Burlington Northern R. Co. v. United Transp. Union

• Decision Date: 23 September 1988
• Docket Number: Nos. 87-2581,87-2600,s. 87-2581
• Citation: 848 F.2d 856
• Parties: 128 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2527, 130 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2072, 56 USLW 2702, 109 Lab.Cas. P 10,520 BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee, v. UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION, Appellant. Fred A. Hardin, J.W. Reynolds, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, J.F. Sytsma and W.C. Walpert. RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, v. BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee, v. RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, United Transportation Union, Appellant. BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant, v. UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION, Appellee, Fred A. Hardin, J.W. Reynolds, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, J.F. Sytsma and W.C. Walpert. RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, v. BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant, v. RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, United Transportation Union, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 856

848 F.2d 856

128 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2527, 130 L.R.R.M. (BNA)

2072, 56 USLW 2702,

109 Lab.Cas. P 10,520

BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee, v. UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION, Appellant.

Fred A. Hardin, J.W. Reynolds, Brotherhood of Locomotive

Engineers, J.F. Sytsma and W.C. Walpert.

RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, v. BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee, v. RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, Brotherhood of

Locomotive Engineers, United Transportation Union,

Appellant.

BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant, v. UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION, Appellee, Fred A. Hardin, J.W. Reynolds, Brotherhood of Locomotive

Engineers, J.F. Sytsma and W.C. Walpert.

RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, v. BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant, v. RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES' ASSOCIATION, Brotherhood of

Locomotive Engineers, United Transportation Union, Appellee.

Nos. 87-2581, 87-2600.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Dec. 15, 1987.

Decided May 31, 1988.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Sept. 16, 1988.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Sept. 23, 1988.

Clint Miller, Cleveland, Ohio, for United Transp. Union et al.

Richard Schreiber, Fort Worth, Tex., for Burlington Northern.

Before HEANEY, ARNOLD and FAGG, Circuit Judges.

HEANEY, Circuit Judge.

I. Overview

Burlington Northern Railroad Company (BN) announced its intention to sell a section of its rail lines to the Montana Rail Link (MRL), a newly formed corporation. This type of transaction was recently exempted from Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) approval requirements, which generally involved the imposition of labor protective conditions. See Ex Parte No. 392 (Sub. No. 1), Class Exemption for the Acquisition and Operation of Rail Lines under 49 U.S.C. 10901, 1 I.C.C.2d 810 (1986), review denied sub nom. Illinois Commerce Comm'n. v. ICC, 817 F.2d 145 (D.C.Cir.1987) (Ex Parte No. 392 ). After unsuccessfully attempting both to engage BN in negotiations over the effects of the sale on BN employees and later to enjoin the sale, the United Transportation Union (UTU) threatened to strike. BN sought a preliminary injunction against the strike. The district court denied BN's request, finding the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 110-115 (Norris-LaGuardia) prohibited such relief. It did, however, grant an injunction pending review by our Court. On appeal, BN claims that Norris-LaGuardia must be accommodated to the action of the ICC in Ex Parte No. 392, and thus cannot bar an injunction. Alternatively, it argues that the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. Secs. 151-188 (RLA), prohibits the strike because the UTU has not exhausted major dispute procedures under that Act.

We affirm the decision of the district court insofar as it held that Norris-LaGuardia prevents the issuance of an injunction here, and we dissolve the injunction issued by the district court pending this appeal. Second, we find the RLA's major dispute procedures are, in this instance, superseded by the terms of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C. Sec. 10101-11917 (ICA), and thus cannot bar the strike.

II. Factual Background

In July, 1987, BN announced its intention to lease approximately 830 miles of its trackage to MRL, a newly formed corporation. These rail lines extend from Huntley, Montana, to Sand Point, Idaho. BN also proposed to sell various branch lines, equipment, personal property, and facilities to MRL. In the past, this transaction would have been contingent upon the approval of the ICC, and labor protective conditions would normally have been imposed for the protection of BN employees. However, recently, such sales have been exempted from ICC approval procedures. See Ex Parte No. 392, 1 I.C.C.2d 810 (1986).

In compliance with Ex Parte No. 392, MRL filed a petition for exemption. Under the terms of Ex Parte No. 392, such exemptions are automatically granted seven days after they are filed. See 49 C.F.R. Sec. 1150.32(b). Several parties requested a stay of the exemption. The ICC, however, denied those requests and the exemption issued on July 31, 1987. Finance Docket No. 31087, decided July 31, 1987, Montana Rail Link, Inc.--Exemption Acquisition and Operation--Certain Lines of the Burlington Northern Rail Company. Subsequently, a number of the unions representing BN employees, including the UTU, filed petitions to revoke the exemption. These petitions requested labor protection for BN employees affected by BN's action. The ICC has not yet ruled on these petitions. The transaction was closed on October 31, 1987, after the ICC made a specific finding that it was "in the public interest" and after the unions unsuccessfully sought an injunction against the transaction in the United States District Court for the District of Montana. United Transp. Union v. Burlington Northern R.R., 672 F.Supp. 1579 (D.Mont.1987).

Before the Montana district court, the unions sought to enjoin the sale and maintain the status quo until the arbitration and mediation provisions of the RLA were exhausted. The district court refused to grant this request. Relying on Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n v. Staten Island R.R., 792 F.2d 7 (2d Cir.1986), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 927, 93 L.Ed.2d 978 (1987), it found that the mandatory bargaining procedures of the RLA would frustrate the action of the ICC and thus did not provide the court with authority to issue an injunction. 672 F.Supp. at 1582. However, the court, citing Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie R.R., 831 F.2d 1231 (3rd Cir.1987), did note that there was no inherent incompatibility between the ICC's action and the provisions of Norris-LaGuardia, thus suggesting that Norris-LaGuardia would bar an effort to enjoin a subsequent strike by the unions. 672 F.Supp. at 1582-83 n. 3. The UTU has appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit.

After the Montana district court denied the unions' motion to enjoin the sale, the UTU threatened a nationwide strike against BN. BN immediately sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction from Judge Joseph E. Stevens of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. See Burlington Northern R.R. v. United Transp. Union, No. 86-5013-CV-SW-8, slip op. (W.D.Mo. Nov. 16, 1987). The court granted the temporary restraining order but subsequently denied the request for a preliminary injunction. In declining to issue a preliminary injunction, Judge Stevens placed primary reliance on Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, 831 F.2d 1231. A few hours later, the court granted BN's motion for an injunction pending appeal. We denied UTU's motion to suspend the injunction pending appeal and directed BN to avoid further layoffs until we had decided the matter.

On appeal, BN contends that the ICA vests the ICC with exclusive and plenary jurisdiction to resolve disputed issues. Thus, they argue, Norris-LaGuardia does not bar an injunction against the proposed strike. Second, BN maintains the RLA prohibits the strike since UTU has not exhausted major dispute procedures.

III. The ICA, the RLA and Norris-LaGuardia

A. Statutory Framework

1. The Interstate Commerce Act (ICA)

The ICA is fundamentally a statute designed to regulate commerce. Its goal is to make commerce flow smoothly to the benefit of both American industry and consumers. The Act seeks to ensure fair shipping rates, safety and efficiency in transportation, and to preserve the viability of various modes of transportation. The ICA also seeks to discourage harmful monopolistic practices, detrimental state regulation, and labor strife--all of which tend to impede commerce to the detriment of industry and consumers. See 49 U.S.C. Secs. 10101, 10101a.

The ICA generally requires that before a railroad acquires an additional line or abandons a line, the rail carriers involved in the transaction must obtain the approval of the ICC. 49 U.S.C. Secs. 10901, 10903. Pursuant to the ICA's goal of preventing labor strife by "encourag[ing] fair wages and safe and suitable working conditions in the railroad industry," see 49 U.S.C. Sec. 10101a(12), approval by the ICC has in the past generally required the imposition of plans to compensate workers displaced by the particular transaction. These plans are called labor protective conditions or labor protective agreements. Under its authority, the ICC has developed standard labor protective conditions for particular types of transactions. ¹

In the early 1970's the railroad industry, for a variety of reasons, began to experience economic difficulty. In 1976, concern about the "financial health" of this industry prompted Congress to pass the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform (4-R) Act, Pub.L. No. 94-210, 90 Stat. 31 (1976). The 4-R Act empowered the ICC, inter alia, to exempt individual transactions or classes of transactions from the Act's prior approval requirements (and thus avoid the cost of labor protective conditions). Pub.L. No. 94-210, 90 Stat. at 42.

Four years later, in another deregulatory effort, Congress passed the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, Pub.L. No. 96-448, 94 Stat. 1895 (1980). In the Staggers Act, Congress attempted to "reduce regulatory barriers to entry into and exit from the [railroad] industry." Id. Sec. 101(a), 94 Stat. 1897, codified at 49 U.S.C. Sec. 10101a. Specifically, the Act broadened the exemption provisions codified at 49 U.S.C. Sec. 10505, to provide that exemptions "shall" be granted to carry out the Staggers Act national rail policy. 94 Stat. at 1913.

In 1986, the ICC, in an ex parte rule-making procedure, exercised its new section 10505 power to exempt, as a class, line sales to "new carriers" ² from the detailed approval procedures required under section 10901. See Ex Parte No. 392, 1 I.C.C.2d 810 (1986). To facilitate these sales, the ICC further prescribed an expedited approval procedure in place of the procedure that would otherwise apply under section...