Detroit & Toledo Shore Line Railroad v. United Transportation Union

This case raises a question concerning the extent to which the Railway Labor Act of 1926 1 imposes an obligation upon the parties to a railroad labor dispute to maintain the status quo while the “purposely long and drawn out” 2 procedures of the Act are exhausted. Petitioner, a railroad, contends that the status quo which the Act requires be maintained consists only of the working conditions specifically covered in the parties’ existing collective-bargaining agreement. Respondent railroad brotherhood contends that what must be preserved as the status quo are the actual, objective working…