William Howard Taft

“ The employees, or at least those who are members of the labor unions, contend that they have a lawful right to select their own representatives, and that it is not within the right of the company to restrict them in their selection to employees of the company or to forbid selection of officers of their labor unions qualified to deal with, and protect their interests. ”

“ It is evident from a review of title 3 of the Transportation Act of 1920 that Congress deems it of the highest public interest to prevent the interruption of interstate commerce by labor disputes and strikes, and that its plan is to encourage settlement without strikes, first by conference between the parties, failing that, by reference to adjustment boards of the parties' own choosing and, if this is ineffective, by a full hearing before a national board appointed by the President, upon which are an equal number of representatives of the Carrier Group, the Labor Group, and the Public. ”

“ The second objection is that the Labor Board in decision 119 and principles 5 and 15, and in decision 218, compels the railroad company to recognize labor unions as factors in the conduct of its business. The counsel for the company insist that the right to deal with individual representatives of its employees as to rules and working conditions is an inherent right which cannot be constitutionally taken from it. ”

“ The act is to be liberally construed to effect the manifest effort of Congress to compose differences between railroad companies and their employees, and it would not help this effort, to exclude from the lawful consideration of the Labor Board a question which has so often seriously affected the relations between the companies and their employees in the past and is often encountered on the very threshhold of controversies between them. ”

“ Such a construction would give either side an easy opportunity to defeat the operation of the act and to prevent the Labor Board from considering any dispute. It would tend to make the act unworkable. If the Board has jurisdiction to hear representatives of the employees, it must of necessity have the power to determine who are proper representatives of the employees. That is a condition precedent to its effective exercise of jurisdiction at all. ”

“ It does not require employees to deal with their employers through their fellow employees. But we think it does vest the Labor Board with power to decide how such representatives ought to be chosen with a view to securing a satisfactory cooperation and leaves it to the two sides to accept or reject the decision. The statute provides the machinery for conferences, the hearings, the decisions and the moral sanction. The Labor Board must comply with the requirements of the statute ”

“ But it is said that the Federation is a labor union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and that the phrase 'organization of employees' used in the act was not intended by Congress to include labor unions. We find nothing in the act to impose any such limitation if the organization in other respects fulfills the description of the act. ”