructing or embarrassing the execution of the act of Congress? This question must of course be determined with reference to the settled rule that a statute enacted in execution of a reserved power of the State is not to be regarded as inconsistent with an act of Congress passed in the execution of a clear power under the Constitution, unless the repugnance or conflict is so direct and positive that the two acts cannot be reconciled or stand together.” Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Haber, 169 U. S. 613, 623.
2. “It should never be held that Congress intends to supersede or by its legislation suspend the. exercise of the police powers of the States, even when it may do so, unless its purpose to effect that result is clearly manifested. . . .
“The principle is universal that legislation, whether by Congress or by a State, must be taken to be valid, unless the contrary is made clearly to appear; and as the contrary does not so appear, the statute of Colorado is to be taken as a constitutional exercise of the power of the State.” Reid v. Colorado, 187 U. S. 137, 148, 153.
3. “Is, then, a denial to the State of the exercise-of its power for the purposes in question necessarily implied in the Federal statute? For when the question is whether a Federal act overrides a state law, the entire scheme of the statute must of course be considered and that which needs must be implied is of no less force than that which is expressed. If the purpose of the act cannot otherwise be accomplished — if its operation within its chosen field else must be frustrated and its provisions be refused their
“But the intent to supersede the exercise by the State of its police power as to matters not covered by the Federal legislation is not to be inferred from the mere fact that Congress has seen fit to circumscribe its Regulation and to occupy a limited field. In other words, such intent is not to be implied unless the act of Congress fairly interpreted is in actual conflict with the law of the State. This principle has had abundant illustration.” Savage v. Jones, 225 U. S. 501, 533.
4. “These cases recognize the established rule that a state law enacted under any of the reserved powers — especially if under the police power — is not to be set aside as inconsistent with an act of Congress, unless there is actual repugnancy, or unless Congress has, at least, manifested a purpose to exercise its paramount authority over the subject. The rule rests upon fundamental grounds that should not be disregarded.” Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Harris, 234 U. S. 412, 418-419.
5. “In construing federal statutes enacted under the power conferred by the commerce clause of the Constitution the rule is that it should never be held that Congress intends to supersede or suspend the exercise of the reserved powers of a State, even where that may be done, unless, and except so far as, its purpose to do so is clearly manifested.” Illinois Central R. Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n, 245 U. S. 493, 510.
6. “The principle thus applicable has been frequently stated. It is that the Congress may circumscribe its regulation and occupy a limited field, and that the intention to supersede the exercise by the State of its authority as to matters not covered by the federal legislation is not to be implied unless the Act of Congress fairly interpreted is in conflict with the law of the State.” Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Railroad Comm’n, 283 U. S. 380, 392-393.
8. “The power conferred upon the Congress is such that when exerted it excludes and supersedes state legislation in respect of the same matter. But Congress may so circumscribe its regulation as to leave a part of the subject open to state action. Atlantic Coast Line v. Georgia, 234 U. S. 280, 290. Cf. Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line, 272 U. S. 605. The purpose exclusively to regulate need not be specifically declared. New York Central R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 147. But, ordinarily such intention will not be implied unless, when fairly interpreted, the federal measure is plainly inconsistent with state regulation of the same matter.” Gilvary v. Cuyahoga Valley R. Co., 292 U. S. 57, 60.
9. “The case calls for the application of the well-established principle that Congress may circumscribe its regulation and occupy a limited field, and that the intent to supersede the exercise by the State of its police power as to matters not covered by the federal legislation is not to be implied unless the latter fairly interpreted is in actual conflict with the state law.” Townsend v. Yeomans, 301 U. S. 441, 454.
10. “States are thus enabled to deal with local exigencies and to exert in the absence of conflict with federal legislation an essential protective power. And when Congress does exercise its paramount authority, it is obvious that Congress may determine how far its regulation shall go. There is no constitutional rule which compels Congress to occupy the whole field. Congress may circumscribe its regulation and occupy only a limited field.
These rules of respect for the allowable area of State law have not been ceremonial phrases dishonored in observance. Deviations from this policy have been very rare, considering the fact that we are dealing not with a mathematical formula but with the application of a constitutional doctrine by judicial judgment. The deviations have been so rare all these decades, despite the changes in the Court, because of fidelity to' the purposes of this vital aspect of our federalism.
A survey of the scores of cases in which the claim has been made that State action cannot survive some contradictory command of Congress leaves no doubt that State action has not been set aside on mere generalities about Congress having “occupied the field,” or on the basis of loose talk instead of demonstrations about “conflict” between State and federal action. We are in the domain of government and practical affairs, and this Court has not stifled State action, unless what the State has required, in the light of what Congress has ordered, would truly entail contradictory duties or make actual, not argumentative, inroads on what Congress has commanded or forbidden.
Since the bulk of federal regulatory legislation has until recently been concerned with the great interstate utilities, the cases dealing with the relation of State to federal legislation in this field shed most light on the question before us. Moreover, these present situations least favorable to tolerance for State legislation. The
The range and particularity of federal legislation regulating railroads, expressed in a long series of enactments, have given rise to most of the cases in which State action has been found in conflict with federal action. Once Congress established a uniform federal rule concerning liability for freight loss or damage in place of the variegated rules of the several States, State policy “differently conceived” had to yield. Charleston & W. C. R. Co. v. Varnvile Co., 237 U. S. 597, 604. The comprehensive control over railroad rates, progressively exercised by Congress, necessarily displaced much prior State law. And so, the permissive power of States to deal with aspects of transportation in the absence of federal law ceased when State action ran counter to the specific requirements of the Hepburn Act. Southern R. Co. v. Reid, 222 U. S. 424; Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Hardwick Elevator Co., 226 U. S. 426. State regulation of the hours of railroad employees could not survive a Congressional policy as to hours of service. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Washington, 222 U. S. 370. Explicitness by Congress relating to the equipping of freight cars with safety appliances superseded a State law dealing differently with such safety requirements. Southern R. Co. v. Railroad Comm’n, 236 U. S. 439. When Congress saw fit to define in the Federal Employers Liability Act a carrier’s responsibility for the death or injury of its employees, a State could not assert a different basis of responsibility. N. Y. Central R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 147. Uniform standards set by the Interstate Commerce Commission for the equipment of locomotives preclude different requirements for such equipment by the States. Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line, 272 U. S. 605. But merely because regulatory power is
These are illustrations of a closely knit body of regulations, full of technical implications, protected against incursions from local discriminations as to the very subject matter for which Congress deemed a national rule essential. There was, in short, concreteness of conflict between what a State prescribed and what Congress prescribed; the collision was demonstrable, not argumentative.
Even where the enforcement of a State statute carries international implications and thus deals with sensitive concerns peculiarly within the direction of federal authority, this Court only recently was slow to strike down an exercise of the State police power. When, in Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, the United States strongly urged upon us that a Pennsylvania system of alien registration, established in 1939, had been superseded by the Federal Alien Registration Act of 1940, we did not displace the State law cavalierly, on the basis of loose inference and dogmatic assertion, but examined with painstaking care the particular requirements of Pennsylvania in order to ascertain whether, in their practical operation, they ran counter to the scheme as conceived by Congress and impinged upon its administration. A detailed examination of the long course of federal legislation affecting aliens, of which the Act of 1940 was the latest in a series, led the Court to conclude that Congress
“In the Hines case, a federal system of alien registration was held to supersede a state system of registration. But there we were dealing with a problem which had an impact on the general field of foreign relations. The delicacy of the issues which were posed alone raised grave questions as to the propriety of allowing a state system of regulation to function alongside of a federal system. In that field, any ‘concurrent state power that may exist is restricted to the narrowest of limits.’ p. 68. Therefore, we were more ready to conclude that a federal Act in a field that touched international relations superseded state regulation than we were in those cases where a State was exercising its historic powers over such traditionally local matters as public safety and order and the use of streets and highways. Maurer v. Hamilton, [309 U. S. 598] supra, and cases cited. Here, we are dealing with the latter type of problem. We will not lightly infer that Congress by the mere passage of a federal Act has impaired the traditional sovereignty of the several States in that regard.”
These are the principles which have been recognized and applied by the vast body of the decisions of this Court, and they are the principles that should determine the fate of the Florida legislation now here for judgment.
By legislation known as House Bill No. 142, Florida, in 1943, undertook to regulate labor unions and their officers. Laws of Florida, 1943, Ch. 21968, p. 565. That Act prohibits any person from acting as a “business agent” for any “labor organization” without having obtained a license. § 9 (6). In order to obtain such a license, for a fee of one dollar, a person must file with the Secretary of State an application under oath, accompanied by a statement showing the applicant’s authority to act as business agent, vouched for by the president and secretary of the labor organization. To permit the filing of objections to granting the license, the application must be held on file for thirty days. Thereafter, the application, with all relevant
The Attorney General of Florida sought and obtained from a Florida Circuit Court an injunction forbidding the petitioner, United Association of Journeymen Plumbers and Steamfitters, Local No. 234, from functioning as a labor union until it had complied with the requirements of § 6, and forbidding petitioner Hill from acting as business agent for the Association until he had procured the license required by § 4. The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed the injunction. 19 So. 2d 857. This Court reverses the Florida decision by concluding that the National Labor Relations Act, familiarly known as the Wagner Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., debarred Florida from dealing with the matters with which her legislation dealt.
The Court reaches this conclusion rather summarily, as though the conflict between the Wagner Act and the Florida Act is too obvious for argument. Considering the fact that this case involves what so often has been
While employer-employee relations on railroads have been the subject of Congressional legislation for more than half a century, giving rise to a more and more comprehensive scheme of federal regulation, as to such relations in industry generally Congress abstained from regulation until 1935. Its first essay in this field was professedly very limited in scope. Not content with setting forth the central aim of the Wagner Act in the legislative reports, Congress in the Act itself defined its purposes. In view of the inequality between organized employers and employees devoid of “full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract/’ and of the “denial by employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by employers to accept the procedure of collective bargaining,” it was “declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.” § 1. To that end § 8, the heart of the Act, enumerated conduct by employers which the National Labor Relations Board was established to prevent. § 10. It is an accurate summary of the Wagner Act to say that it aimed to equalize bargaining power between industrial employees and their employers by putting federal law behind the employees’ right of association. The whole plan or scheme of the Wagner Act was to enable employees to bargain on a fair basis, freed from “restraint or coercion
All proposals to make of the Wagner Act a more comprehensive industrial code, by dealing with the conduct of employees and their unions, were rejected. The rights Congress created, the obligations it defined, the machinery it devised for enforcing these rights and securing obedience to these obligations, all were exclusively concerned with putting the strength of the Government against this conduct by employers. All other aspects of industrial relations were left untouched by the Wagner Act, and purposely so. All activities or aspects of labor organizations outside of their right to be free from employer coercion were left wholly unregulated by that Act. Neither expressly nor by indirection did the Wagner Act displace whatever police power the States may have to deal with those aspects of the life of a trade union as to which Congress, with eyes wide open, refused to legislate. When Congress purposely dealt only with the employer aspect of industrial relations and purposely abstained from making any rules touching union activities, the internal affairs of unions, or the responsibility of union officials to union members and to the public, Congress certainly did not sponge out the States’ police power as to these matters. It wipes out State power and distorts Congressional intention to disregard the limited policy explicitly set forth by Congress. That policy — curbing of employer interferences with union rights — was scrupulously observed by Congress in the substantive provisions as well as in the enforcement structure of the Act. There is not a breath in the Act referring to any aspect of union activity unrelated to employer interference therewith. By refusing to legislate beyond that, Congress did not forbid the States from so legislating.
If Congress tomorrow chose to subject labor organizations and their officers to regulations similar to those dealt
If the Wagner Act has left Florida free to deal with these matters, Florida may not only legislate but also provide for enforcement of its legislation. In other words, if Florida may call for reports and require business agents to apply for licenses, of course Florida may provide appropriate sanctions for such regulations. If a union may properly be required to file a report and does not do so and therefore is prohibited from pursuing its industrial activities until it does file such a report, the State is not interfering with whatever rights the union may have
The judgment should be affirmed.