Chicago & North Western Railway Company v. United Transportation Union/Opinion of the Court

The Chicago and North Western Railway Co., petitioner in this action, brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to enjoin a threatened strike by the respondent, the United Transportation Union. The substance of the complaint was that in the negotiations between the parties over work rules, the Union had failed to perform its obligation under § 2 First of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, 44 Stat. 577, 45 U.S.C. § 152 First, 'to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions.' Jurisdiction was said to rest on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1337. The Union in its answer contended that §§ 4, 7, and 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 71, 72, 29 U.S.C. §§ 104, 107, 108, deprived the District Court of jurisdiction to issue a strike injunction and that in any event the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The District Judge, having heard evidence and argument, declined to pass on whether either party had violated § 2 First. In an unreported opinion, he concluded that the question was a matter for administrative determination by the National Mediation Board and was nonjusticiable; he further ruled that §§ 4 and 7 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act deprived the court of jurisdiction to issue an injunction against the Union's threatened strike. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed, 422 F.2d 979, construing § 2 First as a statement of the purpose and policy of the subsequent provisions of the Act, and not as a specific requirement anticipating judicial enforcement. Rather, in that court's view, the enforcement of § 2 First was solely a matter for the National Mediation Board. Id., at 985-988. We granted certiorari to consider this important question under the Railway Labor Act, on which the lower courts had expressed divergent views. For reasons that follow we reverse.

* For at least the past decade, the Nation's railroads and the respondent Union or its predecessors have been engaged in an off-and-on struggle over the number of brakemen to be employed on each train. We find it unnecessary to describe this history in any great detail, either generally or with particular reference to petitioner. Accounts at earlier stages may be found in Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 372 U.S. 284, 285-288, 83 S.Ct. 691, 692-693, 9 L.Ed.2d 759 (1963); Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. Co., 225 F.Supp. 11, 14-17 (DC), aff'd, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 100, 331 F.2d 1020 (1964); Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Akron & Barberton Belt R. Co., 128 U.S.App.D.C. 59, 66-70, 385 F.2d 581, 588-592 (1967); Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 127 U.S.App.D.C. 298, 383 F.2d 225 (1967); and see the opinion of the court below, 422 F.2d, at 980-982, and n. 4. For present purposes it is sufficient to observe that the parties have exhausted the formal procedures of the Railway Labor Act: notices, conferences, unsuccessful mediation, refusal by the Union to accept the National Mediation Board's proffer of arbitration, termination of mediation, and expiration of the 30-day cooling-off period of § 5 First, 45 U.S.C. § 155 First. The Railroad's charge that the Union had violated § 2 First was based principally on its contention that the Union had consistently refused to handle the dispute on a nationwide basis while maintaining an adamant determination that no agreement should be reached with the Chicago North Western more favorable to the carrier than agreements which the Union had already reached with other railroads. The complaint also alleged that the Union had refused to bargain on the proposals in the Railroad's counternotices.

The narrow questions presented to us are whether § 2 First imposes a legal obligation on carriers and employees or is a mere exhortation; whether the obligation is enforceable by the judiciary; and whether the Norris-LaGuardia Act strips the federal courts of jurisdiction to enforce the obligation by a strike injunction. The parties have not requested us to decide whether the allegations of the complaint or the evidence presented at the hearing was sufficient to show a violation of § 2 First, and the lower courts, by their resolution of the thresh-old questions, did not reach the issue. Accordingly, we intimate no view on this matter.

This Court has previously observed that '(t)he heart of the Railway Labor Act is the duty, imposed by § 2 First upon management and labor, 'to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to settle all disputes * *  * 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." Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369, 377-378, 89 S.Ct. 1109, 1114-1115, 22 L.Ed.2d 344 (1969). It is not surprising that such is the case. As one leading commentator has said, in connection with the duty under the National Labor Relations Act to bargain in good faith, '(i)t was not enough for the law to compel the parties to meet and treat without passing judgment upon the quality of the negotiations. The bargaining status of a union can be destroyed by going through the motions of negotiating almost as easily as by bluntly withholding recognition.' Cox, The Duty to Bargain in Good Faith, 71 Harv.L.Rev. 1401, 1412-1413 (1958). We recognized this to be true when we said in N.L.R.B. v. Insurance Agents' International, 361 U.S. 477, 484-485, 80 S.Ct. 419, 424-425, 4 L.Ed.2d 454 (1960), that 'the duty of management to bargain in good faith is essentially a corollary of its duty to recognize the union.'

Virginian R. Co. v. System Federation No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 57 S.Ct. 592, 81 L.Ed. 789 (1937), furnishes an early illustration of this principle in connection with the duty to 'exert every reasonable effort' under the Railway Labor Act. In that case, the railroad refused to recognize a union certified by the National Mediation Board as the duly authorized representative of its shop workers, and instead sought to coerce these employees to join a company union. The employees sought and obtained an injunction requiring the railroad to perform its duty under § 2 Ninth to 'treat with' their certified representative; the injunction also compelled the railroad 'to exert every reasonable effort' to make and maintain agreements with the union. This Court affirmed that decree, explicitly rejecting the argument that the duty to exert every reasonable effort was only a moral obligation. This conclusion has been repeatedly referred to without criticism in subsequent decisions.

The conclusion that § 2 First is more than merely hortatory finds support in the legislative history of the Railway Labor Act as well. As this Court has often noted, the Railway Labor Act of 1926 was, and was acknowledged to be, an agreement worked out between management and labor, and ratified by the Congress and the President. Accordingly, the statements of the spokesmen for the two parties made in the hearings on the proposed Act are entitled to great weight in the construction of the Act.

In the House hearings, Donald R. Richberg, counsel for the organized railway employees supporting the bill, was unequivocal on whether § 2 First imposed a legal obligation on the parties. He stated, 'it is (the parties') duty to exert every reasonable effort * *  * to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the abrogation of agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce. In other words, the legal obligation is imposed, and as I have previously stated, and I want to emphasize it, I believe that the deliberate violation of that legal obligation could be prevented by court compulsion.' Mr. Richberg went on to describe why the bill had been drafted in general language applicable equally to both parties, rather than in terms of specific requirements or prohibitions accompanied by explicit sanctions:

'We believe, and this law has been written upon the theory,     that in the development of the obligations in industrial      relations and the law in regard thereto, there is more danger      in attempting to write specific provisions and penalties into      the law than there is in writing the general duties and      obligations into the law and letting the enforcement of those      duties and obligations develop through the courts in the way      in which the common law has developed in England and      America.'

Accordingly, we think it plain that § 2 First was intended to be more than a mere statement of policy or exhortation to the parties; rather, it was designed to be a legal obligation, enforceable by whatever appropriate means might be developed on a case-by-case basis.

The Court of Appeals, in seemingly coming to the contrary conclusion, relied on this Court's decision in General Committee of Adjustment v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., 320 U.S. 323, 64 S.Ct. 146, 88 L.Ed. 76 (1943). In that case, the Court held that jurisdictional disputes between unions were not justiciable, but were left by the Act either to resolution by the National Mediation Board under § 2 Ninth or to the economic muscle of the parties. Reliance had been placed on § 2 Second, which requires that all disputes should be considered and if possible decided in conference of the authorized representatives of the parties. The Court held that this reliance was misplaced: 'Nor does § 2, Second make justiciable what otherwise is not. * *  * § 2 Second, like § 2, First, merely states the policy which those other provisions buttress with more particularized commands.' Id., at 334, 64 S.Ct., at 151 (footnote omitted).

In light of the place of § 2 First in the scheme of the Railway Labor Act, the legislative history of that section, and the decisions interpreting it, the passing reference to it in the M-K-T case cannot bear the weight which the Court of Appeals sought to place upon it.

Given that § 2 First imposes a legal obligation on the parties, the question remains whether it is an obligation enforceable by the judiciary. We have often been confronted with similar questions in connection with other duties under the Railway Labor Act. Our cases reveal that where the statutory language and legislative history are unclear, the propriety of judicial enforcement turns on the importance of the duty in the scheme of the Act, the capacity of the courts to enforce it effectively, and the necessity for judicial enforcement if the right of the aggrieved party is not to prove illusory.

We have already observed that the obligation under § 2 First is central to the effective working of the Railway Labor Act. The strictest compliance with the formal procedures of the Act is meaningless if one party goes through the motions with 'a desire not to reach an agreement.' N.L.R.B. v. Reed & Prince Mfg. Co., 205 F.2d 131, 134 (CA1 1953). While cases in which the union is the party with this attitude are perhaps rare, they are not unknown. See Chicago Typographical Union No. 16, 86 N.L.R.B. 1041 (1949), enforced sub nom. American Newspaper Publishers Assn. v. N.L.R.B., 193 F.2d 782 (CA7 1951), aff'd as to another issue, International Typographical Union v. N.L.R.B., 345 U.S. 100, 73 S.Ct. 552, 97 L.Ed. 852 (1953). We think that at least to this extent the duty to exert every reasonable effort is of the essence.

The capacity of the courts to enforce this duty was considered and affirmed in the Virginian Ry. Co. case. Mr. Justice Stone, speaking for the Court, noted that 'whether action taken or omitted is in good faith or reasonable, are everyday subjects of inquiry by courts in framing and enforcing their decrees.' 300 U.S., at 550, 57 S.Ct., at 601. Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act explicitly requires district courts to determine whether plaintiffs have 'failed to make every reasonable effort' to settle the dispute out of which the request for the injunction grows. We have no reason to believe that the district courts are less capable of making the inquiry in the one situation than in the other.

Finally, we must consider the Court of Appeals' position that the question whether a party had exerted every reasonable effort was committed by the Railway Labor Act to the National Mediation Board rather than to the courts. We believe that the legislative history of the Railway Labor Act rather plainly disproves this contention. It is commonplace that the 1926 Railway Labor Act was enacted because of dissatisfaction with the 1920 Transportation Act, and particularly with the performance of the Railroad Labor Board. While there were many causes of this dissatisfaction, one of the most prominent was that because of its adjudicatory functions, the Board effectively lost any influence in attempting to settle disputes. Throughout the hearings on the bill which became the 1926 Act there are repeated expressions of concern that the National Mediation Board should retain no adjudicatory function, so that it might maintain the confidence of both parties. And as the Court noted in Switchmen's Union v. National Mediation Board, 320 U.S. 297, 303, 64 S.Ct. 95, 98, 88 L.Ed. 61 (1943), when Congress in 1934 gave the Board power to resolve certain jurisdictional disputes, it authorized the Board to appoint a committee of neutrals to decide the dispute 'so that the Board's 'own usefulness of settling disputes that might arise thereafter might not be impaired.' S.Rep.No.1065, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 3.' Only last Term we referred to the fact that 'the Mediation Board has no adjudicatory authority with regard to major disputes.' Detroit & T.S.L.R. Co. v. United Transportation Union, 396 U.S. 142, 158, 90 S.Ct. 294, 304, 24 L.Ed.2d 325 (1969). In light of these considerations, we think the conclusion inescapable that Congress intended the enforcement of § 2 First to be overseen by appropriate judicial means rather than by the Mediation Board's retaining jurisdiction over the dispute or prematurely releasing the parties for resort to self-help if it feels such action called for.

We turn finally to the question whether § 4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibits the use of a strike injunction in all cases of violation of § 2 First. The fundamental principles in this area were epitomized in International Association of Machinists v. Street, 367 U.S. 740, 772-773, 81 S.Ct. 1784, 1802, 6 L.Ed.2d 1141 (1961):

'The Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C. §§ 101-115,     expresses a basic policy against the injunction of activities      of labor unions. We have held that the Act does not deprive     the federal courts of jurisdiction to enjoin compliance with      various mandates of the Railway Labor Act. Virginian R. Co. v. System Federation, 300 U.S. 515, 57 S.Ct. 592, 81 L.Ed. 789; Graham v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 338 U.S. 232, 70 S.Ct. 14, 94 L.Ed. 22. However, the policy     of the Act suggests that the courts should hesitate to fix      upon the injunctive remedy for breaches of duty owing under      the labor laws unless that remedy alone can effectively guard      the plaintiff's right.'

Similar statements may be found in many of our opinions. We consider that these statements properly accommodate the conflicting policies of our labor laws, and we adhere to them. We find it quite impossible to say that no set of circumstances could arise where a strike injunction is the only practical, effective means of enforcing the command of § 2 First. Accordingly, our prior decisions lead us to hold that the Norris-LaGuardia Act did not forbid the District Court from even considering whether this is such a case. If we have misinterpreted the congressional purpose, Congress can remedy the situation by speaking more clearly. In the meantime we have no choice but to trace out as best we may the uncertain line of appropriate accommodation of the two statutes with purposes that lead in opposing directions.

We recognize, of course, that our holding that strike injunctions may issue when such a remedy is the only practical, effective means of enforcing the duty to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements falls far short of that definiteness and clarity which businessmen and labor leaders undoubtedly desire. It creates a not insignificant danger that parties will structure their negotiating positions and tactics with an eye on the courts, rather than restricting their attention to the business at hand. Moreover, the party seeking to maintain the status quo may be less willing to compromise during the determinate processes of the Railway Labor Act if he believes that there is a chance of indefinitely postponing the other party's resort to self-help after those procedures have been exhausted. See Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S., at 380-381, 89 S.Ct., at 1116; cf. Hearings, supra, n. 8, at 17, 50, 100 (Mr. Richberg); id., at 190 (Mr. Robertson). Finally, the vagueness of the obligation under § 2 First could provide a cover for freewheeling judicial interference in labor relations of the sort that called forth the Norris-LaGuardia Act in the first place.

These weighty considerations indeed counsel restraint in the issuance of strike injunctions based on violations of § 2 First. See n. 11, supra. Nevertheless, the result reached today is unavoidable if we are to give effect to all our labor laws-enacted as they were by Congresses of differing political makeup and differing views on labor relations-rather than restrict our examination to those pieces of legislation which are in accord with our personal views of sound labor policy. See Boys Markets v. Retail Clerks Local 770, 398 U.S. 235, 250, 90 S.Ct. 1583, 1592, 26 L.Ed.2d 199 (1970).

As we noted at the outset, we have not been requested to rule on whether the record shows a violation of § 2 First in circumstances justifying a strike injunction, and we do not do so. Such a question should be examined by this Court, if at all, only after the facts have been marshaled and the issues clarified through the decisions of lower courts.

In view of the uncertainty heretofore existing on what constituted a violation of § 2 First and what showing was necessary to make out a case for a strike injunction, we believe the appropriate course is to remand the case to the Court of Appeals with instructions to return the case to the District Court for the taking of such further evidence as the parties may deem necessary and that court may find helpful in passing on the issues which the case presents in light of our opinion today.

Reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice BRENNAN, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, and Mr. Justice WHITE join, dissenting.