Charles Evans Hughes

“ If industrial strife due to unfair labor practices actually brought about such a catastrophe, we suppose that no one would question the authority of the Federal Government to intervene in order to facilitate the settlement of the dispute and the resumption of the essential service to interstate and foreign commerce. ”

“ Despite this statement and assuming, as counsel for the companies urges, that where two independent labor organizations seek recognition it cannot be said to be an unfair labor practice for the employer merely to express preference of one organization over the other, by reason of the former's announced policies, in the absence of any attempts at intimidation or coercion, we think that there was still substantial evidence that such attempts were made in this case. ”

“ To interpret the Act to mean that the Board is without power to nullify advantages obtained by the Edison companies through contracts with unions, partly developed by the unlawful interference of the Edison companies with self-organization, is to withdraw from the Board the specific authority granted by the Act to take affirmative action to protect the workers' right of self-organization, the basic privilege guaranteed by the Act. Freedom from employer domination flows from freedom in self-organization. ”

“ That is the manifest objective in providing for collective bargaining. Under Section 7 [11] the employees of the companies are entitled to self-organization, to join labor organizations and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. The 80 per cent of the employees who were members of the Brotherhood and its locals, had that right. They had the right to choose the Brotherhood as their representative for collective bargaining and to have contracts made as the result of that bargaining. Nothing that the employers had done deprived them of that right. ”

“ The Board urges that the National Labor Relations Act does not contain any provision requiring these unions to be made parties; that Section 10 (b) [9] authorizes the Board to serve a complaint only upon persons charged with unfair labor practices and that only employers can be so charged. In that view, the question would at once arise whether the Act could be construed as authorizing the Board to invalidate the contracts of independent labor unions not before it and also as to the validity of the Act if so construed. ”

“ For example, the governance of the intrastate rates of a railroad company may be of great importance to the State and an appropriate object of the exertion of its power, but the Federal Government may still intervene to protect interstate commerce from injury caused by intrastate operations and to that end may override intrastate rates and supply a dominant federal rule. ”

“ We think that this authority to order affirmative action does not go so far as to confer a punitive jurisdiction enabling the Board to inflict upon the employer any penalty it may choose because he is engaged in unfair labor practices, even though the Board be of the opinion that the policies of the Act might be effectuated by such anorder. ”

“ Another consideration is that the contracts recognize the right of employees to bargain collectively; they recognize the Brotherhood as the collective bargaining agency for the employees who belong to it, and the Brotherhood agrees for itself and its members not to intimidate or coerce employees into membership in the Brotherhood and not to solicit membership on the time or property of the employers. ”

“ The argument to the contrary, that the contracts were necessarily in issue because of the charge of unfair labor practices against the companies, is without substance. Not only did the complaint as amended fail to assail the contracts but it was stated by the attorney for the Board upon the hearing that the complaint was not directed against the Brotherhood; that 'no issue of representation (was) involved in this proceeding'; and that the Board took the position that the Brotherhood was 'a bona fide labor organization' whose legality was not attacked. ”

“ The contracts do not claim for the Brotherhood exclusive representation of the companies' employees but only representation of those who are its members, and the continued operation of the contracts is necessarily subject to the provision of the law by which representatives of the employees for the purpose of collective bargaining can be ascertained in case any question of 'representation' should arise. ”

“ Carter Coal Co., May 1936, 298 U.S. 238, 56 S.Ct. 855, 80 L.Ed. 1160, decided shortly after passage of the National Labor Relations Act, we held that provisions of the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935 looking to the control of wages, hours, and working conditions of persons engaged in producing coal about to move in interstate commerce and seeking to guarantee their right of collective bargaining, were beyond the power of Congress, for the reasons that it has no general power of regulation to promote the general welfare ”

“ Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., April 1937, 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. ”

“ They supply a majority of the piers of trans-Atlantic and coastal steamship companies along the North and East Rivers, within the City of New York, for lighting, freight handling and related uses. They serve the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Postal Telegraph Company, and the New York Telephone Company with power for transmitting and receiving messages, local and interstate. ”