Hanson v. Union Pac. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 01 July 1955
• Docket Number: No. 33561,33561
• Citation: 71 N.W.2d 526,160 Neb. 669
• Parties: Robert L. HANSON et al., Appellees, v. UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, corporation, Appellee, Impleaded with others, Appellants.
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

Page 526

71 N.W.2d 526

160 Neb. 669

Robert L. HANSON et al., Appellees, v. UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, corporation, Appellee, Impleaded with others, Appellants.

No. 33561.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

July 1, 1955.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The objective of the Railway Labor Act is the amicable adjustment of disputes and in that way to avoid strikes with their harmful effect upon public interests.

2. The purpose of the Eleventh subsection of section 152 of 45 U.S.C.A., the Railway Labor Act, is to permit a railway and a union to agree to a union shop notwithstanding any statute or law, state or federal, that forbids such agreements.

3. Congress, in the choice of means to effect a permissible regulation of commerce, must conform to due process.

4. When the question is whether legislative action transcends the limits of due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, decision is guided by the principle that the law shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be attained.

5. The Fifth Amendment is not a guarantee of untrammeled freedom of action and of contract. In the exercise of its power to regulate commerce, Congress can subject both to restraints not shown to be unreasonable.

6. Class legislation discriminating against some and favoring others is prohibitive. But the rule does not prohibit or prevent classification which is reasonable, for, while the law must affect alike all persons in the same class and under similar conditions, classification based upon substantial distinction, with a proper relation to the objects classified and the purposes sought to be achieved, if it does operate alike on all members of the class, is not special, discriminatory, or class legislation.

7. The freedom of association, the freedom to join or not to join in association with others for whatever purposes such association is lawfully organized, is a freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Gross, Welch, Vinardi & Kauffman, Omaha, Schoene & Kramer, Washington, D. C., Mulholland, Robie & Hickey, Richard R. Lyman, Donald W. Fisher, Toledo, Ohio, for appellants.

Swarr, May, Royce Smith & Story, Omaha, for individual appellees.

W. R. Rouse, F. J. Melia, J. H. Anderson, James A. Wilcox, Omaha, for Union Pac. R. Co.

Heard before SIMMONS, C. J., and CARTER, MESSMORE, YEAGER, CHAPPELL, WENKE, and BOSLAUGH, JJ.

WENKE, Justice.

Robert L. Hanson, Horace A. Cameron, Harold J. Grau, Leonard W. Koch, and William A. Cornell brought this action in the district court for Douglas County. The defendants are the Union Pacific Railroad Company, a corporation, and the following labor organizations: Railway Employes' Department, American Federation of Labor; International Association of Machinists; International Brotherhood of Boiler-makers, Iron Ship Builders & Helpers of America; International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers & Helpers Sheet Metal Workers' International Association; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; International Brotherhood of Firemen, Oilers, Helpers, Roundhouse and Railway Shop Laborers; Brotherhood of Railway & Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employes; Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes: The Order of Railroad Telegraphers; Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America; Railroad Yardmasters of America; Hotel and Restaurant Employes International Alliance and Bartenders International League of America; Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; and The American Railway Supervisors Association, Incorporated. The basis for the action is the contention that the union shop agreements entered into by the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the foregoing labor organizations are in violation of Article XV, section 13, of the Constitution of Nebraska, and section 48-217, R.R.S.1943. The purpose of this action is to enjoin these defendants, particularly the Union Pacific Railroad Company, from putting into effect the provisions of these union shop agreements. The trial court found the union shop agreements to be in conflict with Nebraska's Constitution and statutes and therefore enjoined the Union Pacific Railroad Company from giving effect to its union shop agreements with the defendant labor organizations insofar as employment in Nebraska is concerned. The labor organizations filed a motion for new trial and have appealed from the overruling thereof.

Article XV, section 13, of the Constitution of Nebraska, provides: 'No person shall be denied employment because of membership in or affiliation with, or resignation or expulsion from a labor organization or because of refusal to join or affiliate with a labor organization; nor shall any individual or corporation or association of any kind enter into any contract, written or oral, to exclude persons from employment because of membership in or nonmembership in a labor organization.'

Section 48-217, R.R.S. 1943, provides: 'To make operative the provisions of Sections 13, 14 and 15 of Article 15 of the Constitution of Nebraska, no person shall be denied employment because of membership in or affiliation with, or resignation or expulsion from a labor organization or because of refusal to join or affiliate with a labor organization; nor shall any individual or corporation or association of any kind enter into any contract, written or oral, to exclude persons from employment because of membership in or nonmembership in a labor organization.'

The appellee Union Pacific Railroad Company is a corporation organized under and existing by virtue of the laws of the State of Utah with its principal place of business located in Omaha, Nebraska. It is a common carrier by rail subject to Part I of the Interstate Commerce Act and a 'carrier' within the meaning of and subject to the Railway Labor Act. We will herein refer to it as the Union Pacific.

The appellant labor organizations, at all times herein material, have been and now are the duly designated and authorized collective bargaining representatives of the different crafts or classes of nonoperating employees employed by the Union Pacific. We shall herein refer to them as the labor organizations.

The individually named appellees are residents of the State of Nebraska and employed by the Union Pacific therein. They belong to the craft or class of employees known as clerical, office, station, and storehouse employees who are represented, for the purposes of collective bargaining, by the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employes. They are not members of that or any other labor organization which has entered into a union shop agreement with the Union Pacific. They bring this action for themselves and for all other employees of the Union Pacific who are simularly situated. They will herein be referred to as appellees.

Prior to January 10, 1951, the Railway Labor Act prohibited union shops. See 45 U.S.C.A. § 152, Fourth and Fifth, p. 478. However, effective as of that date, Congress amended the Act as follows:

'Eleventh. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this chapter, or of any other statute or law of the United States, or Territory thereof, or of any State, any carrier or carriers as defined in this chapter and a labor organization or labor organizations duly designated and authorized to represent employees in accordance with the requirements of this chapter 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 agreement 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.

'(b) to make agreements providing for the deduction by such carrier or carriers from the wages of its or their employees in a craft or class and payment to the labor organization representing the craft or class of such employees, of any periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership: Provided, That no such agreement shall be effective with respect to any individual employee until he shall have furnished the employer with a written assignment to the labor organization of such membership dues, initiation fees, and assessments, which shall be revocable in writing after the expiration of one year or upon the termination date of the applicable collective agreement, whichever occurs sooner.

'(c) The requirement of membership in a labor organization in an agreement made pursuant to subparagraph (a) of this paragraph shall be satisfied, as to both a present or future employee in engine, train, yard, or hostling service, that is, an employee engaged in any of the services or capacities covered in the First Division of paragraph (h) of section 153 of this title, defining the jurisdictional scope of the First Division of the National Railroad Adjustment Board, if said employee shall hold or acquire membership in any one of the labor organizations, national in scope, organized in accordance with this chapter and admitting to membership employees of a craft or class in any of said services; and no agreement made pursuant to subparagraph (b) of this paragraph shall provide for deductions from his...