Landers v. National R.R. Passenger Corp.

• Decision Date: 24 March 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1776,86-1776
• Citation: 814 F.2d 41
• Parties: 124 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3142, 55 USLW 2567, 106 Lab.Cas. P 12,282 Paul G. LANDERS, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 41

814 F.2d 41

124 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3142, 55 USLW 2567,

106 Lab.Cas. P 12,282

Paul G. LANDERS, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION, et al., Defendants Appellees.

No. 86-1776.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Argued Jan. 8, 1987.

Decided March 24, 1987.

Clinton J. Miller, III, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., with whom James F. Freeley, Jr. and Freeley & Freeley, Boston, Mass., were on brief for plaintiff, appellant.

Harold A. Ross with whom Ross & Kraushaar Co., L.P.A., Cleveland, Ohio, Paul Kelly and Segal, Roitman & Coleman, Boston, Mass., were on brief for Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

Joanna L. Moorhead, Washington, D.C., with whom William Shaw McDermott and McDermott & Rizzo, Boston, Mass., were on brief for National R.R. Passenger Corp.

Before COFFIN and SELYA, Circuit Judges, and GIGNOUX, ^* Senior District Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

The appellant, Paul G. Landers, has been working on the railroad for numerous live-long days. During the last four years, he passed the time away as an engineer for defendant/appellee National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak). Amtrak was created by the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, 45 U.S.C. Secs. 541 et seq. Pursuant to 45 U.S.C. Sec. 546(b), Amtrak is subject to the federal labor statutes governing railroads. Accordingly, the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. Secs. 151 et seq. (RLA), applies to this case.

Amtrak and the defendant/appellee Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), a labor union, entered into a collective bargaining agreement (Agreement). The Agreement, inter alia, denominated the BLE as the bargaining representative for Amtrak's passenger engineers and provided a panoply of terms and conditions of employment for the craft (or class) of passenger engineers. While the Agreement was signed on October 26, 1982, Amtrak did not begin employing passenger engineers directly until January 1, 1983. The appellant was among the early hires; he was a member of the United Transportation Union (UTU), rather than the BLE.

On February 17, 1984, Landers was charged with misconduct while toiling on an Amtrak train. A company-level investigatory hearing was convened. The appellant asked to be represented by the UTU. Amtrak demurred, taking the position that, under the Agreement, a passenger engineer could be assisted at such a hearing only by the bargaining agent. Landers represented himself at the hearing; he received and served a thirty day suspension. He did not claim an appeal to the National Railroad Adjustment Board (Board), a forum in which he had an undisputed right to be represented by the UTU. See 45 U.S.C. Sec. 153, First (j). Instead, Landers brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts seeking declaratory relief against both Amtrak and the BLE. He claimed that his prerogatives under Secs. 2 and 3 of the RLA, 45 U.S.C. Secs. 152, 153, were transgressed when he was denied the "right" to have his union represent him at the investigatory hearing.

Following a bench trial, the district court (Keeton, J.) issued a thoughtful memorandum of decision. Landers v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, C.A. No. 84-467-K (D.Mass. June 24, 1986) (Landers I ). Judge Keeton found that the Agreement prohibited an employee's representation by the (minority) union of his choice in an on-property investigatory hearing. Id. at 17-18. Landers does not dispute this point. He does, however, hotly contest the court's holding that nothing in the RLA or in the facts of the case gave Landers an unfettered right to representation at such a session by a union other than the BLE. Id. We agree with the district court, and therefore affirm. ¹

I.

We start with a brief overview of certain provisions of the Agreement. Pursuant to Rule 1b therein, Amtrak recognized the BLE "as bargaining representative of all Passenger Engineers employed by [Amtrak] in the Northeast Corridor." Rule 1c defined "duly accredited representative" to mean the "General Chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers having jurisdiction or any elected officer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers designated by the General Chairman." Further provisions of the Agreement illuminated the significance of these designations. Two examples will suffice. Under Rule 20a "[a] claim for compensation alleged to be due may be made only by a claimant or, on his behalf, by a duly accredited representative." Under Rule 21e.5 "[a] Passenger Engineer who may be subject to discipline and his duly accredited representative will have the right to be present during the entire investigation."

In fine, the Agreement clearly limited representation with regard to claims and disciplinary hearings. By its own terms and tenor, the BLE--and only the BLE--was entitled to represent a passenger engineer at a company-level disciplinary hearing. In an effort to deflect that exclusivity, the appellant challenges the legal validity of the contractual construct. He contends that the RLA overrides any deal which was struck between Amtrak and the BLE. We turn, then, to this assertion.

II.

The appellant makes much of the legislative history of the RLA. The archives of Congress show, he urges, that railroad employees historically enjoyed representation by minority unions in grievance matters, so the Act must be read in such a light. But, this allegation collapses under its own weight. Landers supports it principally by reference to the testimony of two witnesses who appeared before a House committee over half a century ago regarding possible amendments to the RLA. This duo, Commissioner Eastman and Mr. Harrison, lobbied for amendments which never saw the legislative light of day. See Hearings of House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on Railway Labor Act Amendments, H.R.Rep. No. 7650, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 44, 89 (1934). The changes that these witnesses advocated (giving employees the right to choose their own representation during grievance proceedings) were rejected. Rather than helping Landers, the fact that such changes were thought necessary by the proponents of elective (minority union) representation is itself formidable evidence that the RLA conferred no such right. And, the revisions that did eventuate in 1934 are of scant comfort to the stance of the present plaintiff. Our review of the matter discloses that there were two major purposes of these amendments: (1) to protect an employee's freedom to join his preferred union, and (2) to create the Board, thereby providing an effective (nonjudicial) means for the settlement of grievances and other "minor disputes." ² See H.R.Rep. No. 1944, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 1-3 (1934). Neither of these ends are subserved in any direct way by an inflexible rule that opens company-level grievance proceedings to participation by minority unions.

We note, as well, that the current version of the statute does not contain the wording proposed unsuccessfully in 1934, or anything reasonably equivalent to it. Thus, far from assisting the plaintiff's cause, the Eastman/Harrison testimony and its aftermath suggest that Congress never accepted the notion of elective representation in grievance proceedings at the company level. In short, the legislative history of the RLA fails to furnish any decisive insights. We must look to the language of the statute itself without any conclusive behind-the-scenes guidance.

Landers lays special stress on 45 U.S.C. Sec. 153, First(j), which, in respect to proceedings before the Board, provides that "[p]arties may be heard either in person, by counsel, or by other representatives, as they may respectively elect...." On close perscrutation, the initial promise of that allocution remains unfulfilled.

There is a world of difference between proceedings at the company level and those (more mature) proceedings which have reached the Board. The RLA recognizes the distinction, as does the caselaw. As the Eighth Circuit has observed: "In investigations, conferences or hearings by or before officers of the carrier an existing legal contract [collective bargaining agreement] controls, whereas the procedure before the Board is controlled by the statute." Butler v. Thompson, 192 F.2d 831, 833 (8th Cir.1951). At bottom, the appellant's reliance on Sec. 3, First(j) of the RLA proves too much: Congress obviously knew how to employ language bestowing elective rights of representation upon workers, yet chose to do so only for hearings before the Board. In stark contrast to the largesse granted unequivocally by Sec. 3, First(j), the draftsmen stated merely that resolution of minor disputes at the company level would be handled in the "usual manner." 45 U.S.C. Sec. 153, First(i). The fact that Congress eschewed conferment of a specific right of elective representation in Sec. 153, First(i), directly preceding Sec. 153, First(j), forcefully imports the absence of any intent to mandate such a rule at the company level.

The appellant also cites 45 U.S.C. Sec. 152, Second, to the effect that "[a]ll disputes between a carrier ... and its ... employees shall be considered ... in conference between representatives designated and authorized so to confer ... by the carrier ... and by the employees thereof interested in the dispute." Landers argues that this choice of phrase affords him a license to select his own union as his representative. We disagree.

Section 152, Second, spells out the overall duties of carriers, employees, and labor unions. It comprises a broadly general reference to the many kinds of controversies that might arise, not to specific procedures or to particular rights in dispute resolution proceedings between parties. As the Supreme Court has declared, the statute "merely states the policy which ... other provisions buttress with more particularized commands." General Comm. of Adjustment of the Bhd. of Locomotive Engineers for the Mo.-Kan.-Tex. R.R. v....