INDEPENDENT FEDERATION OF FLIGHT ATTEND. v. Davis

• Decision Date: 25 April 1986
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 86-0877-C.
• Citation: 633 F. Supp. 634
• Parties: INDEPENDENT FEDERATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, Plaintiff, v. David DAVIS, as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, and Trans World Airlines, Inc., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

633 F. Supp. 634

INDEPENDENT FEDERATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, Plaintiff, v. David DAVIS, as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, and Trans World Airlines, Inc., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 86-0877-C.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

April 25, 1986.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Michael S. Bearse, Finnegan & Underwood, Boston, Mass., for plaintiff.

Alan Grodnitzky, Michael R. Brown, Goldstein & Manello, Boston, Mass., for defendant TWA.

Richard F. Meyer, Massport Authority, Boston, Mass., for defendant David Davis.

Ira Wallach, Massport Authority, Boston, Mass., for Massport.

MEMORANDUM

CAFFREY, Chief Judge.

This is a civil action in which the plaintiff, Independent Federation of Flight Attendants ("the IFFA,"), seeks a preliminary injunction against the defendant, David Davis, as executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority ("Massport"), and against defendant, Trans World Airlines, Inc. ("TWA"). Jurisdiction over this matter is based on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1337. Plaintiff's claim arises under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. ("the RLA") since TWA is a "common carrier by air." See 45 U.S.C. § 181.

The facts in this case do not appear to be in dispute.¹ The IFFA is a labor organization and is the certified collective bargaining representative of TWA's flight attendants. The collective bargaining agreement between TWA and the IFFA became amendable in July of 1984. The parties were unsuccessful in their efforts to negotiate a new agreement and at midnight, March 6, 1986, the IFFA began a systemwide lawful strike against TWA.

Prior to commencement of the strike, Massport authorized the IFFA to conduct picketing at the upper and lower Terminal C entrances to TWA. TWA, however, refused to allow the IFFA to also set up a picket line at the TWA hangar facility and cargo building located on Prescott Street at Logan International Airport. This area is leased by Massport to TWA and therefore is TWA's private property. The IFFA found this arrangement unsatisfactory and following a meeting with both parties on March 10, 1986, Massport confirmed that the entrance and exit of TWA flight crews was limited to the upper and lower levels of Terminal C and to a location on Prescott Street which leads to the entrance to the TWA hangar area, and that informational picketing was limited to those three areas. Members of the striking union were informed that they would be arrested if they attempt to picket on TWA's private property on Prescott Street.

The Prescott Street site where the IFFA is now permitted to picket is about seven to eight hundred feet from TWA's hangar and cargo facilities, at the intersection of Prescott Street and an airport service road. There is at least one stop sign at that location. Employee parking lots, entrances to fuel farms and the Delta Airlines hangar and office are located between the designated picketing site and the TWA hangar and cargo facilities, which is at the end of Prescott Street. TWA transports its nonstriking employees and strike replacements by motor vehicle to and from their assigned duty stations to its Prescott Street facility. Other persons having business with TWA also use Prescott Street. It is not, however, a roadway ordinarily travelled by the general public. The IFFA is also picketing at the Sheraton Boston, where TWA houses its out-of-town crew members.

The IFFA seeks an order from this Court enjoining TWA from denying the union's picketers access to TWA's premises on Prescott Street. According to the IFFA, it is unable to effectively communicate with strike replacements at Prescott Street because of the lack of pedestrian traffic along the route, the method of transporting employees, and the presence of other employers in the same locale. The IFFA argues that TWA's property rights must yield to the union's right to picket and to publicize its dispute, and that the IFFA has no other effective alternative place or means for engaging strike replacements in conversation. In addition, the IFFA claims that the current restrictions on picketing activity on Prescott Street create traffic and safety hazards to the picketers and members of the public.

The defendant TWA, in opposition, asserts that this Court lacks jurisdiction to issue the injunction requested by the IFFA because of the Norris-LaGuardia Act's restrictions on the use of injunctions in connection with labor disputes. Although disputes between the IFFA and TWA are generally governed by the RLA, see 45 U.S.C. § 181, when the RLA procedures are exhausted, so are the policies which are peculiar to the RLA. Trans Int'l Airlines v. International Bhd. of Teamsters, 650 F.2d 949, 963 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1110, 101 S.Ct. 919, 66 L.Ed.2d 839 (1981). Thereafter, the parties are governed by general labor law principles. Id. The Norris-LaGuardia Act thus applies to labor disputes involving air carriers once their duties under the RLA have been fulfilled. Railroad Telegraphers v. Chicago & N.W.R. Co., 362 U.S. 330, 342, 80 S.Ct. 761, 767-68, 4 L.Ed.2d 774 (1960). The procedures mandated by the RLA have been exhausted in the case now before this Court, and thus I rule that the Norris-LaGuardia Act applies to the jurisdictional challenge.

Section 1 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 101, provides that:

No court of the United States ... shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction in a case involving or growing out of a labor dispute, except in a strict conformity with the provisions of this chapter; nor shall any such restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction be issued contrary to the public policy declared in this chapter.

The public policy behind this restriction on the jurisdiction of federal district courts is found in Section 2 of the Act,² which states that workers should have freedom of association, organization, representation and negotiation. Railroad Telegraphers, 362 U.S. at 335-36, 80 S.Ct. at 764-65. The Norris-LaGuardia Act was principally concerned with curtailing the abuse of injunctions directed against union activities. Heheman v. E.W. Scripps Co., 661 F.2d 1115, 1124 (6th Cir.1981); Local 205, United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers v. General Electric Co., 233 F.2d 85, 93 (1st Cir.1956), aff'd on other grounds, 353 U.S. 547, 77 S.Ct. 921, 1 L.Ed.2d 1028 (1957).

The broad proscription contained in section 1 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not mean that injunctions may never be issued in labor disputes. See e.g., Heheman, 661 F.2d at 1124-25. The United States Supreme Court has created narrow exceptions to the anti-injunction provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. Id. at 1124. Specific performance of grievance arbitration clauses may be ordered against management and specific performance of no-strike provisions may be ordered against unions. Id. Courts of Appeals have found injunctions permissible in labor disputes on the grounds that the activity sought to be enjoined was not included in the catalogue of conduct not subject to injunction found in section 4 of the Act,³ or that the case did not involve the type of labor dispute or the abuses against which the Act was directed. Id. at 1124-25, citing Retail Clerks Union Local 1222 v. Alfred M. Lewis, Inc., 327 F.2d 442, 446-48 (9th Cir.1964) (district court had jurisdiction to order employer to comply with provision in collective bargaining agreement where not type of injunction contemplated by Norris-LaGuardia Act); Parks v. International Bhd. of Elec. Workers, 314 F.2d 886, 919 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 372 U.S. 976, 83 S.Ct. 1111, 10 L.Ed.2d 142 (1963) (district court had jurisdiction to order injunctive relief requested by union against its international parent union where relief not related to specific prohibitions in section 4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act). Another court of appeals examined the Act's legislative history and purpose as stated in section 2, and found that the Norris-LaGuardia Act was intended to protect employees and thus did not deprive district courts of jurisdiction to issue injunctions against employers. Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng. v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 310 F.2d 503, 518 (7th Cir.1962), aff'd on other grounds, 372 U.S. 284, 83 S.Ct. 691, 9 L.Ed.2d 759 (1963). Finally, the inclusion in section 7 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act of procedures for courts to follow prior to issuing injunctions in labor disputes indicates that Congress did not intend to withdraw all jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief in labor disputes.

Based on the foregoing discussion, I rule that the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not deprive this Court of jurisdiction to grant the injunction requested by the IFFA should it choose to do so. The conduct sought to be enjoined, i.e., the denial of permission to picket on the property of the employer against whom the union is striking, is not an activity listed in section 4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act as an act that cannot be enjoined in a labor dispute. This is clearly not the type of injunction whose abuse the Norris-LaGuardia Act was intended to curtail.

Having found that the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not deprive the Court of jurisdiction in this case, the remaining question is whether the IFFA has met the appropriate standard for equitable relief. The IFFA argues that the Court is not bound by the restrictions found in section 7 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 107, which requires a court to follow certain procedures and make certain findings of facts prior to issuing an injunction in a labor dispute. Accepting the union's claim that section 7 does not apply to this proceeding, it follows then that the Court should follow traditional principles of equity in determining whether an injunction should issue against the defendants. The four factors that a court must consider under traditional principles of equity when faced with a request for a preliminary...