American Federation of Labor Railway Employees Department vs. Union Pacific Railroad Company, Hanson et al. Records

The Railway Labor Act [RLA], which applies to employees of interstate rail and air carriers, was amended in 1951 to add a union shop provision [Section 2, Eleventh]. Prior to 1951, the RLA did not have this clause, but rather specified that union membership could not be a requirement to employment nor were union-dues check-offs allowed. This was to curb the possibility of company controlled labor organizations serving as bargaining agents with themselves at the expense of the employees. By 1951, these company dominated unions were no longer a factor, and after lobbying by railroad labor groups, the above mentioned amendment was added to the RLA, empowering unions to enter into union shop agreements with railroad carriers. The amendment to the RLA reads, in part, that labor organizations "shall be permitted...to make agreements, requiring, as a condition of continued employment, that within 60 days the beginning of such employment all employees shall become members of the labor organization representing their craft or class" [Section 2, Eleventh (a)]. In addition to allowing the union shop, the amendment also explicitly stated that this amendment superseded any laws or statutes passed at the local or state level. However, the amendment did not repeal the prior injunction against union shop; it merely superseded it. This is in contrast to the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows individual states to impose more stringent measures against unions. At the time of the amendment to the RLA, there were eighteen states with right to work laws that outlawed union shop agreements; eleven of these were in the South.



In 1953, Union Pacific Railroad Company [UP] entered into a union shop agreement with sixteen labor unions. The plaintiffs, Robert L. Hanson and other non-union employees of UP, sued the company and the labor unions in a district court in Nebraska to halt the union shop agreement because Nebraska has a right to work clause in its state constitution. The plaintiffs argued that in addition to being unconstitutional under the state constitution, they would suffer irreperable injury by being forced to pay dues, fees, and assessments to an organization they were being compelled to join. Conversely, the unions argued that these employees, dubbed "free riders," enjoyed all the benefits the unions achieved for employees through collective bargaining without paying their share of the costs of conducting those bargaining agreements.



The district court judge issued the injunction and in 1954 found in favor of the plaintiffs. The unions appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Nebraska which, in an opinion written by Justice Adolph Wenke, upheld the lower court's decision. The labor unions then appealled the case to the United States Supreme Court.



The United States Supreme Court found the union shop provision of the RLA constitutional. Justice Douglas wrote in his opinion, "We only hold that the requirement for financial support of the collective-bargaining agency by all who receive the benefits of its work is within the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause."



The complete text of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision may be found here.