The Right Not to Join

The Santa Fe is one of the nation's last major roads to hold out against union shop contracts, permitted under a 1951 amendment to the Railway Labor Act. Last week, in a courtroom in Amarillo, Texas, Santa Fe President Fred Gurley argued against the union shop in a suit filed by 14 Santa Fe workers. They asked that 16 A.F.L. railroad unions be permanently enjoined from enforcing proposed union shop contracts, and that the union shop be declared illegal.

The suit, like half a dozen others filed by railroad employees around the U.S., is based mainly on Texas' "right to work" act, which states that nobody can be fired for membership or nonmembership in a union. The union shop, testified Santa Fe's Gurley, "does violence to my very deep-seated beliefs in personal liberty, freedom of choice, and the rights and dignity of the individual." In answer to union arguments, which implied that benefits such as seniority rights sprang from labor contracts, Gurley pointed out that the Santa Fe has had its own provisions for seniority since 1883.

The Santa Fe's stand already has court precedent. Under Nebraska's "right to work" amendment, a district court there ruled two weeks ago that nonoperating employees of the Union Pacific may work without joining a union. Since there are similar laws in 13 states, the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually have to rule on the question.

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