Harlan F. Stone

“ There is no want of capacity in the court to direct complete performance of the entire obligation; both the negative duties not to maintain a company union and not to negotiate with any representative of the employees other than respondent and the affirmative duty to treat with respondent. Full performance of both is commanded by the decree in terms which leave in no uncertainty the requisites of performance. ”

“ In considering the propriety of the equitable relief granted here, we cannot ignore the judgment of Congress, deliberately expressed in legislation, that where the obstruction of the company union is removed, the meeting of employers and employees at the conference table is a powerful aid to industrial peace. Moreover, the resources of the Railway Labor Act are not exhausted if negotiation fails in the first instance to result in agreement. ”

“ It is enough for present purposes that experience has shown that the failure to settle, by peaceful means, the grievances of railroad employees with respect to rates of pay, rules or working conditions, is far more likely to hinder interstate commerce than the failure to compensate workers who have suffered injury in the course of their employment. ”

“ The effect on commerce cannot be regarded as negligible. See United States v. Railway Employees' Department of American Federation of Labor (D.C.) 290 F. 978, 981, holding participation of back shop employees in the nation-wide railroad shopmen's strike of 1922 to constitute an interference with interstate commerce. As the regulation here in question is shown to be an appropriate means of avoiding that danger, it is within the power of Congress.
It is no answer, as petitioner suggests, that it could those its back shops and turn over the repair work to independent contractors. ”

“ The peaceable settlement of labor controversies, especially where they may seriously impair the ability of an interstate rail carrier to perform its service to the public, is a matter of public concern. ”

“ What has been said indicates clearly that its provisions are aimed at the settlement of industrial disputes by the promotion of collective bargaining between employers and the authorized representative of their employees, and by mediation and arbitration when such bargaining does not result in agreement. ”

“ But statistics show that many more labor disputes were settled by direct negotiation, supra, footnote 4, and Congress might reasonably have feared that the action of certain railroads in negotiating only with unions dominated by them would prevent such settlements and lead to strikes. ”

“ But petitioner insists that the act as applied to its 'back shop' employees is not within the commerce power since their duties have no direct relationship to interstate transportation. Of the 824 employees in the six shop crafts eligible to vote for a choice of representatives, 322 work in petitioner's 'back shops' at Princeton, W. Va. ”

“ The fact that Congress has indicated its purpose to make negotiation obligatory is in itself a declaration of public interest and policy which should be persuasive in inducing courts to give relief. It is for similar reasons that courts, which traditionally have refused to compel performance of a contract to submit to arbitration, Tobey v. Bristol, supra, enforce statutes commanding performance of arbitration agreements, Red Cross Line v. ”

“ In compelling compliance with either duty, it does far less than has been done in compelling the discharge of a contractual or statutory obligation calling for a construction or engineering enterprise, New Orleans, Mobile & Texas Ry. ”