Section 2 Source of the Duty

• Library: Emp-Emp Law 2000

The duty of fair representation was born on December 18, 1944, in a trilogy of decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States on that date. Wallace Corp. v. NLRB, 323 U.S. 248 (1944); Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192 (1944); Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 323 U.S. 210 (1944). In Wallace, the National Labor Relations Board had found that the company and an independent union, which had just won an election in which the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, which later merged with the American Federation of Labor to form the AFL-CIO) was also on the ballot, had agreed to a closed shop union security clause. The Board also found that the company knew the independent union intended to deny membership to those employees who had supported the CIO and thereby cause their discharge by the employer. In affirming the Board’s order of reinstatement and back pay for the CIO supporters, the Court discussed the responsibilities of a union selected as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of employees in accordance with § 9(a), 29 U.S.C. § 159(a), of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 151, et seq.

The duties of a bargaining agent selected under the terms of the Act extend beyond the mere representation of the interests of its own group members. By its selection as bargaining representative, it has become the agent of all the employees, charged...