Employees Union v. Union Pacific Railroad Co

Citation17 L.Ed.2d 264,385 U.S. 157,87 S.Ct. 369
Decision Date05 December 1966
Docket NumberTRANSPORTATION-COMMUNICATION,No. 28,28
PartiesEMPLOYEES UNION, Petitioner, v. UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD CO
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

See 385 U.S. 1032, 87 S.Ct. 737.

Milton Kramer, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

James A. Wilcox, Omaha, Neb., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Transportation - Communication Employees Union, the petitioner, is the bargaining representative of a group of railroad employees commonly known as 'Telegraphers.' Prior to 1952 these telegraphers were commonly assigned the duty of sending, by telegraph, railroad way bills, manifests and orders prepared by clerks, members of the brotherhood of Railway Clerks. In 1952, however, the respondent here, Union Pacific Railroad Company, installed IBM machines which resulted in a radical change in the work-load of the telegraphers and clerks. When the clerical work previously done by the clerks is manually performed on the IBM machines, the machines automatically perform the communications functions previously performed by the telegraphers. As a result, the railroad's need for telegraphers was practically eliminated and operation of the IBM machines was assigned to members of the clerks' union. This case arises out of the dispute over the railroad's assignment of these jobs to the clerks. The telegraphers' union, claiming the jobs for its members under its collective bargaining agreement, protested the railroad's assignment and, in due course, referred its claim to the Railroad Adjustment Board as authorized by § 3 First (i) of the Railway Labor Act.1 Notice of the referral was given to the clerks' union, which, pursuant to an understanding with the other labor unions, declined to participate in this proceeding on the ground that it had no interest in the matter but stated its readiness to file a like proceeding before the Board to protect its members should any of their jobs be threatened.2 The Board then heard and decided the case without considering the railroad's liability to the clerks under its contract with them, concluded that the telegraphers were entitled to the jobs under their contract, and ordered that the railroad pay the telegraphers who had been idle because of the assignment of the jobs to the clerks. The telegraphers' union then brought this action in a United States District Court to enforce the Board's award as authorized by § 3 First (p) of the Act. That court dismissed the case on the ground that the clerks' union was an indispensable party, and that the telegraphers, though given the opportunity, refused to make it a party. 231 F.Supp. 33. Affirming the dismissal, the Court of Appeals pointed out that the Board had failed to carry out its exclusive jurisdictional responsibility to decide the entire dispute with relation to the conflicting claims of the two unions under their respective contracts to have the jobs assigned to their members.3 We granted certiorari in order to settle doubts about whether the Adjustment Board must exercise its exclusive jurisdiction to settle disputes like this in a single proceeding with all disputant unions present. Cf. Whitehouse v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 349 U.S. 366, 371—372, 75 S.Ct. 845, 849, 99 L.Ed. 1155. We hold that it must.

I.

Petitioner contends that it is entirely appropriate for the Adjustment Board to resolve disputes over work assignments in a proceeding in which only one union participates and in which only that union's contract with the employer is considered. This contention rests on the premise that collective bargaining agreements are to be governed by the same common-law principles which control private contracts between two private parties. On this basis it is quite naturally assumed that a dispute over work assignments is a dispute between an employer and only one union. Thus, it is argued that each collective bargaining agreement is a thing apart from all others and each dispute over work assignments must be decided on the language of a single such agreement considered in isolation from all others.

We reject this line of reasoning. A collective bargaining agreement is not an ordinary contract for the purchase of goods and services, nor is it governed by the same old common-law concepts, which control such pri- vate contracts. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 550, 84 S.Ct. 909, 914, 11 L.Ed.2d 898; cf. Steele v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173. '* * * (I)t is a generalized code to govern a myriad of cases which the draftsmen cannot wholly anticipate. * * * The collective agreement covers the whole employment relationship. It calls into being a new common law—the common law of a particular industry or of a particular plant.' United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 363 U.S. 574, 578—579, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1351, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409. In order to interpret such an agreement it is necessary to consider the scope of other related collective bargaining agreements, as well as the practice, usage and custom pertaining to all such agreements. This is particularly true when the agreement is resorted to for the purpose of settling a jurisdictional dispute over work assignments.

There are two kinds of these jurisdictional disputes. Both are essentially disputes between two competing unions, not merely disputes between an employer and a single union. The ordinary jurisdictional dispute arises when two or more unions claim the right to perform a job which existed at the time their collective bargaining contracts with the employer were made. In such a situation it would be highly unlikely that each contract could be construed as giving each union the right to be paid for the single job. But the dispute before us now is not the ordinary jurisdictional dispute where each union claims the right to perform a job which existed at the time its collective bargaining agreement was made. Here, though two jobs existed when the collective bargaining agreements were made and though the railroad properly could contract with one union to perform one job and the other union to perform the other, automation has now resulted in there being only one job, a job which is different from either of the former two jobs and which was not expressly contracted to either of the unions. Although only one union can be assigned this new job, it may be that the railroad's agreement with the nonassigned union obligates the railroad to pay it for idleness attributable to such job elimination due to automation. But this does not mean that both unions can, under their separate agreements, have the right to perform the new job or that the Board, once the dispute has been submitted to it, can postpone determining which union has the right to the job in the future. By first ordering the railroad to pay one union and then later, in a separate proceeding, ordering it to pay the other union, without ever determining which union has the right to perform the job and thus without ever prejudicing the rights of the other union, the Board abdicates its duty to settle the entire dispute. Yet this is precisely the kind of merry-go-round situation which the petitioner claims is envisaged by the Act, a procedure which certainly does not 'provide for the prompt and orderly settlement of all disputes * * *,' the purpose for which the Adjustment Board was established. § 2(5). (Emphasis supplied.)

II.

The railroad, the employees, and the public, for all of whose benefits the Railway Labor Act was written, are entitled to have a fair, expeditious hearing to settle disputes of this nature. And we have said in no uncertain language that the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction to do so. Order of Railway Conductors v. Pitney, 326 U.S. 561, 66 S.Ct. 322, 90 L.Ed. 318, was decided 20 years ago. That case concerned a dispute over which employees should be assigned to do certain railroad jobs—members of the conductors' union under their contract or members of the trainmen's union under their contract. In that case a district court, in charge of a railroad in bankruptcy, had entered a judgment in favor of the conductors. We reversed, holding that the Railway Labor Act vested exclusive power in the Adjustment Board to decide that controversy over job assignments. It is true that we did not precisely decide there that the Board must bring before it all unions claiming the same jobs for their members, but we did say this:

'We have seen that in order to reach a final decision on that question the court first had to interpret the terms of O.R.C.'s collective bargaining agreements. The record shows, however, that interpretation of these contracts involves more than the mere construction of a 'document' in terms of the ordinary meaning of words and their position. * * * For O.R.C.'s agreements with the railroad must be read in the light of others between the railroad and B.R.T. And since all parties seek to support their particular interpretation of these agreements by evidence as to usage, practice and custom, that too must be taken into account and properly understood. The factual question is intricate and technical. An agency especially competent and specifically designated to deal with it has been created by Congress.' Id., 326 U.S. at 566—567, 66 S.Ct. at 325. (Emphasis supplied.)

Four years after Pitney we decided Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W.R. Co., 339 U.S. 239, 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795. In that case a state court had interpreted collective bargaining contracts between a railroad and the same two unions here and had decided in favor of the clerks. We reversed, and relying on Pitney, said:

'* * * There we held, in a case remarkably similar to the one before us now, that the Federal District Court in its equitable discretion should have refused 'to adjudicate a jurisdictional dispute involving the railroad and two employee accredited bargaining agents * * *.'...

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