LOCAL 357, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD.
No. 64.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 28, 1961. Decided April 17, 1961.
365 U.S. 667
*Together with No. 85, National Labor Relations Board v. Local 357, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, also on certiorari to the same Court.
Norton J. Come argued the cause for the National Labor Relations Board. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Rankin, Stuart Rothman, Dominick L. Manoli and Duane B. Beeson.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner union (along with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and a number of other affiliated local unions) executed a three-year collective bargaining agreement with California Trucking Associations, which represented a group of motor truck operators in California. The provisions of the contract relating to hiring of casual or temporary employees were as follows:
“Casual employees shall, wherever the Union maintains a dispatching service, be employed only on a seniority basis in the Industry whenever such senior employees are available. An available list with seniority status will be kept by the Unions, and employees requested will be dispatched upon call to any employer who is a party to this Agreement. Seniority rating of such employees shall begin with a minimum of three months service in the Industry, irrespective of whether such employee is or is not a member of the Union.
“Discharge of any employee by any employer shall be grounds for removal of any employee from seniority status. No casual employee shall be employed by any employer who is a party to this Agreement in violation of seniority status if such employees are available and if the dispatching service for such employees is available. The employer shall first call the Union or the dispatching hall designated
by the Union for such help. In the event the employer is notified that such help is not available, or in the event the employees called for do not appear for work at the time designated by the employer, the employer may hire from any other available source.” (Emphasis added.)
Accordingly the union maintained a hiring hall for casual employees. One Slater was a member of the union and had customarily used the hiring hall. But in August 1955 he obtained casual employment with an employer who was party to the hiring-hall agreement without being dispatched by the union. He worked until sometime in November of that year, when he was discharged by the employer on complaint of the union that he had not been referred through the hiring-hall arrangement.
Slater made charges against the union and the employer. Though, as plain from the terms of the contract, there was an express provision that employees would not be discriminated against because they were or were not union members, the Board found that the hiring-hall provision was unlawful per se and that the discharge of Slater on the union‘s request constituted a violation by the employer of
The union petitioned the Court of Appeals for review of the Board‘s action, and the Board made a cross-application for enforcement. That court set aside the portion of the order requiring a general reimbursement of dues and fees. By a divided vote it upheld the Board in ruling that the hiring-hall agreement was illegal per se. 107 U. S. App. D. C. 188, 275 F. 2d 646. Those rulings are here on certiorari, 363 U. S. 837, one on the petition of the union, the other on petition of the Board.
Our decision in Carpenters Local 60 v. Labor Board, decided this day, ante, p. 651, is dispositive of the petition
“(b) It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“(1) to restrain or coerce (A) employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7 . . .
“(2) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee in violation of subsection (a) (3) or to discriminate against an employee with respect to whom membership in such organization has been denied or terminated on some ground other than his failure to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership . . . .”
Section 7 provides:
“Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8 (a) (3).”
The other aspect of the case goes back to the Board‘s ruling in Mountain Pacific Chapter, 119 N. L. R. B. 883. That decision, rendered in 1958, departed from earlier rulings2 and held, Abe Murdock dissenting, that the hiring-hall agreement, despite the inclusion of a nondiscrimination clause, was illegal per se:
“Here the very grant of work at all depends solely upon union sponsorship, and it is reasonable to infer that the arrangement displays and enhances the Union‘s power and control over the employment status. Here all that appears is unilateral union determination and subservient employer action with no aboveboard explanation as to the reason for it, and it is reasonable to infer that the Union will be guided in its concession by an eye towards winning compliance with a membership obligation or union fealty in some other respect. The Employers here have surrendered all hiring authority to the Union and have given advance notice via the established hiring hall to the world at large that the Union is arbitrary master and is contractually guaranteed to remain so. From the final authority over hiring vested in the Respondent Union by the three AGC chapters, the inference of encouragement of union membership is inescapable.” Id., 896.
The Board went on to say that a hiring-hall arrangement to be lawful must contain protective provisions. Its views were stated as follows:
“We believe, however, that the inherent and unlawful encouragement of union membership that stems from unfettered union control over the hiring process
“(1) Selection of applicants for referral to jobs shall be on a nondiscriminatory basis and shall not be based on, or in any way affected by, union membership, bylaws, rules, regulations, constitutional provisions, or any other aspect or obligation of union membership, policies, or requirements.
“(2) The employer retains the right to reject any job applicant referred by the union.
“(3) The parties to the agreement post in places where notices to employees and applicants for employment are customarily posted, all provisions relating to the functioning of the hiring arrangement, including the safeguards that we deem essential to the legality of an exclusive hiring agreement.” Id., 897.
The Board recognizes that the hiring hall came into being “to eliminate wasteful, time-consuming, and repetitive scouting for jobs by individual workmen and haphazard uneconomical searches by employers.” Id., 896, n. 8. The hiring hall at times has been a useful adjunct to the closed shop.3 But Congress may have thought that it need not serve that cause, that in fact it has served well both labor and management—particularly in the maritime field and in the building and construction industry.4 In the latter the contractor who frequently is a stranger to the area where the work is done requires a “central source” for his employment needs;5 and a man
Congress has not outlawed the hiring hall, though it has outlawed the closed shop except within the limits prescribed in the provisos to
“In order to make clear the real intention of Congress, it should be clearly stated that the hiring hall is not necessarily illegal. The employer should be able to make a contract with the union as an employment agency. The union frequently is the best employment agency. The employer should be able
“. . . The National Labor Relations Board and the courts did not find hiring halls as such illegal, but merely certain practices under them. The Board and the court found that the manner in which the hiring halls operated created in effect a closed shop in violation of the law. Neither the law nor these decisions forbid hiring halls, even hiring halls operated by the unions as long as they are not so operated as to create a closed shop with all of the abuses possible under such an arrangement, including discrimination against employees, prospective employees, members of union minority groups, and operation of a closed union.” S. Rep. No. 1827, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 13, 14.
There being no express ban of hiring halls in any provisions of the Act, those who add one, whether it be the Board or the courts, engage in a legislative act. The Act deals with discrimination either by the employers or unions that encourages or discourages union membership.8 As respects
“The language of § 8 (a) (3) is not ambiguous. The unfair labor practice is for an employer to encourage or discourage membership by means of discrimination. Thus this section does not outlaw all encouragement or discouragement of membership in labor organizations; only such as is accomplished
It is the “true purpose” or “real motive” in hiring or firing that constitutes the test. Id., at 43. Some conduct may by its very nature contain the implications of the required intent; the natural foreseeable consequences of certain action may warrant the inference. Id., at 45. And see Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793. The existence of discrimination may at times be inferred by the Board, for “it is permissible to draw on experience in factual inquiries.” Radio Officers v. Labor Board, supra, 49.
But surely discrimination cannot be inferred from the face of the instrument when the instrument specifically provides that there will be no discrimination against “casual employees” because of the presence or absence of union membership. The only complaint in the case was by Slater, a union member, who sought to circumvent the hiring-hall agreement. When an employer and the union enforce the agreement against union members, we cannot say without more that either indulges in the kind of discrimination to which the Act is addressed.
It may be that the very existence of the hiring hall encourages union membership. We may assume that it does. The very existence of the union has the same influence. When a union engages in collective bargaining and obtains increased wages and improved working conditions, its prestige doubtless rises and, one may assume, more workers are drawn to it. When a union negotiates collective bargaining agreements that include arbitration clauses and supervises the functioning of those provisions so as to get equitable adjustments of grievances, union membership may also be encouraged. The truth is that the union is a service agency that probably encourages
Nothing is inferable from the present hiring-hall provision except that employer and union alike sought to route “casual employees” through the union hiring hall and required a union member who circumvented it to adhere to it.
It may be that hiring halls need more regulation than the Act presently affords. As we have seen, the Act aims at every practice, act, source or institution which in fact is used to encourage and discourage union membership by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure, term or condition of employment. Perhaps the conditions which the Board attaches to hiring-hall arrangements will in time appeal to the Congress. Yet, where Congress has adopted a selective system for dealing with evils, the Board is confined to that system. Labor Board v. Drivers Local Union, 362 U. S. 274, 284-290. Where, as here, Congress has aimed its sanctions only at specific discriminatory practices, the Board cannot go farther and establish a broader, more pervasive regulatory scheme.
The present agreement for a union hiring hall has a protective clause in it, as we have said; and there is no evidence that it was in fact used unlawfully. We cannot assume that a union conducts its operations in violation of law or that the parties to this contract did not intend to adhere to its express language. Yet we would have to make those assumptions to agree with the Board that it is reasonable to infer the union will act discriminatorily.
Moreover, the hiring hall, under the law as it stands, is a matter of negotiation between the parties. The Board has no power to compel directly or indirectly that the hiring hall be included or excluded in collective agree-
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins, concurring.
I join the Court‘s opinion upon considerations which, though doubtless implicit in what my Brother DOUGLAS has written, in my view deserve explicit articulation.
The Board‘s condemnation of these union “hiring hall” procedures as violative of
I think this rationale may have validity under certain circumstances, but that it does not carry the day for the Board in these cases. The Board recognizes, as it must, that something more than simply actual encouragement or discouragement of union members must be shown to make out an unfair labor practice, whether the action involved be that of agreeing to a contract term or discharging an employee or anything else. In this regard, it contends that the action of agreeing to the union “hiring” clause should be treated like any other employer or union action and that, on this premise, all that the Board must show in the light of Radio Officers’ Union v. Labor Board, 347 U. S. 17, is that the tendency to encourage or discourage union membership was foreseeable to the employer or union. Since one is presumed to intend the foreseeable consequences of his acts, and since acting in order to encourage or discourage union membership is forbidden, the Board‘s case is said to be made by a simple showing that such encouragement or discouragement is the foreseeable result of employer or union action. The Board then concludes with a showing that encouragement of union membership is a foreseeable consequence of the acts of agreeing to or operating a union-run hiring hall.
What in my view is wrong with the Board‘s position in these cases is that a mere showing of foreseeable encouragement of union status is not a sufficient basis for a finding of violation of the statute. It has long been recognized that an employer can make reasonable business decisions, unmotivated by an intent to discourage union membership or protected concerted activities, although the foreseeable effect of these decisions may be to discourage what the act protects. For example, an employer may discharge an employee because he is not performing his work adequately, whether or not the employee happens to be a union organizer. See Labor Board v. Universal Camera Corp., 190 F. 2d 429. Yet a court could hardly reverse a Board finding that such firing would foreseeably tend to discourage union activity. Again, an employer can properly make the existence or amount of a year-end bonus depend upon the productivity of a unit of the plant, although this will foreseeably tend to discourage the protected activity of striking. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co. v. Labor Board, 284 F. 2d 74. A
This Court‘s interpretation of the relevant statutory provisions has recognized that Congress did not mean to limit the range of either employer or union decision to those possible actions which had no foreseeable tendency to encourage or discourage union membership or concerted activities. In general, this Court has assumed that a finding of a violation of
There is no reason to decide now whether there are other contexts in which a showing of an actual motivation of encouraging or discouraging union activity might be unnecessary to a finding of a union or employer unfair
The legislative background to
“The fourth unfair labor practice [then § 8 (3)] is a corollary of the first unfair labor practice. An employer, of course, need not hire an incompetent man and is free to discharge an employee who lacks skill or ability. But if the right to join or not to join a labor organization is to have any real meaning for an employee, the employer ought not to be free to discharge an employee merely because he joins an organization or to refuse to hire him merely because of his membership in an organization. Nor should an employer be free to pay a man a higher
And similarly:
“Of course nothing in the bill prevents an employer from discharging a man for incompetence; from advancing him for special aptitude; or from demoting him for failure to perform. But if the right to be free from employer interference in self organization or to join or refrain from joining a labor organization is to have any practical meaning, it must be accompanied by assurance that its exercise will not result in discriminatory treatment or loss of the opportunity for work.” S. Rep. No. 573 on S. 1958, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 11.
To the same effect was the view of Senator Walsh:
“. . . The employer has the economic power; he can discharge any employee or any group of employees when their only offense may be to seek to form a legitimate organization among the workers for the purpose of collective bargaining. This bill declares that is wrong. It declares that the employee has the right to engage in collective bargaining, and it says, ‘Mr. Employer, you must keep your hands off; you shall not use that effective power of dismissal from employment which you have and destroy the organization of the employees by the dismissal of one or more of your employees when they are objectionable on no other ground than that they belong to or have organized a labor union.‘” Statement of Senator Walsh, 79 Cong. Rec. 7658. (Emphasis added.)
“Nothing in this subsection prohibits interference with the normal exercise of the right of employers to select their employees or to discharge them. All that is intended is that the employer shall not by discriminatory treatment in hire or tenure of employment or terms or conditions of employment, interfere with the exercise by employees of their right to organize and choose representatives. It is for this reason that the employer is prohibited from encouraging or discouraging membership in any labor organization by such discrimination.” H. R. Rep. No. 1147 on S. 1958, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 19.
Considered in this light, I do not think we can sustain the Board‘s holding that the “hiring hall” clause is forbidden by the Taft-Hartley Act. The Board has not found that this clause was without substantial justification in terms of legitimate employer or union purposes. Cf. Republic Aviation v. Labor Board, supra; Gaynor News Co. Inc., v. Labor Board, supra. Whether or not such a finding would have been supported by the record is not for us now to decide. The Board has not, in my view, made the type of showing of an actual motive of encouraging union membership that is required by Universal Camera v. Labor Board, supra. All it has shown is that the clause will tend to encourage union membership, and that without substantial difficulty the parties to the agreement could have taken additional steps to isolate the valid employer or union purposes from the discriminatory effects of the clause.3 I do not think
I therefore agree with the Court that the Board‘s holding that the clause in question is invalid cannot be sustained.
MR. JUSTICE CLARK, dissenting in part.1
I cannot agree with the casual treatment the Court gives to the “casual employee” who is either unable to get employment or is fired therefrom because he has not been cleared by a union hiring hall. Inasmuch as the record, and the image of a hiring hall which it presents, are neglected by the Court, a short résumé of the facts is appropriate.
Lester Slater, the complainant, became a “casual employee” in the truck freight business in 1953 or early
agreement.” These safeguards, which are also to be made contract terms, provide that:
“(1) Selection of applicants for referral to jobs shall be on a non-discriminatory basis and shall not be based on, or in any way affected by, union membership, bylaws, rules, regulations, constitutional provisions, or any other aspect or obligation of union membership, policies, or requirements.
“(2) The employer retains the right to reject any job applicant referred by the union.”
The Court finds that the National Labor Relations Act does not ban hiring halls per se and that therefore they are illegal only if they discriminate on the basis of union membership. It holds that no such actual discrimination was shown and that none is inferable from the face of the contract since it has a protective clause. Collaterally it holds, quoting Senator Taft, that hiring halls are “useful“; that they save time and eliminate waste and, finally, that the Court “cannot assume that a union conducts its operations in violation of law.”2
I do not doubt for a moment that men hired through such arrangements are saved the expense and delay of making the rounds of prospective employers on their own. Nor do I doubt their utility to employers with varying
Section 8 (a) (3) provides, in part, that it shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer
“by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization . . . .” (Emphasis added.)
As I view this prohibition, which by
The word “discrimination” in the section, as the Board points out and I agree, includes not only distinctions contingent upon “the presence or absence of union membership,” ante, p. 675, but all differences in treatment regardless of their basis. This is the “cause” portion of the section. But
Even if we could draw no support from prior cases, the plain and accepted meaning of the word “discrimination” supports my interpretation. In common parlance, the word means to distinguish or differentiate. Without good reason, we should not limit the word to mean to distinguish in a particular manner (i. e., on the basis of union membership or activity) so that a finding that the hall dispatched employees without regard to union membership or activity bars a finding of violation. The mere fact that the section might be read in the manner suggested by the union does not license such a distortion of the clear intent of the Congress, i. e., to prohibit all auxiliaries to the closed shop, and all pressures on employee free choice, however subtly they are established or applied. Moreover, our interpretation in Radio Officers v. Labor Board, supra, supports this position. There we said:
“The unfair labor practice is for an employer [1] to encourage or discourage membership. [2] by means
The Court‘s conclusion is in patent conflict with that reasoning.
Given that interpretation of the word “discrimination,” it becomes necessary to determine the class of employee involved, and then whether any differences in treatment within that class are present. The Board found the class affected by the union hiring hall to be that group which was qualified, in the sense of ability, to do the work required by the employer and who had applied for work through the hiring hall. Obviously, not all of those who apply receive like treatment. Not all applicants receive referral cards. Clearly, then, the class applying to the hiring hall is itself divided into two groups treated differently—those cleared by the union and those who were not. The next question is whether the contract requiring and endorsing that discrimination or differentiation is designed to, or inherently tends to, encourage union membership. If it does, then
I begin with the premise that the Congress has outlawed the closed shop and that, as the Court pointed out, “[t]he policy of the Act is to insulate employees’ jobs from their organizational rights,” Radio Officers, supra, at 40. To test the contract here, I look to probable and anticipated “employee response” to it, id., at 46, recognizing that “[e]ncouragement and discouragement are ‘subtle things’ requiring ‘a high degree of introspective
Of the gravity of such a situation the Board is the best arbiter and best equipped to find a solution. It is, after all, “permissible [for the Board] to draw on experience in factual inquiries.” Radio Officers, supra, at 49. It has resolved the issue clearly, not only here, but also in its 1958 Report which, as I have said, repeated its Mountain Pacific position “that a union to which an employer has so delegated hiring powers will exercise its power with a view to securing compliance with member-
However, I need not go so far as to presume that the union has set itself upon an illegal course, conditioning referral on the unlawful criterion of union membership in good standing (which inference the majority today says cannot be drawn), to reach the same result. I need only assume that, by thousands of common workers like Slater, the contract and its conditioning of casual employment upon union referral will work a misunderstanding as to the significance of union affiliation unless the employer‘s abdication of his role be made less than total and some note of the true function of the hiring hall be posted where all may see and read. The tide of encouragement may not be turned, but it will in part at least be stemmed. As an added dividend, the inherent probability of the free-wheeling operation of the union hiring
I would hold that there is not only a reasonable likelihood, but that it must inescapably be concluded under this record, that, without the safeguards at issue, a contract conditioning employment solely upon union referral encourages membership in the union by that very distinction itself. As the Board expressed it in Mountain Pacific Chapter, supra, at 896:
“[T]he very grant of work at all depends solely upon union sponsorship, and it is reasonable to infer that the arrangement displays and enhances the Union‘s power and control over the employment status.”
A reasonable interpretation of the Act also demands that both the employer and the union be deemed violators. In determining that issue, I say that the Board is the best judge. I say that it has made an “allowable judgment.” It is not for the courts to differently assess the hiring hall‘s “cumulative effect on employees” or job applicants, Labor Board v. Stowe Spinning Co., 336 U. S. 226, 231. Its findings here should, therefore, “carry the authority of an expertness which courts do not possess and therefore must respect.” Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, 340 U. S. 474, 488.
Finally, let me say that the Board should not be hamstrung in its effort to enforce the mandate of the Congress that there shall be no closed shop. As Senator Taft stated on the floor of the Senate:4
“Perhaps [the closed shop] is best exemplified by the so-called hiring halls on the west coast, where ship-owners cannot employ anyone unless the union sends him to them. . . . Such an arrangement gives the
That is where Lester Slater finds himself today. I therefore dissent.
MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER joins in all except note 1 of this dissent, but would also add the reasons, respecting the Board‘s powers to make the order in question, that are stated in his dissent in No. 68, Carpenters Local 60 v. Labor Board, decided this day, ante, p. 660.
Notes
“(a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7;
“(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization . . . .”
Set forth in note 1 of the Court‘s opinion, ante, pp. 669-670. I agree with the Court‘s disposition of that part of the Board‘s petition seeking direct enforcement of the order of reimbursement.”Provided, That nothing in this Act, or in any other statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization (not established, maintained, or assisted by any action defined in section 8 (a) of this Act as an unfair labor practice) to require as a condition of employment membership therein on or after the thirtieth day following the beginning of such employment or the effective date of such agreement, whichever is the later, (i) if such labor organization is the representative of the employees as provided in section 9 (a), in the appropriate collective-bargaining unit covered by such agreement when made; and (ii) unless following an election held as provided in section 9 (e) within one year preceding the effective date of such agreement, the Board shall have certified that at least a majority of the employees eligible to vote in such election have voted to rescind the authority of such labor organization to make such an agreement: Provided further, That no employer shall justify any discrimination against an employee for nonmembership in a labor organization (A) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that such membership was not available to the employee on the same terms and conditions generally applicable to other members, or (B) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership was denied or terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership . . . .”