Opinion
Argued September 9, 1997
Decided October 16, 1997
APPEAL, by permission of the Court of Appeals, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Third Judicial Department, entered July 25, 1996, which affirmed a judgment of the Supreme Court (Joseph Teresi, J.), entered in Albany County in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, dismissing a petition to review a determination of respondent Industrial Board of Appeals finding petitioner guilty of violating Labor Law § 162 by failing to provide railroad yardmasters with a meal period.
Petitioner is a corporation engaged in interstate commerce and operates a railroad system encompassing numerous railroad yards in the State where trains are received and dispatched under the supervision of a yardmaster. The yardmasters traditionally work eight-hour shifts, and they remain at their posts during the entire eight-hour period in order to maintain supervision of the yard and to be available in case of an emergency. Accordingly, the yardmasters have no set meal period, but they are allowed to eat at their work stations throughout their shifts and are provided with refrigerators and microwave ovens to facilitate the storage and preparation of food. The yardmasters are the subject of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between petitioner and the United Transportation Union (UTU) which provides, in relevant part, that "[e]ight (8) consecutive hours service, exclusive of the time required to make transfers, shall constitute a day, except where requirements of the service necessitate, an unpaid meal period or intermittent service will be established by agreement between the Senior Director-Labor Relations and the General Chairman [of the UTU]". In 1988, the UTU sought to renegotiate the issue of meal periods, as petitioner and UTU representatives had been unable to come to an agreement in the interim. No agreement was reached and a Presidential Emergency Board was created to resolve, among other things, the meal period issue. This particular issue remained unresolved and, ultimately, a representative of the UTU asked the Department of Labor to investigate petitioner's alleged failure to comply with Labor Law § 162, resulting in the instant proceeding. As a consequence, the Department of Labor issued a notice of violation to petitioner for failing to provide prescribed meal periods to the yardmasters. Petitioner applied for review with respondent Industrial Board of Appeals and, following a hearing, the Board affirmed the notice of violation.
The Appellate Division concluded that at the heart of this controversy is whether Federal law preempts enforcement of Labor Law § 162; that the Railway Labor Act ( 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. [RLA]) was enacted to promote stability in labor-management relations in the industry and established a mandatory arbitral mechanism to resolve disputes arising out of the interpretation or application of collective bargaining agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions; that such "minor disputes" involve controversies over the meaning of an existing collective bargaining agreement in a particular fact situation, and must be resolved through the arbitration process, thus preempting State law; that as the CBA does not, on its face, provide for such meal periods, there is no minor dispute requiring interpretation of the CBA and, hence, the provisions of the RLA are not triggered; that even accepting petitioner's assertion that due to the course of conduct between and past practices of the parties, the CBA implicitly addressed the meal period issue, it is nonetheless concluded that the RLA does not preempt Labor Law § 162, since it has long been the law that the arbitral mechanism of the RLA does not preempt State laws that are independent of collective bargaining agreements; that the RLA never was intended to broadly preempt substantive protections extended by the States, independent of any negotiated labor agreement; that preemption occurs only where enforcement of a State law depends upon the interpretation of the relevant collective bargaining agreement; that where, as here, enforcement of a State law involves purely factual questions regarding an employer's conduct without resort to the collective bargaining agreement at issue, there is no preemption; that the yardmasters did not waive the protections afforded by Labor Law § 162; that the legislative purpose of section 162 — ensuring that workers are given adequate opportunity to eat and rest for the protection of their own health and welfare as well as that of their co-workers and the public at large — is compromised by the CBA, for it simply provides for no such periods at all; that any waiver effected here would be impermissible; and that even assuming that the purported waiver did not offend the legislative purpose of the statute, there is nothing in the record demonstrating that the yardmasters received a desired benefit in return, which is an absolute prerequisite to the waiver doctrine.
Matter of Consolidated Rail Corp. v Hudacs, 223 A.D.2d 289, affirmed.
McNamee, Lochner, Titus Williams, P.C., Albany ( Scott A. Barbour and Michael J. Hall of counsel), for appellant. Dennis C. Vacco, Attorney-General, New York City ( Claire T. O'Keefe, M. Patricia Smith, Daniel F. De Vita, Peter H. Schiff and Barbara G. Billet of counsel), for respondents.
David P. Lee and Joanna L. Moorhead, of the District of Columbia Bar, admitted pro hac vice, for National Railway Labor Conference, amicus curiae.
Order affirmed, with costs, for the reasons stated in the opinion by Justice D. Bruce Crew, III, at the Appellate Division ( 223 A.D.2d 289).
Concur: Chief Judge KAYE and Judges TITONE, BELLACOSA, SMITH, LEVINE, CIPARICK and WESLEY.