Felix Frankfurter

“ The short of it is that since every railroad employee is represented by union agents who sit on a System Board of Adjustment, such representatives are in what amounts to a fiduciary position: they must not exercise their power in an arbitrary way against some minority interest. The fact of a general conflict of interest between a minority of union members and representatives designated by the majority does not of itself vitiate the presupposition of self-government and does not of itself subject the System Board action to judicial review. ”

“ Conflict between a majority and a minority is a commonplace in the whole collective bargaining process. But the bargaining representatives owe a judicially enforceable duty of fairness to all the commonents of the working force when a specific claim is in controversy.
The determination of the System Board on the merits is not open to judicial review, even on so-called legal questions. It is not for a court to say that a complaint against the System Board must fail because the System Board rightly held against the complainant. ”

“ The governing outlook for construing the Railway Labor Act is hospitable realization of the fact that it is primarily an instrument of industrial government for railroading by the industry itself, through the concentrated agencies of railroad executives and the railroad unions. ”