Syllabus.

VIRGINIAN RAILWAY CO. v. SYSTEM FEDERATION NO. 40, RAILWAY EMPLOYEES DEPARTMENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE

FOURTH CIRCUIT.

No. 324. Argued February 8, 9, 1937.-Decided March 29, 1937.

1. Concurrent findings of fact, by district court and circuit court of

appeals, are conclusive when not plainly erroneous. Pp. 542–545. 2. The amended Railway Labor Act seeks to avoid interruptions of

interstate commerce resulting from disputes concerning pay, rules, or working conditions on the railroads, by the promotion of collective bargaining between the carrier and the authorized representative of its employees, and by mediation and arbitration when such bargaining does not result in agreement. To facilitate agreement, it gives to employees the right to organize and bargain collectively through a representative of their own selection, doing away with company interference and “company unions." Section 2, Ninth, makes it the duty of the National Mediation Board, when any dispute arises among a carrier's employees "as to who are the representatives of such employees," to investigate the dispute and to certify the name of the organization authorized to represent the employees; and it commands that “Upon receipt of such certification the carrier shall treat with the representative so certified as the representative of the craft or class for the purposes of this Act." Held:

(1) That the duty to "treat” with the representative so certified is mandatory. P. 547.

(2) The statute does not undertake to compel agreement and does not preclude the employer from entering into individual contracts directly with individual employees, but it requires the employer to “treat with” the authorized representative of the employees, that is, to meet and confer with their representative, to listen to their complaints, and to make reasonable effort to compose differences. P. 548.

(3) The duty is to treat with the authorized representative exclusively. P. 548.

(4) This duty is enforceable by injunction. P. 549.

3. A court of equity may refuse to act when it cannot give effective

relief; but whether a decree should be refused as useless is a matter of judgment addressed to the special circumstances of each case.

P. 550. 4. In determining whether the duty of a carrier to treat with the

authorized representative of its employees is enforceable by mandatory injunction, weight is attached to the judgment of Congress that conference between carriers and employees is a powerful aid to industrial peace; and it will not be assumed that such negotiation will not result in agreement or lead to successful

mediation or arbitration. P. 551. 5. The peaceable settlement of labor controversies that may seriously

impair the ability of an interstate carrier to perform its service to

the public, is a matter of public concern. P. 552. 6. Courts of equity go much farther in furtherance of the public

interest than when only private interests are involved. P. 552. 7. The fact that, by the Railway Labor Act, Congress has indicated

its purpose to make negotiation between carrier and employees obligatory in case of industrial controversy, is in itself a declara

tion of public interest and policy. P. 552. 8. The power of Congress over interstate commerce extends to such

regulations of the relations of rail carriers to their employees as are reasonably calculated to prevent the interruption of interstate

commerce by strikes and their attendant disorders. P. 553. 9. It was for Congress to choose the means by which its objective

of securing the uninterrupted service of interstate railroads was to be secured, and its judgment, expressed in the Railway Labor Act and confirmed by the history of industrial disputes and of railroad

labor relations, is not open to review here. P. 553. 10. The activities of "back shop" employees engaged on heavy repairs

on locomotives and cars withdrawn from service for long periods, are held to bear such relation to the interstate activities of the carrier as to be regarded as part of them—(Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 463, distinguished)-all subject to the power of

Congress over interstate commerce. P. 554. 11. Although the carrier in this case might have turned over its

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Statement of the Case.

the authorized representative of its employees for the purpose of negotiating a labor dispute, do not infringe the rights of the carrier

under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. P. 557. 13. In this regard, the Railway could complain only of infringement

of its own constitutional immunity, not that of the employees.

P. 558. 14. Under $ 2, Fourth, of the Railway Labor Act, at an election

participated in by a majority of the employees entitled to vote, the vote of a majority of the participants determines the choice

of representative. P. 559. 15. A certificate of the National Mediation Board, certifying, in

conformity with the Railway Labor Act, that as the result of an election a specified union has been designated to represent a craft of employees, and showing on its face the total number of votes cast in favor of each candidate, is not void because it fails to state the total number of eligible voters in the craft, but is prima facie sufficient, and the omitted fact is open to inquiry by the court asked to enforce the command of the statute, § 2, Ninth.

P. 561. 16. Section 9 of the Act of March 23, 1932, c. 90, 47 Stat. 70,

which provides that "every restraining order or injunction granted in a case involving or growing out of a labor dispute shall include only a prohibition of such specific act or acts as may be expressly complained of in the bill of complaint or petition filed in such case and as shall be expressly included in ... findings of fact made and filed by the court,” is not inconsistent with the

mandatory injunction in this case. P. 562. 17. Specific provisions of a later Act cannot be rendered nugatory

by more general provisions of an earlier Act. P. 563. 84 F. (2d) 641, affirmed. D. C., 11 F. Supp. 621.

CERTIORARI, 299 U. S. 529, to review the affirmance of a decree rendered by the District Court against the Railway Company in a suit by the Federation. The decree commanded the Company to treat with the Federation as the duly accredited representative of the. Company's shop craft employees, in respect of pay, working conditions, etc., and restrained the Company from interfering with, influencing, or coercing such employees in their free choice of their representatives, etc.

Argument for Petitioner.

300 U.S.

a

Mr. James Piper opened, and Mr. H. T. Hall concluded. the argument for petitioner. Messrs. W. H. T. Loyall and John C. Donnally were also on the petitioner's brief from which the following summary is taken.

Section 2, Ninth, of the Act was not meant to impose a legally enforceable obligation to negotiate. In requiring the Railway to "exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements," etc., the decree uses the very words of $ 2, First, of the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which was continued by the 1934 amendments without change. The court below held “treat with” in § 2, Ninth, to mean “negotiate with,” and presumably this portion of the decree was upheld as a definition of the negotiations the Railway was required to undertake. But in Malone v. Gardner, 62 F. (20) 15, 18-20, the same court held § 2, First, of the Act to be a general admonition or declaration of duty imposing no enforceable obligation, citing Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Railway Clerks, 281 U. S. 548, and Pennsylvania Railroad System v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 267 U. S. 203. The two decisions of the court below are irreconcilable. It rests the authority to award such a mandatory injunction, not upon any change in § 2, First, but solely upon the addition to the Act of the provision in § 2, Ninth, requiring carriers to "treat with” representatives certified, etc. In other words, it holds, in effect, that an admittedly unenforceable duty “to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements" has been transformed into a legally enforceable one by the mere addition to the statute of this requirement to “treat with” representatives. It seems to have felt that a direction to negotiate for specified purposes ($ 2, First), legally unenforceable, was made legally enforceable by the addition to the statute of (what it construed to be) a direction to “negotiate” for any of the purposes of the Act ($ 2, Ninth).

Congress did not intend to make any such change in the law, and did not use “treat with” in the sense of “nego

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Argument for Petitioner.

tiate with,” but in its very usual sense of "act towards” or “regard." The duty is to treat with the certified representative was the representative of the craft or class.” If Congress had used "treat with” in the sense of “negotiate with” it would not have included this quoted phrase.

The essential characteristic of the Railway Labor Act of 1926 was that it provided a voluntary scheme for the adjustment of the relations between carriers and their employees. Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Railway Clerks, 281 U. S. 548, 569. The purpose of Congress in adding $ 2, Ninth, is apparent from the report of the Committee of the House accompanying H. R. 9861, the bill which enacted the 1934 amendments to the Railway Labor Act. Section 2, Ninth, was to provide machinery for determining the representative of employees in cases of disputes between them on that subject.

The requirement that the carrier shall “treat” means only that, after such a dispute and a certification by the Board, if the carrier desires to deal with a representative of the craft or class involved, it must treat with the person or organization found by the Board to be the authorized representative, as the authorized representative, and not with someone else. It does not mean that as a consequence of a dispute and certification (but not otherwise) the carrier is under a legally enforceable obligation to ne

a gotiate with a representative of its employees. To so hold is not only to ignore the “voluntary scheme" of the Act which the Chief Justice in the Texas & N. 0. R. Co. case said was its "essence," but to impute to Congress the unlikely intention of creating a duty on the part of the carrier to negotiate with a representative of its employees enforceable when, but only when, its employees have had a dispute as to who that representative shall be:

Even if Congress used the phrase "treat with” in the sense of “negotiate with,” it is obvious that it did not intend thereby to create a legally enforceable obligation to negotiate.