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Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J.

330 U.S.

Michener gave as his interpretation of what survived the Norris-LaGuardia Act, was precisely the claim of the Government in asking for the Debs injunction. That injunction was sought and granted in order that the Government might function. Insofar, then, as Mr. Michener's statements imply that the United States could again get a Debs injunction, his understanding is belied by the whole history of the legislation, as reflected in its terms. These statements can only mean, then, that if, say, employees in the Treasury Department had to be enjoined so that government could go on, it was Representative Michener's view that an injunction could issue. No attempt was made to make this view explicit in the Act. It was not discussed, and only one statement appears to share it." In any event, it does not imply a broader exemption than that of which Representative LaGuardia spoke.

It is to be noted that the discussion in the House followed passage in the Senate of that which subsequently became the Act. It is a matter of history that the Senate Judiciary Committee was the drafting and driving force behind the Bill. The Bill had extended consideration by a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee followed by weighty reports and full discussion on the Senate floor. We are not pointed to a suggestion or a hint in the Senate proceedings that the withdrawal of jurisdiction to issue

• Compare Representative LaGuardia's reply to a proposed amendment by Representative Beck which would have exempted from the operation of the Act disputes "where the welfare, health, or lives of a public are concerned who are not parties to such labor dispute, or where a labor dispute involves the obstruction of any instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce." Mr. LaGuardia claimed that the amendment was out of order because not germane to the purposes of the legislation. "The present bill refers only to disputes between employees and employer. . The public is fully protected by penal and other statutes . . 75 Cong. Rec. 5503.

*See statement of Representative Schneider, 75 Cong. Rec. 5514.

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injunctions in labor disputes was subject to a latent exception as to injunctions sought by the Government. The whole contemporaneous history is against it. The experience which gave rise to the Norris-LaGuardia Act only underscores the unrestricted limitation upon the jurisdiction of the courts, except in situations of which this is not one: To find implications in the fact that in the course of the debates it was not explicitly asserted that the district courts could not issue an injunction in a labor controversy even at the behest of the Government is to find the silence of Congress more revealing than the natural meaning of legislation and the history which begot it. The remarks of Mr. LaGuardia and Mr. Michener ought not to be made the equivalent of writing an amendment into the Act. It is one thing to draw on all relevant aids for shedding light on the dark places of a statute. To allow inexplicit remarks in the give-andtake of debate to contradict the very terms of legislation and the history behind it is to put out the controlling light on meaning shed by the explicit provisions of an Act in its setting.

But even if we assume that the Act was not intended to apply to labor disputes involving "employees" of the United States, are the miners in the case before us "employees" of the United States within the meaning of this interpolated exception? It can hardly be denied that the relation of the miners to the United States is a hybrid one. Clearly, they have a relation to the Government other than that of employees of plants not under Government operation. Equally clearly, they have a relation and a status different from the relation and status of the clerks at the Treasury Department. Never in the country's history have the terms of employment of the millions in Govern'ment service been established by collective bargaining. But the conditions of employment-hours, wages, holi

Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J.

330 U.S.

days, vacations, health and welfare program, etc.—were so fixed for the miners during the period of Government seizure. The proper interpretation of this collective agreement between the Government and the United Mine Workers is precisely what is at the bottom of this controversy. Neither a spontaneous nor a sophisticated characterization would resort to the phrase "Government employees" without more, in speaking of the miners during the operation of the mines by the Government. The only concrete characterization of the status of employees in seized plants was expressed by Under Secretary Patterson at a hearing on the predecessor bill to that which became the law under which this seizure was made. He spoke of the role of the Government as that of "A receiver that would be charged with the continuity of operation of the plant." Nothing in the Acts authorizing seizure of

Hearings on S. 2054 before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, Senate, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 14. The characterization was accepted by members of the Committee which approved the Bill. Id. at pp. 16, 18, 130. Senator Connally refers to the private employer who "will continue to operate it under the supervision of the Government." Id. at 55. See also p. 57. While at one point he referred to the United States as an employer (id. at 120), he did so in a special context for the purposes of a discussion about collective bargaining with reference to wages. As to wages, of course, the Government would stand in loco "employer" during its operation of the plant.

The analogy of equity receivership is not inapt. In a limited sense, employees of plants in receivership in a federal court may be considered employees of the United States, since the operation of the plant is under the jurisdiction and control of a United States officer. But no one aware of the background of mischief which the Act was intended to remedy could find an intention in Congress to allow injunctions in labor disputes involving plants in receivership. Compare Trainmen v. Toledo, P. & W. R. Co., 321 U. S. 50, 55, 58-61. No series of cases contributed more to the feeling that the federal courts abused their equity jurisdiction than those involving employees of

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Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J.

private plants indicates that the employees of these plants were to be considered employees of the United States in the usual and natural meaning of the term. In the full debates on bills providing for Government seizure of plants, Congressional leaders clearly indicated their understanding that as the law then stood there could be no injunctions in labor disputes in seized plants.'

But not only was such the understanding when the legal question emerged in the course of considering the need of war legislation. Recent legislation and its history

railroads in equity receivership. See, e. g., 1 Gresham, Life of Walter Quintin Gresham, cc. XXIII to XXV; Gregory, Labor and the Law, 95-97; Nelles, A Strike and Its Legal Consequences-An Examination of the Receivership Precedent for the Labor Injunction (1931) 40 Yale L. J. 507, passim. If injunctions will not issue in disputes involving employees of railroads or other industries in receivership under operation by the federal courts, nothing relevant to the construction of the statute warrants the inference that Congress allowed the injunction to be available in disputes involving employees of plants in "receivership" under operation of the Secretary of the Interior.

7 See especially the debates on a proposed amendment to the SmithConnally Bill whereby Senator Connally sought to add the injunction as a remedy against violation of the Act.

"MR. CONNALLY. . . . Government takes over.

The provision is limited to plants which the It would not change the Norris-LaGuardia Act in any respect, except in the one particular case

"MR. LANGER. Mr. President, is it not true that unless section 5 is stricken from the bill that a portion of the Norris-LaGuardia Act will be repealed?

"MR. DANAHER. It would certainly be overridden; phasis supplied.) 89 Cong. Rec. 3988-89.

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See also the statements of Senators Taft, Vandenberg, and Wagner, and compare those of Senators Revercomb and Barkley; and see the colloquy between Senators Connally and Vandenberg, id. at 3906, quoted infra note 10.

Opinion of FRANKFURTER, J.

330 U. S

are relevant not merely because they show later understanding of the terms of an older statute. The War Labor Disputes Act of 1943 is directly and primarily involved in this case. The whole controversy arises under the authority to seize mines given by that Act. The real question before us is whether in authorizing such seizure and operation Congress also gave to the United States the right to prevent interference with its statutory operation through the equitable remedies here invoked.

By the War Labor Disputes Act, Congress created a new relationship among the Government, the plant owners, the employees. The rights, duties, remedies incident to that relation are those given by the Act. Congress naturally addressed itself to possible interferences with the Government's operation of seized plants. It dealt specifically with this subject. It gave the Government specific remedies which it might invoke against such interference. Remedy by injunction was not given. It was not merely omitted. A fair reading of the legislative history shows that it was expressly and definitively denied. As reported out of the Senate Committee, S. 796 provided for plant seizure. It did not include the injunction among the remedies for interference with Government operation. But when the Bill reached the floor of the Senate, Senator Connally, sponsor of the Bill, offered and urged an amendment giving the district courts jurisdiction to restrain violations of the measure.1 He accepted, somewhat reluctantly, the

10

8 57 Stat. 163, 165-66, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1506 (b).

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"I am very anxious that there shall be additional statutory protection to the uninterrupted production of war necessities, but I am wondering whether in order to achieve that purpose it is necessary for

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