Sinclair Refining Company v. Atkinson/Opinion of the Court

The question this case presents is whether § 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, in giving federal courts jurisdiction of suits between employers and unions for breach of collective bargaining agreements, impliedly repealed § 4 of the pre-existing Norris-LaGuardia Act, which, with certain exceptions not here material, barred federal courts from issuing injunctions 'in any case involving or growing out of any labor dispute.'

The complaint here was filed by the petitioner Sinclair Refining Company against the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union and Local 7-210 of that union and alleged: that the International Union, acting by and with the authority of the Local Union and its members, signed a written collective bargaining contract with Sinclair which provided for compulsory, final and binding arbitration of 'any difference regarding wages, hours or working conditions between the parties hereto or between the Employer and an employee covered by this working agreement which might arise within any plant or within any region of operations'; that this contract also included express provisions by which the unions agreed that 'there shall be no slowdowns for any reason whatsoever' and 'no strikes or work stoppages * *  * (f)or any cause which is or may be the subject of a grievance'; and that notwithstanding these promises in the collective bargaining contract the members of Local 7-210 had, over a period of some 19 months, engaged in work stoppages and strikes on nine separate occasions, each of which, the complaint charged, grew out of a grievance which could have been submitted to arbitration under the contract and therefore fell squarely within the unions' promises not to strike. This pattern of repeated, deliberate violations of the contract, Sinclair alleged, indicated a complete disregard on the part of the unions for their obligations under the contract and a probability that they would continue to 'subvert the provisions of the contract' forbidding strikes over grievances in the future unless they were enjoined from doing so. In this situation, Sinclair claimed, there was no adequate remedy at law which would protect its contractual rights and the court should therefore enter orders enjoining the unions and their agents 'preliminarily at first, and thereafter permanently, from aiding, abetting, fomenting, advising, participating in, ratifying, or condoning any strike, stoppage of work, slowdown or any other disruption of, or interference with normal employment or normal operation or production by any employee within the bargaining unit at plaintiff's East Chicago, Indiana refinery covered by the contract between the parties dated August 8, 1957, in support of, or because of, any matter or thing which is, or could be, the subject of a grievance under the grievance procedure of the said contract, or any extension thereof, or any other contract between the parties which shall contain like or similar provisions.'

The unions moved to dismiss this complaint on the ground that it sought injunctive relief which United States courts, by virtue of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, have no jurisdiction to give. The District Court first denied the motion, but subsequently, upon reconsideration after full oral argument, vacated its original order and granted the unions' motion to dismiss. In reaching this conclusion, the District Court reasoned that the controversy between Sinclair and the unions was unquestionably a 'labor dispute' within the meaning of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and that the complaint therefore came within the proscription of § 4 of that Act which 'withdraws jurisdiction from the federal courts to issue injunctions to prohibit the refusal 'to perform work or remain in any relation of employment' in cases involving any labor dispute.' The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the order of dismissal for the same reasons. Because this decision presented a conflict with the decision on this same important question by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, we granted certiorari.

We agree with the courts below that this case does involve a 'labor dispute' within the meaning of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. Section 13 of that Act expressly defines a labor dispute as including 'any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.' Sinclair's own complaint shows quite plainly that each of the alleged nine work stoppages and strikes arose out of a controversy which was unquestionably well within this definition.

Nor does the circumstance that the alleged work stoppages and strikes may have constituted a breach of a collective bargaining agreement alter the plain fact that a 'labor dispute' within the meaning of the Norris-LaGuardia Act is involved. Arguments to the contrary proceed from the premise that § 2 of that Act, which expresses the public policy upon which the specific anti-injunction provisions of the Act were based, contains language indicating that one primary concern of Congress was to insure workers the right 'to exercise actual liberty of contract' and to protect 'concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining.' From that premise, Sinclair argues that an interpretation of the term 'labor dispute' so as to include a dispute arising out of a union's refusal to abide by the terms of a collective agreement to which it freely acceded is to apply the Norris-LaGuardia Act in a way that defeats one of the purposes for which it was enacted. But this argument, though forcefully urged both here and in much current commentary on this question, rests more upon considerations of what many commentators think would be the more desirable industrial and labor policy in view of their understanding as to the prevailing circumstances of contemporary labormanagement relations than upon what is a correct judicial interpretation of the language of the Act as it was written by Congress.

In the first place, even the general policy declarations of § 2 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which are the foundation of this whole argument, do not support the conclusion urged. That section does not purport to limit the Act to the protection of collective bargaining but, instead, expressly recognizes the need of the anti-injunction provisions to insure the right of workers to engage in 'concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.' Moreover, the language of the specific provisions of the Act is so broad and inclusive that it leaves not the slightest opening for reading in any exceptions beyond those clearly written into it by Congress itself.

We cannot ignore the plain import of a congressional enactment, particularly one which, as we have repeatedly said, was deliberately drafted in the broadest of terms in order to avoid the danger that it would be narrowed by judicial construction.

Since we hold that the present case does grow out of a 'labor dispute,' the injunction sought here runs squarely counter to the proscription of injunctions against strikes contained in § 4(a) of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, to the proscription of injunctions against peaceful picketing contained in § 4(e) and to the proscription of injunctions prohibiting the advising of such activities contained in § 4(i). For these reasons, the Norris-LaGuardia Act deprives the courts of the United States of jurisdiction to enter that injunction unless, as is contended here, the scope of that Act has been so narrowed by the subsequent enactment of § 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act that it no longer prohibits even the injunctions specifically described in § 4 where such injunctions are sought as a remedy for breach of a collective bargaining agreement. Upon consideration, we cannot agree with that view and agree instead with the view expressed by the courts below and supported by the Courts of Appeals for the First and Second Circuits that § 301 was not intended to have any such partially repealing effect upon such a long-standing, carefully thought out and highly significant part of this country's labor legislation as the Norris-LaGuardia Act.

The language of § 301 itself seems to us almost if not entirely conclusive of this question. It is especially significant that the section contains no language that could by any stretch of the imagination be interpreted to constitute an explicit repeal of the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act in view of the fact that the section does expressly repeal another provision of the Norris-LaGuardia Act dealing with union responsibility for the acts of agents. If Congress had intended that § 301 suits should also not be subject to the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, it certainly seems likely that it would have made its intent known in this same express manner. That is indeed precisely what Congress did do in § 101, amending § 10(h) of the National Labor Relations Act, and § 208(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, by permitting injunctions to be obtained, not by private litigants, but only at the instance of the National Labor Relations Board and the Attorney General, and in § 302(e), by permitting private litigants to obtain injunctions in order to protect the integrity of employees' collective bargaining representatives in carrying out their responsibilities. Thus the failure of Congress to include a provision in § 301 expressing repealing the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act must be evaluated in the context of a satutory pattern that indicates not only that Congress was completely familiar with those provisions but also that it regarded an express declaration of inapplicability as the normal and proper manner of repealing them in situations where such repeal seemed desirable.

When the inquiry is carried beyond the language of § 301 into its legislative history, whatever small doubts as to the congressional purpose could have survived consideration of the bare language of the section should be wholly dissipated. For the legislative history of § 301 shows that Congress actually considered the advisability of repealing the Norris-LaGuardia Act insofar as suits based upon breach of collective bargaining agreements are concerned and deliberately chose not to do so. The section as eventually enacted was the product of a conference between Committees of the House and Senate, selected to resolve the difference between conflicting provisions of the respective bills each had passed. Prior to this conference, the House bill had provided for federal jurisdiction of suits for breach of collective bargaining contracts and had expressly declared that the Norris-LaGuardia Act's anti-injunction provisions would not apply to such suits. The bill passed by the Senate, like the House bill, granted federal courts jurisdiction over suits for breach of such agreements but it did not, like the House bill, make the Norris-LaGuardia Act's prohibition against injunctions inapplicable to such suits. Instead it made breach of a collective agreement an unfair labor practice. Under the Senate version, therefore, a breach of a collective bargaining agreement, like any unfair labor practice, could have been enjoined by a suit brought by the National Labor Relations Board, but no provision of the Senate version would have permitted the issuance of an injunction in a labor dispute at the suit of a private party. At the conference the provision of the House bill expressly repealing the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, as well as the provision of the bill passed by the Senate declaring the breach of a collective agreement to be an unfair labor practice, was dropped and never became law. Instead, the conferees, as indicated by the provision which came out of the conference and eventually became § 301, agreed that suits for breach of such agreements should remain wholly private and 'be left to the usual processes of the law' and that, in view of the fact that these suits would be at the instance of private parties rather than at the instance of the Labor Board, no change in the existing anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act should be made. The House Conference Report expressly recognized that the House provision for repeal in contract actions of the anti-injunction prohibitions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act had been eliminated in Conference:

'Section 302(e) of the House bill made the Norris-LaGuardia     Act inapplicable in actions and proceedings involving      violations of agreements between an employer and a labor      organization. Only part of this provision is included in the     conference agreement. Section 6 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act     provides that no employer or labor organization participating or interested in a labor dispute shall be held      responsible for the unlawful acts of their agents except upon      clear proof of actual authorization of such acts, or      ratification of such acts after actual knowledge thereof. This provision in the Norris-LaGuardia Act was made     inapplicable under the House bill, Section 301(e) of the      conference agreement provides that for the purposes of      section 301 in determining whetehr any person is acting as an      agent of another so as to make such other person responsible      for his actions, the question of whether the specific acts      performed were actually authorized or subsequently ratified      shall not be controlling.'

And Senator Taft, Chairman of the Conference Committee and one of the authors of this legislation that bore his name, was no less explicit in explaining the results of the Conference to the Senate: 'The conferees * *  * rejected the repeal of the Norris-LaGuardia Act.'

We cannot accept the startling argument made here that even though Congress did not itself want to repeal the Norris-LaGuardia Act, it was willing to confer a power upon the courts to 'accomodate' that Act out of existence whenever they might find it expedient to do so in furtherance of some policy they had fashioned under § 301. The unequivocal statements in the House Conference Report and by Senator Taft on the floor of the Senate could only have been accepted by the Congressmen and Senators who read or heard them as assurances that they could vote in favor of § 301 without altering, reducing or impairing in any manner the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. This is particularly true of the statement of Senator Taft, a man generally regarded in the Senate as a very able lawyer and one upon whom the Senate could rely for accurate, forthright explanations of legislation with which he was connected. Senator Taft was of course entirely familiar with the prohibitions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and the impact those prohibitions would have upon the enforcement under § 301 of all related contractual provisions, including contractual provisions dealing with arbitration. If, as this argument suggests, the intention of Congress in enacting § 301 was to clear the way for judicial obliteration of that Act under the soft euphemism of 'accommodation,' Senator Taft's flat statement that the Conference had rejected the repeal of the Norris-LaGuardia Act could only be regarded as disingenuous. We cannot impute any such intention to him.

Moreover, we think that the idea that § 301 sanctions piecemeal judicial repeal of the Norris-LaGuardia Act requires acceptance of a wholly unrealistic view of the manner in which Congress handles its business. The question of whether existing statutes should be continued in force or repealed is, under our system of government, one which is wholly within the domain of Congress. When the repeal of a highly significant law is urged upon that body and that repeal is rejected after careful consideration and discussion, the normal expectation is that courts will be faithful to their trust and abide by that decision. This is especially so where the fact of the controversy over repeal and the resolution of that controversy in Congress plainly appears in the formal legislative history of its proceedings. Indeed, not a single instance has been called to our attention in which a carefully considered and rejected proposal for repeal has been revived and adopted by this Court under the guise of 'accommodation' or any other pseudonym.

Nor have we found anything else in the previous decisions of this Court that would indicate that we should disregard all this overwhelming evidence of a congressional intent to retain completely intact the anti-injunction prohibitions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act in suits brought under § 301. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Chicago River & Indiana R. Co., upon which Sinclair places its primary reliance, is distinguishable on several grounds. There we were dealing with a strike called by the union in defiance of an affirmative duty, imposed upon the union by the Railway Labor Act itself, compelling unions to settle disputes as to the interpretation of an existing collective bargaining agreement, not by collective union pressures on the railroad but by submitting them to the Railroad Adjustment Board as the exclusive means of final determination of such 'minor' disputes. Here, on the other hand, we are dealing with a suit under a quite different law which does not itself compel a particular, exclusive method for settling disputes nor impose any requirement, either upon unions or employers, or upon the courts, that is in any way inconsistent with a continuation of the Norris-LaGuardia Act's proscription of federal labor injunctions against strikes and peaceful picketing. In addition, in Chicago River we were dealing with a statute that had a far different legislative history than the one now before us. Thus there was no indication in the legislative history of the Railway Labor Act, as there is in the history of § 301, that Congress had, after full debate and careful consideration by both Houses and in Joint Conference, specifically rejected proposals to make the prohibitions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act inapplicable. Indeed, the Court was able to conclude in Chicago River 'that there was general understanding between both the supporters and the opponents of the 1934 amendment that the provisions dealing with the Adjustment Board were to be considered as compulsory arbitration in this limited field.' And certainly no one could contend that § 301 was intended to set up any such system of 'compulsory arbitration' as the exclusive method for settling grievances under the Taft-Hartley Act.

Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, upon which some lesser reliance is placed, is equally distinguishable. There the Court held merely that it did not violate the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act to compel the parties to a collective bargaining agreement to submit a dispute which had arisen under that agreement to arbitration where the agreement itself required arbitration of the dispute. In upholding the jurisdiction of the federal courts to issue such an order against a challenge based upon the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the Court pointed out that the equitable relief granted in that case-a mandatory injunction to carry out an agreement to arbitrate-did not enjoin any one of the kinds of conduct which the specific prohibitions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act withdrew from the injunctive powers of United States courts. An injunction against work stoppages, peaceful picketing or the nonfraudulent encouraging of those activities would, however, prohibit the precise kinds of conduct which subsections (a), (e) and (i) of § 4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act unequivocally say cannot be prohibited.

Nor can we agree with the argument made in this Court that the decision in Lincoln Mills, as implemented by the subsequent decisions in United Steelworkers v. American Manufacturing Co., United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., and United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., requires us to reconsider and overrule the action of Congress in refusing to repeal or modify the controlling commands of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. To the extent that those cases relied upon the proposition that the arbitration process is 'a kingpin of federal labor policy,' we think that proposition was founded not upon the policy predilections of this Court but upon what Congress said and did when it enacted § 301. Certainly we cannot accept any suggestion which would undermine those cases by implying that the Court went beyond its proper power and itself 'forged * *  * a kingpin of federal labor policy' inconsistent with that section and its purpose. Consequently, we do not see how cases implementing the purpose of § 301 can be said to have freed this Court from its duty to give effect to the plainly expressed congressional purpose with regard to the continued application of the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The argument to the contrary seems to rest upon the notion that injunctions against peaceful strikes are necessary to make the arbitration process effective. But whatever might be said about the merits of this argument, Congress has itself rejected it. In doing so, it set the limit to which it was willing to go in permitting courts to effectuate the congressional policy favoring arbitration and it is not this Court's business to review the wisdom of that decision.

The plain fact is that § 301, as passed by Congress, presents no conflict at all with the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. Obedience to the congressional commands of the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not directly affect the 'congressional policy in favor of the enforcement of agreements to arbitrate grievance disputes' at all for it does not impair the right of an employer to obtain an order compelling arbitration of any dispute that may have been made arbitrable by the provisions of an effective collective bargaining agreement. At the most, what is involved is the question of whether the employer is to be allowed to enjoy the benefits of an injunction along with the right which Congress gave him in § 301 to sue for breach of a collective agreement. And as we have already pointed out, Congress was not willing to insure that enjoyment to an employer at the cost of putting the federal courts back into the business of enjoining strikes and other related peaceful union activities.

It is doubtless true, as argued, that the right to sue which § 301 gives employers would be worth more to them if they could also get a federal court injunction to bar a breach of their collective bargaining agreements. Strong arguments are made to us that it is highly desirable that the Norris-LaGuardia Act be changed in the public interest. If that is so, Congress itself might see fit to change that law and repeal the anti-injunction provisions of the Act insofar as suits for violation of collective agreements are concerned, as the House bill under consideration originally provided. It might, on the other hand, decide that if injunctions are necessary, the whole idea of enforcement of these agreements by private suits should be discarded in favor of enforcement through the administrative machinery of the Labor Board, as Senator Taft provided in his Senate bill. Or it might decide that neither of these methods is entirely satisfactory and turn instead to a completely new approach. The question of what change, if any, should be made in the existing law is one of legislative policy properly within the exclusive domain of Congress-it is a question for law makers, not law interpreters. Our task is the more limited one of interpreting the law as it now stands. In dealing with problems of interpretation and application of federal statutes, we have no power to change deliberate choices of legislative policy that Congress has made within its constitutional powers. Where congressional intent is discernible and here it seems crystal clear-we must give effect to that intent.

The District Court was correct in dismissing Count 3 of petitioner's complaint for lack of jurisdiction under the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming that order is therefore affirmed.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice BRENNAN, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice HARLAN join, dissenting.