Piedmont Aviation, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n, Internat'l

• Decision Date: 29 September 1969
• Docket Number: No. 13824.,13824.
• Citation: 416 F.2d 633
• Parties: PIEDMONT AVIATION, INC., a corporation, Appellee, v. AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL, an unincorporated association, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

416 F.2d 633 (1969)

PIEDMONT AVIATION, INC., a corporation, Appellee, v. AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL, an unincorporated association, Appellant.

No. 13824.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued August 27, 1969.

Decided September 29, 1969.

Robert S. Savelson, New York City, (Frank M. Aiello, Lawrence Rosenstock, Cohen & Weiss, New York City, Charles T. Boyd, York, Boyd & Flynn, Greensboro, N. C., on brief) for appellant.

J. W. Alexander, Jr., Charlotte, N. C. (Brown Hill Boswell, Ernest W. Machen, Jr., and Blakeney, Alexander & Machen, Charlotte, N. C., on brief) for appellee.

W. A. Dickinson, Roanoke, Va., (Hazlegrove, Carr, Dickinson, Smith & Rea, Roanoke, Va., and J. N. Kincanon, City Atty., on brief) for the City of Roanoke, amicus curiae.

Before WINTER, CRAVEN, and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges.

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge:

Against a background of charges and countercharges that each side had failed to utilize the conciliatory procedures of the Railway Labor Act, the district court, on motion of Piedmont Aviation, Inc., granted an interlocutory injunction restraining its pilots from continuing a strike. With modifications to the order which are designed to maintain conditions that existed before the strike, we affirm the district court.

The airline and the union representing the pilots, Air Line Pilots Association, International, executed a collective bargaining agreement on July 24, 1968 that settled all terms and conditions of employment except the size of the crew flying Boeing 737 jets. The union, trying to implement a bylaw it adopted in 1966, insisted on three-man crews.¹ The company resisted, relying upon the Federal Aviation Administration's 1967 certification of the B-737 for operation by two-man crews.

After a number of fruitless bargaining sessions, the parties agreed to operate with three-man crews pending arbitration of a similar controversy with United Airlines. When the results of this arbitration failed to resolve the impasse at Piedmont, the parties continued three-man operation and reopened bargaining negotiations. Again the parties failed to reach agreement, and mediation was unsuccessful. Finally, on June 6, 1969, the National Mediation Board proffered arbitration. The company refused, and the union did not respond.

The company then announced that it would fly the B-737 with two-man crews, and the union sought, but was denied, an interlocutory injunction against this in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.² When the company attempted to operate with two pilots on July 21, 1969, the union struck, and two weeks later the company applied for an interlocutory injunction against the strike. Both parties claim they are engaged in a major dispute under the Railway Labor Act.³ The company, seeking to avoid application of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, contends that the union violated the Railway Labor Act by failing to bargain in good faith. The union, in addition to denying this allegation, asserts that the company's refusal to arbitrate bars relief. The district court granted a preliminary injunction against the strike; we denied a stay and accelerated this interlocutory appeal.

The parties recognize that they are subject to the Railway Labor Act. 45 U.S.C. §§ 181 and 182. The heart of this Act, as Mr. Justice Harlan observed in Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369, 377, 89 S.Ct. 1109, 22 L.Ed.2d 344 (1969), is the duty imposed upon labor and management to exert every reasonable effort to make collective bargaining agreements and to settle their disputes so commerce will not be interrupted. 45 U.S.C. § 152, First. The Act calls upon the parties to decide their disputes, if possible, by negotiations. 45 U.S.C. § 152, Second. If the parties' conferences fail to solve their differences, the Act prescribes mediation, and if this is unsuccessful, the mediator must endeavor to induce the parties to submit their controversy to voluntary arbitration. 45 U.S.C. § 155, First.⁴ Until the procedures required by the Act have been met, neither party can unilaterally change the working conditions or practices in effect prior to the time the dispute arose. 45 U.S.C. §§ 152, Seventh; 155, First; and 156.

The Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 101-115,⁵ denies a federal court jurisdiction to enjoin a peaceful strike. We conclude, however, that the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not bar an interlocutory injunction in this case. In Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen v. Chicago R. & I. R.R., 353 U.S. 30, 77 S.Ct. 635, 1 L.Ed.2d 622 (1957), the Court found that the purposes of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and the Railway Labor Act were reconcilable, and it held that there must be an accommodation of the Acts so that the purpose of each is preserved. There the Court sanctioned an injunction against a strike over a minor dispute that was pending before the National Railroad Adjustment Board. Although the Railway Labor Act makes no provision for submission of major disputes to the Adjustment Board, the principles underlying the case are applicable here. Whether the dispute be major or minor, the Act requires the parties to confer and negotiate in good faith. Restraining the parties from self-help, through strikes or otherwise, until they have complied with the duty to bargain in good faith vindicates the congressional purpose of providing machinery to prevent strikes without creating an irreconcilable conflict with the Norris-LaGuardia Act. Restraint conditioned in this respect does not deny the right to strike over a major dispute; but it delays this right until the union satisfies the mandate of the Railway Labor Act.⁶ Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Chicago & N.W. Ry., 362 U.S. 330, 80 S.Ct. 761, 4 L.Ed.2d 774 (1960), which denied an injunction against a strike over a major dispute, is not controlling here. There the Court expressly noted 362 U.S. at 339, 80 S.Ct. 761 that the union's efforts to negotiate complied with the Act.

On this appeal, aside from determining whether the district court had jurisdiction, our consideration is limited to deciding whether it abused its discretion in granting the interlocutory injunction. Flight Engineers Int'l Ass'n v. American Airlines, Inc., 303 F.2d 5, 11 (5th Cir. 1962); Meiselman v. Paramount Film Distrib. Corp., 180 F.2d 94, 97 (4th Cir. 1950). The district judge found that at numerous meetings the company sought to bargain with the union over the crew complement, but he described the union as having a "mandatory policy" on this issue. He concluded that this raised questions of law and fact justifying a temporary injunction pending trial of the case. We construe these findings and conclusions as a ruling that the union failed to negotiate in good faith as required by the Railway Labor Act.

In Flight Engineers Int'l Ass'n v. American Airlines, Inc., 303 F.2d 5, 11 (5th Cir. 1962), Judge Brown defined the classic office of a preliminary injunction:

"To preserve the status quo pending a judicious, calm and orderly judicial determination of a justiciable problem * * * So much so is it that on review of such an interlocutory order, we do not examine into the merits as such. The probable merits are looked to only insofar as they bear on the question whether the trial Court abused its discretion in granting interim relief."

On the record before us we cannot say that the district judge's findings are clearly erroneous or that he abused his discretion in granting a temporary injunction. Piedmont introduced evidence that the union would not bargain for a crew of less than three men because its bylaw forbade bargaining over that subject.⁷ The bylaw does not in itself prove lack of good faith bargaining. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. v. Switchmen's Union, 292 F.2d 61, 67 (2d Cir. 1961), cert. denied, 370 U.S. 936, 82 S.Ct. 1578, 8 L.Ed.2d 806 (1962). But use of the bylaw as a reason for refusal to bargain on the issue of crew complement, in the face of the Federal Aviation Administration's certification of the B-737 for two-man crews, is not consistent with the Railway Labor Act's provisions requiring the parties "to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning * * * working conditions, and to settle all disputes * * * in order to avoid any interruption of commerce." 45 U.S.C. § 152, First. See Elgin, J. & E. Ry. v. Burley, 325 U.S. 711, 721 n. 12, 65 S.Ct. 1289, 89 L.Ed. 1886 (1945); American Airlines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n Int'l, 169 F.Supp. 777, 793 (S.D.N.Y.1958).

At the trial on the merits for a permanent injunction the details of each bargaining session will be more fully developed by examination and cross-examination of the participants. From this the district judge will be in a position to make more definite findings of the historical facts. Consequently, what we have said is not intended to anticipate the outcome of the hearing for a permanent injunction. If that trial fails to establish lack of good faith bargaining, the injunction against the strike should be dissolved. Implicit in the Railway Labor Act is the right of employees to strike over a major dispute after the proceedings required by the Act have been exhausted. Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369, 378, 89 S.Ct. 1109, 22 L.Ed.2d 344 (1969). And even if the trial discloses a lack of good faith bargaining, the injunction must not be a permanent bar to the strike. Provision should be made for its dissolution, whether or not agreement is reached, when the union complies with the Act. The union — no less than the company — has the right to resort to self-help when proceedings under the Act have been exhausted.

Piedmont's refusal of the National Mediation Board's proffer of arbitration denies the company an unqualified right to an injunction against the strike. In Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen v. Toledo, P. & W. R.R., 321 U.S. 50, 64 S.Ct. 413, 88 L.Ed. 534 (1944), the...