Robert H. Jackson

“ The 'face to face' method, whatever its other defects, is a method by which both operators and miners have tried to bring about uniformity of labor costs in the different unionized mines and to remove the operator's resistance to improved wage scales based on fear of competition. Under this decision there can be no uniform wage in this industry except by disregarding the very duty which this decision creates to pay each miner for his actual travel time. ”

“ If the Fair Labor Standards Act entitles each individual miner to travel time, not according to the terms of his collectively bargained agreements, but according to the time actually spent, as the Court now holds, these Government agreements violated that law, the present agreements do also, and heavy liabilities both for overtime and penalties are daily being incurred by the entire industry. ”

“ Overproduction and savage, competitive warfare wasted the industry. Labor and capital alike were the victims. Financial distress among operators and acute poverty among miners prevailed even during periods of general prosperity. This history of the bituminous coal industry is written in blood as well as in ink. ”

“ We doubt if one can find in the long line of criticized cases one in which the Court has made a more extreme exertion of power or one so little supported or explained by either the statute or the record in the case. Power should answer to reason none the less because its fiat is beyond appeal. ”

“ Employees in these mines first were organized as members of the United Mine Workers of America in 1933, following promulgation of the N.I.R.A. Code of Fair Competition for the industry. This code was drawn up by representatives of the Union and of the operators and was approved by the President of the United States. It provided for the 'face to face' wage basis which makes no direct allowance for travel time, but, as has been pointed out on behalf of the Union, the wage scale was fixed at a level intended indirectly to compensate travel time. ”

“ Now we hold collective bargaining incompetent to do so. It is hard to see how the long-range interests of labor itself are advanced by a holding that there is no mode by which it may bind itself to any specified future conduct, however fairly bargained. A genuinely collectively bargained agreement as to wages, hours or working conditions is not invalidated or superseded by this Act and both employer and employee should be able to make and rely upon them, and the courts in deciding such cases should hon r them. ”

“ Thus, two men working shoulder to shoulder, but entering the mine at different portals must receive either different amounts of pay in their envelopes or must stay at their productive work a different length of time. Thus, too, old mines which have burrowed far from their portals must shoulder greatly increased labor cost per ton. ”

“ The Court does not contradict the Union's recognition that the contracts now disregarded by the Court were 'contracts fairly arrived at through the process of collective bargaining.' And that there is this important difference between the present situation and the situation that was before us in the Tennessee case was recognized by the counsel in the Tennessee case, the same counsel who argued this case at our bar. ”

“ However, when the extension agreement expired on May 31, a second strike began. On June 3, President Roosevelt appealed to the miners to return to work, and they did so after the President of the Mine Workers ordered them to resume until June 20. On that day there was a third strike, which lasted three days, when it was terminated on appeal by President Roosevelt, the Union again directing the miners to resume work until October 31. ”

“ These investigations had dealt with bitterly contested strikes, and with serious disorders which frequently resulted in bloodshed and martial law, and which on at least four occasions were restrained by intervention of federal troops. ”