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Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen Ocean Lodge No. 76, 323 U.S. 210 (1944), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court upheld that the legal bargaining representatives, under the Railway Labor Act of 1926, were obligated to represent all members of the union without racial discrimination.

Background
This was a companion case to Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company decided in 1944.

In 1918, Chief William Gibbs McAdoo ruled that all black firemen were to be paid equally for labor. African Americans were hired by the railroad as an exploitable source of cheap labor with limited upward mobility. After this decision, all-white brotherhoods developed methods to bar or take away positions previously held by black firemen.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen served a notice requesting twenty-one southeastern railroads to change their collective bargaining agreements in order to eliminate black firemen from these railroad lines. This request led to the Southeastern Carriers Conference Agreement (SCCA) signed on February 18, 1941.

The SCCA stipulated that no more than fifty percent of firemen on each carrier should be black. Once that percentage was reached only white men were to be hired. Any railroad could also refuse to retain its black employees, therefore opening up more jobs to whites. However, it was difficult for African Americans to check whether they were being dismissed due to the quota or for other reasons. Only the railroad management and the bargaining representative had access to the percentage of black employees being employed at that time. The only way to fight these restrictions and discrimination was through lawsuits.

Case
Tunstall, an African American fireman, employed by the Norfolk Southern Railway, brought a lawsuit to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen for breaching their duty as sole representatives. Under the Railway Labor Act of 1926, the designated bargaining representative was obligated to represent the plaintiff and other members of the union without racial discrimination. As such, the SCCA represented a clear disregard of the law set forth in 1926.

Tunstall’s case revealed the discriminatory application of the SCCA contract provisions to black firemen. The removal from his position of interstate passenger revealed the deprivation of his preexisting seniority rights. His assignment to more toilsome work with longer hours in yard service, along with his position being given away to a white fireman, revealed further discrimination on behalf of the railway.

Decision
The Chief Justice Stone ruled on behalf of Tunstall and awarded four million dollars for the damage claim. The court found that the unfair and illegal discrimination under the Southeastern Carriers Conference Agreement was subject to injunction and claims for damages.