Source: https://lexroll.com/local-74-united-brotherhood-of-carpenters-joiners-of-america-a-f-of-l-et-al-v-national-labor-relations-board/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 18:17:48+00:00

Document:
LOCAL 74, UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS & JOINERS OF AMERICA, A. F. OF L. et al.v.NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD.
U.S. Supreme Court Opinions > 1951 > LOCAL 74, UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS & JOINERS OF AMERICA, A. F. OF L. et al.v.NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD.
For some years before March, 1947, Ira A. Watson Company, a Rhode Island corporation (here called Watson’s), operated a general retail store in Chattanooga, Tennessee, including a department for the sale and installation of wall and floor coverings. Since that time Watson’s has operated a specialty store devoted to those activities. At about the same time, Local 74, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, A.F. of L. (here called the union), and its business agent, Jack Henderson (respectively the petitioners in the instant case), asked Watson’s to enter into a closed-shop agreement with the union recognizing it as the bargaining agent of Watson’s installation employees. None of its employees were members of the union and Watson’s declined to enter the agreement. Thereupon, from the latter part of March until about August 28, 1947, petitioners maintained a picket in front of Watson’s store carrying a placard. This announced, over the name of the union, that Watson’s was ‘unfair to organized labor’ or later ‘This store employs non-union labor.’ Watson’s sometimes sold wall or floor coverings without installing them and, at other times, it insisted upon installing such coverings as a condition of their sale. When the installations were made by Watson’s, the work was done by nonunion men.
Watson’s promptly filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board based upon the continuance of the above strike by petitioners on and after August 22. The Regional Director issued a complaint charging the union and Henderson with engaging in an unfair labor practice as defined in § 8(b)(4)(A).3 Pursuant to § 10(l),4 the Regional Director petitioned the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee for injunctive relief. This relief was denied on the ground that the conduct complained of took place before August 22 and was at that time lawful. Styles v. Local 74, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, D.C., 74 F.Supp. 499.
After hearings before an examiner, the Board, with one member dissenting, affirmed the rulings of its examiner, attached his intermediate report to its decision, 80 N.L.R.B. 533, 540, and adopted his findings, conclusions and recommendations with additions and modifications. It ordered the union and Henderson to ‘Cease and desist from engaging in or inducing the members of Local 74 to engage in a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to perform services for any employer, where an object thereof is to require any employer or other person to cease doing business with Ira A. Watson, doing business as Watson’s Specialty Store.’ Id., at 539.
1. Petitioners contest the jurisdiction of the Board on the ground of the insufficiency of the effect of the actions complained of upon interstate commerce. We conclude that the findings in the intermediate report, adopted by the Board and accepted by the court below, are sufficient to sustain the Board’s jurisdiction. Denver case, 341 U.S. 683—687, 71 S.Ct. 949, 950. From March to September, 1947, Watson’s purchased about $93,000 worth of goods. Thirty-three percent was shipped to it in interstate business. Thirty percent more had been manufactured outside of Tennessee. Watson’s sales and installation jobs came to about $100,000 of which eight percent represented sales and installations outside of the State. The Board also referred to the fact that Watson’s operated a system of 26 or 27 retail stores in seven different states, of which the Chattanooga store apparently was an integral part.
2. The complaint was not against the picketing at Watson’s store from March to August 28, 1947. See National Labor Relations Board v. International Rice Milling Co., 341 U.S. 665, 71 S.Ct. 961. The complaint was directed against petitioners’ extension of their activities to the Stanley project by there ordering a strike, or concerted cessation of work, on the part of Stanley’s union carpenters6 with an object of forcing Stanley to cancel his installation contract with Watson’s. Section 8(c)7 is not applicable. This strike was ordered by Henderson in person. The union and he both engaged in and ordered the strike. The carpenters as individual employees are not charged with an unfair labor practice. The charge is confined to the actions of the labor organization and its agent in engaging in, ordering and continuing a strike for a proscribed object after Congress had made such conduct an unfair labor practice.
3. As determined in the Denver case, it is enough that one of the objects of the action complained of was to force Stanley to cancel Watson’s contract. It does not immunize such action from § 8(b)(4)(A) to show that it also had as an object the enforcement of a rule of the union that its members should not work on a project on which nonunion men were employed.8 The statute did not require the individual carpenters to remain on this job. It did, however, make it an unfair labor practice for the union or its agent to engage in a strike, as they did here, when an object of doing so was to force the project owner to cancel his installation contract with Watson’s.
5. We have considered the remaining questions raised by petitioners, based on constitutional or other grounds and have resolved them in favor of sustaining the Board and the court below. This case has not been rendered moot by the completion of the renovation project. The complaint was against petitioners’ use of secondary pressure upon Watson’s in a manner proscribed by the statute. The use of such pressure on this renovation project was merely a sample of what might be repeated elsewhere if not prohibited. The underlying dispute between petitioners and Watson’s has not been shown to have been resolved.
The examiner found that Henderson testified credibly that this rule applied whether or not the nonunion men were physically present at the moment. It was enough that nonunion men were employed on the project. Henderson, therefore, applied the rule here because, although Watson’s men were absent from the project on August 21, 1947, Watson’s installation contract was not yet complete, and it was clear that its completion would mean the return of nonunion men to the project. Henderson testified also that the rule applied even to the employment of nonunion labor which did not come under the jurisdiction of Local 74. 80 N.L.R.B. at 546, 553, n. 33.
Petitioners gain nothing from, § 102: ‘No provision of this title (which includes § 8(b)(4)(A)) shall be deemed to make an unfair labor practice any act which was performed prior to the date of the enactment of this Act (June 23, 1947) which did not constitute an unfair labor practice prior thereto * * *.’ 61 Stat. 152, 29 U.S.C. (Supp. III), note following § 158, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158 note.

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