Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/447/607/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 02:32:18+00:00

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Safeco Title Insurance Co. does business with several title companies that derive over 90% of their gross incomes from the sale of Safeco insurance policies. When contract negotiations between Safeco and respondent Union, the bargaining representative for certain Safeco employees, reached an impasse, the employees went on strike. The Union picketed each of the title companies, urging customers to support the strike by canceling their Safeco policies. Safeco and one of the title companies filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that the Union had engaged in an unfair labor practice by picketing in order to promote a secondary boycott against the title companies. The Board agreed and ordered the Union to cease picketing. The Board held that the Union's secondary picketing violated § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act, which makes it an unfair labor practice for a union to coerce a person not party to a labor dispute with the object of "forcing or requiring [him] to cease . . . dealing in the [primary] produc[t] . . . or to cease doing business with" the primary employer. The Court of Appeals set aside the Board's order. Although the court held that the title companies were neutral parties entitled to the benefit of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B), it concluded that the Union's activity was lawful product picketing.
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded. Pp. 447 U. S. 611-616; 447 U. S. 616-618; 447 U. S. 618-619.
194 U.S.App.D.C. 400, 600 F.2d 280, and 201 U.S.App.D.C. 147, 627 F.2d 1133, reversed and remanded.
language or purpose. Since successful secondary picketing would put the title companies to a choice between their survival and the severance of their ties with Safeco, the picketing plainly violated the statutory ban on the coercion of neutral parties with the object of forcing them to cease dealing in the primary product or to cease doing business with the primary employer. Pp. 447 U. S. 611-615.
MR. JUSTICE POWELL, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, concluded in Part III that, as applied to picketing that predictably encourages consumers to boycott a secondary business, § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) imposes no unconstitutional restrictions upon speech protected by the First Amendment. P. 447 U. S. 616.
MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the result, expressed a reluctance to hold unconstitutional Congress' striking of the delicate balance between union freedom of expression and the ability of neutral employers, employees, and consumers to remain free from coerced participation in industrial strife. Pp. 447 U. S. 616-618.
MR. JUSTICE STEVENS concluded that the statute in question is consistent with the First Amendment because the restrictions on picketing it imposes are sufficiently justified by the purpose to avoid embroiling neutrals in a third party's labor dispute. Pp. 447 U. S. 618-619.
POWELL, J., announced the Court's judgment and delivered an opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, in which BURGER, C.J., and STEWART, BLACKMUN, REHNQUIST, and STEVENS, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which BURGER, C.J., and STEWART and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., post, p. 447 U. S. 616, and STEVENS, J., post, p. 447 U. S. 618, filed opinions concurring in part and in the result. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which WHITE and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 447 U. S. 619.
The question is whether § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(4)(ii)(B), forbids secondary picketing against a struck product when such picketing predictably encourages consumers to boycott a neutral party's business.
Safeco Title Insurance Co. underwrites real estate title insurance in the State of Washington. It maintains close business relationships with five local title companies. [Footnote 1] The companies search land titles, perform escrow services, and sell title insurance. Over 90% of their gross incomes derives from the sale of Safeco insurance. Safeco has substantial stockholdings in each title company, and at least one Safeco officer serves on each company's board of directors. Safeco, however, has no control over the companies' daily operations. It does not direct their personnel policies, and it never exchanges employees with them.
Safeco and one of the title companies filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. They charged that the Union had engaged in an unfair labor practice by picketing in order to promote a secondary boycott against the title companies. The Board agreed. 226 N.L.R.B. 754 (1976). [Footnote 4] It found the title companies to be neutral in the dispute between Safeco and the Union. Id. at 756. The Board then concluded that the Union's picketing violated § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act. The Union had directed its appeal against Safeco insurance policies. But since the sale of those policies accounted for substantially all of the title companies' business, the Board found that the Union's action was "reasonably calculated to induce customers not to patronize the neutral parties at all." 226 N.L.R.B. at 757. The Board therefore rejected the Union's reliance upon NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58 (1964) (Tree Fruits), which held that § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) allows secondary picketing against a struck product. It ordered the Union to cease picketing and to take limited corrective action.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set aside the Board's order. 194 U.S.App.D.C. 400, 600 F.2d 280 (1979) (en banc). The court agreed that the title companies were neutral parties entitled to the benefit of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). 201 U.S.App.D.C. 147, 151, 627 F.2d 1133, 1137 (1979). It held, however, that Tree Fruits leaves neutrals susceptible to whatever consequences may flow from secondary picketing against the consumption of products produced by an employer involved in a labor dispute. Even when product picketing predictably encourages consumers to boycott a neutral altogether, the court concluded, § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) provides no protection. 201 U.S.App.D.C. at 159-160, 627 F.2d at 1145-1146.
We granted a writ of certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals correctly understood § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) as interpreted in Tree Fruits. 444 U.S. 1011 (1980). [Footnote 5] Having concluded that the Court of Appeals misapplied the statute, we now reverse and remand for enforcement of the Board's order.
"where . . . an object thereof is . . . forcing or requiring [him] to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer . . . or to cease doing business with any other person. [Footnote 6]"
"to persuade the customers of the secondary employer to cease trading with him in order to force him to cease dealing with, or to put pressure upon, the primary employer."
377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 63. Congress intended to protect secondary parties from pressures that might embroil them in the labor disputes of others, but not to shield them from business losses caused by a campaign that successfully persuades consumers "to boycott the primary employer's goods." Ibid. Thus, the Court drew a distinction between picketing "to shut off all trade with the secondary employer unless he aids the union in its dispute with the primary employer" and picketing that "only persuades his customers not to buy the struck product." Id. at 377 U. S. 70. T he picketing in that case, which "merely follow[ed] the struck product," did not "threaten, coerce, or restrain'" the secondary party within the meaning of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). 377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 72.
Although Tree Fruits suggested that secondary picketing against a struck product and secondary picketing against a neutral party were "poles apart," id. at 377 U. S. 70, the courts soon discovered that product picketing could have the same effect as an illegal secondary boycott. In Hoffman ex rel. NLRB v. Cement Masons Local 7, 468 F.2d 1187 (CA9 1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 986 (1973), for example, a union embroiled with a general contractor picketed the housing subdivision that he had constructed for a real estate developer. Pickets sought to persuade prospective purchasers not to buy the contractor's houses. The picketing was held illegal because purchasers "could reasonably expect that they were being asked not to transact any business whatsoever" with the neutral developer. 468 F.2d at 1192.
conflicts] with the need to protect . . . neutral employers from the labor disputes of others,"
"stops buying the struck product not because of a falling demand, but in response to pressure designed to inflict injury on [its] business generally."
labor discord as one of the evils that Congress intended § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) to prevent. 377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 63-64.
377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 63. Such picketing spreads labor discord by coercing a neutral party to join the fray. In Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 341 U. S. 694, 341 U. S. 705 (1951), this Court expressly held that a prohibition on "picketing in furtherance of [such] unlawful objectives" did not offend the First Amendment. See American Radio Assn. v. Mobile S.S. Assn., 419 U. S. 215, 419 U. S. 229-231 (1974); Teamsters v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284 (1957). We perceive no reason to depart from that well established understanding. As applied to picketing that predictably encourages consumers to boycott a secondary business, § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) imposes no impermissible restrictions upon constitutionally protected speech.
* 447 U. S. MR. JUSTICE STEWART, and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST.
The title companies are Land Title Co. of Clark County, Land Title Co. of Cowlitz County, Land Title Co. of Kitsap County, Land Title Co. of Pierce County, and Land Title Co. of Snohomish County.
"DOES NOT EMPLOY MEMBERS OF"
"RETAIL STORE EMPLOYEES LOCAL 1001."
"publicity, other than picketing, for the purpose of truthfully advising the public . . . that a product or products are produced by an employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute and are distributed by another employer. . . ."
61 Stat. 141, as amended, 73 Stat. 543, 29 U.S.C.§ 158(b)(4).
The parties waived intermediate proceedings before an administrative law judge and submitted the stipulated facts directly to the Board. 226 N.L.R.B. at 754.
The Union has not challenged the Court of Appeals' determination that the title companies are neutral, secondary parties.
61 Stat. 141, as amended, 73 Stat. 542, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(4)(ii)(B).
The so-called merged product cases also involve situations where an attempt to follow the struck product inevitably encourages an illegal boycott of the neutral party. See K & K Construction Co. v. NLRB, 592 F.2d 1228, 1231-1234 (CA3 1979); American Bread Co. v. NLRB, 411 F.2d 147, 154-155 (CA6 1969); Honolulu Typographical Union No. 7 v. NLRB, 131 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 3-4, 401 F.2d 952, 954-955 (1968); Note, Consumer Picketing and the Single-Product Secondary Employer 47 U.Chi.L.Rev. 112, 132-136 (1979).
See Local 14055, United Steelworkers (Dow Chemical Co.), 211 N.L.R.B. 649, 651-652 (1974), enf. denied, 173 U.S.App.D.C. 299, 524 F.2d 853 (1975), vacated and remanded, 429 U.S. 807 (1976), complaint dism'd, 229 N.L.R.B. 302 (1977).
We do not disagree with MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN's dissenting view that successful secondary product picketing may have no greater effect upon a neutral than a legal primary boycott. Post at 447 U. S. 623. But when the neutral's business depends upon the products of a particular primary employer, secondary product picketing can produce injury almost identical to the harm resulting from an illegal secondary boycott. See generally Duerr, Developing a Standard for Secondary Consumer Picketing, 26 Lab.L.J. 585 (1975). Congress intended § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) to protect neutrals from that type of coercion. MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN s view that the legality of secondary picketing should depend upon whether the pickets "urge only a boycott of the primary employer's product," post at 447 U. S. 622, would provide little or no protection. No well advised union would allow secondary pickets to carry placards urging anything other than a product boycott. Section 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) cannot bear a construction so inconsistent with the congressional intention to prevent neutrals from becoming innocent victims in contests between others.
The Union is responsible for the "foreseeable consequences" of its conduct. NLRB v. Operating Engineers, 400 U. S. 297, 400 U. S. 304-305 (1971); see Radio Officers v. NLRB, 347 U. S. 17, 347 U. S. 45 (1954). See also NLRB v. Denver Building Council, 341 U. S. 675, 341 U. S. 689 (1951).
"is to coerce or to restrain the employer of that second establishment, to get him not to do business with the manufacturer -- then such a boycott could be stopped."
105 Cong.Rec. 15673 (1959), reprinted in 2 National Labor Relations Board, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, p. 1615 (1959).
"[W]e have cases of merchants who, for 20 years, 10 years, or for a long period of time, may have been handling a particular brand of product. A merchant may have built his business around the product, such as the John Deere plows or some kind of machinery from some other company. The merchant may have built up his trade entirely on that product."
105 Cong.Rec. 6667 (1959), reprinted in 2 Legislative History, supra at 1194.
The picketing in Tree Fruits and the picketing in this case are relatively extreme examples of the spectrum of conduct that the Board and the courts will encounter in complaints charging violations of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). If secondary picketing were directed against a product representing a major portion of a neutral's business, but significantly less than that represented by a single dominant product, neither Tree Fruits nor today's decision necessarily would control. The critical question would be whether, by encouraging customers to reject the struck product, the secondary appeal is reasonably likely to threaten the neutral party with ruin or substantial loss. Resolution of the question in each case will be entrusted to the Board's expertise.
take account of the effect of this Court's decision in Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92 (1972), on the question whether the National Labor Relations Act's content-based ban on peaceful picketing of secondary employers is constitutional. The failure to take Mosley into account is particularly ironic given that the Court today reaffirms and extends the principles of that case in Carey v. Brown, ante p. 447 U. S. 455.
"In short, we have neither a case in which picketing is banned because the picketers are asking others to do something unlawful nor a case in which all picketing is, for reasons of public order, banned. Instead, we have a case in which picketing, otherwise lawful, is banned only when the picketers express particular views. The result is an abridgement of the freedom of these picketers to tell a part of the public their side of a labor controversy, a subject the free discussion of which is protected by the First Amendment."
These views, central to Mr. Justice Black's vision of the First Amendment, were, one would have supposed until today, "accepted" by the Court in Mosley. See 408 U.S. at 408 U. S. 98.
of neutral employers, employees, and consumers to remain free from coerced participation in industrial strife. My vote should not be read as foreclosing an opposite conclusion where another statutory ban on peaceful picketing, unsupported by equally substantial governmental interests, is at issue.
For the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Black in their separate opinions in NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58, 377 U. S. 76, 377 U. S. 80 (Tree Fruits), I am persuaded that Congress intended to prohibit this secondary picketing, and for the reasons stated by MR. JUSTICE POWELL, I agree that this case is not governed by Tree Fruits. I therefore join Parts I and II of the Court's opinion.
The constitutional issue, however, is not quite as easy as the plurality would make it seem, because, as Mr. Justice Black pointed out in Tree Fruits, "we have a case in which picketing, otherwise lawful, is banned only when the picketers express particular views." Id. at 377 U. S. 79. In other words, this is another situation in which regulation of the means of expression is predicated squarely on its content. See Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, ante at 447 U. S. 546 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment). I agree with the plurality that this content-based restriction is permissible, but not simply because it is in furtherance of objectives deemed unlawful by Congress. Ante at 447 U. S. 616. That a statute proscribes the otherwise lawful expression of views in a particular manner and at a particular location cannot, in itself, totally justify the restriction. Otherwise, the First Amendment would place no limit on Congress' power. In my judgment, it is our responsibility to determine whether the method or manner of expression, considered in context, justifies the particular restriction.
"Picketing by an organized group is more than free speech, since it involves patrol of a particular locality and since the very presence of a picket line may induce action of one kind or another, quite irrespective of the nature of the ideas which are being disseminated. Hence those aspects of picketing make it the subject of restrictive regulation.*"
* See also Teamsters v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284, 354 U. S. 289; Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U. S. 460, 339 U. S. 465-466, 339 U. S. 468.
National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) [Footnote 2/1] for a union involved in a labor dispute with a primary employer to conduct peaceful picketing at a secondary site with the object of persuading consumers to boycott the primary employer's product. Today's decision stunts Tree Fruits by declaring that secondary site picketing is illegal when the primary employer's product at which it is aimed happens to be the only product which the secondary retailer distributes. I dissent.
The NLRA does not place the secondary site off limits to all consumer picketing over the dispute with the primary employer. Tree Fruits, supra at 377 U. S. 63. The Act only prohibits a labor union from picketing to "coerce" a secondary firm into joining the union's struggle against the primary employer. § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). But inasmuch as the secondary retailer is, by definition, at least partially dependent upon the sale of the primary employer's goods, the secondary firm will necessarily feel the pressure of labor activity pointed at the primary enterprise. Thus, the pivotal problem in secondary site picketing cases is determining when the pressure imposed by consumer picketing is illegitimate, and therefore deemed to "coerce" the secondary retailer.
Tree Fruits addressed this problem by focusing upon whether picketing at the secondary site is directed at the primary employer's product, or whether it more broadly exhorts customers to withhold patronage from the full range of goods carried by the secondary retailer, including those goods originating from nonprimary sources. The Tree Fruits test reflects the distinction between economic damage sustained by the secondary firm solely by virtue of its dependence upon the primary employer's goods, and injuries inflicted upon interests of the secondary firm that are unrelated to the primary dispute -- injuries that are calculated to influence the secondary retailer's conduct with respect to the primary dispute.
The latter kind of economic harm to the secondary firm, however, does not involve merely the necessary commercial fallout from the primary dispute. Appeals to boycott nonprimary goods sold by a secondary retailer place more at stake for the retailer than the risk it has assumed by handling the primary employer's product. Four considerations indicate that this broader pressure is highly undesirable from the standpoint of labor policy. First, nonprimary product boycotts distort the strength of consumer response to the primary dispute; the secondary retailer's decision to continue purchasing the primary employer's line becomes a function of consumer reaction to the primary conflict amplified by the impact of the boycott upon nonprimary goods. Tree Fruits, supra, at 377 U. S. 72, and n. 20. Second, although it seems proper to compel the producer or retailer of an individual primary product to internalize the costs of labor conflict engendered in the course of the item's production, a nonprimary product boycott may unfairly impose multiple costs upon the secondary retailer who does not wish to terminate his relationship with the primary employer. Third, nonprimary product boycotts attack interests of the secondary firm that are not derivative of the interests of the primary enterprise; because the retailer thereby becomes an independent disputant, the primary labor controversy may be aggravated and complicated. Finally, by affecting the sales of nonprimary goods handled by the secondary firm, the disruptive effect of the primary dispute is felt even by those businesses that manufacture and sell nonprimary products to the secondary retailer.
whether the union pickets urge only a boycott of the primary employer's product. 377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 63-64, 377 U. S. 71-72. [Footnote 2/2] Concomitantly, Tree Fruits expressly rejected the notion that the coerciveness of picketing should depend upon the extent of loss suffered by the secondary firm through diminished purchases of the primary product. Id. at 377 U. S. 72-73. Nevertheless, the Court has now apparently abandoned the Tree Fruits approach, choosing instead to identify coerciveness with the percentage of the secondary firm's business made up by the primary product.
The conceptual underpinnings of this new standard are seriously flawed. The type of economic pressure exerted upon the secondary retailer by a primary product boycott is the same whatever the percentage of its business the primary product composes in each case, a decline in sales at the secondary outlet may well lead either to a decrease in purchases from the primary employer or to product substitution. To be sure, the damaging effect of this pressure upon individual secondary firms will vary, but it is far from clear that the harmfulness of a primary product boycott is necessarily correlated with the percentage of the secondary firm's business the product constitutes. For example, a marginally profitable large retailer may handle a multiplicity of products, yet find the decrease in sales of a single, very profitable, primary product ruinous. A small healthy single product secondary retailer, on the other hand, might be able to sustain losses during a boycott, or substitute a comparable product.
By shifting its focus from the nature of the product boycotted to the composition of the secondary firm's business, today's decision substitutes a confusing and unsteady standard for Tree Fruits' clear approach to secondary site picketing. Labor unions will no longer be able to assure that their secondary site picketing is lawful by restricting advocacy of a boycott to the primary product, as ordained by Tree Fruits.
Instead, picketers will be compelled to guess whether the primary product makes up a sufficient proportion of the retailer's business to trigger the displeasure of the courts or the Labor Relations Board. Indeed, the Court's general disapproval of "[p]roduct picketing that reasonably can be expected to threaten neutral parties with ruin or substantial loss . . . ," ante at 447 U. S. 614, leaves one wondering whether unions will also have to inspect balance sheets to determine whether the primary product they wish to picket is too profitable for the secondary firm.
"disagree . . . that the test of 'to threaten, coerce, or restrain' . . . is whether [the secondary retailer] suffered or was likely to suffer economic loss."
Tree Fruits, supra at 377 U. S. 72. [Footnote 2/3] I would adhere to the primary product test. Accordingly, I dissent.
As amended by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Landrum-Griffin Act), § 704(a), 73 Stat. 542-543, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(4).
Because a "merged product" consists in part of nonprimary products, the prohibition of "merged product" boycotts follows as a matter of logic and of policy from Tree Fruits' primary product boycott test. Thus, "merged product" cases, see, e.g., American Bread Co. v NLRB, 411 F.2d 147, 154 (CA6 1969), do not support the Court's view that certain purely primary product boycotts are proscribed by the National Labor Relations Act. In fact, "merged product" boycotts are wholly different than primary product boycotts against single product retailers. "Merged product" boycotts need not entail a total withholding of patronage from the secondary retailer, which may carry other, nonmerged, products.
The only fragment of legislative history the Court musters in support of its holding forbidding picketing of single product secondary firms is Senator McClellan's expression of concern that some secondary firms may have developed their business entirely on the basis of "a particular brand of product.'" Ante at 447 U. S. 615, n. 10, quoting 105 Cong.Rec. 6667 (1959), reprinted in 2 National Labor Relations Board, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, p. 1194 (1959). But that remark was offered in support of a proposed amendment restricting secondary boycotts that was rejected by the Senate. 2 Legislative History, supra at IX. Section 8(b)(4), as finally enacted, was narrower than Senator McClellan's proposed amendment. See Comment, 32 Stan.L.Rev. 631, 641-642, n. 61 (1980).

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