Mobil Oil Corp. v. Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Intern. Union, AFL-CIO

• Decision Date: 08 November 1974
• Docket Number: No. 72-3272,72-3272
• Citation: Mobil Oil Corp. v. Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Intern. Union, AFL-CIO, 504 F.2d 272 (5th Cir. 1974)
• Parties: 87 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2673, 75 Lab.Cas. P 10,437 MOBIL OIL CORPORATION et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. OIL, CHEMICAL AND ATOMIC WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, AFLCIO, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 272

504 F.2d 272

87 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2673, 75 Lab.Cas. P 10,437

MOBIL OIL CORPORATION et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. OIL, CHEMICAL AND ATOMIC WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION AFLCIO, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 72-3272.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Nov. 8, 1974.

Chris Dixie, Houston, Tex., for defendants-appellants.

James W. Hambright, John G. Tucker, Beaumont, Tex., Warren H. Greene, Jr., New York City, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Rex H. Reed and Michael E. Merrill, Attys., The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc., Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae.

Before BROWN, Chief Judge, and WISDOM, GEWIN, BELL, THORNBERRY, COLEMAN, AINSWORTH, GOOBOLD, DYER, SIMPSON, MORGAN, CLARK, RONEY and GEE, Circuit Judges. ^*

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

Mobil Oil Corporation Marine Transportation Department, Gulf-East Coast Operations (Company) and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union AFL-CIO and Maritime Local No. 8-801 of that Union (Union) entered into a collective bargaining agreement containing an agency shop clause. Shortly thereafter the company brought suit in federal district court for a declaratory judgment under section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. 185(a), (c), and 28 U.S.C. 2201, hoping that the court would find the clause violative of the Texas right to work law and thus void and unenforceable.

After a full evidentiary hearing, the district court concluded that the Texas law did apply to this employment relationship and did render the agency shop provision invalid. On appeal, a panel of this court held that a justiciable controversy existed, that jurisdiction properly vested in the district court, and that there was no abuse of discretion by that court in declining to defer to the NLRB. But on the substantive issue the panel concluded that the district court had erred and that the agency shop clause is valid and enforceable with respect to all employees covered by the collective bargaining agreement. The panel held that the Texas right to work law does not apply to this employment relationship because these employees are not employees of Texas or of any other state, but are rather seamen whose job site is on the high seas. Because of the exceptional importance ¹ and the unique nature of the question presented, we granted rehearing en banc to consider the question of the applicability of the Texas right to work law. ²

I.

The parties to this suit, the district court, and the original panel approached the issue presented by analyzing this employment relationship in terms of its contacts with the state of Texas and other jurisdictions. It is conceded by all that employer/employee contacts with the state of Texas far outweigh contacts with any other state, and the evidence supporting that conclusion is neither conflicting nor ambiguous.

The company operates eight oceangoing tankers which move principally between the state of Texas and the state of New York along the East and Gulf Coasts. Since 1962, the headquarters of the company has been located in Beaumont, Texas. All personnel and payroll records are maintained there; all payroll checks are written and mailed from the Beaumont offices; all state and federal taxes are deducted from the seamen's wages in Beaumont; all monthly check-offs of Union dues for all seamen is performed in Texas; and all grievances filed on the approved grievance forms by the seamen are submitted to and considered by the company's manager at his office in Beaumont, pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement. The state of Texas is the only state administering unemployment compensation for the company's seamen.

The company employs 289 unlicensed seamen; 123 of the 289 have reported Texas as their state of residence; and 152 of the 289 have requested the company to list Beaumont as their shipping port. All actual hiring of seamen occurs in Texas. While approximately 40% Of the seamen first make application in New York and 60% Make application in Beaumont, the final hiring decision is made only in Beaumont. As many as 60% Of the applicants actually come from the Texas labor force. Furthermore, all terminations of seamen are finalized in Beaumont as a result of decisions made at the Beaumont headquarters. The evidence suggests that from the seaman's first encounter with the company to his last, the Beaumont headquarters is constantly in the picture.

The above contacts demonstrate that the state of Texas is intimately involved with this employment relationship. And the district court was clearly correct in its finding that a more substantial part of the administration and performance of the collective bargaining agreement occurs in Texas than in any other state. ³ We think it not insignificant to note that this 'justiciable controversy' arose in Beaumont, for it was in the context of the hiring process there that the Union and the company began this battle. ⁴

The panel, however, believed that the predominance of Texas contacts with this employment relationship was not decisive. Instead, the panel concluded that the determinative factor in deciding whether the Texas law is applicable is job situs. The record indicates that the seamen spend 80% To 90% Of their working time on the high seas. Each seaman works roughly a 120 day cycle consisting of 90 days aboard ship and 30 days ashore 'on vacation' during which shore time he continues to be an employee of the company and to receive wages. The panel's theory is that, with so much of a seaman's working time reserved for the high seas, the Texas law, and for that matter the law of any state, is rendered inapplicable. The panel does not explain, however, why job situs is the singularly most significant, indeed the decisive, factor. ⁵

Rather than adopt the panel's limited approach, we choose to weigh all of the contacts in the context of our national labor policy. We disagree with the panel's conclusion that job situs has some talismanic quality. We would agree with the panel opinion that the district court's finding that a more substantial part of the administration and performance of the collective bargaining agreement occurs in Texas than in any other state is not decisive. The number of contacts is a highly relevant consideration, but the true importance of these contacts is to be understood not in a quantitative vacuum but in the qualitative background furnished by the Congress.

Whether the agency shop clause in this collective bargaining agreement is valid or not depends entirely upon whether the Texas right to work law applies to this employment relationship. ⁶ In determining whether the Texas law is applicable, we must decide whether it was the intent of Congress in writing section 14(b) to permit a state to apply its right to work law to an employment relationship which has contacts with the state as described by the evidence presented to the district court.

Our task is made more difficult by the fact that there is nothing in the legislative history of the Taft-Hartley Act which expressly answers our question one way or the other. Nevertheless, we must determine as best we can what Congress would have intended on this point had it been presented for their explicit consideration. ⁷ Our job is not to add up all of the contacts and to decide which jurisdiction has 'the most.' Our task is to discern whether application of the Texas right to work law would be in furtherance of the Taft-Hartley Act's expressed purposes. ⁸ See National Woodwork Mfrs. Ass'n v. NLRB, 1967, 386 U.S. 612, 87 S.Ct. 1250, 18 L.Ed.2d 357; Wirtz v. Local 153, Glass Bottle Blowers Ass'n, 1968, 389 U.S. 463, 468, 88 S.Ct. 643, 646, 19 L.Ed.2d 705; NLRB v. Metallic Bldg. Co., 5th Cir. 1953, 204 F.2d 826, 828. And in arriving at a just, proper, and congressionally authorized conclusion, we invoke the eclectic approach of Chief Justice Marshall:

Where the mind labors to discover the design of the legislature, it seizes everything from which aid can be derived . . .

United States v. Fisher, 1805, 2 Cranch (6 U.S.) 358, 386, 2 L.Ed. 304, 313; see also United States v. Dickerson, 1940, 310 U.S. 554, 562, 60 S.Ct. 1034, 1038, 84 L.Ed. 1356.

Having done so, we conclude that it was not the intent of the Congress to prevent Texas from applying its right to work law in the context of this employment relationship. Indeed, in our judgment, application of the Texas law would be in furtherance of our national labor policies. For the reasons expressed below, we hold that the federal labor legislation, the predominance of Texas contacts over any other jurisdiction, and the significant interest which Texas has in applying its right to work law to this employment relationship warrant application of the Texas law and, consequently, invalidation of the agency shop provision.

II.

We begin with 'the language of the statute itself.' Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 1968, 392 U.S. 409, 420, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 2193, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189. Sections 7 and 8(a)(3) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 157, 158(a)(3), specifically authorize employers and labor organizations to enter into union shop agreements by whose terms membership in a union, after a short waiting period, is required as a condition of employment. ⁹ The Supreme Court has interpreted these sections to authorize an agency shop, a form of union security conditioning employment on the payment of regular union dues and initiation fees in lieu of actual union membership. NLRB v. General Motors Corp., 1963, 373 U.S. 734, 738-739, 83 S.Ct. 1453, 10 L.Ed.2d 670; Retail Clerk's Inter. Ass'n v. Schermerhorn (Schermerhorn I), 1963, 373 U.S. 746, 751, 83 S.Ct. 1461, 1464, 10 L.Ed.2d 678.

In the same stroke, section 8(a)(3) was redrafted to prohibit the closed shop which its predecessor section, section 8(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, had permitted. H.R.Conf.Rep.No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 60, 1 Leg.Hist.L.M.R.A. 545,...