Trailmobile Company v. Whirls/Dissent Jackson

by Wiley Blount Rutledge

United States Supreme Court

331 U.S. 40

Trailmobile Company  v.  Whirls

 Argued: Dec. 19, 1946. --- Decided: April 14, 1947

Mr. Justice JACKSON, with whom Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER joins, dissenting.

Of the millions of wage earners whom the War took from their jobs into the armed services, some came from organized industries, others from unorganized industries; some had priority rights incident to their jobs, others had no such rights. For all, Congress provided the security of being able to get back their old jobs for at least a year after their return to civil life. But since industrial priority rights usually prevailing in organized industry have important bearing both on permanence of employment and wages, Congress guaranteed the veteran not merely 'against loss of position' but also against 'loss of seniority by reason of his absence.' 'He acquires not only the same seniority he had; his service in the armed services is counted as service in the plant so that he does not lose ground by reason of his absence.' Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corporation, 328 U.S. 275, 285, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 1111. In brief, in employments that were governed by priority rights, absence in the armed services was treated as presence in the plant. The veteran acquired a rating which he would have had, had he not been away.

Congress thus dealt with two very different aspects of employment. It gave all wage earners the assurance of having their old jobs for a year. It further made imperative that wage earners who, by virtue of employment contracts, normally union contracts, had preferred positions should have the same preferred positions as those enjoyed by their fellows who had their status but remained behind. Congress limited the right to have a job to a year. But Congress, having assured a veteran the priority status he would have had had he remained at work, did not take away that status at the end of twelve months. Accordingly, because of the Congressionally assured status, whereby a veteran had a priority right that he would have had, had he never left, he has whatever rights that status gave an employee under the general law of contract and more particularly, as in this case, under the National Labor Relations Act.

The veteran at the end of the year certainly is not in a worse position than he would have been had he not been in the armed services. If he could not be deprived of his seniority rights under the employment contract had he remained behind, he cannot be deprived of them because he is a veteran. Therefore, if under the National Labor Relations Act, those wielding the power of an exclusive bargaining agency on behalf of the veteran could not have discriminated against him had he not been a veteran, they cannot discriminate against him because he is a veteran. Any other result would fly so completely in the face of what Congress was about in fashioning economic security for the returning veterans, that it would require language totally wanting in what Congress wrote to find such a strange purpose on its part.

Congress did not authorize arbitrary reduction of the seniority rights to which the veteran had been restored at the end of the year. If his rights under the contract of employment assure that he will not be discharged before an employee with lower seniority and that he is entitled to a certain wage scale, he continues in employment with this seniority status and is entitled to all its benefits, as long as others with lower seniority remain on the job.

In assuring not merely the retention of seniority status but its progression during the years in the service, Congress aimed to insure that the years which the veteran gave to his country should not retard his economic advancement. It is not likely that in furthering this policy Congress would say that an employee, because he is a veteran, should suffer the consequences of having been to war after a year's return. The equality of treatment which Congress designed as between employees who went and employees who stayed could not be achieved by delaying for one year the disadvantages of having been away and then letting them affect the veteran.

Whirls came back from the army to his old work, where he had certain advantages of seniority. Now he has lost his seniority, and because he asked the courts to say whether he lost it legally he was booted out of his job and, moreover, was expelled from the union he had been compelled to join by reason of a closed shop agreement. He may find other employment at his old craft closed to him. This is rather shocking and it is hard to believe that Whirls has no protection in law.

What happened to Whirls is this: The employer to whose service he returned was merged or consolidated with a bigger concern of the same kind-a corporation which had owned the company for which Whirls worked-and both businesses were continued under one ownership. This united the two working forces and the question arose as to relative seniority rights. Both groups had belonged to American Federation of Labor unions, so the problem was submitted to its national authorities. They ruled that each employee should retain seniority rights dating from the time he entered the employ of either company.

The bigger group revolted. They demanded their own seniority and demanded that the smaller group coming into the consolidation be treated as entirely new employees. They reorganized as a C.I.O. unit, demanded recognition as the exclusive bargaining agent of the whole enterprise and, of course, won the election. They then demanded and obtained a contract allowing their own seniority and establishing a closed shop. To keep his job at all, Whirls was obliged thereby to join the C.I.O. union and, with others, suffered reduction of pay and loss of seniority rights.

Believing that he and others had been unlawfully dealt with and being supported by the Government in the belief, he sought a remedy in the courts. His claim was not frivolous, for two courts below granted him relief. But because he tested his rights in court, he was expelled from the union on charges that he negotiated for himself through others than the union and acted in a way contrary and harmful to its interests. Since he was no longer a member of the union, it demanded under the closed shop agreement that the employer oust him from even the reduced job which its bargaining had left to him. The employer was obliged by its contract to comply but has been paying him on a leave-of-absence-with-pay basis. The short of it is that Whirls is out of seniority, out of work, and out of the union with all that this means in a closed shop industry. His predicament comes about not because of any fault of Whirls as a workman, nor because of his employer's wish.

The employer urges that we relieve it from the duty imposed by the court below of reinstating Whirls in his seniority rights because 'the majority union members may compel the employer to discharge such returning veteran after the expiration of said one-year period. As in this case, the union might expel the veteran from the union, and thereby compel this employer to discharge such veteran under its closed shop contract with the union.' One might have thought this an exaggerated fear conjured up in hostility to the union except that it is just what has happened, and that instead of repudiating it now the union endorses the threat. It says that the union 'must do one of two things, (a) either discriminate against the Trailmobile veterans and allow the Highland veterans to supersede them on the seniority list, or, (b) in fairness to the Trailmobile veterans, negotiate for the discharge of Highland veterans at the end of one year's guaranteed employment.'

This combines a false alternative with a disingenuous threat. Both alternatives presuppose that the employer has an absolute right to discharge veterans after reemploying them for a year, whether or not they work under a contract which gives them seniority rights. But the question for decision is whether the veteran is secured in his seniority rights by the Act. If he is, he is to the extent of those rights under the employment contract entitled to his job even after the assured year has ended.

There is neither need nor authority to discriminate against any veteran of either plant. The fair solution would be that each employee go on the seniority list as of the date he entered either of the two units now consolidated. That was the solution under the collective agreement by which Whirls worked at the time of the consolidation. To thwart it, the whole machinery of the National Labor Relations Board was set in motion and apparently has been used in disregard of Whirls' rights under the Labor Act. Before we reach the question whether rights under the Labor Act have been infringed, however, it should be clear that the Selective Service Act secured Whirls' seniority rights, for it is those rights which he asserts were taken from him.

Section 8(b)(B) refers to the job to which the veteran is entitled to be restored, i.e., simply the same job which he left, or its equivalent. Section 8(c) specifies what rights he shall have in that job. He is to have the seniority which would have accumulated while he was in service and he is to be assured against discharge for one year, regardless of what his or others' seniority rights are. Such assurance against discharge certainly does not terminate seniority rights after one year. Section 8(b)(B) together with the provision against arbitrary discharge is enough to assure that the veteran will remain in the same job for one year without diminution of its incidents. See Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corporation, 328 U.S. 275, 286, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 1111, 1112, in which this Court said, 'What it (Congress) undertook to do was to give the veteran protection within the framework of the seniority system plus a guarantee against demotion or termination of the employment relationship without cause for a year.' 328 U.S. at page 288, 66 S.Ct. at page 1113.

That case interpreted the provisions against discharge as broad enough to prohibit also any reduction in status, pay, or seniority, during the year. But we did not hold that seniority rights ended with the year. Seniority rights are rights which, by their nature, endure as long as the employment does, and become more and more valuable in protecting that employment and enhancing its benefits. Ordinarily, one of their most important functions is to give a measure of security in the job. To have seniority rights for a year may not be an impossibility, but it is almost a contradiction in terms.

The job guaranteed against discharge for a year, then, is the job defined in § 8(b)(B). But the right to discharge after the year is not unconditional where the employee is the beneficiary of a seniority plan. Of course, where employees have no seniority rights, the guarantee of one year's employment is their only right. But if a seniority system does exist, the Congress gave the employee 'protection within the framework of the seniority system plus a guarantee against demotion or termination of the employment relationship without cause for a year.' (Emphasis added.) Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corporation, 328 U.S. at page 288, 66 S.Ct. at page 1113.

It is to be noted that the seniority rights of Whirls were bargained away from him by a union which, under the National Labor Relations Act, was entitled to bargain as his representative. The Act makes the majority union 'the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit' for bargaining. 49 Stat. 453, § 9(a), 29 U.S.C. s 159(a), 29 U.S.C.A. § 159(a). We have held that this not only precludes the individual from being repre ented by others but also prevents him from bargaining for himself. J. I. Case Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 321 U.S. 332, 64 S.Ct. 576, 88 L.Ed. 762. While the individual is thus placed wholly in the power of the union, it does not follow that union powers have no limit. Courts from time immemorial have held that those who undertake to act for others are held to good faith and fair dealing and may not favor themselves at the cost of those they have assumed to represent. The National Labor Relations Act, in authorizing union organizations 'for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,' 49 Stat. 452, § 7, 29 U.S.C. § 157, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157, indicates no purpose to excuse unions from these wholesome principles of trusteeship.

We have held under a similar Act that the courts may intervene to prevent a majority union from negotiating a contract in favor of itself against a colored minority. Speaking for all but two members of the Court, Chief Justice Stone, after recognizing that the representatives may make 'contracts which may have unfavorable effects on some of the members of the craft represented' in such matters as seniority, based on relevant differences of conditions, said: 'Without attempting to mark the allowable limits of differences in the terms of contracts based on differences of conditions to which they apply, it is enough for present purposes to say that the statutory power to represent a craft and to make contracts as to wages, hours and working conditions does not include the authority to make among members of the craft discriminations not based on such relevant differences.' Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., 323 U.S. 192, 203, 65 S.Ct. 226, 232, 89 L.Ed. 173. That opinion also declared that 'It is a principle of general application that the exercise of a granted power to act in behalf of others involves the assumption toward them of a duty to exercise the power in their interest and behalf, and that such a grant of power will not be deemed to dispense with all duty toward those for whom it is exercised unless so expressed.' 323 U.S. at page 202, 65 S.Ct. at page 232, 89 L.Ed. 173. And in Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 323 U.S. 210, 65 S.Ct. 235, 89 L.Ed. 187, we held that where an individual is without available administrative remedies, the courts must grant him protection.

I do not think that Whirls' seniority rights after one year are made immutable or immune from collective bargaining. But the statute restored these rights to him as a veteran. They stand until they are lawfully modified. The record indicates that they have never been terminated or modified by good faith collective bargaining in the interests of the craft. It raises the suspicion that they were simply misappropriated to the benefit of the majority group which was under a duty to represent his interests as well as its own.

The courts cannot tolerate the expulsion of a member of a union, depriving him of his right to earn a living merely because he invokes the process of the courts to protect his rights-even if he does so mistakenly. The Labor Relations Act makes it an unfair labor practice by an employer 'To discharge or otherwise discriminate against an employee because he has filed charges or given testimony' in proceedings under it. 49 Stat. 453, § 8, 29 U.S.C. § 158, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158. Neither may a union use its own power over its members to by-pass the courts. Cf. Dorchy v. State of Kansas, 272 U.S. 306, 47 S.Ct. 86, 71 L.Ed. 248.

This action is equitable in character and equity traditionally adapts its remedies to the facts as developed by trial rather than to the form of pleadings. There could be no objection if the Court would remand the case for development of a more complete record. But I could not agree that it should be done with the suggestion that Whirls was not treated with discrimination because all in the Highland group were treated alike. If the Trailmobile Company had absorbed the wholly-owned Highland Company before Whirls returned and used the consolidation as an excuse to deny Whirls reemployment rights, this Court would hardly have approved so transparent a scheme. The union has no more right to rely on the consolidation to justify deprivation of seniority rights.

Notes