This case requires us to consider to what extent a Federal District Court having charge of a railroad reorganization has power to adjudicate a jurisdictional dispute involving the railroad and two employee accredited bargaining agents in view of the provisions in the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C., § 151 et seq., 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., giving such power to the administrative agencies established thereunder. Each union claims that its respective collective bargaining agreement entitles it to supply conductors for five daily freight trains operated within the Elizabeth Port, New Jersey, yards of the railroad and both pressed their contentions on the reorganization trustees appointed under the provisions of § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act. 11 U.S.C. § 205, 11 U.S.C.A. § 205. The two unions are the Order of Railway Conductors (O.R.C.), which represents road conductors who ordinarily operate trains outside the yards, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainment (B.R.T.), which represents yard conductors who ordinarily operate trains inside the yards. But here, the practice over a period of years had been that at times yard conductors manned some trains outside the yard and road conductors manned some trains within the yard, including the five freight trai § here involved. In 1940 the railroad in response to pressure by the O.R.C. agreed that thereafter only road conductors would man the outside trains. However, O.R.C. conductors continued to operate the five daily freight trains within the yard. In 1943 the railroad was prevailed upon by the B.R.T. to agree to substitute B.R.T. yard conductors for the O.R.C. conductors operating these five trains.
Thereupon O.R.C. brought this suit in the reorganization court. It alleged that its members had for the past 35 years operated the trains in issue as a result of negotiations as to rules, rates of pay and working conditions between it and the railroad and that the 1940 contract specifically provided that this situation would not be changed without further agreement. Thus, the proposed displacement of O.R.C. conductors would violate § 6 of the Railway Labor Act which makes it unlawful for a carrier or employee representatives to change 'pay, rules, or working conditions,' unless 30 days written notice of the intended change shall have been given and the controversy has been finally acted upon by the Mediation Board. The O.R.C. asked the court to instruct its trustees not to displace road conductors and to enjoin them permanently from taking such action so long as O.R.C.'s contracts with the road were not altered in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act.
Answers were filed by the trustees and the B.R.T. as intervenor. The case was referred to a Master who, after a hearing, found that O.R.C.'s collective bargaining contracts did not provide that its conductors were to operate the five freight trains and that the B.R.T. contract allotted these lines to its members. The District Court sustained these findings and accordingly dismissed the petition on the merits. The Circuit Court of Appeals held that the petition should be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds because it thought that the remedies of the Railway Labor Act for the settlement of disputes such as here involved are exclusive. 145 F.2d 351. It further stated that if it should be mistaken on the jurisdictional question, then it agreed with the District Court that the road conductors must lose on the merits.
Secton 77, sub. n of the Bankruptcy Act provides that 'No judge or trustee acting under this Act shall change the wages or working conditions of railroad employees except in the manner prescribed in the Railway Labor Act, * * *.' 47 Stat. 1481, 11 U.S.C.A. § 205, sub. n. Section 1 of the Railway Labor Act defines a carrier, subject to it, as including 'any receiver, trustee, or other individual or body, judicial or otherwise, when in the possession of the business of any such 'carrier' * * *.' And § 2, Seventh, of the Act provides that 'no carrier, its officers, or agents shall change the rates of pay, rules, or working conditions of its employees, as a class, as embodied in agreements except in the manner prescribed in such agreement or in § 6 of this Act.' Section 6, as we have seen, prohibits such changes unless notice is first given and its requirements are otherwise complied with. Section 2, Tenth, of the Act makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by both fine and imprisonment for a carrier wilfully to violate § 6.