Local Union 808 v. P & W R. CO.

• Decision Date: 24 May 1983
• Docket Number: Civ. No. N-82-325.
• Citation: 576 F. Supp. 693
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: LOCAL UNION 808, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, et al. v. P & W RAILROAD COMPANY, et al.

576 F. Supp. 693

LOCAL UNION 808, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, et al. v. P & W RAILROAD COMPANY, et al.

Civ. No. N-82-325.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

May 24, 1983.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Charles C. Goetsch, Cahill & Goetsch, New Haven, Conn., for plaintiffs; Brian O'Dwyer, O'Dwyer & Bernstein, New York City, of counsel.

Jackson T. King, New Haven, Conn., Arnold Elkind, Snug Harbor, Conn., Thomas Shortell, Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, Hartford, Conn., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

ELLEN B. BURNS, District Judge.

This is an action by Local 808, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Local 808), and 35 individuals, all members of Local 808, under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2, 4 and 26, and state law against the Providence and Worcester Railroad Company (P & W), its parent company the Providence and Worcester Company (Company), five officers and employees of the P & W, the United Transportation Union (UTU) and eight of its officers and agents. The twelve-count amended complaint alleges in detail that the P & W and several of its officers and employees violated Section 2, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth of the RLA, and that the UTU and several of its officers and agents violated Section 2, Second and Fourth of the RLA. In addition to an antitrust claim against all defendants, plaintiffs allege the UTU defendants tortiously interfered with Local 808's business relationship with the P & W. Jurisdiction over these claim is premised on 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1337 and the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. This case is now before the Court on defendants' motions to dismiss and plaintiffs' request for preliminary injunctive relief.¹

By way of background, the P & W, which began operating in 1973, carries freight on lines in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Until November 7, 1980, defendant UTU was the National Mediation Board certified collective bargaining representative for the P & W's operating employees known as trainmen. Employees in other crafts were then and are now represented by other unions. After a representational election in October, 1980, the National Mediation Board (NMB) certified the Trainmen's Guild as the new collective bargaining agent for the trainmen on November 7, 1980. On February 28, 1981, the Trainmen's Guild merged with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and, in July, 1981, NMB certification was transferred to Local 808.

This suit focuses on allegedly unlawful conduct of the UTU and the P & W toward Local 808 from November 7, 1980, until April 24, 1982, when the P & W locked-out the members of Local 808 or Local 808 called a strike and its members set up picket-lines at the P & W's terminals. This action was commenced on June 25, 1982, with the filing of a seven-count complaint and the entry of an order requiring defendants to appear in court on July 26, 1982, and show cause why a preliminary injunction should not issue against them. An evidentiary hearing on plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction began on July 26 and ended October 12, 1982, after nineteen days of testimony. Motions to dismiss were filed on August 2 and renewed by the UTU defendants after plaintiffs amended the complaint and the Court reserved decision pending the completion of the evidentiary hearing on plaintiffs' motion.

I. Motions to Dismiss by UTU

A. Count VI: Restraint of Trade

In Count VI, which arises under 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2, 4 and 26,² plaintiffs allege the P & W defendants and the UTU defendants

have sought: (a) to interfere with, impair and restrain LOCAL 808 in its lawful status as the NMB certified collective bargaining agent of the Carrier's operating employees, all of which has had a restraining impact on trade and commerce in and among several states; (b) to interfere with, impair and deny plaintiff members of LOCAL 808 right and opportunity to work and earn wages as operating employees of the P & W Railroad; and (c) to combine and conspire for the purpose of eliminating and excluding competition in the business of representing operating employees in the railroad industry, with the object of restraining trade and interstate commerce among the several states.³

By way of relief, plaintiffs request an order "preliminarily and permanently enjoining defendants from continuing their illegal combination to restrain and injure LOCAL 808 in its business of representing employees of railroad carriers and to deny LOCAL 808's members their right to work and earn wages as trainmen...."⁴

The Sherman Act, which prohibits concerted action in restraint of "trade or commerce among the several states ...," was enacted primarily "to protect consumers from monopoly prices, and not to serve as a comprehensive code to regulate and police all kinds and types of interruptions and obstructions to the flow of trade." Allen Bradley Co. v. Local Union No. 3, IBEW, 325 U.S. 797, 806, 65 S.Ct. 1533, 1538, 89 L.Ed. 1939 (1945). As interpreted by the Second Circuit, the antitrust laws "were designed principally to outlaw restraints upon commercial competition in the marketing and pricing of goods and services and were not intended as instruments for the regulation of labor-management relations." Kennedy v. Long Island Railroad Co., 319 F.2d 366, 372-73 (2d Cir.1963). To assure that the Sherman Act was applied in accordance with its original purpose, Congress enacted the Clayton Act, which, in relevant part, states "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." 15 U.S.C. § 17. Given this statutory limit on the scope of the antitrust laws, Count VI fails to state a claim on which relief can be granted insofar as it alleges a conspiracy to prevent individual plaintiffs from working. See Tugboat, Inc. v. Mobile Towing Co., 534 F.2d 1172, 1176 (5th Cir.1976); Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 598 v. Morris, 511 F.Supp. 1298, 1306 (E.D.Wash.1981).

It is now widely accepted that labor organizations are in the business of representing employees and can allege the requisite injury for purposes of standing under the antitrust laws. See Tugboat, Inc., supra; International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators v. United Contractors Association, Inc., 483 F.2d 384, 394 (3d Cir.1973); Plumbers & Steamfitters Local, supra; ACTWU v. J.P. Stevens & Co., 475 F.Supp. 482, 487 (S.D.N.Y.1979). To state a viable claim, however, a labor organization must allege that the conspiracy to interfere with its business had a "monopolistic effect upon competition in the marketplace." ACTWU, supra at 490. Although this language could be stretched to cover restraint of competition in the marketplace of rival unions, courts have not been receptive to this expansive interpretation of the Sherman Act. See Amalgamated Meat Cutters v. Wetterau Foods, Inc., 597 F.2d 133, 136 (8th Cir.1979); Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 598, supra at 1306; but see International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators, supra at 396-97. In ACTWU, supra, for example, the court found that plaintiff labor organization had standing but dismissed the claim that the union had been restrained in its right to organize and represent employees. In so ruling, the court declared: "The antitrust laws do not furnish a remedy, since ACTWU's allegations, taken separately or in concert, do no more than complain of efforts to impede its activities as a union, entirely unaccompanied by any element of monopolistic effect upon competition in the marketplace." 475 F.Supp. at 490. Despite plaintiffs' conclusory allegation here that defendants intended to restrain them in "the business of representing employees in the railroad industry, with the object of restraining trade and commerce among the several states," they fail to allege the necessary element of an actual adverse impact on the market for goods and services other than the representation of employees. Since the complaint specifically alleges only that defendants injured Local 808 in its ability to conduct its business of organizing and representing railroad employees, an injury not among the evils the antitrust laws were intended to eliminate, Count VI fails to state a claim and must be dismissed.

B. Count VIII: Violation of RLA, Section 2, Fourth⁵

The gravamen of Count VIII is that the UTU defendants, by their continuing self-designation as the representative for a minority of trainmen on the railroad, have violated the rights of the majority of trainmen on the P & W to choose one collective bargaining representative for all trainmen. Plaintiffs allege defendants violated Section 2, Fourth of the RLA by negotiating an automatic dues check-off for UTU members in June or July of 1981, when Local 808 was the NMB certified collective bargaining representative for all trainmen on the P & W. Defendants contend the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this claim since the prohibitions in Section 2, Fourth of the RLA reach only carriers and their employees and agents. While they concede there exists no authoritative precedent for holding the UTU liable under the RLA,⁶ plaintiffs urge the Court to interpret the RLA liberally "in order to protect the integrity of the Act."⁷ Plaintiffs argue that injunctive relief directed only at the P & W defendants would not adequately protect plaintiffs' statutory rights because it could not prevent the UTU defendants from continuing to violate the RLA.

In the amended complaint plaintiffs quote the following portion of Section 2, Fourth: "Employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. The majority of any craft or class of employees shall have the right to determine who shall be the representative of the craft or class for the purposes of this chapter."⁸ What the complaint does not show, however, is that Section 2, Fourth goes on to provide:

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