Columbia Power Trades Council v. U.S. Dept. of Energy

• Decision Date: 11 March 1982
• Docket Number: No. 80-3384,80-3384
• Citation: 671 F.2d 325
• Parties: 110 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2820, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BN 719 COLUMBIA POWER TRADES COUNCIL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), and Sterling Munro, as BPA Administrator, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 325

671 F.2d 325

110 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2820, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BN 719

COLUMBIA POWER TRADES COUNCIL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, Bonneville Power

Administration (BPA), and Sterling Munro, as BPA

Administrator, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 80-3384.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted April 9, 1981.

Decided March 11, 1982.

Hugh Hafer, Hafer, Cassidy & Price, Seattle, Wash., for plaintiff-appellant.

Charles Pinnell, David E. Wilson, Asst. U. S. Attys., Seattle, Wash., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Before HUG and SKOPIL, Circuit Judges, and ORRICK, ^* District Judge.

ORRICK, District Judge:

Appellant, Columbia Power Trades Council ("the Union"), brought an action for declaratory and injunctive relief in the Western District of Washington against the Bonneville Power Administration ("the BPA"), its Administrator, Sterling Munro ("Munro"), and its parent agency, the Department of Energy ("USDE"). In essence, appellant sought the issuance of a writ of mandamus directing Munro to implement an arbitrator's award of an 8.53% wage increase to BPA hourly employees. ¹ Upon cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court entered judgment for the defendants and dismissed the complaint. ² This appeal followed.

Because subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time, ³ after the case was under submission we granted leave to the Civil Division of the Department of Justice to file a supplementary brief raising for the first time the issue of subject matter jurisdiction. ⁴ We now hold that this court and the district court were without jurisdiction to hear this case.

I

The appellees would have us consider the question of whether Congress intended the Federal Labor Relations Authority ("the Authority"), created under Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, 5 U.S.C. § 7101 et seq. ("the Act"), to be the exclusive source of redress for a public union from unfair labor practices. The appellants would have us either come to the opposite conclusion or find them the subject of some exception to this exclusivity.

The Supreme Court has stated generally that where Congress has provided statutory review procedures designed to permit agency expertise to be brought to bear on particular problems and where district court jurisdiction to make initial determinations would undermine the effectiveness of the statutory design, the agency procedures are to be exclusive. Whitney National Bank v. Bank of New Orleans & Trust Co., 379 U.S. 411, 420, 85 S.Ct. 551, 557, 13 L.Ed.2d 386 (1965). It is not necessary for this scheme to be explicitly labeled exclusive, id. at 422, 85 S.Ct. at 558, as is the National Labor Relations Act ("the NLRA"). ⁵ Thus, our search must be for indicia of such an intention by Congress.

A. The Legislative History of the Act.

There can be no doubt after examining the legislative history that Congress intended the Act to fill the identical role in the public sector that the NLRA performs in the private sector. "The Committee intends that the Authority's role in Federal sector labor-management relations be analogous to that of the National Labor Relations Board in the private sector." H.R.Rep.No. 1403, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 41, reprinted in I House Comm. on Post Office & Civil Service, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., Legislative History of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 at 678 (1979). "The committee intends that the General Counsel be analogous in role and function to the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board * * *." Id. at 679.

It is well-settled that as a general rule federal and state courts lack jurisdiction to remedy conduct covered by the NLRA because the broad grant of authority by Congress to the NLRB to interpret what constitutes an "unfair practice" under 29 U.S.C. § 158 precludes the existence of conflicting interpretations and remedies; therefore, administration of labor policy must be centralized in one body. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 179, 87 S.Ct. 903, 910, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967); San Diego Building Trades v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 242, 79 S.Ct. 773, 778, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959). The unfair practices section of the Act, 5 U.S.C. § 7116, is the same in substance as § 158, so these statements of Congressional intent indicate the Act should be interpreted in a manner consistent with that given the NLRA and exclusive jurisdiction should be found. ⁶

B. The Structure of the Act.

Congress has stated its findings that the statutory regulation of public employee labor relations "safeguards the public interest" and "contributes to the effective conduct of the public business," and that it is the purpose of the Act to "prescribe certain rights and obligations of the employees of the Federal Government and to establish procedures which are designed to meet the special requirements and needs of the Government." 5 U.S.C. § 7101. To effect this broad purpose, the Authority was created to "provide leadership in establishing policies and guidance relating to matters under this chapter, and, except as otherwise provided, shall be responsible for carrying out the purpose of this chapter." 5 U.S.C. § 7105(a)(1). Its duties include the resolution of unfair labor practices. 5 U.S.C. § 7105(a)(2)(G).

The only provision made for judicial jurisdiction appears in 5 U.S.C. § 7123. An aggrieved party may appeal the Authority's action to a court of appeals, the Authority may petition a court of appeals for enforcement of its orders, and the Authority may seek an injunction in a district court after it has issued a complaint. ⁷ At no point does the Act entitle a party to petition a district court for relief. ⁸ Given the broad purpose of the Act to meet the special requirements of government, the leadership role of the Authority, and the limited role of the judiciary in this statutory scheme, it is manifestly the expressed desire of Congress to create an exclusive statutory scheme. A similar conclusion was reached in the only other cases which research has indicated have expressly considered this issue: National Federation of Federal Employees v. Commandant, Defense Language Institute, 493 F.Supp. 675 (N.D.Cal.1980); United States v. PATCO, 504 F.Supp. 432, 437 (N.D.Ill.1980) (citing both National Federation, supra, and Clark v. Mark, Secretary of the Air Force, No. 79-CV-777 (N.D.N.Y. Aug. 27, 1980). We, therefore, find that the Authority possesses exclusive jurisdiction over federal labor relations matters.

II

We must now deal with the several grounds asserted by the Union for its contention that it comes within an exception to this carefully constructed scheme, which include claims of an exception for employees who bargain over their wages, that no unfair labor practice exists, that exhaustion of administrative remedies would be futile, or that the district court had jurisdiction over this cause as an arbitration enforcement.

Section 704 of the Act ⁹ provides in part:

"(a) Those terms and conditions of employment and other employment benefits with respect to Government prevailing rate employees to whom section 9(b) of Public Law 92-392 applies which were the subject of negotiation in accordance with prevailing rates and practices prior to August 19, 1972, shall be negotiated on or after the date of the enactment of this Act in accordance with the provisions of section 9(b) of Public Law 92-392 without regard to any provisions of chapter 71 of title 5, United States Code (as amended by this title), to the extent that any such provision is inconsistent with this paragraph.

(b) The pay and pay practices relating to employees referred to in paragraph (1) of this subsection shall be negotiated in accordance with prevailing rates and pay practices without regard to any provision of-

(A) chapter 71 of title 5, United States Code (as amended by this title), to the extent that any such provision is inconsistent with this paragraph * * *."

It is the appellant's claim that since it has been negotiating for wages for more than twenty years this clause exempts it from coverage of the Act.

However, as the legislative history makes clear, the purpose of this section was to preserve the scope of the collective bargaining agreements for which these employees had negotiated. The section

"is intended to preserve the existing right of certain Federal prevailing rate employees to negotiate terms and conditions of employment. The committee intends that this subsection preserve unchanged the scope and substance of the collecting bargaining relationship between the employees' representatives and the agencies involved."

H.R.Rep.No. 95-1403, 95th Cong. 2d Sess. 61-62 (1978). ¹⁰ It is evident § 704 was aimed at any inconsistency in provisions of the Act which would limit the areas about which these employees could collectively bargain. It was not intended to exempt them from the Authority's jurisdiction for the resolution of any disputes which arose in the course of this bargaining. ¹¹ Therefore, the Union cannot make use of this section to bring itself outside the coverage of the Act.

The Union's claim that this case does not involve any unfair labor practice ¹² and is therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the district court is an argument which we cannot accept. It would frustrate the Congressional scheme for either the NLRA or the Act if exclusive jurisdiction could be thwarted by a party's characterization of the nature of the lawsuit.

"Pre-emption, as shown above, is designed to shield the system from conflicting regulation of conduct. It is the conduct being regulated, not the formal description of governing legal standards, that is the proper focus of concern."

Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway & Motor Coach Employees of America v. Lockridge, 403 U.S. 274, 292, 91 S.Ct. 1909, 1920, 29 L.Ed.2d 473 (1971). The Union's claim against Munro...