Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/463/147/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 02:33:50+00:00

Document:
Section 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act prohibits secondary boycotts, but its so-called "publicity proviso" exempts from the prohibition publicity advising the public that a product is produced by an employer with whom a union has a primary dispute and is distributed by another employer. As a result of a wage dispute between respondent union and a building contractor retained by a company to construct a department store in a shopping center owned and operated by petitioner, the union passed out handbills to consumers in the shopping center urging them not to patronize any of the stores in the center until petitioner publicly promised that all construction at the center would be done by contractors who pay their employees fair wages and fringe benefits. Petitioner filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, which held that the handbilling was exempted from the secondary boycott prohibition of § 8(b)(4) by the "publicity proviso," and dismissed the complaint. The Board reasoned that there was a "symbiotic" relationship between petitioner and its tenants, including the department store company, and that they would derive a substantial benefit from the "product" that the building contractor was constructing, namely, the new store, the contractor's status as a producer bringing a total consumer boycott of the shopping center within the "publicity proviso." The Court of Appeals agreed, holding that the building contractor was a producer, and that petitioner and its tenants were distributors within the meaning of the proviso.
Held: The handbilling does not come within the protection of the "publicity proviso." Pp. 463 U. S. 153-157.
secondary employer that a union might want consumers to boycott. Pp. 463 U. S. 155-156.
(b) The handbills at issue did not merely call for a boycott of the department store company's products; they also called for a boycott of the products being sold by the company's cotenants. Neither petitioner nor any of the cotenants had any business relationship with the building contractor, nor do they sell any product whose chain of production can reasonably be said to include the contractor. Hence, there is no justification for treating the products that the cotenants distribute to the public as products produced by the contractor. Pp. 463 U. S. 156-157.
662 F.2d 264, vacated and remanded.
merchants' association and to share in the costs of maintaining the common areas. Under the terms of Wilson's lease, neither DeBartolo nor any of the other tenants had any right to control the manner in which High discharged its contractual obligation to Wilson.
handbilling was conducted in an orderly manner, and was not accompanied by any picketing or patrolling. DeBartolo advised the union that it would not oppose this handbilling if the union modified its message to make clear that the dispute did not involve DeBartolo or any of Wilson's cotenants, and if it limited its activities to the immediate vicinity of Wilson's. When the union persisted in distributing handbills to all patrons of the shopping center, DeBartolo filed a trespass action in the state court and an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The Board's General Counsel issued a complaint.
"has threatened, coerced or restrained, and is threatening, coercing or restraining, various tenant Employers who are engaged in business at East Lake Square Mall, and who lease space from DeBartolo in East Lake Square Mall, by handbilling the general public not to do business with the above-described tenant Employers. . . ."
"was and is, to force or require the aforesaid tenant Employers in East Lake Square Mall . . . to cease using, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in products and/or services of, and to cease doing business with DeBartolo, in order to force DeBartolo and/or Wilson's not to do business with High."
The Board and the union correctly point out that DeBartolo cannot obtain relief in this proceeding unless it prevails on three separate issues. It must prove that the union did "threaten, coerce, or restrain" a person engaged in commerce, with the object of "forcing or requiring" someone to cease doing business with someone else -- that is to say, it must prove a violation of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). It must also overcome both the union's defense based on the publicity proviso and the union's claim that its conduct was protected by the First Amendment. Neither the Board nor the Court of Appeals considered whether the handbilling in this case was covered by § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) or protected by the First Amendment, because both found that it fell within the proviso. We therefore limit our attention to that issue.
"advis[ed] 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."
The parties agree that this language limits the proviso's protection to publicity that is designed to create consumer pressure on secondary employers who distribute the primary employer's products. They do not agree, however, on what constitutes a producer-distributor relationship.
We have analyzed the producer-distributor requirement in only one case, NLRB v. Servette, Inc., supra. Servette involved a primary dispute between a union and a wholesale distributor of candy and certain other specialty items sold to the public by supermarkets. The union passed out handbills in front of some of the chainstores urging consumers not to buy any products purchased by the store from Servette. We held that, even though Servette did not actually manufacture the items that it distributed, it should still be regarded as a "producer" within the meaning of the proviso. We thus concluded that the handbills advised the public that the products were produced by an employer with whom the union had a primary dispute (Servette) and were being distributed by another employer (the supermarket).
by the new prohibitions in § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B), and we declined to hold that Congress, in using the word "produced," had intended to exclude the Teamsters entirely from the offsetting protections of the proviso.
"There is nothing in the legislative history which suggests that the protection of the proviso was intended to be any narrower in coverage than the prohibition to which it is an exception, and we see no basis for attributing such an incongruous purpose to Congress."
377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 55.
of the products being sold by Wilson's cotenants. Neither DeBartolo nor any of the cotenants has any business relationship with High. Nor do they sell any products whose chain of production can reasonably be said to include High. Since there is no justification for treating the products that the cotenants distribute to the public as products produced by High, the Board erred in concluding that the handbills came within the protection of the publicity proviso.
yet decided whether the handbilling in this case was proscribed by the Act. It rested its decision entirely on the publicity proviso. and never considered whether, apart from that proviso, the union's conduct fell within the terms of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). [Footnote 11] Until the statutory question is decided, review of the constitutional issue is premature.
"(ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is:"
"(B) forcing or requiring any person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person. . . ."
61 Stat. 140, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(4).
"Provided further, That for the purposes of this paragraph (4) only, nothing contained in such paragraph shall be construed to prohibit publicity, other than picketing, for the purpose of truthfully advising the public, including consumers and members of a labor organization, 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, as long as such publicity does not have an effect of inducing any individual employed by any person other than the primary employer in the course of his employment to refuse to pick up, deliver, or transport any goods, or not to perform any services, at the establishment of the employer engaged in such distribution."
73 Stat. 543, 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(4).
"PLEASE DON'T SHOP AT EAST LAKE SQUARE MALL PLEASE"
"The Wilson's Department Store under construction on these premises is being built by contractors who pay substandard wages and fringe benefits. In the past, the Mall's owner, The Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation, has supported labor and our local economy by insuring that the Mall and its stores be built by contractors who pay fair wages and fringe benefits. Now, however, and for no apparent reason, the Mall owners have taken a giant step backwards by permitting our standards to be torn down. The payment of substandard wages not only diminishes the working person's ability to purchase with earned, rather than borrowed, dollars, but it also undercuts the wage standard of the entire community. Since low construction wages at this time of inflation means decreased purchasing power, do the owners of East Lake Mall intend to compensate for the decreased purchasing power of workers of the community by encouraging the stores in East Lake Mall to cut their prices and lower their profits?"
"CUT-RATE WAGES ARE NOT FAIR UNLESS MERCHANDISE PRICES ARE ALSO CUT-RATE."
"We ask for your support in our protest against substandard wages. Please do not patronize the stores in the East Lake Square Mall until the Mall's owner publicly promises that all construction at the Mall will be done using contractors who pay their employees fair wages and fringe benefits."
"IF YOU MUST ENTER THE MALL TO DO BUSINESS, please express to the store managers your concern over substandard wages and your support of our efforts."
"We are appealing only to the public -- the consumer. We are not seeking to induce any person to cease work or to refuse to make deliveries."
"In sum, we find that the mutual obligations between the parties and the benefits derived from participation in the mall enterprise reflect the symbiotic nature of the relationship between DeBartolo and its tenants, not unlike the relationship between the operations of a diversified corporation. High's contribution to his enterprise is as an employer which applies its labor to a product, i.e., the Wilson's store, from which DeBartolo and its tenants will derive substantial benefit. Consequently, we find as a result of its relationship with Wilson's and the shopping center enterprise that High applies capital, enterprise, and service to that enterprise, and thus that it is a 'producer' in the sense that that term is used in the publicity proviso as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Servette, [377 U.S. 46 (1964)], and by this Board in Pet, [244 N.L.R.B. 96 (1979)]."
"Having found High to be a producer within the meaning of Section 8(b)(4), we find that Respondent's handbilling urging a total consumer boycott of DeBartolo and its tenants other than Wilson's is protected by the publicity proviso of that section of the Act."
DeBartolo was successful in its trespass action in the state court. The handbilling at the East Lake Mall was enjoined and ceased on January 4, 1980. The parties agree, however, that the case is not moot. DeBartolo operates a number of shopping centers at various locations throughout the United States, and the union maintains that it has a right to engage in comparable handbilling in the future if a similar problem should again arise. That possibility, together with the fact that a cease-and-desist order would protect DeBartolo from a recurrence in the future, provides a sufficient basis for concluding that the case is not moot.
Cf. Local 712, IBEW (Golden Dawn Food), 134 N.L.R.B. 812 (1961) (electrical and refrigeration work); Plumbers & Pipefitters, Local 142 (Shop-Rite Foods), 133 N.L.R.B. 307 (1961) (refrigeration work).
"there is no suggestion either in the statute itself or in the legislative history that Congress intended the words 'product' and 'produced' to be words of special limitation."
See also Longshoremen v. Allied International, Inc., 456 U. S. 212, 456 U. S. 223 (1982); Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93, 357 U. S. 100 (1958); H.R.Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 24 (1947), 1 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, p. 315 (1948).
The Board concedes in its brief that Congress intended this language to restrict the scope of the proviso. It acknowledges that the product must be "in some manner distributed by the employers at whose customers the nonpicketing publicity is immediately directed." Brief for Respondent NLRB 9.
"[t]he proviso was the outgrowth of a profound Senate concern that the unions' freedom to appeal to the public for support of their case be adequately safeguarded."
NLRB v. Servette, Inc., 377 U. S. 46, 377 U. S. 55 (1964). Indeed, several legislators referred to the First Amendment explicitly during the debates. E.g., 105 Cong.Rec. 6232 (1959), 2 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, p. 1037 (1959) (Sen. Humphrey); 105 Cong.Rec. at 18135, 2 NLRB Legislative History, at 1722 (Rep. Udall). That fact, however, merely confirms in this case the presumption that underlies Catholic Bishop and Crowell: when Congress legislates in a fashion that restricts communicative activity, it expects the statutory language to be construed narrowly. See Catholic Bishop, 440 U.S. at 440 U. S. 507. It does not, however, expect the statutory language to be deprived of substantial practical effect.
Cf. NLRB v. Retail Store Employees, 447 U. S. 607 (1980) (picket line advocating boycott of substantial portion of secondary employer's business is proscribed); NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58 (1964) ("Tree Fruits") (picket line advocating boycott of insubstantial portion of secondary employer's business is not proscribed).

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