Burlington Northern Railroad v. Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes

delivered the opinion of the Court.

What began as a dispute over renewal of a collective-bargaining agreement between a small railroad in Maine and some of its employees expanded to picketing and threats of strike activity at railroad facilities around the country. A Federal District Court then enjoined the picketing of any railroads other than those involved in the primary dispute. The question we must decide is whether a federal court has jurisdiction to issue such an injunction.

Respondent Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWE) represents railroad employees nationwide. Its members include employees of the Maine Central Railroad and the Portland Terminal Company, subsidiaries of Guilford Transportation Industries, Inc. (Guilford). Guil-ford also owns two other railroads, the Delaware Hudson Railway Company, and the Boston and Maine Corporation. The Guilford system covers some 4,000 miles of track in the northeast United States, east from Buffalo to Maine, and north from Washington, D. C., to Montreal. The Guilford system is not as large, however, as some other railroads, and Guilford depends on other railroads to carry much of its traffic.

The crux of the dispute between Maine Central and BMWE was Maine Central’s decision, following its acquisition by Guilford in 1981, to abolish over a 5-year period the jobs of roughly 300 out of 400 employees represented by BMWE. The collective-bargaining agreement between BMWE and Maine Central expired in 1984, before the parties were able to reach agreement either on the problem of job losses or on various questions of wages, hours, and working conditions. A dispute “over the formation of collective agreements or efforts to secure them” is a “major dispute” in the parlance of railway labor law, Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711 , 723 (1945), and is governed by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 44 Stat. 577 , as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. For over a year, the parties attempted to reach a settlement by following the detailed settlement procedures mandated by the RLA. On March 3, 1986, having exhausted these procedures, BMWE began a lawful strike against Maine Central and Portland Terminal. Two days later, BMWE lawfully extended the strike to Guilford’s other two railroad subsidiaries.^[1]

In early April, BMWE decided to extend its strike beyond Guilford’s subsidiaries. It first attempted to picket other railroads in the east with which Guilford interchanged a significant volume of traffic. This picketing was enjoined by two federal-court orders.^[2] On April 8, 1986, BMWE notified the president of the American Association of Railroads of its plans to picket the facilities of other carriers and to ask other carriers’ employees to withdraw from service until Maine Central’s willingness to bargain increased. In addition, BMWE began to picket “strategic locations through which Guilford’s traffic flowed, such as Chicago,” Brief for Respondents 4, and to picket the Los Angeles facilities of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, based on the belief (again later proved mistaken) that Union Pacific supervisors were assisting on Guilford lines.

On April 9, 62 railroads (not including petitioner Burlington Northern Railroad Company (Burlington Northern)), filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a temporary restraining order against the picketing. Their request was denied the next day. Alton & Southern R. Co. v. BMWE, Civ. No. 86-0977 (1986). Meanwhile, also on April 9, Burlington Northern sought and

The Court of Appeals reversed. 793 F. 2d 795 (CA71986). The court rejected the Ashley, Drew substantial-alignment test as inconsistent with both the plain language of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and with this Court’s construction of it. The court then turned to an argument raised in but not addressed by the District Court — that secondary picketing is illegal .under the RLA, and that the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not prevent courts from enjoining conduct that violates other labor statutes. The court concluded, however, that the RLA does not prohibit secondary picketing. It also observed that, even assuming that the RLA does contain such a prohibition, “the Norris-LaGuardia Act prevents the use of injunctions against economic self-help” once the major dispute resolution process is complete. Id., at 804-805 . The court concluded that the District Court had no jurisdiction to enter an injunction, and ordered the District Court to dismiss petitioners’ complaints.

We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 812 (1986), to resolve the Circuit conflict over the propriety of using the substantial-alignment test to narrow the definition of labor disputes under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and to address, if necessary, the applicability of the RLA and §§1 and 4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act to secondary picketing.

labor? No. Disobedience of the law on the part of a few Federal judges. If the courts had been satisfied to construe the law as enacted by Congress, there would not be any need of legislation of this kind. If the courts had administered even justice to both employers and employees, there would be no need of considering a bill of this kind now. If the courts had not emasculated and purposely misconstrued the Clayton Act, we would not today be discussing an anti-injunction bill.” 75 Cong. Rec. 5478 (1932).^[5]

The Act thus reflects Congress’ decision to “abolis[h], for purposes of labor immunity, the distinction between primary activity between the ‘immediate disputants’ and secondary activity in which the employer and the members of the union do not stand ‘in the proximate relation of employer and employee.’” Woodwork Manufacturers v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612 , 623 (1967) (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 669, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1932)).^[6] Moreover, the legislative history leaves no doubt that Congress intended the Norris-LaGuardia Act to cover the railroads. After lengthy debate, punctuated with numerous references to the notorious Pullman Strike of 1894, the House refused an amendment proposed by Represent

H-1 H-t

We first consider petitioners’ argument that § 4’s ban on injunctions is inapplicable to this case because the controversy is not one “involving or growing out of” a “labor dispute” under §4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act.

Section 13(c) of the Norris-LaGuardia Act states that “[t]he term ‘labor dispute’ includes any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment . . . regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.” 29 U. S. C. § 113 (c). Section 13(a) provides in pertinent part that: “[a] case shall be held to involve or to grow out of a labor dispute when the case involves persons who are engaged in the same industry . . . .” § 113(a). If this statutory language is accorded its plain meaning, BMWE’s dispute with Maine Central over the terms and conditions of employment is unquestionably a labor dispute, and the secondary activity against petitioners grows out of that dispute.

Petitioners argue, however, that this Court should adopt a test of “substantial alignment” to narrow the scope of labor

Adoption of some variant of the substantial-alignment test would be contrary to the Act in yet another way. The focus of the substantial-alignment test — whether labor activity will “furthe[r] the union’s economic interest in a labor dispute,” Ashley, Drew, supra, at 1363 — requires courts to second-guess which activities are truly in the union’s interest. As the Court of Appeals explained:

“No union engages in secondary conduct without expecting to advance its economic interests. . . . Unions do not lightly call in their chips and impose burdens on other workers who find their own pay and working conditions satisfactory. . . . Under the ‘substantial alignment’ test of Ashley, Drew the court must . . . weig[h] the economic gains to the union’s members from secondary pressure against the losses the secondary conduct imposes on others in society. It is only a small exaggeration to say that this is exactly what courts were doing

In certain limited circumstances, the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not prevent a court from enjoining violations of the specific mandate of another labor statute. Petitioners claim that the injunction here was valid because, under the RLA, it is illegal for a union to resort to secondary picketing after the parties have exhausted the major dispute resolution procedures. To evaluate this argument, we must briefly review the RLA.

The Railway Labor Act “cannot be appreciated apart from the environment out of which it came and the purposes which it was designed to serve.” Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711 , 751 (1945) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Following decades of labor unrest that persistently revealed the shortcomings of every legislative attempt to address the problems, representatives of railroad labor and management created a system for dispute resolution that Congress enacted as the RLA in 1926.^[9] The RLA subjects all railway disputes to virtually endless “negotiation, mediation, voluntary arbitration, and conciliation.”^[10] Detroit & Toledo

If the RLA is to function as its framers intended, compliance with its mandates obviously is essential. To accommodate the competing demands of the RLA and the Norris-LaGuardia Act, our cases establish that the Norris-LaGuardia Act

“does not deprive the federal court of jurisdiction to enjoin compliance with various mandates of the Railway Labor Act. Virginian R. Co. v. [Railway Employees], 300 U. S. 515 ; Graham v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 338 U. S. 232 .” Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S., at 772-773 ; see also Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Transportation Union, 402 U. S. 570 , 581-582 (1971).^[11]

Petitioners concede, as they must, that the RLA does not contain an express mandate limiting the scope of self-help available to a union once the RLA’s major dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted. They argue, however, that the drafters of the RLA did not need to insert an express prohibition of secondary picketing because in 1926 federal law clearly prohibited such picketing. Because language banning that which was already illegal would have been superfluous, petitioners construe the RLA to adopt the limits on self-help that existed at the time the RLA became law.^[12]

Indeed, this Court has already refused to find in the silence of the RLA an intent to prohibit secondary picketing. In Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., supra, we held that state courts may not enjoin secondary picketing in a railway dispute after parties exhaust the RLA’s procedures. We noted that Congress had not provided the courts with the standards needed to distinguish primary from secondary picketing, and that “parties who have unsuccessfully exhausted the Railway Labor Act’s procedures for resolution of a major dispute . . . [may] employ the full range of whatever peaceful economic power they can muster, so long as its use conflicts with no other obligation imposed by federal law.” 394 U. S., at 392 . We concluded that, in railway disputes, “until Congress acts, picketing — whether characterized as

Petitioners next argue that in some cases the Court has allowed an injunction to issue to enforce a duty that is merely inferred from the language and structure of the RLA. In Trainmen v. Chicago R. & I. R. Co., 353 U. S. 30 (1957) (Chicago River), for example, the Court held that federal courts may enjoin a strike-over a minor dispute in order to enforce compliance with § 3 First of the RLA, which provides for compulsory arbitration of minor disputes before the National Railroad Adjustment Board. Petitioners note that nothing in § 3 First expressly forbids a union to strike over a minor dispute, and argue that the Court necessarily inferred the prohibition against strikes during compulsory arbitration from the language and legislative history of the RLA. Similarly, in Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Transportation Union, 402 U. S. 570 (1971) (Chicago & North Western), the Court held that a federal court may enjoin a strike following the exhaustion of major dispute resolution procedures if a union does not comply with its obligation under §2 First of the RLA “to exert every reasonable effort” to resolve the dispute. 45 U. S. C. § 152 First. Petitioners note that nothing in § 2 First expressly declares that its obligations are enforceable during the period of self-help, and therefore argue that in Chicago & North Western, as in Chicago River, the Court allowed federal courts to enforce by injunction a duty that was merely inferred from the Act.^[14]

Although we agree with petitioners that the primary goal of the RLA is to settle strikes and avoid interruptions to commerce, we see nothing in the RLA to indicate that Congress intended to permit federal courts to enjoin secondary activity as a means toward that end. An injunction does not settle a dispute — it simply disables one of the parties. Moreover, “in view of the interests of both parties in avoiding a strike,” Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employees, 300 U. S., 515 , 552 (1937), the availability of such self-help measures as secondary picketing may increase the effectiveness of the RLA in

“Underlying the entire statutory framework is the pressure born of the knowledge that in the final instance traditional self-help economic pressure may be brought to bear if the statutory mechanism does not produce agreement. ... As the statutory machinery nears termination without achieving settlement, the threat of economic self-help and the pressures of informed public opinion create new impetus toward compromise and agreement.” Chicago & North Western, 402 U. S., at 597-598 (Brennan, J., dissenting).

Furthermore, as this case illustrates, § 10 of the RLA provides a ready mechanism for the Executive Branch to intervene and interrupt any self-help measures by invoking an Emergency Board and thereby imposing at a minimum a 60-day cooling-off period. If the Board’s recommendations are not initially accepted by the parties, Congress has the power to enforce the Board’s recommendation by statute, as it has done here. Allowing secondary picketing in the self-help period is thus not inconsistent with the structure or purpose of the Act, and may in fact increase the likelihood of settlement prior to self-help. This is therefore not a case in which “the scheme of the Railway Labor Act could not begin to work without judicial involvement.” Chicago & North Western, supra, at 595 (Brennan, J., dissenting).

While opinions regarding the RLA’s success in meeting its goals have varied over time, it does appear that under the RLA labor and management have been able to resolve most conflicts without resort to secondary picketing.^[16] We de