PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD CO. ET AL. v. RYCHLIK
No. 56
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 10-11, 1956. Decided February 25, 1957.
352 U.S. 480
Henry Kaiser argued the cause for the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, petitioner. With him on the brief were Gerhard P. Van Arkel, Eugene Gressman and Wayland K. Sullivan.
Norman M. Spindelman and Meyer Fix argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Solicitor General Rankin and Assistant Attorney General Hansen for the United States, Clarence M. Mulholland, Edward J. Hickey, Jr. and Richard R. Lyman for the Railway Labor Executives’ Association, and Clarence E. Weisell and Harold N. McLaughlin for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen is the collective bargaining representative for trainmen employed by the petitioner Railroad. In accordance with Section 2, Eleventh (a) and (c) of the Railway Labor Act,1 the Brotherhood and the Railroad negotiated a
Following his resignation from the Brotherhood, Rychlik was charged with violation of the union-shop agreement. He received two hearings before a “System Board of Adjustment,” a body established under the agreement, pursuant to Section 3, Second of the Act,3 to settle contract disputes, and composed of two representa-
Rychlik, on behalf of himself and other employees of the Railroad similarly situated, thereupon brought this class suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, seeking an injunction compelling petitioners to accept him as a member of the Brotherhood and an employee of the Railroad. He alleged that his discharge violated Section 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, and that the System Board‘s determination to the contrary could not be final and binding, since the presence on that Board of two representatives of the Brotherhood created an inherent and fatal bias which vitiated the proceeding. The District Court granted petitioners’ motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction and for failure to state a cause of action.5 The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
the presence of two Brotherhood representatives on the System Board did not automatiсally vitiate its proceedings. It further held that Rychlik‘s belated membership in the Switchmen‘s Union did not satisfy the statutory and contract requirements of continuous maintenance of membership in a qualified union, and that the court need not decide whether UROC was a labor organization “national in scope,” since, under Section 3, First (f) of the Railway Labor Act, determination of that question was within the exclusive competence of the National Mediation Board. See pp. 487-488, infra.
On our view оf the case we do not reach either question decided by the Court of Appeals, for we disagree with its premise as to the meaning of Section 2, Eleventh (c). For reasons hereafter given, we hold that Section 2, Eleventh (c) allows alternative union membership only in those unions which have already qualified under Section 3, First of the Act, as electors of the union representatives on the National Railroad Adjustment Board, and not membership in any union which happens to be, as a matter of fact, national in scope and organized in accordance with the Railway Labor Act. Since UROC was not so qualified, respondent had no federal right to join it in lieu of the authorized bargaining representative under the union-shop provision of the Railroad-Brotherhood contract. His discharge by petitioners therefore did not give rise to a federal cause of action.11
In order to clarify the reasons for these conclusions, a brief outline of the relevant provisions of the Railway Labor Act is necessary. Section 2, Eleventh (a) of that Act authorizes railroads and labor unions to establish a union shop, that is, an agreement requiring as a condition of continued employment that employees join the union designated as their authorized bargaining representative.12 Section 2, Eleventh (c) then provides that in the
or labor organizations duly designated and authorized to represent employees in accordance with the requirements of this Act shall be permitted—
“(a) to make agreements, requiring, as a condition of continued employment, that within sixty days following the beginning of such employment, or the effective date of such agreements, whichever is the later, all employees shall become members of the labor organization representing their craft or class: Provided, That no such аgreement shall require such condition of employment with respect to employees to whom membership is not available upon the same terms and conditions as are generally applicable to any other member or with respect to employees to whom membership was denied or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.” 64 Stat. 1238 (1951),
Notes
services, such employee, as a condition of continuing his employment, may be required to become a member of the organization representing the craft in which he is employed on the effective date of the first agreement applicable to him: Provided, further, That nothing herein or in any such agreement or agreements shall prevent an employee from changing membership from one organization to another organization admitting to membership employees of a craft or class in any of said services.” 64 Stat. 1238 (1951),
At first glance the language of Section 2, Eleventh (c) would appear to be disarmingly clear: union-shop contracts are satisfied if the employee belongs to any union which happens to be national in scope and organized in accordance with the Act. And if that be its meaning we would then have to deal with the questions reached by the Court of Appeals. However, as so often happens, when the language of the statute is read, not in a vacuum, but in the light of the policies this Section was intended to serve,17 it becomes clear that the purpose of Congress was not, as respondent contends, to give employees in the railroad industry any blanket right to join unions other than the authorized bargaining representative, or to help
I.
The purposes to be served by Section 2 are clearly revealed by its history. Until 1951 the Railway Labor Act did not permit union-shop contracts in the industry.18 In that year the Congress, persuaded by the established unions that it is unfair to allow nonunion employees to enjoy benefits obtained by the union‘s efforts in collective bargaining without paying any of the costs, passed Section 2, Eleventh of the Act, which authorized the union shop.19 However, the hearings on the bill20 revealed a problem, peculiar to the railroad industry, in establishing the union
So Congress faced the problem of reconciling the union shop with some protection to employeеs who shifted from one craft to another one represented by a different labor organization under a union-shop contract.22 The solution, of course, was evident: to provide that if a fireman, for example, is temporarily promoted to engineer, he can satisfy the union-shop contract of the engineers although still remaining a member of the union representing the firemen.
”Provided further, That no such [union shop] agreement shall require membership in more than one labor organization.”23
Senator Hill, manager of the bill, explained the Committee аmendment:
“This proviso was attached because some question was raised as to the status, under this bill, of employees who are temporarily promoted or demoted from one closely related craft or class to another. This practice, with minor exceptions, occurs only among the train- and engine-service employees. Thus a fireman may be promoted to a position as engineer for a short time and then due to a reduction in force be returned to his former position as fireman. It is the intention of this proviso to assure that in the case of such promotion or demotion, as the case may be, the employee involved shall not be deprived of his employment because of his failure or refusal to join the union representing the craft or class in which he is located if he retains his membership in the union representing the craft or class from which he has been transferred.”24
Due to a temporary adjournment of the Senate, no action was taken on this amendment. When the bill was again taken up, however, a substitute amendment, which had been drafted by the railroad brotherhoods, was offered by Senators Hill and Taft.25 The language of this substitute was that of the present Section 2,
“[The amendment does] nothing more nor less than what the committee desires to do, and what was the intent of the committee in offering its amendment, that no employee of a railroad should be required to belong to more than one labor organization. The only difference between the committee amendment and the amendments now before the Senate, which have been agreed upon by all the railroad organizations, is that the amendments now before the Senate spell out in much more detail the purposes of the committee amendment than did the committee amendment. But the intent and the purpose . . . are exactly the same.”27
This amendment passed as introduced28 and now forms subsection (c).
It thus becomes clear that the only purpose of Section 2, Eleventh (c) was a very narrow one: to prevent compulsory dual unionism or the necessity of changing from one union to another when an employee temporarily changes crafts.29 The aim of the Section, which was
a union-shop provision is first signed, employees not belonging to a qualified union may be required to join that union which represеnts the craft in which they are employed at the time the agreement becomes effective. See n. 13, supra. Thus when this agreement between petitioners was first put into effect, Rychlik, had he belonged to no union at all, would have been required to join the Brotherhood specifically, and could not have chosen to join even such competing unions which are concededly national in scope, not to speak of UROC. In other words, this proviso completely negates the argument that the purpose of the statute was to allow employees to choose between unions.
II.
There next arises for consideration the manner in which Congress achieved this purpose. Section 2, Eleventh (c) provides that for operating employees a union-shop contract can be satisfied by membership in “any one of the labor organizations, national in scope, organized in accordance with this Act . . . .” At first blush this would appear to confer on employees a blanket right to choose between alternative unions which are, in the abstract, national in scope and organized in accordance with the Act. But when taken in the context of the Railway Labor Act as a whole, it becomes apparent that this language refers to a certain group of unions, a group already constituted. For the language was borrowed from Section 3, First of the Act, which had been on the books for some 17 years, and which establishes precisely the same qualifications for those unions which are permitted to elect the labor members of the NRAB. Subsection (a) of Section 3, First provides that unions may become electors if they are “national in scope” and are “organized in accordance
III.
This interpretation of the Act solves the problem which Congress faced without conferring on employees “floating” rights which Congress did not intend to grant. For the problem of intercraft mobility vanishes if the promoted fireman can remain in the firemen‘s brotherhood, even though his new craft is represented by a different union; and the firemen‘s brotherhood will, of course, already have qualified under the Act as an elector under Section 3. Furthermore, this interpretation avoids troublesome questions which would arise were we to hold that employees have a right to belong to any union which happens to be national in scope and organized in accordance with the Act. For, while Section 3, First provides an impartial administrative scheme to deal with precisely this question, Section 2, Eleventh (c), assuming it does not refer to an already defined group of unions qualified under Section 3, is silent on the procedure to determine whether a union meets its requirements. An entire new administrative scheme would have to be fashioned by the courts out of thin air to deal with this question, or the courts themselves would have to deal with it without prior administrative action. If System Boards, for example, are to be given jurisdiction to mаke such determinations, is there to be judicial review? What is to be the scope of such review? How is the inherent bias of the established-union members of these boards to be overcome? Would the determination of one Board (or one Circuit) that such a union as UROC is “national in scope” be binding on another Board or another Circuit?
We hold, therefore, that Section 2, Eleventh (c) of the Act makes only such unions available for altеrnative membership under a union-shop contract, such as this one, as have already qualified as electors for the labor members of the NRAB under Section 3, First. Since UROC has not so qualified, respondent has not stated a claim on which relief can be granted. The decision below must therefore be reversed and the case remanded to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the complaint.
Reversed and remanded.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, concurring.
The decision below, if allowed to stand, would tend to dislocate the scheme that Congress has seen fit to devise for the regulation of industrial relations on railroads, and
The governing outlook for construing the Railway Labor Act is hospitable realization of the fact that it is primarily an instrument of industrial government for railroading by the industry itself, through the concentrated agencies of railroad executives and the railroad unions. (For details, see the dissenting opinions in Elgin, Joliet & Eastern R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711, 749; 327 U. S. 661, 667.) The dominant inference that the Court has drawn from this fact is exclusion of the courts from this process of collaborative self-government. See, e. g., General Committee v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., 320 U. S. 323; Order of Railway Conductors v. Pitney, 326 U. S. 561; Slocum v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. Co., 339 U. S. 239. Neither Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630, nor Order of Railway Conductors v. Swan, 329 U. S. 520, is fairly to be deemed an exception to the general principle and, in any event, those cases involve circumstances not relevant to the present situation.
There is one qualification to the principle I have stated, or, rather, there is a counter-principle to be respected. This is the doctrine established by Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192. The short of it is that since every railroad employee is represented by union agents who sit on a System Board of Adjustment, such representatives are in what amounts to a fiduciary position: they must not exercise their power in an arbitrary way against some minority interest. The fact of a general conflict of interest between a minority of union members and representatives designated by the majority does not of itself vitiate the presupposition of self-government and
The determination of the System Board on the merits is not open to judicial review, even on so-called legal questions. It is not for a court to say that a complaint against the System Board must fail because the System Board rightly held against the complainant. Right or wrong, a court has no jurisdiction to review what the System Board did, unless a complainant asserts arbitrariness and seeks to enforce the limited protection established in the Steele case. It is not for a court to decide as an abstract issue what procedure a union must or may pursue to establish its status as an organization “national in scope,” within § 2, Eleventh (c) of the Railway Labor Act, nor whether or when an individual claiming through such a rival union may assert its claim for his benefit. (As bearing on the legal complexities raised by such interrelationship between a member and an organization, see the opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson in Joint Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 183.)
For Rychlik to have brought himself within the Steele case it would have been necessary to charge that the System Board had made its determination arbitrarily and that on the basis of this arbitrary determination he had been discharged. On such a claim, and only on such a claim, would he have been entitled to judicial relief. In the absence of such a claim, the District Court was without jurisdiction to entertain the complaint.