Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/676/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 10:05:04+00:00

Document:
Respondent brought this action under §§1 and 2 of the Sherman Act against petitioners, seven local unions, Associated Food Retailers of Greater Chicago, Inc. (Associated), an association of retail food stores, and Associated's secretary and treasurer, alleging that petitioners and Associated had conspired to restrain competition in retail meat markets in the Chicago area by limiting the marketing hours for the sale of fresh meat through a clause in the collective bargaining agreement between Associated and petitioners and between respondent and petitioners. The District Court, after trial, held that there was no evidence in the record to support a finding of a conspiracy to force the restrictive provision on respondent, that the marketing hours limitation was imposed by the unions to serve their own interests respecting conditions of employment, and that such action was clearly within the labor exemption of the Sherman Act. The Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of the complaint as to the unions and Associated, and, without upsetting the District Court's finding that, apart from the contractual provision itself, there was no evidence of conspiracy, concluded that a conspiracy in restraint of trade was shown. It held that the employer-union contract concerning working hours is unlawful, as the establishment of the hours of work is a function of the employer.
Held: The judgment is reversed. Pp. 381 U. S. 679-735.
331 F. 2d 547, reversed.
1. This controversy involving whether a proposed bargaining subject is a term or condition of employment is not within the exclusive primary jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. Pp. 381 U. S. 684-688.
(a) Courts have had experience in classifying bargaining subjects as terms or conditions of employment, as under the Norris-LaGuardia Act. P. 381 U. S. 686.
(b) The primary jurisdiction doctrine does not require resort to an administrative proceeding when the case must eventually be decided on a controlling legal issue unrelated to the administrative determination. P. 381 U. S. 686.
(c) There is no procedure available in this case for obtaining a determination by the Labor Board. P. 381 U. S. 687.
2. Exemption of union-employer agreements from the coverage of the Sherman Act is a matter of accommodating that Act to the policy of the labor laws, as this Court pointed out in United Mine Workers v. Pennington, ante, p. 381 U. S. 657, and the fact that employers and unions are required to bargain about wages, hours and working conditions weighs heavily in favor of antitrust exemption for agreement on these subjects. P. 381 U. S. 689.
3. A provision establishing the particular hours of work would be within the ambit of wages, hours and working conditions requiring mandatory bargaining, and the unions' success in obtaining that provision through negotiation in pursuit of their own policies falls within the protection of the national labor policy, and is exempt from the Sherman Act. Pp. 381 U. S. 689-691.
4. Likewise, a marketing hours restriction would be exempt if night operation of meat markets would require night employment of butchers, impair the butchers' jurisdiction, or substantially affect their workload. P. 381 U. S. 692.
5. But if self-service markets could conduct night operations without affecting the vital interests of butchers, there might be restraint on the product market, and the limitation imposed by the unions might be nothing more than an attempt to protect one group of employers from competition from another group, which is conduct not exempt from the Sherman Act. Pp. 381 U. S. 692-693.
6. The resolution by the District Court of the question of whether night operations without butchers, and without infringement of the butchers' interests, are feasible, in favor of the unions' position, was supported by evidence in the record, and is not clearly erroneous. Pp. 694- 381 U. S. 697.
in antitrust cases by determining whether unions or employers had good or bad motives for their agreements on mandatory subjects of collective bargaining. Pp. 381 U. S. 697-735.
(b) The Court should follow the approach of United State v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219, that the labor exemption from the antitrust laws derives from a synthesis of all pertinent legislation, and hold that collective bargaining activity concerning mandatory subjects of bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act is not subject to the antitrust laws. Pp. 381 U. S. 709-710.
(c) Multiemployer bargaining is not illegal or opposed to the national labor policy. Pp. 381 U. S. 712-713.
(d) Labor contracts establishing standardized wages, hours or other conditions of employment are often secured by bargaining with multiemployer associations or through bargaining with market leaders that sets a "pattern," and the policy of pattern bargaining should not lead to antitrust liability merely because of its form. P. 381 U. S. 722.
(e) In this case, even if the self-service markets could operate after 6 p. m. without their butchers and without increasing the work of their butchers at other times, the result of such operation can reasonably be expected to be either that the small, independent service markets would have to remain open in order to compete, thus requiring their union butchers to work at night, or that the small, independent service markets would not be able to operate at night, and thus be put at a competitive disadvantage. Pp. 381 U. S. 727-728.
(f) Since it is clear that the large, automated self-service markets employ fewer butchers per volume of sales than service markets do, the Union has a legitimate interest in keeping service markets competitive so as to preserve jobs. P. 381 U. S. 728.
(g) The direct interest of the Union in not working undesirable hours by curtailing all business at those hours is a far cry from the indirect interest of a union in fixing prices and allocating markets solely to increase the profits of favored employers. Pp. 381 U. S. 728-729.
policy and manifestly unfair in view of their statutory duty to bargain. Pp. 381 U. S. 729-730.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN join.
shall be served who comes into the market before or after the hours set forth above."
belief, as it had midway through the negotiations, that any marketing hours restriction was illegal. On the recommendation of the union negotiators, the Jewel offer was rejected by the union membership, and a strike was authorized. Under the duress of the strike vote, Jewel decided to sign the contract previously approved by the rest of the industry.
In July, 1958, Jewel brought suit against the unions, certain of their officers, Associated, and Charles H. Bromann, Secretary-Treasurer of Associated, seeking invalidation under §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act of the contract provision that prohibited night meat market operations. The gist of the complaint was that the defendants and others had conspired together to prevent the retail sale of fresh meat before 9 a.m. and after 6 p.m. As evidence of the conspiracy, Jewel relied in part on the events during the 1957 contract negotiations -- the acceptance by Associated of the market hours restriction and the unions' imposition of the restriction on Jewel through a strike threat. Jewel also alleged that it was a part of the conspiracy that the unions would neither permit their members to work at times other than the hours specified nor allow any grocery firm to sell meat, with or without employment of their members, outside those hours; that the members of Associated, which had joined only one of the 1957 employer proposals for extended marketing hours, had agreed among themselves to insist on the inclusion of the marketing hours limitation in all collective bargaining agreements between the unions and any food store operator; that Associated, its members, and officers, had agreed with the other defendants that no firm was to be permitted to operate self-service meat markets between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and that the unions, their officers and members had acted as the enforcing agent of the conspiracy.
The complaint stated that, in recent years, the pre-packaged, self-service system of marketing meat had come into vogue, that 174 of Jewel's 196 stores were equipped to vend meat in this manner, and that a butcher need not be on duty in a self-service market at the time meat purchases were actually made. The prohibition of night meat marketing, it was alleged, unlawfully impeded Jewel in the use of its property, and adversely affected the general public in that many persons find it inconvenient to shop during the day. An injunction, treble damages, and attorney's fees were demanded.
v. American Federation of Musicians, 318 U.S. 741. Alternatively, the District Court ruled that, even if this was not the case, the arrangement did not amount to an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act.
"entered into a combination or agreement, which constituted a conspiracy, as charged in the complaint. . . . ; [w]hether it be called an agreement, a contract or a conspiracy, is immaterial."
Similarly, the Court of Appeals did not find it necessary to review the lower court's finding that night marketing would affect either the butchers' working hours or their jurisdiction, for the court held that an employer-union contract respecting working hours would be unlawful.
supply meat to customers are the prerogatives of the employer."
We granted certiorari on the unions' petition, [Footnote 2] 379 U.S. 813, [Footnote 3] and now reverse the Court of Appeals.
We must first consider the unions' attack on the appropriateness of the District Court's exercise of jurisdiction, which is encompassed in their contention that this controversy is within the exclusive primary jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. On this point, which is distinct from the unions' argument that the operating hours restriction is subject to regulation only by the Board, and is thus wholly exempt from the antitrust laws, the unions' thesis is that the pivotal issue is whether the operating hours restriction is a "term or condition of employment," and that the District Court should have held the case on its docket pending a Board Proceeding to resolve that issue, which is said to be peculiarly within the competence of the Board.
into play whenever enforcement of the claim requires the resolution of issues which, under a regulatory scheme, have been placed within the special competence of an administrative body; in such a case, the judicial process is suspended pending referral of such issues to the administrative body for its views."
"that, in cases raising issues of fact not within the conventional experience of judges or cases requiring the exercise of administrative discretion, agencies created by Congress for regulating the subject matter should not be passed over,"
"requires judicial abstention in cases where protection of the integrity of a regulatory scheme dictates preliminary resort to the agency which administers the scheme,"
United States v. Philadelphia Nat. Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 374 U. S. 353.
or conditions of employment" is a matter concerning which the Board has special expertise. Nevertheless, for the reasons stated below, we cannot conclude that this is a proper case for application of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.
To begin with, courts are themselves not without experience in classifying bargaining subjects as terms or conditions of employment. Just such a determination must be frequently made when a court's jurisdiction to issue an injunction affecting a labor dispute is challenged under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which defines "labor dispute" as including "any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment." Norris-LaGuardia Act, § 13(c), 47 Stat. 73, 29 U.S.C. § 113(c), (1958 ed.). See Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Chicago & N.W. R. Co., 362 U. S. 330; Bakery Sales Drivers Union v. Wagshal, 333 U. S. 437; cf. Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283.
"an expensive and merely delaying administrative proceeding when the case must eventually be decided on a controlling legal issue wholly unrelated to determinations for the ascertainment of which the proceeding was sent to the agency."
impose a particular scale of wages -- indisputably at the core of "wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment" -- that such an understanding is not exempt from the Sherman Act. At the stage when the decision whether to refer the parties to the Board was made, therefore, the issues were so framed that a Board determination would have been of subsidiary importance, at best.
Finally, we must reject the unions' primary jurisdiction contention because of the absence of an available procedure for obtaining a Board determination. The Board does not classify bargaining subjects in the abstract, but only in connection with unfair labor practice charges of refusal to bargain. The typical antitrust suit, however, is brought by a stranger to the bargaining relationship, and the complaint is not that the parties have refused to bargain, but, quite the contrary, that they have agreed. Jewel's conspiracy allegation in the present case was just such a complaint. Agreement is, of course, not a refusal to bargain, and, in such cases, the Board affords no mechanism for obtaining a classification of the subject matter of the agreement. Moreover, even in the few instances when the antitrust action could be framed as a refusal to bargain charge, there is no guarantee of Board action. It is the function of the Board's General Counsel, rather than the Board or a private litigant, to determine whether an unfair labor practice complaint will ultimately issue. National Labor Relations Act, § 3(d), 29 U.S.C. § 153(d) (1958 ed.). And the six-month limitation period of § 10(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 160(b) (1958 ed.), would preclude many litigants from even filing a charge with the General Counsel. Indeed, Jewel's complaint in this very case was filed more than six months after it signed the 1957 collective bargaining agreement.
have jurisdiction to determine in a proceeding for that purpose."
Here, as in United Mine Workers of America v. Pennington, ante, at 381 U. S. 657, the claim is made that the agreement under attack is exempt from the antitrust laws. We agree, but not on the broad grounds urged by the union.
It is well at the outset to emphasize that this case comes to us stripped of any claim of a union-employer conspiracy against Jewel. The trial court found no evidence to sustain Jewel's conspiracy claim, and this finding was not disturbed by the Court of Appeals. We therefore have a situation where the unions, having obtained a marketing hours agreement from one group of employers, have successfully sought the same terms from a single employer, Jewel, not as a result of a bargain between the unions and some employers directed against other employers, but pursuant to what the unions deemed to be in their own labor union interests.
before us is not the broad substantive one of a violation of the antitrust laws -- was there a conspiracy or combination which unreasonably restrained trade or an attempt to monopolize and was Jewel damaged in its business? -- but whether the agreement is immune from attack by reason of the labor exemption from the antitrust laws. See note 3 supra. The fact that the parties to the agreement are but a single employer and the unions representing its employees does not compel immunity for the agreement. We must consider the subject matter of the agreement in the light of the national labor policy. Cf. Bakery Drivers Local Union v. Wagshal, 333 U. S. 437.
We pointed out in Pennington that exemption for union-employer agreements is very much a matter of accommodating the coverage of the Sherman Act to the policy of the labor laws. Employers and unions are required to bargain about wages, hours and working conditions, and this fact weighs heavily in favor of antitrust exemption for agreements on these subjects. But neither party need bargain about other matters, and either party commits an unfair labor practice if it conditions its bargaining upon discussions of a nonmandatory subject. Labor Board v. Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342. Jewel, for example, need not have bargained about or agreed to a schedule of prices at which its meat would be sold, and the unions could not legally have insisted that it do so. But if the unions had made such a demand, Jewel had agreed, and the United States or an injured party had challenged the agreement under the antitrust laws, we seriously doubt that either the unions or Jewel could claim immunity by reason of the labor exemption, whatever substantive questions of violation there might be.
through bona fide, arm's-length bargaining in pursuit of their own labor union policies, and not at the behest of or in combination with non-labor groups, falls within the protection of the national labor policy, and is therefore exempt from the Sherman Act. [Footnote 5] We think that it is.
The Court of Appeals would classify the marketing hours restriction with the product pricing provision, and place both within the reach of the Sherman Act. In its view, labor has a legitimate interest in the number of hours it must work, but no interest in whether the hours fall in the daytime, in the nighttime or on Sundays.
"[T]he furnishing of a place and advantageous hours of employment for the butchers to supply meat to customers are the prerogatives of the employer."
"eight hours shall constitute the basic work day, Monday through Saturday; work to being at 9:00 a.m.
and stop at 6:00 p.m. . . ."
as well as the marketing hours restriction.
Contrary to the Court of Appeals, we think that the particular hours of the day and the particular days of the week during which employees shall be required to work are subjects well within the realm of "wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment" about which employers and unions must bargain. National Labor Relations Act, § 8(d); see Timken Roller Bearing Co., 70 N.L.R.B. 500, 504, 515-516, 521 (1946), rev'd on other grounds, 161 F.2d 949 (C.A.6th Cir. 1947) (employer's unilateral imposition of Sunday work was refusal to bargain); Massey Gin & Machine Works, Inc., 78 N.L.R.B. 189, 195, 199 (1948) (change in starting and quitting time); Camp & McInnes, Inc., 100 N.L.R.B. 524, 532 (1952) (reduction of lunch hour and advancement of quitting time). And, although the effect on competition is apparent and real, perhaps more so than in the case of the wage agreement, the concern of union members is immediate and direct. Weighing the respective interests involved, we think the national labor policy expressed in the National Labor Relations Act places beyond the reach of the Sherman Act union-employer agreements on when, as well as how long, employees must work. An agreement on these subjects between the union and the employers in a bargaining unit is not illegal under the Sherman Act, nor is the union's unilateral demand for the same contract of other employers in the industry.
Disposing of the case, as it did, on the broad grounds we have indicated, the Court of Appeals did not deal separately with the marketing hours provision, as distinguished from hours of work, in connection with either service or self-service markets. The dispute here pertains principally to self-service markets.
The unions argue that, since night operations would be impossible without night employment of butchers, or an impairment of the butchers' jurisdiction, or a substantial effect on the butchers' workload, the marketing hours restriction is either little different in effect from the valid working hours provision that work shall stop at 6 p.m. or is necessary to protect other concerns of the union members. If the unions' factual premises are true, we think the unions could impose a restriction on night operations without violation of the Sherman Act, for then, operating hours, like working hours, would constitute a subject of immediate and legitimate concern to union members.
Jewel alleges, on the other hand, that the night operation of self-service markets requires no butcher to be in attendance, and does not infringe any other legitimate union concern. Customers serve themselves; and if owners want to forgo furnishing the services of a butcher to give advice or to make special cuts, this is not the unions' concern, since their desire to avoid night work is fully satisfied and no other legitimate interest is being infringed. In short, the connection between working hours and operating hours in the case of the self-service market is said to be so attenuated as to bring the provision within the prohibition of the Sherman Act.
"in stores where meat is sold at night, it is impractical to operate without either butchers or other employees. Someone must arrange, replenish and clean the counters and supply customer services."
Operating without butchers would mean that "their work would be done by others unskilled in the trade," and "would involve an increase in workload in preparing for the night work and cleaning the next morning." 215 F.Supp. at 846. Those findings were not disturbed by the Court of Appeals, which, as previously noted, proceeded on a broader ground. Our function is limited to reviewing the record to satisfy ourselves that the trial judge's findings are not clearly erroneous. Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. 52(a).
The trial court had before it evidence concerning the history of the unions' opposition to night work, the development of the provisions respecting night work and night operations, the course of collective bargaining negotiations in 1957, 1959, and 1961 [Footnote 7] with regard to those provisions, and the characteristics of meat marketing insofar as they bore on the feasibility of night operations without butchers.
7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, and 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday. Butchers worked the full 81-hour, seven-day week. The Chicago butchers' strike of 1919 was much concerned with shortening working hours, and the resulting contract, signed in 1920, set the working day at 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. Various alterations in the hours were made in 1937, 1941, 1945, 1946, and again in 1947, when the present working hours (9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday) were established. In a mail ballot conducted by the unions in October, 1962, Jewel's meat cutters voted 759 to 28 against night work.
"Market operating hours shall be 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, inclusive. No customer shall be served who comes into the market before or after the hours set forth above."
In 1947, Jewel had just started investigating the self-service method of meat vending. It introduced that method in the Chicago area in 1948, and in the territory of these unions in 1953.
of butchers. Such juxtaposition of the two provisions could, of course, only serve to reinforce the unions' fears that night operations meant night work. Jewel did allege in its complaint, filed in July, 1958, that night operations were possible without butchers, but, even in the 1959 bargaining sessions, Jewel failed to put forth any plan for night operations that did not also include night work. Finally, toward the end of the 1961 negotiations, Jewel did make such a suggestion, but, as the trial judge remarked, the "unions questioned the seriousness of that proposal under the circumstances." 215 F.Supp. at 843.
"[I]n most of plaintiff's stores outside Chicago where night operations exist, meatcutters are on duty whenever a meat department is open after 6 P.M.. . . . Even in self-service departments, ostensibly operated without employees on duty after 6 P.M., there was evidence that requisite customer services in connection with meat sales were performed by grocery clerks. In the same vein, defendants adduced evidence that, in the sale of delicatessen items, which could be made after 6 P.M. from self-service cases under the contract, 'practically' always during the time the market was open, the manager or other employees would be rearranging and restocking the cases. There was also evidence that, even if it were practical to operate a self-service meat market after 6 P.M. without employees, the night operations would add to the workload in getting the meats prepared for night sales and in putting the counters in order the next day."
Jewel challenges the unions' evidence on each of these points -- arguing, for example, that its preference to have butchers on duty at night, where possible under the union contract, is not probative of the feasibility of not having butchers on duty, and that the evidence that grocery clerks performed customer services within the butchers' jurisdiction was based on a single instance resulting from "entrapment" by union agents. But Jewel's argument -- when considered against the historical background of union concern with working hours and operating hours and the virtually uniform recognition by employers of the intimate relationship between the two subjects, as manifested by bargaining proposals in 1957, 1959, and 1961 -- falls far short of a showing that the trial judge's ultimate findings were clearly erroneous.
The practice in the Chicago area is for the employers and the butchers to execute separate, but similar, collective bargaining agreements for self-service and service markets. A self-service market is "one in which fresh beef, veal, lamb, mutton or pork are available for sale on a prepackage self-service basis." Semi-self-service markets, those in which fresh meat is made available on a prepackaged basis but there is also a service counter offering custom cutting for those who prefer it, are governed by the self-service contract. Service markets are those in which no fresh meat is made available on a self-service basis.
Action upon the separate petition of Associated and Bromann, No. 321 Oct. Term, 1964, has been withheld, pending disposition of this case.
"1. Based on the District Court's undisturbed finding that the limitation"
"was imposed after arm's length bargaining, . . . and was fashioned exclusively by the unions to serve their own interests -- how long and what hours members shall work, what work they shall do, and what pay they shall receive,"
whether the limitation upon market operating hours and the controversy concerning it are within the labor exemption of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
"2. Whether a claimed violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act which falls within the regulatory scope of the National Labor Relations Act is within the exclusive primary jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board."
To be distinguished are the preemption cases in which the possibility that the Board may not exercise jurisdiction renders state courts no less powerless to act, see San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 359 U. S. 245-246. See generally Teamsters Local 20 v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252.
"to protect the negotiated wage scale against the possible undermining through diminution of the owner's wages for driving which might result from a rental which did not cover his operating costs."
"'remote and indirect approach to the subject of wages,' . . . but a direct frontal attack upon a problem thought to threaten the maintenance of the basic wage structure established by the collective bargaining contract,"
id. at 358 U. S. 294, the paramount federal policy of encouraging collective bargaining proscribed application of the state law. See also Meat Drivers v. United States, 371 U. S. 94, 371 U. S. 98; Milk Wagon Drivers' Union, Local No. 753 v. Lake Valley Farm Products, Inc., 311 U. S. 91.
"Every board of trade and nearly every trade organization imposes some restraint upon the conduct of business by its members. Those relating to the hours in which business may be done are common, and they make a special appeal where, as here, they tend to shorten the working day or, at least, limit the period of most exacting activity."
246 U.S. at 246 U. S. 241. (Emphasis added.) See also La Due v. Teamsters & Chauffeurs Union, Local No. 43, 1946-1947 Trade Cas., 57,631 (Wis.Cir.Ct.1947); Cielesz v. Local 189, Amalgamated Meat Cutters, 25 Ill.App.2d 491, 167 N.E.2d 302 (1960).
Other cases have upheld operating hours restraints in factual circumstances that make it seem likely that the agreement affected hours of operation and hours of work in equal measure, but without stressing that fact. See Dunkel Oil Corp. v. Anich, 1944-1945 Trade Cas., 57,306 (D.C.E.D.Ill.1944); Baker v. Retail Clerks Assn., 313 Ill.App. 432, 40 N.E.2d 571 (1942); Stovall v. McCutchen, 107 Ky. 577, 54 S.W. 969, 47 L.R.A. 287 (1900).
Kold Kist, Inc. v. Amalgamated Meat Cutters, Local No. 421, 99 Cal.App.2d 191, 221 P.2d 724 (1950), held unreasonable a union-employer agreement limiting night sales of frozen poultry which had previously been obtained from the plaintiff-distributor. The plaintiff alleged, however, that it had been several affected, since many stores had stopped carrying its products entirely due to the lack of storage facilities in which to keep the poultry during hours in which sale was prohibited, and such effects may be atypical.
The decided cases thus do not appear to offer any easy answer to the question whether in a particular case an operating hours restraint is unreasonable.
In 1959 and again in 1961, new collective bargaining agreements containing the challenged provision were executed. In each instance, Jewel reserved its position with respect to this litigation.
MR. JUSTICE GOLDBERG, with whom MR. JUSTICE HARLAN and MR. JUSTICE STEWART join, dissenting from the opinion but concurring in the reversal in No. 48 and concurring in the judgment of the Court in No. 240.
Stripped of all the pejorative adjectives and reduced to their essential facts, both Pennington and Jewel Tea represent refusals by judges to give full effect to congressional action designed to prohibit judicial intervention via the antitrust route in legitimate collective bargaining. The history of these cases furnishes fresh evidence of the observation that, in this area, necessarily involving a determination of "what public policy in regard to the industrial struggle demands," Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 254 U. S. 479, 254 U. S. 485 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis), "courts have neither the aptitude nor the criteria for reaching sound decisions." Cox, Labor and the Antitrust Laws -- A Preliminary Analysis, 104 U.Pa.L.Rev. 252, 269-270 (1955); see Winter, Collective Bargaining and Competition: The Application of Antitrust Standards to Union Activities, 73 Yale L.J. 14 (1963).
Jewel Tea presents another and different aspect of collective bargaining philosophy. The Chicago Local of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters bargains for its members with small, independent service butchers, as well as large automated self-service chains. It seeks from both a uniform policy that no fresh meat be sold after 6 p.m. This union policy, as my Brother WHITE recognizes, ante at 381 U. S. 694-696, has a long history dating back to 1919, and has grown out of the Union's struggle to reduce the long, arduous hours worked by butchers, which, in 1919, were 81 hours per week. It took a long strike to achieve the first limitation on hours in 1920, and it has required hard extensive collective bargaining since then to maintain the policy and further reduce the number of hours worked. While it is claimed by Jewel Tea, a large operator of automated self-service markets, that it can operate beyond the set hours without increasing the work of butchers or having others do butchers' work -- a claim rejected by the trial court and the majority of this Court -- it is conceded, on this record, that the small, independent service operators cannot do so. Therefore to the extent that the Union's uniform policy limiting hours of selling fresh meat has the effect of aiding one group of employers at the expense of another, here the union policy, unlike that in Pennington, aids the small employers at the expense of the large.
acknowledge, involve conventional collective bargaining on wages, hours, and working conditions -- mandatory subjects of bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 158(d) (1958 ed.). Yet the Mine Workers' activity in Pennington was held subject to an antitrust action by two lower courts. This decision was based upon a jury determination that the Union's economic philosophy is undesirable, and it resulted in an award against the Union of treble damages of $270,000 and $55,000 extra for respondent's attorneys' fees. In Jewel Tea, the Union has also been subjected to an antitrust suit in which a court of appeals, with its own notions as to what butchers are legitimately interested in, would subject the Union to a treble damage judgment in an as yet undetermined amount.
Regretfully, these cases, both in the lower courts and in expressions in the various opinions filed today in this Court, as I shall demonstrate, constitute a throwback to past days when courts allowed antitrust actions against unions and employers engaged in conventional collective bargaining, because "a judge considered" the union or employer conduct in question to be "socially or economically" objectionable. Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, supra, 254 U.S. at 254 U. S. 485 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis). It is necessary to recall that history to place the cases before us in proper perspective.
"was enacted in the era of 'trusts' and of 'combinations' of businesses and of capital organized and directed to control of the market by suppression of competition in the marketing of goods and services, the monopolistic tendency of which had become a matter of public concern."
"The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. Nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor . . . organizations, instituted for the purposes of mutual help . . . or to forbid or restrain individual members of such organizations from lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof. . . . [Footnote 2/3]"
20 barred federal court injunctions "in any case between an employer and employees, or between employers and employees" involving a dispute over terms and conditions of employment. It specifically prohibited issuance of injunctions against certain activities such as quitting work, persuading others to do the same, etc., and concluded with the provision: "nor shall any of the acts specified . . . be considered or held to be violations of any law of the United States."
"it would do violence to the . . . language employed," id. at 254 U. S. 472, to hold that the section included an attempt to organize a new employer. Mr. Justice Brandeis, in dissent (joined by Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Clarke), forcefully argued that the decision of the majority violated the clear congressional purpose to remove from judges the determination of "what public policy in regard to the industrial struggle demands," id. at 254 U. S. 485, and to "declare the right of industrial combatants to push their struggle to the limits of the justification of self-interest. . . ." Id. at 254 U. S. 488.
Duplex was followed by other decisions of this Court and lower federal courts which sustained the application of the antitrust laws to curb both primary and secondary union activity. See, e.g., Bedford Co. v. Stone Cutters Assn., 274 U. S. 37; Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 268 U. S. 295; Alco-Zander Co. v. Amalgamated Clothing Workers, 35 F.2d 203 (D.C.E.D.Pa.); United States v. Railway Employees' Dept., 283 F. 479 (D.C.N.D.Ill.).
"underlying aim . . . was to restore the broad purpose which Congress thought it had formulated in the Clayton Act, but which was frustrated. . . ."
"was prompted by a desire . . . to withdraw federal courts from a type of controversy for which many believed they were ill-suited and from participation in which, it was feared, judicial prestige might suffer."
Marine Cooks & Stewards v. Panama S.S. Co., 362 U. S. 365, 362 U. S. 370, n. 7. The Wagner Act, 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. (1958 ed.), followed the Norris-LaGuardia Act and gave affirmative protection and encouragement to union organization and collective bargaining and further reflected congressional desire to narrow the judiciary's role in the formulation of labor policy by entrusting principal enforcement responsibility to an administrative agency.
"Strikes or agreements not to work, entered into by laborers to compel employers to yield to their demands, may restrict to some extent the power of employers who are parties to the dispute to compete in the market with those not subject to such demands.
But . . . the mere fact of such restrictions on competition does not, in itself, bring the parties to the agreement within the condemnation of the Sherman Act. . . . Furthermore, successful union activity, as, for example, consummation of a wage agreement with employers, may have some influence on price competition by eliminating that part of such competition which is based on differences in labor standards. Since, in order to render a labor combination effective, it must eliminate the competition from nonunion made goods, . . . an elimination of price competition based on differences in labor standards is the objective of any national labor organization. But this effect on competition has not been considered to be the kind of curtailment of price competition prohibited by the Sherman Act. [Footnote 2/5]"
310 U.S. at 310 U. S. 503-504.
of the Sherman Law is to be determined only by reading the Sherman Law and § 20 of the Clayton Act and the Norris-LaGuardia Act as a harmonizing text of outlawry of labor conduct."
"So long as a union acts in its self-interest and does not combine with nonlabor groups, [Footnote 2/6] the licit and the illicit . . . are not to be distinguished by any judgment regarding the wisdom or unwisdom, the rightness or wrongness, the selfishness or unselfishness, of the end of which the particular union activities are the means."
312 U.S. at 312 U. S. 232.
"that a union's exemption from the Sherman Act is not to be determined by a judicial 'judgment regarding the wisdom or unwisdom, the rightness or wrongness, the selfishness or unselfishness of the end of which the particular union activities are the means.'"
"industrywide understandings looking not merely to terms and conditions of employment, but also to price and market control. Agencies were set up composed of representatives of all three groups (the union-contractor-manufacturer combination) to boycott recalcitrant local contractors and manufacturers and to bar from the (New York City) area equipment manufactured outside its boundaries. "
325 U.S. at 325 U. S. 799-800. And "this combination of businessmen"
"intended to and did restrain trade in and monopolize the supply of electrical equipment in the New York City area to the exclusion of equipment manufactured in and shipped from other states, and did also control its price and discriminate between its would-be customers."
significant that, in enacting this last prohibition, Congress, in the exercise of its legislative judgment, specifically excepted the unusual situations existing in the garment and building industries. Such exceptions for particular industries which may be proper subjects of legislative discretion would, of course, be most difficult for courts to make in employing a broad proscription like the Sherman Act.
that both employers and unions must bargain over "wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment." 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(5), (b)(3), (d) (1958 ed.). Following the sound analysis of Hutcheson, the Court should hold that, in order to effectuate congressional intent, collective bargaining activity concerning mandatory subjects of bargaining under the Labor Act is not subject to the antitrust laws. [Footnote 2/18] This rule flows directly from the Hutcheson holding that a union, acting as a union, in the interests of its members, and not acting to fix prices or allocate markets in aid of an employer conspiracy to accomplish these objects, with only indirect union benefits, is not subject to challenge under the antitrust laws. To hold that mandatory collective bargaining is completely protected would effectuate the congressional policies of encouraging free collective bargaining, subject only to specific restrictions contained in the labor laws, and of limiting judicial intervention in labor matters via the antitrust route -- an intervention which necessarily, under the Sherman Act, places on judges and juries the determination of "what public policy in regard to the industrial struggle demands." Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, supra, at 254 U. S. 485 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis). See Winter, Collective Bargaining and Competition: The Application of Antitrust Standards to Union Activities, 73 Yale L.J. 14 (1963).
and extended in the subsequent Norris-LaGuardia Act. Other federal legislation establishing minimum wages and maximum hours takes labor standards out of competition. The Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (1958 ed.), clearly states that the existence of "labor conditions" insufficient for a "minimum standard of living . . . constitutes an unfair method of competition in commerce." 29 U.S.C. at § 202(a). Moreover, this Court has recognized that, in the Walsh-Healey Act, 49 Stat. 2036, as amended, 41 U.S.C. §§ 35-45 (1958 ed.), Congress brought to bear the "leverage of the Government's immense purchasing power to raise labor standards" by eliminating substandard producers from eligibility for public contracts. Endicott Johnson Corp. v. Perkins, 317 U. S. 501, 317 U. S. 507. See also Davis-Bacon Act, 46 Stat. 1494, 40 U.S.C. § 276a (1958 ed.). The National Labor Relations Act itself clearly expresses one of its purposes to be "the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries." 29 U.S.C. § 151. In short, business competition based on wage competition is not national policy, and "the mere fact of such restrictions on competition does not . . . bring the parties . . . within the condemnation of the Sherman Act." Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, supra, at 310 U. S. 503.
that they must bargain about a point, but may be subject to antitrust penalties if they reach an agreement, is to stultify the congressional scheme.
"the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes by subjecting labor-management controversies to the mediatory influence of negotiation."
Fibreboard Paper Prods. Corp. v. Labor Board, 379 U. S. 203, 379 U. S. 211.
to enact bills to restrict or prohibit industrywide bargaining. See, e.g., H.R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 2(16), 9(f)(1), 12(a)(3)(A), 12(a)(4), H.R.Rep.No.245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 24, 73; note 8, supra, and citations contained therein; H.R. 8449, 82d Cong.2d Sess. Nor can it be seriously argued that multiemployer bargaining, as in Jewel Tea, introduces an illegal element or is otherwise opposed to the national labor policy. Indeed, this Court to implement congressional policy sanctioning multiemployer bargaining, permitted employers to resort, under certain circumstances, to lockouts to protect the integrity of the multiemployer bargaining unit. See Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union No. 449, 353 U. S. 87; Labor Board v. Brown, 380 U. S. 278. [Footnote 2/20] The wisdom of permitting industrywide and multiemployer bargaining is for Congress to decide unless this Court is to return to the discredited approach of the majority in Duplex and substitute its notion for that of Congress as to how unions and employers should conduct their collective bargaining.
"a union may make wage agreements with a multiemployer bargaining unit, and may, in pursuance of its own union interests, seek to obtain the same terms from other employers,"
"a union forfeits its exemption from the antitrust laws when it is clearly shown that it has agreed with one set of employers to impose a certain wage scale on other bargaining units."
"the alleged agreement between UMW and the large operators to secure uniform labor standards throughout the industry, if proved, was not exempt from the antitrust laws."
Ante at 381 U. S. 669.
factors prevent them from accepting the union's proposed terms. Under the Court's holding today, however, such a statement by an employer may start both the employer and union on the road to antitrust sanctions, criminal and civil. For a jury may well interpret such discussion and subsequent union action as showing an implicit or secret agreement to impose uniform standards on other employers. Nor does the Court's requirement that there be "direct or indirect evidence of the conspiracy," ante at 381 U. S. 665 n. 2 -- whatever those undefined terms in the opinion may mean -- provide any substantial safeguard for uninhibited collective bargaining discussions. In Pennington itself, the trial court instructed the jury that a union's unilateral actions did not subject it to antitrust sanctions, and yet the jury readily inferred a "conspiracy" from the "direct or indirect evidence" of the union's publicly stated policy in favor of high wages and mechanization, its collective bargaining agreement with a group of employers establishing high wages, and its attempts to obtain similar high wages from other employers.
Furthermore, in order to determine whether, under the Court's standard, a union is acting unilaterally or pursuant to an agreement with employers, judges, and juries will inevitably be drawn to try to determine the purpose and motive of union and employer collective bargaining activities. The history I have set out, however, makes clear that Congress intended to foreclose judges and juries from roaming at large in the area of collective bargaining, under cover of the antitrust laws, by inquiry into the purpose and motive of the employer and union bargaining on mandatory subjects. Such roaming at large, experience shows, leads to a substitution of judicial for congressional judgment as to how collective bargaining should operate.
"the primary purpose of the campaign for the unionization of the Philadelphia market was the protection of the unionized markets in other states,"
"the object of the strikes was to put an end to all production in Philadelphia under nonunion conditions, and only to permit it to be resumed if and when the manufacturers were willing to operate upon an union basis and under union wage scales."
Act was designed to overrule them. See H.R.Rep.No.669, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 3-7; S.Rep.No.163, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 9-10.
Congress, in the Norris-LaGuardia Act and other labor statutes, as this Court recognized in Apex and Hutcheson, determined that judicial notions of the social and economic desirability of union action should not govern antitrust liability in the area of collective bargaining. The fact that a purpose-motive approach necessarily opens the door to basing criminal or civil penalties under the Sherman Act on just such a determination and to making courts the arbiters of our national labor policy is borne out not only by the history of cases like Alco-Zander, but also by the cases decided today.
In Pennington, central to the alleged conspiracy is the claim that hourly wage rates and fringe benefits were set at a level designed to eliminate the competition of the smaller nonunion companies by making the labor cost too high for them to pay. Indeed, the trial judge charged that there was no violation of the Sherman Act in the establishing of wages and welfare payments through the national contract, "provided" the mine workers and the major coal producers had not agreed to fix "high" rates "in order to drive the small coal operators out of business." Under such an instruction, if the jury found the wage scale too "high," it could impute to the union the unlawful purpose of putting the nonunion operators out of business. It is clear that the effect of the instruction therefore, was to invite [Footnote 2/12] jurymen to become arbiters of the economic desirability of the wage scale in the Nation's coal industry. The Court would sustain the judgment based on this charge, and thereby put its stamp of approval on this role for courts and juries.
limits to what a union or an employer may offer or extract in the name of wages," Pennington, ante, at 381 U. S. 665. To allow a jury to infer an illegal "conspiracy" from the agreed-upon wage scale means that the jury must determine at what level the wages could be fixed without impelling the parties into the ambit of the antitrust laws. Is this not another way of saying that, via the antitrust route, a judge or jury may determine, according to its own notions of what is economically sound, the amount of wages that a union can properly ask for or that an employer can pay? It is clear, as experience shows, that judges and juries neither have the aptitude nor possess the criteria for making this kind of judgment. In Pennington, absent the alleged conspiracy, would the wage rate and fringe benefits have been lower? Should they have been lower? If Pennington were an action for injunctive relief, what would be the appropriate remedy to reach the labor cost which is at the heart of the alleged antitrust violation? A judicial determination of the wage rate? A judicial nullification of the existing rate with a direction to negotiate a lower one? I cannot believe that Congress has sanctioned judicial wage control under the umbrella of the Sherman Act, for, absent a national emergency, [Footnote 2/23] Congress has never legislated wage control in our free enterprise economy.
is totally artificial. It is precisely in this area of wages, hours, and other working conditions that Congress has recognized that unions have a substantial, direct, and basic interest of their own to advance.
public stand against a union's wage demands, even if he is willing to accept them, lest a too ready acceptance be used by a jury to infer an agreement between the union and employer that the same wages will be sought from other employers. Yet I have always thought that, in collective bargaining, even more than in other areas of contractual agreement, the objective is open covenants openly arrived at.
Furthermore, I do not understand how an inquiry can be formulated in terms of whether the union action is unilateral or is a consequence of a "conspiracy" with employers independently of the economic terms of the collective bargaining agreement. The agreement must be admitted into evidence, and the Court holds that its economic consequences are relevant. In the end, one way or another, the entire panoply of economic fact becomes involved, and judges and juries under the Court's view would then be allowed to speculate about why a union bargained for increased compensation, or any other labor standard within the scope of mandatory bargaining. It is precisely this type of speculation that Congress has rejected.
repudiated such a philosophy. Our national labor policy is designed to encourage the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes through the negotiation of agreements between employers and unions. Unions cannot, as the history of the IWW shows, successfully retain employee benefits by unilateral action; nor can employers be assured of continuous operation without contractual safeguards. The history of labor relations in this country shows, as Congress has recognized, that progress and stability for both employers and employees can be achieved only through collective bargaining agreements involving mutual rights and responsibilities.
This history also shows that labor contracts establishing more or less standardized wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment in a given industry or market area are often secured either through bargaining with multiemployer associations or through bargaining with market leaders that sets a "pattern" for agreements on labor standards with other employers. These are two similar systems used to achieve the identical result of fostering labor peace through the negotiation of uniform labor standards in an industry. Yet the Court makes antitrust liability for both unions and employers turn on which of these two systems is used. It states that uniform wage agreements may be made with multiemployer units, but an agreement cannot be made to affect employers outside the formal bargaining unit. I do not believe that the Court understands the effect of its ruling in terms of the practical realities of the automobile, steel, rubber, shipbuilding, and numerous other industries which follow the policy of pattern collective bargaining. See Chamberlain, Collective Bargaining 259-263 (1951); note 20, supra. I also do not understand why antitrust liability should turn on the form of unit determination, rather than the substance of the collective bargaining impact on the industry.
"elimination of price competition based on differences in labor standards is the objective of any national labor organization. But this effect on competition has not been considered to be the kind of curtailment of price competition prohibited by the Sherman Act."
exemption of labor unions from the antitrust laws will operate to the advantage of large employers and big unions to the prejudice of small employers. Although I cannot see how that should affect the result reached on the basis of congressional, intent even if the assumption were true, see Hunt v. Crumboch, 325 U. S. 821, 325 U. S. 825, n. 1, I feel compelled to note that this assumption is not accurate, and is belied by the actualities of industrial relations. Experience in this area shows that, frequently, unions first organize the small and weak employers. These small employers are understandably afraid that, unless other, larger employers are also organized, effective competition will be impossible. They will thus often seek to have the union attempt to organize and bargain for similar labor standards with their larger competitors, so that the requirement to pay high union wages will not force the small businessmen to close down their enterprises.
The judicial expressions in Jewel Tea represent another example of the reluctance of judges to give full effect to congressional purpose in this area, and the substitution by judges of their views for those of Congress as to how free collective bargaining should operate. In this case, the Court of Appeals would have held the Union subject to the Sherman Act's criminal and civil penalties because, in the court's social and economic judgment, the determination of the hours at which meat is to be sold is a "proprietary" matter within the exclusive control of management, and thus the Union had no legitimate interest in bargaining over it. My Brother DOUGLAS, joined by MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE CLARK, would affirm this judgment, apparently because the agreement was reached through a multiemployer bargaining unit. But, as I have demonstrated above, there is nothing even remotely illegal about such bargaining. Even if an independent conspiracy test were applicable to the Jewel Tea situation, the simple fact is that multiemployer bargaining conducted at arm's length does not constitute union abetment of a business combination. It is often a self-defensive form of employer bargaining designed to match union strength. See Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, supra; Labor Board v. Brown, supra.
"that self-service markets could actually operate without butchers, at least for a few hours after 6 p.m., that no encroachment on butchers' work would result, and that the workload of butchers during normal working hours would not be substantially increased. . . ."
"To believe that labor union interests may not properly extend beyond mere direct job and wage competition is to ignore not only economic and social realities so obvious as not to need mention, but also the graphic lessons of American labor union history."
Bradley in fixing prices and allocating markets solely to increase the profits of favored employers.
"we emphatically refuse to go back to the time when courts used the Due Process Clause 'to strike down state laws, regulatory of business and industrial conditions, because they may be unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought.'"
"according to their own economic and social views, whether the damage inflicted on an employer in an industrial struggle was damnum absque injuria, because an incident of trade competition, or a legal injury because, in their opinion, economically and socially objectionable."
Duplex Co. v. Deering, supra, at 254 U. S. 486 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis).
of a breakdown in negotiations over a welfare fund, a settlement was reached only through the active intervention of the Secretary of the Interior, who himself negotiated the beginning of the program of welfare fund benefits.
lacking where the subject of the agreement is price-fixing and market allocation. Moreover, such activities are at the core of the type of anticompetitive commercial restraint at which the antitrust laws are directed.
Nor does my view mean that, where a union operates as a businessman, exercising a proprietary or ownership function, it is beyond the reach of the antitrust laws merely because it is a union. On the contrary, the labor exemption is inapplicable where the union acts not as a union, but as an entrepreneur. See, e.g., Streiffer v. Seafarers Sea Chest Corp., 162 F.Supp. 602 (D.C.E.D.La.); United States v. Seafarers Sea Chest Corp., 1956 CCH Trade Cases 68,298 (D.C.E.D.N.Y.). Therefore, if a union is found by sufficient evidence and under proper instructions to have participated as a proprietor in actions violative of the antitrust laws, it is no more shielded from antitrust sanctions than any other business participant.
one, in determining the policies and operations of these two major coal companies, which, as is hereinafter pointed out, are charged with playing an important role in the alleged conspiracy."
325 F.2d 804, 814. This, it appears, is as near as the Court of Appeals came to passing upon the sufficiency of the evidence connecting the Union with the alleged collusive spot market bidding, and, in effect, is a holding that the ownership of a controlling or substantial interest in a company which violates the antitrust laws subjects the owner of that interest to personal antitrust liability. In my view, this is clearly not the law. The ownership of a controlling or substantial interest in a company which conspires with others in violation of the antitrust laws does not, in itself, impose antitrust liability on the owner. Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 386, 323 U. S. 403; Buckeye Powder Co. v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours P. Co., 223 F. 881, 885-886 (C.A. 3d Cir.), aff'd on other grounds, 248 U. S. 248 U.S. 55; Union Pacific Coal Co. v. United States, 173 F. 737 (C.A.8th Cir.). Rather, the owner must be shown to have participated knowingly and actively in the alleged illegal activity. See United States v. Wise, 370 U. S. 405, 370 U. S. 416. Cf. Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 268 U. S. 295, 268 U. S. 299-305; United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U. S. 344, 259 U. S. 393-396.
of. Thus, it is clear that the judgment against the Union cannot stand on the basis of this part of the case.
Finally, my conclusion that unions and employers are exempt from the operations of the antitrust laws for activities involving subjects of mandatory bargaining is based solely on congressional statutes which I believe clearly grant such an exemption, and not on any views, past or present, as to the economic desirability of such an exemption. Whether it is wise or sound public policy for this exemption to continue to exist in its present form, or at all, or whether the exemption gives too much power to labor organizations, is solely for Congress to determine. The problem of the application of the antitrust laws to collective bargaining is but another aspect of the question of whether it is sound public policy to recognize or to limit the "right of industrial combatants to push their struggle to the limits of the justification of self-interest." Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, supra, at 254 U. S. 488 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis).
"That which Congress has recognized as lawful this Court has no constitutional power to declare unlawful by arguing that Congress has accorded too much power to labor organizations."
For the reasons expressed above, I dissent from the opinion of the Court, but concur in the reversal of the Court of Appeals in Pennington, and concur in the judgment of the Court in Jewel Tea.
"Eloquent spokesman of labor, he has given voice to the aspirations of the industrial workers of the country and led the cause of free trade unions within a healthy system of free enterprise."
The legislative history is well summarized in Berman, Labor and the Sherman Act 3-54 (1930). See also Frankfurter & Greene, The Labor Injunction 139, n. 17 (1930).
"the protocol in the sweated industries of New York City and vicinity which abolished sweatshops and long hours of labor, and the burdensome, miserable toil prevailing, and established the combination of employers and of work men and work women by which certain standards are to be enforced, and [which provided that] no employer can become a member of the manufacturers' association in that trade unless he is willing to undersign an agreement by which the conditions prevailing in the protocol will be inaugurated by him."
H.R. Rep. No. 627, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., 15; S.Rep. No. 698, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., 11. This quotation was a part of the statement of Samuel Gompers to the House Committee in which he argued for adoption of a labor exemption to the Sherman Act. He stated his fear that, while he did not believe that courts would declare the existence of labor unions per se to be violations of the Sherman Act, he believed that such protocols as the one discussed above would be held unlawful, and stated that the manufacturers' association involved had already been sued. He was therefore seeking a congressional enactment declaring such a protocol lawful both for labor and business. It is significant that, in both Senate and House Reports, almost the entire discussion of § 6 of the Clayton Act consists of this extract from Mr. Gompers' testimony. The inference is inescapable that the Clayton Act was designed, inter alia, to immunize such protocols from antitrust liability.
"[t]he purpose of the bill is to protect the rights of labor in the same manner the Congress intended when it enacted the Clayton Act, October 15, 1914, which act, by reason of its construction and application by the Federal courts, is ineffectual to accomplish the congressional intent."
H.R.Rep. No. 669, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 3; see also id. at 7-8.
"the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce . . . nor shall such [labor] organizations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in the restraint of trade, under the anti-trust laws."
"[t]his series of acts clearly recognizes that combinations of workers eliminating competition among themselves and restricting competition among their employers based on wage-cutting are not contrary to the public policy."
310 U.S. at 310 U. S. 504, n. 24.
The Court clarified this statement by citation to United States v. Brims, 272 U. S. 549, a case involving an employer conspiracy to allocate markets. See Bedford Co. v. Stone Cutters Assn., 274 U. S. 37, 274 U. S. 56, 64 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis). This, of course, is quite similar to the situation presented in Allen Bradley Co. v. Union, 325 U. S. 797. It is far different from the situations in the cases decided today and the situation in the garment industry which was specifically approved by Congress in the Clayton Act. See note 3, supra.
Cf. the opinion of my Brother White in Jewel Tea, ante 381 U. S. 688-689, 381 U. S. 692-693; infra, pp. 381 U. S. 727-729; United States v. Brims, 272 U. S. 549, discussed in note 6, supra.
See, e.g., H.R. 3020 §§ 301(a), (b), 80th Cong., 1st Sess.; S.Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 22; H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 65; 93 Cong.Rec. A844-A846, A1910, 1834-1844, 3834-3836, 4130-4136, 4858-4875, 7347; S. 2573, 87th Cong., 1st Sess.; Sovern, Some Ruminations on Labor, the Antitrust Laws and Allen Bradley, 13 Lab.L.J. 957 (1962).
As this case does not involve an Allen Bradley situation, it is not necessary to determine whether Congress, in enacting these Taft-Hartley boycott and related revisions to the Act and at the same time rejecting an attempted codification of the Allen Bradley doctrine in the antitrust laws, intended that all union activities in this area be covered solely under the comprehensive regulation of the labor statutes with their restricted injunctive and damages provisions. See sources cited in note 8, supra. Cf. Teamsters Union v. Morton Trucking Co., 377 U. S. 252; Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283; Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485.
As an antitrust issue, see United States v. Hutcheson, supra.
As an antitrust issue, see United States v. Hod Carriers, 313 U.S. 539, affirming United States v. Carrozzo, 37 F.Supp. 191 (D.C.N.D.Ill.).
As antitrust issues, see United States v. Building & Construction Trades Council, 313 U.S. 539.
In Pennington, the collective bargaining agreement restricted subleasing, which is a mining form of subcontracting. Indeed, the Pennington case bristles with potential unfair labor practices. The Mine Workers allegedly imposed the national wage agreement on the small coal operators at a time when the Union did not represent their employees. For a minority union to enter into a collective bargaining contract covering all the employees of a unit has been held to infringe the rights of employees under § 7 of the NLRA. Garment Workers v. Labor Board, 366 U. S. 731. A "protective wage clause" in the national wage agreement provided that signatory companies would not buy coal mined under terms and conditions less favorable than those in the national wage agreement. The Labor Board has held that this type of clause violates § 8(e) of the NLRA, as amended., 29 U.S.C. § 158(e) (1958 ed., Supp. V). See Raymond O. Lewis, W. A. Boyle & John Owens, etc., 144 N.L.R.B. 228. See also Raymond O. Lewis et al., 148 N.L.R.B. ___, 1964 CCH, N.L.R.B. Decisions 13,334.
See p. 381 U. S. 700-701 supra; Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, supra.
52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (1958 ed.).
49 Stat. 2036, as amended, 41 U.S.C. §§ 35-45 (1958 ed.).
46 Stat. 1494, as amended, 40 U.S.C. § 276a (1958 ed.).
Although I agree with my Brother White in Jewel Tea that the doctrine of primary jurisdiction does not apply here, decisions of the Labor Board as to what constitutes a subject of mandatory bargaining are, of course, very significant in determination of the applicability of the labor exemption.
See, e.g., Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U. S. 468; Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485, 346 U. S. 490-491. Although Allen Bradley held that the Clayton and Norris-LaGuardia Acts precluded federal courts from enjoining activities concerned with even some nonmandatory subjects of bargaining, Congress has since provided that union insistence on bargaining over nonmandatory subjects is an unfair labor practice, cf. Labor Board v. Wooster Division of Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342, and thus the Labor Board can order the union to cease and desist from such assistance, as well as from auxiliary conduct like strikes designed to effectuate it; see Local 164, Brotherhood of Painters v. Labor Board, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 294, 293 F.2d 133.
Today, between 80% and 100% of the workers under union agreement are covered by multiemployer contracts in such important industries as men's and women's clothing, coal mining, building construction, hotel, longshoring, maritime, trucking, and warehousing. Between 60% and 80% of unionized workers are under multiemployer pacts in baking, book and job printing, canning and preserving, textile dyeing and finishing, glass and glassware, malt liquor, pottery and retail trades. See Raynolds, Labor Economics and Labor Relations 170 (3d ed. 1959). Furthermore, in some other major industries, relatively uniform terms of employment are obtained through the negotiation of a contract with one leading employer and the subsequent acceptance of that contract's key provisions, with only minor modifications, by the other employers in the industry. See Chamberlain, Collective Bargaining 259-263 (1951).
Section 6 of the Clayton Act. See p. 381 U. S. 701, supra.
See, e.g., Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 268 U. S. 295 (union primary strike activities in an organizational campaign enjoined on the grounds that the "purpose" of the organizational campaign was to prevent nonunion coal from undercutting union coal); United States v. Railway Employees' Dept., 283 F. 479 (D.C.N.D.Ill) (primary strike against railroad held invalid on the ground that it interrupted commerce); Bedford Co. v. Stone Cutters Assn., 274 U. S. 37 (union's unilateral refusal to work on nonunion goods held invalid).
See Exec. Orders Nos. 9250 and 9328, 7 Fed.Reg. 7871, 8 Fed.Reg. 4681, promulgated pursuant to the Act of October 2, 1942, 56 Stat. 765.
Section 6 of the Clayton Act. See p. 381 U. S. 702, supra.
The Court, in Pennington, states that it "cannot conclude that the national labor policy provides any support" for agreements whereby unions undertake to attempt to obtain uniform terms from other employers in the industry. Pennington, ante, at 381 U. S. 667. In making this statement, the Court ignores clear congressional expressions in §§ 6 and 20 of the Clayton Act, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, the Davis-Bacon Act, and the express purpose of the National Labor Relations Act. See generally, pp. 381 U. S. 709-713, supra. Moreover, the Court's reliance on three old Labor Board cases for its conclusions is clearly misplaced. These cases hold, at most, as the Court itself recognizes, that an employer may not refuse to recognize a union chosen by his employees or refuse to sign any contract until such time as the union has successfully organized the employer's competitors. Such situations, of course, are completely different from the situation in which an employer with established collective bargaining relations voluntarily agrees with the union that the union will attempt to have other employers accept similar or uniform terms. They also are completely different from the situation in which an employer signs a collective bargaining agreement the terms of which contain a "most favored nation" clause, or labor standards on a sliding scale adjusted to the average or some other prevailing wage standard.
It is clear that the small service butcher shops cannot operate at night without butchers on duty. There is no doubt that the Union could bargain with them as to the hours its members worked.
See, e.g., Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 1417, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; Hearings before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 4668, 74th Cong., 2d Sess.; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 1, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Welfare of Miners, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on S.Res. 274, 81st Cong., 2d Sess.; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Causes of Unemployment in the Coal and Other Domestic Industries, 84th Cong., 1st Sess.
See p. 381 U. S. 712-713, supra.
See notes 8, 9, supra, and accompanying text.
multiemployer agreement with the union not to sell meat between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. was not immunized from the antitrust laws and that respondent's evidence made out a prima facie case that it was in fact a violation of the Sherman Act.
If, in the present case, the employers alone agreed not to sell meat from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m., they would be guilty of an anticompetitive practice, barred by the antitrust laws. Absent an agreement or conspiracy, a proprietor can keep his establishment open for such hours as he chooses. Cf. Textile Workers v. Darlington Mfg. Co., 380 U. S. 263. My Brother WHITE recognizes, as he must, that the agreement in this case has an "effect on competition [that] is apparent and real," and that it is an "obvious restraint on the product market," ante, pp. 381 U. S. 691 and 381 U. S. 692. That Jewel has been coerced by the unions into respecting this agreement means that Jewel cannot use convenience of shopping hours as a means of competition. As the Court of Appeals pointed out, 331 F.2d, at 550, there is nothing procompetitive about this agreement. Cf. Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U. S. 231.
work their own hours and to subject all who, like Jewel, wanted to sell meat after 6 p.m. to the coercion of threatened strikes, all of which if done in concert only by businessmen would violate the antitrust laws. See Fashion Originators' Guild of America v. Federal Trade Comm'n, 312 U. S. 457, 312 U. S. 465.
". . . we think Congress never intended that unions could, consistently with the Sherman Act, aid nonlabor groups to create business monopolies and to control the marketing of goods and services."
Here, the contract of the unions with a large number of employers shows it was planned and designed not merely to control, but entirely to prohibit, "the marketing of goods and services" from 6 p.m. until 9 a.m. the next day. Some merchants relied chiefly on price competition to draw trade; others employed courtesy, quick service, and keeping their doors open long hours to meet the convenience of customers. The unions here induced a large group of merchants to use their collective strength to hurt others who wanted the competitive advantage of selling meat after 6 p.m. Unless Allen Bradley is either overruled or greatly impaired, the unions can no more aid a group of businessmen to force their competitors to follow uniform store marketing hours than to force them to sell at fixed prices. Both practices take away the freedom of traders to carry on their business in their own competitive fashion.
"in stores where meat is sold at night, it is impractical to operate without either butchers or other employees." 215 F.Supp. 839, 846. It is, however, undisputed that, on some nights, Jewel does so operate in some of its stores in Indiana, and, even in Chicago, it sometimes operates without butchers at night in the sale of fresh poultry and sausage, which are exempt from the union ban.
It is said that, even if night self-service could be carried on without butchers, still the union interest in store hours would be immediate and direct, because competitors would have to stay open too, or be put at a disadvantage -- and some of these competitors would be non-self-service stores that would have to employ union butchers at night. But Allen Bradley forecloses such an expansive view of the labor exemption to the antitrust laws.
* The Allen Bradley decision has been reaffirmed and approved by the Court on numerous occasions. See Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 330 U. S. 400, 330 U. S. 411; United States v. Women's Sportswear Assn., 336 U. S. 460, 336 U. S. 464; Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490, 336 U. S. 497; United States v. Employing Plasterers Assn., 347 U. S. 186, 347 U. S. 190; Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283, 358 U. S. 296; Meat Drivers v. United States, 371 U. S. 94, 371 U. S. 99-101.

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