Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Rychlik

• Citation: 77 S.Ct. 421,352 U.S. 480,1 L.Ed.2d 480
• Decision Date: 25 February 1957
• Docket Number: No. 56,56
• Parties: PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY and Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Petitioners, v. N. P. RYCHLIK, Individually and on Behalf of and as Representative of Other Employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

352 U.S. 480

77 S.Ct. 421

1 L.Ed.2d 480

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY and Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Petitioners,

v N. P. RYCHLIK, Individually and on Behalf of and as Representative of Other Employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

No. 56.

Argued Dec. 10, 1956.

Decided Feb. 25, 1957.

Mr. Richard N. Clattenburg, Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioner, Pennsylvania Railroad.

Mr. Henry Kaiser, Washington, D.C., for petitioner, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.

Messrs. Norman M. Spindelman and Meyer Fix, Rochester, N.Y., for the respondent.

Mr. Justice HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen is the collective bargaining representative for trainment employed by the petitioner Railroad. In accordance with Section 2, Eleventh (a) and (c) of the Railway Labor Act,¹ the Brotherhood and the Railroad negotiated a union-shop contract in 1952, which required trainment employed by the Railroad to become members of and retain membership in the Brotherhood or in another labor organization 'national in scope' and 'organized in accordance with' the Railway Labor Act. Respondent Rychlik was employed as a trainman by the Railroad and was a member in good standing of the Brotherhood until February 1953. At that time he resigned from the Brotherhood and joined the United Railroad Operating Crafts (UROC), a competing union which respondent believed in good faith to be 'national in scope' and 'organized in accordance with' the Act, and therefore available for alternative membership under Section 2, Eleventh and the union-shop provision of the contract, even though UROC had never qualified itself under Section 3, First of the Act as one of the unions 'national in scope' eligible to elect the labor members of the National Railroad Adjustment Board.² On July 31, 1954, Rychlik, continuing his membership in UROC, also joined the Switchmen's Union of North America, concededly a union 'national in scope' within the meaning of the statute and the contract.

Following his resignation from the Brotherhood, Rychlik was charged with violation of the union-shop agreement. He received two hearings before a 'System Board of Adjustment,' a body established under the agreement, pursuant to Section 3, Second of the Act,³ to settle contract disputes, and composed of two representa- tives each from the Failroad and the Brotherhood.⁴ This Board determined that membership in UROC did not satisfy the union-shop provision of the contract, which mirrored the requirements of the Act, and that therefore Rychlike had failed to maintain continuous union membership in accordance with the contract, not having joined the Switchmen's Union until some 16 months after resigning from the Brotherhood. Accordingly, Rychlik was discharged by the Railroad.

Rychlik, on behalf of himself and other employees of the Railroad similarly situated, thereupon brought this class suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, seeking an injunction compelling petitioners to accept him as a member of the Brotherhood and an employee of the Railroad. He alleged that his discharge violated Section 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, and that the System Board's determination to the contrary could not be final and binding, since the presence on that Board of two representatives of the Brotherhood created an inherent and fatal bias which vitiated the proceeding. The District Court granted petitioners' motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction and for failure to state a cause of action.⁵ The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded for review on the merits of the System Board's decision that membership in UROC did not satisfy the Act.⁶ Accepting the premise that Section 2, Eleventh (c) conferred on respondent a right to belong to any union which is, in fact, 'national in scope' and organized in accordance with the Railway Labor Act, even though it has not qualified under Section 3, First of the Act as an elector of labor representatives on the National Railroad Adjustment Board,⁷ the court held (1) that, although the System Board had jurisdiction over this dispute between Rychlik and the Brotherhood,⁸ its decision that UROC was not a union 'national in scope' was subject to full review on the merits, because of the bias which must be attributed to a body half of whose members represented the Brotherhood, a party in interest; and (2) that this bias was not cured by the availability of the alternative procedure provided by Section 3, First of the Act, whereby it can be established that a union is 'national in scope' and organized in accordance with the Act.⁹ Because of a conflict be- tween the decision of the court below and an earlier decision of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit,¹⁰ and the importance of these questions in the administration of the Railway Labor Act, we granted certiorari. 351 U.S. 930, 76 S.Ct. 789, 100 L.Ed. 1459.

On our view of the case we do not reach either question decided by the Court of Appeals, for we disagree with its premise as to the meaning of Section 2, Eleventh (c). For reasons hereafter given, we hold that Section 2, Eleventh (c) allows alternative union membership only in those unions which have already qualified under Section 3, First of the Act, as electors of the union representatives on the National Railroad Adjustment Board, and not membership in any union which happens to be, as a matter of fact, national in scope and organized in accordance with the Railway Labor Act. Since UROC was not so qualified, respondent had no federal right to join it in lieu of the authorized bargaining representative under the union-shop provision of the Railroad-Brotherhood contract. His discharge by petitioners therefore did not give rise to a federal cause of action.¹¹

In order to clarify the reasons for these conclusions, a brief outline of the relevant provisions of the Railway Labor Act is necessary. Section 2, Eleventh (a) of that Act authorizes railroads and labor unions to establish a union shop, that is, an agreement requiring as a condition of continued employment that employees join the union designated as their authorized bargaining representative.¹² Section 2, Eleventh (c) then provides that in the case of operating employees the union-shop provision of a contract will be satisfied if an employee is a member of 'any one of the labor organizations, national in scope, organized in accordance with this Act and admitting to membership employees of a craft or class in any of said services * * *.'¹³

Section 3, First establishes the National Railroad Adjustment Board (NRAB), an agency designed to settle disputes arising under collective bargaining agreements. Subsection (a) provides that this Board shall consist of 36 members, 18 selected by the carriers, and 18 'by such labor organization of the employees, national in scope, as have been or may be organized in accordance with the provisions of section 2 * * *.'¹⁴ Subsection (f) then states that if a dispute arises as to the right of a union to participate in the election of the labor representatives on the NRAB, the Secretary of Labor will notify the Mediation Board if he feels the claim has merit.¹⁵ The Mediation Board then constitutes a 'board of three,' consisting of one representative of the claimant union, one representative of the unions already entitled to elect the labor members of the NRAB, and one neutral member selected by the Mediation Board. This board of three then decides whether the claimant union is entitled to be an elector for the NRAB, that is, whether it is 'organized in accordance with section 2 * * * and is otherwise properly qualified to participate in the selection * * *.'¹⁶

At first glance the language of Section 2, Eleventh (c) would appear to be disarmingly clear: union-shop contracts are satisfied if the employee belongs to any union which happens to be national in scope and organized in accordance with the Act. And if that be its meaning we would then have to deal with the questions reached by the Court of Appeals. However, as so often happens, when the language of the statute is read, not in a vacuum, but in the light of the policies this Section was intended to serve,¹⁷ it becomes clear that the purpose of Congress was not, as respondent contends, to give employees in the railroad industry any blanket right to join unions other than the authorized bargaining representative, or to help dissident or rising new unions recruit new members. Rather, the sole aim of the provision was to protect employees from the requirement of dual unionism in an industry with high job mobility, and thus to confer on qualified craft unions the right to assure members employment security, even if a member should be working temporarily in a craft for which another union is the bargaining representative. And this right is given only to those unions which have already qualified as being 'national in scope' and 'organized in accordance with' the Act for the purpose of electing the union members of the NRAB under Section 3.

I.

The purposes to be served by Section 2 are clearly revealed by its history. Until 1951 the Railway Labor Act did not permit union-shop contracts in the industry.¹⁸ In that year the Congress, persuaded by the established unions that it is unfair to allow nonunion employees to enjoy benefits obtained by the union's efforts in collective bargaining without paying any of the costs, passed Section 2, Eleventh of the Act, which authorized the union shop.¹⁹ However, the hearings on the bill²⁰ revealed a problem, peculiar to the railroad industry, in establishing the union shop. Labor in this industry is organized largely on craft rather than industrial lines. Engineers, firemen, trainmen, switchmen, brakemen, and conductors, for example, each are separately organized for the purposes of bargaining. And normally different unions represent different crafts;...