National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, 413

CourtUnited States Supreme Court
Citation303 U.S. 261,82 L.Ed. 831,58 S.Ct. 571,115 A.L.R. 307
Docket NumberNo. 413,413
PartiesNATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. PENNSYLVANIA GREYHOUND LINES, Inc., et al
Decision Date28 February 1938

Messrs. Homer S. Cummings, Atty. Gen., and Charles Fahy, of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Mr. Ivan Bowen, of Minneapolis, Minn., for respondents.

Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The main question for decision is whether, upon a finding that an employer has created and fostered a labor organization of employees and dominated its administration in violation of section 8(1, 2) of the National Labor Relations Act of July 5, 1935, c. 372, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C. § 151, et seq., the National Labor Relations Board, in addition to ordering the employer to cease these practices can require him to withdraw all recognition of the organization as the representative of its employees and to post notices informing them of such withdrawal.

Respondent Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., is a corporation operating a passenger motorbus system between the Atlantic Coast and Chicago and St. Louis. Respondent Greyhound Management Company, an affiliate of the Pennsylvania Company, performs various services relating to employee personnel of the latter and its affiliated corporations. Together, respondents act as employers of those employees working at the Pittsburgh Garage of the Pennsylvania Company and together actively deal with labor relations of those employees.

Upon charges filed by Local Division No. 1063, Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America, a labor organization, the Board issued its complaint, as permitted by section 10(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(b), charging that respondents had engaged in specified unfair labor practices affecting interstate commerce, in violation of section 8, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158. After notice to respondents, and hearing, the Board found that they had engaged in unfair labor practices by interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of their rights, guaranteed by section 7, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157, in that they had dominated and interfered with the formation and administration of a labor organization of their employees, employees Association of the Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., and had contributed financial and other support to it in violation of section 8(1), (2), 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(1, 2).

The Board ordered that respondents cease each of the specified unfair labor practices. It further ordered that they withdraw recognition from the Employees Association as employee representative authorized to deal with respondents concerning grievances, terms of employment, and labor disputes, and that they post conspicuous notices in all the places of business where such employees are en- gaged, stating that the 'Association is so disestablished and that respondents will refrain from any such recognition thereof.' 1 N.L.R.B. 1.

Upon the Board's petition under section 10(e), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e), to enforce the order, heard April 1, 1936, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit gave judgment after a delay of one year and two months, during which there were three postponements and two rearguments. It struck from the order all provisions requiring the withdrawal by respondents of recognition of the Employees Association and publication of notice of withdrawal, and directed that in other respects the Board's order be enforced. 3 Cir., 91 F.2d 178. The court thought that the Board was without authority to order the employers to withhold recognition from the Association, without notice to it and opportunity for a hearing, and without an election by the employees to choose a labor organization to represent them. We granted certiorari, 302 U.S. 676, 58 S.Ct. 139, 82 L.Ed. —-, the questions involved being of importance in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.

Respondents do not assail the Board's findings of fact as without support in the evidence, and the principal questions for decision are of law, whether in the circumstances disclosed by the findings the Board acted within the authority conferred upon it by sections 7, 8, and 10 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 157, 158, 160.

Section 7 provides: 'Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.'

Section 8 declares:

'It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—

'(1) To interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7 (section 157 of this title).

'(2) To dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it.'

By section 10(b), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(b) the Board is given authority to hear complaints of unfair labor practices upon evidence; and section 10(c)1 directs that when the Board finds that any person has engaged in unfair labor practices it 'shall issue and cause to be served on such person an order requiring such person to cease and desist from such unfair labor practice, and to take such affirmative action * * * as will effectuate the policies of this Act (chapter).'

Notwithstanding the mandatory form of section 10(c), its provisions in substance lease to the Board some scope for the exercise of judgment and discretion in determining, upon the basis of the findings, whether the case is one requiring an affirmative order, and in choosing the particular affirmative relief to be ordered. Hence, upon the challenge of the affirmative part of an order of the Board, we look to the Act itself, read in the light of its history, to ascertain its policy, and to the facts which the Board has found, to see whether they afford a basis for its judgment that the action ordered is an appropriate means of carrying out that policy.

The history of the Act and its language show that its ruling purpose was to protect interstate commerce by securing to employees the rights established by section 7, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157, to organize, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for that and other purposes. National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 23, 33, 57 S.Ct. 615, 617, 622, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352. This appears both from the formal declaration of policy in § 1 of the Act, National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., supra, 301 U.S. 1, at pages 22—24, 57 S.Ct. 615, 617, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352, and from section 7, in itself a declaration of the policy which, in conjunction with section 10(c), it adopts as the controlling guide to administrative action.

Before enactment of the National Labor Relations Act this Court had recognized that the maintenance of a 'company union,' dominated by the employer, may be a ready and effective means of obstructing self-organization of employees and their choice of their own representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining. Section 2(3) of the Railway Labor Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 577, had provided that representatives, for the purposes of the Act, should be designated by employer and employees 'without interference, influence, or coercion exercised by either party over the self-organization or designation of representatives by the other.' We had held that in enforcing this provision, employer recognition of a company union might be enjoined and the union 'disestablished,' as an appropriate means of preventing interference with the rights secured to employees by the statute. Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railway & Steamship Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 560, 50 S.Ct. 427, 430, 74 L.Ed. 1034; see, also, Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 542 et seq., 57 S.Ct. 592, 596, 81 L.Ed. 789.

Congress, in enacting the National Labor Relations Act, had in mind the experience in the administration of the Railway Labor Act, and declared that the former was 'an amplification and further clarification of the principles' of the latter. Report of the House Committee on Labor, H.R. 1147, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3. It had before it the Railway Clerks Case which had emphasized the importance of union recognition in securing collective bargaining, Report of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, S.Rep. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 17, and there were then available data showing that once an employer has conferred recognition on a particular organization it has a marked advantage over any other in securing the adherence of employees, and hence in preventing the recognition of any other.2 The National Labor Relations Act continued and amplified the policy of the Railway Labor Act by its declaration in section 7, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157, and by providing generally in section 8, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158, that any interferences in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by section 7 and specifically the domination or interference with the formation or administration of any labor organization were unfair labor practices. To secure to employees the benefits of self-organization and collective bargaining through representatives of the employees' own choosing, the Board was authorized by section 10(c), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(c), to order the abandonment of unfair labor practices and to take affirmative action which would carry out the policy of the Act.

In recommending the adoption of this latter provision the Senate Committee called attention to the decree which, in the Railway Clerks Case, had compelled the employer to 'diseastablish its company union as representative of its employees.' Report of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, supra. The report of the House Committee on Labor on this feature of the Act, after pointing out...

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