Hugo Black

“ Individual workers are to take some comfort, I suppose, in the Court's statement that 'it cannot be said, in the normal situation, that contract grievance procedures are inadequate to protect the interests of an aggrieved employee until the employee has attempted to implement the procedures and found them so.' I think it can be said, however, and I say it. I think an employee is just as capable of trying to enforce payment of his wages or wage substitutes under a collective bargaining agreement as his union, and he certainly is more interested in this effort than any union would likely be. ”

“ In thus deciding on its own, or deciding that Congress somehow has decided, to expand apparently without limit the kinds of claims subject to compulsory arbitration, to include even wage claims, and in thus depriving individual laborers of the right to handle their wage claims for themselves, today's decision of the Court interprets federal law in a way that is revolutionary. ”

“ In order to try to prevent such widespread disastrous results to the public, arbitration has come to be accepted as a good way to settle such semi-public controversies, which are more in the nature of power struggles between giants than ordinary justiciable controversies involving individual laborers. [5] When a contract provided for arbitration to settle disputes which affected many workers and which could lead to strikes, this Court approved it and held that since both sides-company and union-had agreed to this method of peaceful settlement, federal law would honor and enforce it. ”

“ I think one crucial flaw in the Court's logical presentation is that it treats things as the same which are in fact different. 'Grievance' is a word of many meanings in many contexts, and yet the Court uses it without any discrimination among them. As used in the industrial field 'grievance' generally signifies something that has happened that is unsatisfactory to employers or employees in connection with their work. ”

“ But, says the Court, the employee attempting to recover wages owed him must, unless the collective bargaining contract of the company and the union provides otherwise, 'afford the union the opportunity to act on his behalf.' The Court then implies that if the union 'refuses to press or only perfunctorily presses the individual's claim,' there may be some form of redress available to the worker, but we are left in the dark as to what form that redress might take. ”

“ The Court then expresses its view that allowing this former employee to sue without going through the grievance procedure and arbitration, as he would be permitted to do in this case by the law of his State, [11] has 'little to commend it' and 'would deprive employer and union of the ability to establish a uniform and exclusive method for orderly settlement of employee grievances.' I emphasize the words 'employer' and 'union' to point out that here, as elsewhere in the opinion, theirs seem to be the chief interests on which the Court's attention is focused. ”

“ The Court holds today, however, that a union representing a worker in a mine or factory can by the union's contract take away from that worker his right to sue, which he would not be able to contract away himself unless the Riddlesbarger case is to be overruled. ”

“ Of course this is not the worst kind of servitude to which a man could be subjected, but it is certainly contrary to the spirit of freedom in this country to infer from the blue that workers lose their rights to appeal to the courts for redress when they believe they are mistreated. ”

“ This is particularly true where the employee has lost his job and is most likely outside the union door looking in instead of on hand to push for his claim. Examples certainly have not been wanting from which the Court might learn that often employees for one reason or another have felt themselves compelled to sue the union as a prerequisite to obtaining any help from the union at all. ”

“ Failure to settle serious and widespread grievances has sometimes brought about industrial tensions, strikes and violence, often disrupting the peace and doing irreparable harm to the economy of the Nation. ”

“ An insurance company cannot enforce a contract made with its insured to arbitrate all disputes which might arise in the future, this Court said, since such an agreement would be 'an attempt to oust the courts of jurisdiction by excluding the assured from all resort to them for his remedy.' Riddlesbarger v. ”

“ The Court's opinion manifests great concern for the interests of employers and unions, but not, I fear, enough understanding and appreciation for an individual worker caught in the plight Maddox is in. ”

“ At least since Magna Carta people have desired to have a system of courts with set rules of procedure of their own and with certain institutional assurances of fair and unbiased resolution of controversies. ”