Trans Intern. Airlines, Inc. v. International Broth. of Teamsters
| Decision Date | 14 February 1980 |
| Docket Number | 77-3363,78-1148 and 78-1232,77-3395,77-3781,AFL-CI,Nos. 77-3362,D,s. 77-3362 |
| Citation | 650 F.2d 949 |
| Parties | 103 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2669, 104 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2619, 104 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3142, 88 Lab.Cas. P 11,842, 89 Lab.Cas. P 12,270 TRANS INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES, INC., Plaintiff-Cross-Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, etc., Airline Division Teamster Local 2707; Marvin G. Griswold; Teamster Local 732, Defendants-Cross-Appellees. TRANS INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, et al., Airline Division, Teamsters Local 2707, and Air Line Pilots Association, International,efendants- Appellants/Cross Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Charles Kelso, Fisher & Phillips, Atlanta, Ga., argued, Robert W. Ashmore, Atlanta, Ga., Robert T. Fries, Steinhart, Falconer & Morgenstein, San Francisco, Cal., on brief, for plaintiff-cross-appellant.
Roland P. Wilder, Washington, D. C., argued, Robert S. Savelson, New York City, Robert M. Baptiste, Kenneth N. Silbert, Brundage, Beeson, Tayer & Kovach, San Francisco, Cal., Washington, D. C., on brief, for defendants-cross-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Before GOODWIN, WALLACE, and KENNEDY, Circuit Judges.
This case requires a determination, among other matters, of the extent to which the anti-injunction mandate of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 101 et The contract negotiations between the Teamsters and the company, and the subsequent strikes, have the following history. TIA and the flight attendants were parties to a collective bargaining agreement for the period July 21, 1974, to April 1, 1976. The agreement contained a general no-strike clause, effective "during the term of this agreement." At the heart of the dispute over the legality of the primary strike lie further contract provisions, by which the parties agreed there would be no strikes against military flights and that this clause was effective "after the expiration of this agreement and/or during and after procedures of the Railway Labor Act have been exhausted . . . ." 3 In February of 1976 the Teamsters, acting for the flight attendants, served a notice of intent to amend the agreement. Under the Railway Labor Act this is a section 6 notice, which signals the union's intent to negotiate a new employment agreement. 45 U.S.C. § 156. The contract expiration date (April 1, 1976) arrived without the parties having reached accord. Pursuant to the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, the agreement remained in force during the dispute resolution procedures set in motion by the section 6 notice. See id. Further negotiations between the parties produced no agreement The union refused voluntary arbitration, the mediator withdrew, and after expiration of the statutory 30-day cooling off period expired at midnight, September 7, 1977, the flight attendants struck all flights. TIA's flight engineers and pilots, in a sympathy strike, honored the flight attendants' primary strike and refused to cross the picket line.
seq., is applicable to common carriers and collective bargaining units subject to and regulated by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. §§ 151 et seq. 1 The RLA extends to airlines, 45 U.S.C. §§ 181-188, and Trans International Airlines (TIA), a principal party in this case, is one of the nation's largest supplemental air carriers. On November 30, 1976, TIA merged with Saturn Airways. The company operates separate flights for military and civilian carriage, transporting passengers and freight on both kinds of flights. At issue are two strikes against TIA, a primary strike by TIA's flight attendants and a sympathy strike by its flight engineers and pilots. At the time of the events in question both the flight attendants and the engineers are represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Airline Division (Teamsters). TIA's pilots are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which also represented the premerger Saturn pilots. 2 The company obtained federal injunctive relief prohibiting both strikes to the extent they were directed to military flights, but the district court did not enjoin the strikes against civilian flights. Both the company and the affected Teamsters unions appeal from the rulings and a mediator was assigned by the National Mediation Board on August 19, 1976.
TIA applied to the district court for an order prohibiting these groups of employees from striking. The district court ultimately granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the flight attendants from striking TIA's military flights, but denied an injunction prohibiting flight attendants from striking TIA's other operations. A similar injunction was issued against the flight engineers and pilots, enjoining the sympathy strike as to military flights only.
In this court, the Teamsters moved to stay the military strike injunctions, and TIA moved for temporary injunctive relief pending decision of the appeal. Oral argument on these motions was heard by this panel. In addition to the motions for preliminary relief, the principal appeal from the district court's preliminary injunctions is pending before this circuit. Further, TIA and ALPA have filed separate appeals. Some of the issues raised in these appeals were not argued in the parties' motions for interim relief. Concluding, however, that further oral argument in these cases is unnecessary, these appeals, Nos. 77-3362, 77-3363, 77-3395, 77-3781, 78-1148 & 78-1232 are considered submitted to this panel on the date of filing of this opinion, and their disposition is controlled by this opinion.
In general, three contentions are advanced by the parties. First, quite apart from the argument that federal courts are prohibited by statute from enjoining the strikes, the Teamsters contend that TIA was not entitled to seek a preliminary injunction because the company's actions during the strike were so unfair that the company had unclean hands. In summary, the Teamsters claimed that TIA improperly stranded flight attendants at foreign ports; hired replacements; expanded the number of military flights (which the district court had enjoined the flight attendants, engineers and pilots from striking); terminated pilots for refusal to fly commercial planes or for other carriers; refused sick pay and monthly guarantees to strikers; and violated seniority rights in the selection of pilots for the military flights.
Second, TIA argues that the Teamsters' conduct during the course of the major disputes mediation procedures violated section 152 First of the RLA, which requires parties "to exert every reasonable effort to make" a collective bargaining agreement. If that were so, there would be authority to enjoin the strike and require the Teamsters to return to the bargaining table. See Chicago & N. W. Ry. v. United Transportation Union, 402 U.S. 570, 91 S.Ct. 1731, 29 L.Ed.2d 187 (1971). The principal bases of TIA's claim are (1) that the Teamsters, in the process of negotiating the integration of the premerger Saturn and TIA flight attendant agreements, more than doubled the number of proposals on the bargaining table by requesting approximately 200 contract changes after a year of negotiations and six months prior to the strike, and (2) that the cost of the Teamsters' initial proposal for flight attendants exceeded 250% of TIA's then-present payroll costs for TIA flight attendants, and its proposals after mediation by the National Mediation Board exceeded 200% of TIA's total company-wide profits for 1976 and represented a 294.6% increase in flight attendant payroll costs.
Finally, even if enjoining the Teamsters' strike was not proper because of the union's bargaining tactics, TIA contends an injunction against strikes of military flights was proper because, among other reasons, the various groups of employees had promised not to strike TIA's military operations, even after bargaining under the RLA's disputes resolution procedures had been exhausted, and that an injunction against the sympathy strikes was proper pending minor dispute arbitration of the legality of the strikes.
The strikes which were the subject of this lawsuit have been settled, and a new collective bargaining agreement was signed on January 12, 1978. 4 We must first decide whether this appeal is now moot.
We hold these appeals are not moot, primarily because resolution of the issues presented is crucial to deciding a substantial pending claim for damages sought by TIA against the Teamsters. The district court's preliminary injunctions were entered on September 26, 1977, and September 28, 1977. On October 26, 1977, the district court entered a further order in which it rejected the Teamsters' and ALPA's claim that TIA had "unclean hands" and thus was not entitled to the injunctions. This order formed the basis for appeals number 78-1148 and 78-1232. The Teamsters continued to urge employees to strike military flights. On November 1, 1977, the Teamsters were adjudicated in contempt of the district court's orders. TIA alleges its military operations were virtually shut down by striking flight attendants and flight engineers, causing TIA approximately $400,000 in compensatory damages which it still seeks to recover from the Teamsters. The matter of compensatory fines was stayed by the district court on January 24, 1978, "pending the results of the appeals before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in TIA v. Teamsters, Nos. 77-3362/3363/ 3395/3781."
Thus, the right of TIA to recover its alleged damages and the extent of recovery will be controlled, in part, by resolution of the overriding issue in these appeals: whether TIA was entitled to injunctive relief against either the primary or...
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