Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/421/616
Timestamp: 2020-01-23 10:43:29
Document Index: 2840877

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 8', '§ 6', '§ 52', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 10', '§ 303', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 303', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 303', '§ 303', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 303', '§ 303', '§ 303', '§ 303', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 303', '§ 8']

CONNELL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC., Petitioner, | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
CONNELL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC., Petitioner,
421 U.S. 616 (95 S.Ct. 1830, 44 L.Ed.2d 418)
CONNELL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC., Petitioner, v.
dissent, STEWART, DOUGLAS, BRENNAN, MARSHALL [HTML]
When Connell refused to sign this agreement, Local 100 stationed a single picket at one of Connell's major construction sites. About 150 workers walked off the job, and construction halted. Connell filed suit in state court to enjoin the picketing as a violation of Texas antitrust laws. Local 100 removed the case to federal court. Connell then signed the subcontracting agreement under protest. It amended its complaint to claim that the agreement violated §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U.S.C. 1 and 2, and was therefore invalid. Connell sought a declaration to this effect and an injunction against any further efforts to force it to sign such an agreement.
The District Court held that the subcontracting agreement was exempt from federal antitrust laws because it was authorized by the construction industry proviso to § 8(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452, as added, 73 Stat. 543, 29 U.S.C. 158(e). The court also held that federal labor legislation pre-empted the State's antitrust laws. 78 L.R.R.M. 3012 (ND Tex.1971). The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, 483 F.2d 1154 (1973), with one judge dissenting. It held that Local 100's goal of organizing nonunion subcontractors was a legitimate union interest and that its efforts toward that goal were therefore exempt from federal antitrust laws. On the second issue, it held that state law was pre-empted under San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959). We granted certiorari on Connell's petition. 416 U.S. 981, 94 S.Ct. 2381, 40 L.Ed.2d 757 (1974). We reverse on the question of federal antitrust immunity and affirm the ruling on state law pre-emption.
The basic sources of organized labor's exemption from federal antitrust laws are §§ 6 and 20 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731 and 738, 15 U.S.C. 17 and 29 U.S.C. § 52, and the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 71, and 73, 29 U.S.C. 104, 105, and 113. These statutes declare that labor unions are not combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, and exempt specific union activities, including secondary picketing and boycotts, from the operation of the antitrust laws. See United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U.S. 219, 61 S.Ct. 463, 85 L.Ed. 788 (1941). They do not exempt concerted action or agreements between unions and nonlabor parties. Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U.S. 657, 662, 85 S.Ct. 1585, 1589, 14 L.Ed.2d 626 (1965). The Court has recognized, however, that a proper accommodation between the congressional policy favoring collective bargaining under the NLRA and the congressional policy favoring free competition in business markets requires that some union-employer agreements be accorded a limited nonstatutory exemption from antitrust sanctions. Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U.S. 676, 85 S.Ct. 1596, 14 L.Ed.2d 640 (1965).
Finally, Local 100 contends that even if the subcontracting agreement is not sanctioned by the constructionindustry proviso and therefore is illegal under § 8(e), it cannot be the basis for antitrust liability because the remedies in the NLRA are exclusive. This argument is grounded in the legislative history of the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments. Congress rejected attempts to regulate secondary activities by repealing the antitrust exemptions in the Clayton and Norris-LaGuardia Acts, and created special remedies under the labor law instead.15 It made secondary activities unfair labor practices under § 8(b)(4), and drafted special provisions for preliminary injunctions at the suit of the NLRB and for recovery of actual damages in the district courts. § 10(l) of the NLRA, 49 Stat. 453, as added, 61 Stat. 149, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 160l, and § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 158, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 187. But whatever significance this legislative choice has for antitrust suits based on those secondary activities prohibited by § 8(b)(4), it has no relevance to the question whether Congress meant to preclude antitrust suits based on the 'hot cargo' agreements that it outlawed in 1959. There is no legislative history in the 1959 Congress suggesting that labor-law remedies for § 8(e) violations were intended to be exclusive, or that Congress thought allowing antitrust remedies in cases like the present one would be inconsistent with the remedial scheme of the NLRA.16
As part of its effort to organize mechanical contractors in the Dallas area, the respondent Local Union No. 100 engaged in peaceful picketing to induce the petitioner Connell Construction Co., a general contractor in the building and construction industry, to agree to subcontract plumbing and mechanical work at the construction site only to firms that had signed a collective-bargaining agreement with Local 100. None of Connell's own employees were members of Local 100, and the subcontracting agreement contained the union's express disavowal of any intent to organize or represent them. The picketing at Connell's construction site was therefore secondary activity, subject to detailed and comprehensive regulation pursuant to § 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act, as added, 61 Stat. 141, 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(4), and § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 158, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 187. Similarly, the subcontracting agreement under which Connell agreed to cease doing business with nonunion mechanical contractors is governed by the provisions of § 8(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(e). The relevant legislative history unmistakably demonstrates that in regulating secondary activity and 'hot cargo' agreements in 1947 and 1959, Congress selected with great care the sanctions to be imposed if proscribed union activity should occur. In so doing, Congress rejected efforts to give private parties injured by union activity such as that engaged in by Local 100 the right to seek relief under federal antitrust laws. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment before us.
In Conference, the House members agreed to eliminate the provisions of the Hartley bill which, like the Ball amendment, provided that the Norris-LaGuardia Act should have no application to private suits for unlawful secondary activity. See H.R.Conf.Rep.No.510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (House Managers' statement), 58—59, 1 Leg.Hist. of LMRA 562—563. With only 'clarifying changes,' H.R.Conf.Rep.No.510, supra, at 67, 1 Leg.Hist. of LMRA 571, the House-Senate Conferees and then both Houses of Congress agreed to regulate union secondary activity by making specified activity an unfair labor practice under § 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act, authorizing the Board to seek injunctions against such activity, 29 U.S.C. 160(l), and providing for recovery of actual damages in a suit by a private party under Senator Taft's compromise proposal, which became § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 187.4 Congress in 1947 did not prohibit all secondary activity by labor unions, see Corpenters v. NLRB, 357 U.S. 93, 78 S.Ct. 1011, 2 L.Ed.2d 1186; and those practices which it did outlaw were to be remedied only by seeking relief from the Board or by pursuing the newly created, exclusive federal damages remedy provided by § 303. Teamsters v. Morton, supra.
The essence of Connell's complaint is that it was coerced by Local 100's picketing into 'conspiring' with the union by signing an agreement that limited its ability to subcontract, mechanical work on a competitive basis.7 If, as the Court today holds, the subcontracting agreement is not within the construction-industry proviso to § 8(e), then Local 100's picketing to induce Connell to sign the agreement constituted a § 8(b)(4) unfair labor practice, and was therefore also unlawful under § 303(a), 29 U.S.C. 187(a).8 Accordingly, Connell has the right to sue Local 100 for damages sustained as a result of Local 100's unlawful secondary activity pursuant to § 303(b), 29 U.S.C. 187(b). Although 'limited to actual, compensatory damages,' Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U.S., at 260, 84 S.Ct. at 1258, Connell would be entitled under § 303 to recover all damages to its business that resulted from the union's coercive conduct, including any provable damage caused by Connell's inability to subcontract mechanical work to nonunion firms. Similarly, any nonunion mechanical contractor who believes his business has been harmed by Local 100's having coerced Connell into signing the subcontracting agreement is entitled to sue the union for compensatory damages; for § 303 broadly grants its damages action to '(w)hoever shall be injured in his business or property' by reason of a labor organization's engaging in a § 8(b)(4) unfair labor practice.9
'It shall be an unfair labor practice for any labor organization and any employer to enter into any contract or agreement, express or implied, whereby such employer ceases or refrains or agrees to cease or refrain from handling, using, selling, transporting or otherwise dealing in any of the products of any other employer, or to cease doing business with any other person, and any contract or agreement entered into heretofore or hereafter containing such an agreement shall be to such extent unenforcible and void: Provided, That nothing in this subsection shall apply to an agreement between a labor organization and an employer in the construction industry relating to the contracting or subcontracting of work to be done at the site of the construction, alteration, painting, or repair of a building, structure, or other work: Provided further, That for the purposes of this subsection and subsection (b) ((4)(B)) of this section the terms 'any employer', 'any person engaged in commerce or an industry affecting commerce', and 'any person' when used in relation to the terms 'any other producer, processor, or manufacturer', 'any other employer', or 'any other person' shall not include persons in the relation of a jobber, manufacturer, contractor, or subcontractor working on the goods or premises of the jobber or manufacturer or performing parts of an integrated process of production in the apparel and clothing industry: Provided further, That nothing in this subchapter shall prohibit the enforcement of any agreement which is within the foregoing exception.' 29 U.S.C. 158(e).
'(A) forcing or requiring any employer or self-employed person to join any labor or employer organization or to enter into any agreement which is prohibited by subsection (e) of this section . . ..' 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(4).
'(b) Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason o(f) any violation of subsection (a) of this section may sue therefor in any district court of the United States subject to the limitations and provisions of section 185 of this title without respect to the amount in controversy, or in any other court having jurisdiction of the parties, and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit.' 29 U.S.C. 187.
On the other hand, the signatory of a purely voluntary agreement that violates § 8(e) is fully protected from any damage that might result from the illegal 'hot cargo' agreement by his ability simply to ignore the contract provision that violates § 8(e). If the union should attempt to enforce the illicit 'hot cargo' clause through any form of coercion, the employer may then bring a § 303 damages suit or may file an unfair labor practice charge with the Board. See 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(4)(B). Since § 8(e) provides that any prohibited agreement is 'unenforcible and void,' any union effort to invoke legal processes to compel the neutral employer to comply with his purely voluntary agreement would obviously be unavailing.
BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, LOCAL NO. 70 v. CALIFORNIA CONSOLIDATORS, INC
WOELKE & ROMERO FRAMING, INC., Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD et al. PACIFIC NORTHWEST CHAPTER OF the ASSOCIATED BUILDERS & CONTRACTORS, INC., Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD et al. OREGON-COLUMBIA CHAPTER, the ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF AMERICA, INC., Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD et al.