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Hanna Mining Co Vs Marine Engineers - Citation 101042 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Hanna Mining Co. Vs. Marine Engineers - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/101042
Case Number 382 U.S. 181
Appellant Hanna Mining Co.
Respondent Marine Engineers
hanna mining co. v. marine engineers - 382 u.s. 181 (1965) u.s. supreme court hanna mining co. v. marine engineers, 382 u.s. 181 (1965) hanna mining co. v. district 2, marine engineers beneficial association, afl-cio no. 7 argued october 12, 1965 decided december 6, 1965 382 u.s. 181 certiorari to the supreme court of wisconsin syllabus petitioners (hanna) operate cargo vessels on the great lakes in interstate and foreign commerce. while negotiating for a new collective bargaining agreement with respondent association (meba), which represented the licensed marine engineers on the ships, petitioners assertedly were informed by a majority of the engineers that they did not wish to be represented by meba. hanna.....
Hanna Mining Co. v. Marine Engineers - 382 U.S. 181 (1965)
U.S. Supreme Court Hanna Mining Co. v. Marine Engineers, 382 U.S. 181 (1965)
§ 8(b)(7) of the Act, and fell within the NLRB's exclusive jurisdiction under San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 .
1. Under Garmon, a State may not regulate conduct arguably "protected by § 7, or prohibited by § 8" of the Act, and the legislative purpose may require that certain activity neither protected nor prohibited be deemed privileged against state regulation. P. 382 U. S. 187 .
2. The NLRB decision that the marine engineers are supervisors and not "employees" eliminates most of the opportunities for preemption in this case. P. 382 U. S. 188 .
(a) Organizational or recognitional activity aimed at supervisors cannot be protected by § 7 of the Act, arguably or otherwise. P. 382 U. S. 188 .
(b) Situations in which such activity can be prohibited by the Act are fewer than would be the case if "employees" were being organized or seeking recognition. P. 382 U. S. 188 .
(c) There can be no breach of § 8(b)(7), which limits organizational or recognitional picketing, since it applies only to picketing directed at "employees." P. 382 U. S. 188 .
3. The enactment of §14(a) of the Act was not a congressional decision to exclude state regulation of supervisory organizing. Pp. 382 U. S. 189 -190.
4. The NLRB's statement accompanying its refusal to order a representation election settles the supervisory status of the engineers "with unclouded legal significance," so as to avoid preemption in the respects discussed. P. 382 U. S. 190 .
(a) Petitioners claim there is no arguable violation on the basis of the finding of the Regional Director and General Counsel in declining to issue a complaint under § 8(b)(4)(B) with respect to the 1962 picketing. The General Counsel has statutory "final authority, on behalf of the Board" in the issuance of complaints, and his explicated determinations are entitled to great weight. Pp. 382 U. S. 191 -192.
(b) Hanna has offered to prove that the 1963 picketing at Superior was the same as the 1962 picketing at Superior, and if such proof is furnished, the chance that the picketing sought to be enjoined conceals a § 8(b)(4)(B) violation is remote. P. 382 U. S. 192 .
(c) Even if a § 8(b)(4)(B) violation were present, there would in this instance be no danger by a state injunction to interests served by the Garmon doctrine, since the workers sought to be organized are outside the scope of the Act. Pp. 382 U. S. 192 -193.
(d) The presence of a § 8 (b)(4)(B) violation would not result in the NLRB's affording complete protection to the legitimate interests of the State, as the primary picketing proviso of § 8(b)(4)(B) inhibits the use of that section fully to deal with the conduct complained of in this case. P. 382 U. S. 194 .
Petitioners ("Hanna") are four corporations whose integrated fleet of Great Lakes vessels carriers cargo in interstate and foreign commerce, and is operated by one of the four, the Hanna Mining Company. The respondent District 2, Marine Engineers Beneficial Association ("MEBA") [ Footnote 1 ] represented the licensed marine engineers in Hanna's fleet under a collective bargaining agreement
Hanna turned first to the National Labor Relations Board. On September 12, it petitioned the Regional Director at Cleveland, Ohio, to hold a representation election among Hanna's engineers to prove or disprove MEBA's majority status. The petition was dismissed at the end of September on the stated ground that the engineers were "supervisors" under § 2(11) of the National Labor Relations Act, [ Footnote 2 ] and automatically excluded from the Act's definition of "employees" under § 2(3), [ Footnote 3 ] so election proceedings under § 9 were not warranted; [ Footnote 4 ] giving
the same reason, the Board, in November, declined to overturn this decision. [ Footnote 5 ] As a second measure, Hanna, on September 15, 1962, filed charges with the Regional Director in Minneapolis, Minnesota, alleging that MEBA had violated § 8(b)(4)(B) of the Act [ Footnote 6 ] by inducing work stoppages among dockers at Duluth through improper secondary pressure. In October, the Regional Director dismissed the charges and the General Counsel sustained the dismissal in December, stating that MEBA's conduct
at Duluth and at other sites investigated did not exceed the bounds of lawful picketing under the Board's standards. [ Footnote 7 ] Hanna's third and last appeal to the Board came on September 27, 1962, when it filed charges with the Regional Director in Cleveland, Ohio, accusing MEBA of organizational or recognitional picketing improper under § 8(b)(7) of the Act. [ Footnote 8 ] The Regional Director dismissed the charge in October, and, in the next two months, the General Counsel affirmed the dismissal because, in seeking to represent "supervisors," rather than "employees," MEBA fell outside the section. [ Footnote 9 ]
Winter brought an end to both shipping and picketing for several months, but, when the navigation season opened in the spring of 1963, MEBA pickets once more appeared. After picketing occurred at Superior, Wisconsin, Hanna filed suit on June 24, 1963, in a Wisconsin circuit court. The complaint and affidavits alleged that MEBA was picketing Hanna's vessels at the docks of the Great Northern Railway Company at Superior in the
same manner as the 1962 picketing, and with the same improper aim of forcing its representation on unwilling engineers; Hanna stated that workers of other employers were refusing to render service to Hanna's vessels, and it prayed for injunctive relief against further picketing of the vessels and the docks where they berthed, and against any other attempt of MEBA to impose representation on Hanna engineers. The Circuit Court dismissed the suit in July for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter. In April, 1964, the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the decision. 23 Wis.2d 433, 127 N.W.2d 393. While agreeing that the picketing could be deemed illegal under Wisconsin law, [ Footnote 10 ] that court held that the picketing arguably violated §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(b)(7) of the federal labor Act, and so fell within the Board's exclusive jurisdiction marked out in San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 . In light of other language in Garmon, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the General Counsel's dismissal of charges under §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(b)(7) did not foreclose the possibility of a preempting violation, even assuming the 1963 picketing in Superior mirrored the 1962 picketing in Duluth. We invited the views of the United States, 379 U.S. 942, granted certiorari, 380 U.S. 941, and now reverse and remand.
The ground rules for preemption in labor law, emerging from our Garmon decision, should first be briefly summarized: in general, a State may not regulate conduct arguably "protected by § 7, or prohibited by § 8" of the National Labor Relations Act, see 359 U.S. at 359 U. S. 244 -246, and the legislative purpose may further dictate that certain activity "neither protected nor prohibited" be deemed privileged against state regulation, cf. 359
U.S. at 359 U. S. 245 . For the reasons that follow, we believe the Board's decision that Hanna engineers are supervisors removes from this case most of the opportunities for preemption.
When, in 1947, the National Labor Relations Act was amended to exclude supervisory workers from the critical definition of "employees," § 2(3), it followed that many provisions of the Act employing that pivotal term would cease to operate where supervisors were the focus of concern. Most obviously, § 7 no longer bestows upon supervisory employees the rights to engage in self-organization, collective bargaining, and other concerted activities [ Footnote 11 ] under the umbrella of § 8 of the Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U.S.C. § 158 (1964 ed.). See National Labor Relations Board v. Edward G. Budd Mfg. Co., 169 F.2d 571. Accordingly, activity designed to secure organization or recognition of supervisors cannot be protected by § 7 of the Act, arguably or otherwise. Compare Labor Board v. Drivers Local Union, 362 U. S. 274 , 362 U. S. 279 . Correspondingly, the situations in which that same activity can be prohibited by the Act, even arguably, are fewer than would be the case if employees were being organized or seeking recognition. There can be no breach of § 8(b)(7), curtailing organizational or recognitional picketing, because there cannot exist the forbidden objective of requiring representation of "employees" by the picketing organization. Nor could one even advance the argument unsuccessfully urged in Drivers Local Union that § 8(b)(1)(A), 61 Stat. 141, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(1)(A) (1964 ed.), condemns the picketing as restraint or coercion of employees exercising their § 7 right not to organize or bargain collectively.
Even though such efforts to unionize supervisors are not protected by the Act, or in the respects immediately relevant prohibited by it, the question arises whether Congress nonetheless desired that, in their peaceful facets, these efforts remain free from state regulation, as well as Board authority. Compare Teamsters Union v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252 , 377 U. S. 258 -260. Arguing that the States are indeed powerless in this respect, MEBA pitches its case chiefly on the 1947 amendment of the "employee" definition and on the concurrent enactment of § 14(a) of the Act, 61 Stat. 151, 29 U.S.C. § 164(a) (1964 ed.), which provides, in relevant part, that
This broad argument fails utterly in light of the legislative history, for the Committee reports reveal that Congress' propelling intention was to relieve employers from any compulsion under the Act and under state law to countenance or bargain with any union of supervisory employees. [ Footnote 12 ] Whether the legislators fully realized that their method of achieving this result incidentally freed supervisors' unions from certain limitations under the
The remaining question in this phase of the case is whether the supervisory status of Hanna's engineers has been settled "with unclouded legal significance," Garmon, 359 U.S. at 359 U. S. 246 , so as to preclude arguable application of the Act in the respects discussed. We hold that the Board's statement accompanying its refusal to order a representation election does resolve the question with the clarity necessary to avoid preemption. While MEBA does not contend that the Board erred in its determination, an abstract difficulty arises from the lack of a statutory channel for judicial review of such a Board decision. Compare Hotel Employees v. Leedom, 358 U. S. 99 (equity action to obtain election). However, the usual deference to Board expertise in applying statutory terms to particular facts assures that its decision would, in any event, be respected in a high percentage of instances, and so diminished a risk of interference with
A further basis for preemption, urged by MEBA and adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, is that the picketing at Superior exerted secondary pressure arguably violating § 8(b)(4)(B). The argument appears to be that a state injunction banishing the pickets inevitably impinges upon the Board's authority to regulate facets of the picketing that might exceed "primary" picketing and violate § 8(b)(4)(B) [ Footnote 13 ] -- facets never specified by MEBA, but presumably those that ignore the Board's limitations on time, location, and manner of common situs picketing. See Sailors' Union of the Pacific (Moore Dry Dock), 92 N.L.R.B. 547. However, as will appear, no arguable violation exists if Hanna's proof lives up to its allegations; further, even assuming a violation, federal interests normally justifying preemption are absent from this case.
Hanna's claim that there is no arguable violation rests, of course, on the finding made by the Regional Director and the General Counsel in declining to issue a complaint under § 8(b)(4)(B) with respect to MEBA's 1962 picketing. The Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to credit this finding because of this Court's comment in Garmon that the "refusal of the General Counsel to file a charge" is one of those dispositions "which does not define the nature of the activity with unclouded legal significance." 359 U.S. at 359 U. S. 245 -246. This language allows
Additionally, even if a § 8(b)(4)(B) violation were present, central interests served by the Garmon doctrine
are not endangered by a state injunction when, in an instance such as this, the Board has established that the workers sought to be organized are outside the regime of the Act. Cf. Incres S.S. Co. v. Maritime Workers, 372 U. S. 24 . Most importantly, the Board's decision on the supervisory question determines, as we have already shown, that none of the conduct is arguably protected, nor does it fall in some middle range impliedly withdrawn from state control. [ Footnote 14 ] Consequently, there is wholly absent the greatest threat against which the Garmon doctrine guards, a State's prohibition of activity that the Act indicates must remain unhampered. [ Footnote 15 ]
Nor is this a case in which the presence of arguably prohibited activity may permit the Board to afford complete protection to the legitimate interests advanced by the State. Since Hanna, as the primary employer, is present at the picketed situs, the primary picketing proviso of § 8(b)(4)(B) severely inhibits the Board's use of that section to reach the volatile core of the conduct, the impact on secondary employers that follows from the mere presence of the pickets at a common situs. Section 8(b)(7), which might provide full relief, is rendered inapplicable by the supervisor ruling. Thus, so far as Garmon may proceed on the view that the opportunity belongs to the Board wherever it and the State offer duplicate relief, it has limited application to the present facts. [ Footnote 16 ]
See Vogt, Inc. v. International Brotherhood. 270 Wis. 321a, 74 N.W.2d 749, aff'd sub nom. Teamsters Union v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284 .
By contrast, sometimes offensive conduct may be restrained by a state remedy that has no impact at all on related activity arguably within the Board's exclusive province. See, e.g., Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131 , upholding a state injunction against violence but setting it aside so far as it reached peaceful picketing.
Aside from the § 14(a) line of argument already answered, we do not find at all apposite Teamsters Union v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252 , holding a State powerless to award damages against a striking union for requesting a secondary employer to cease business with the struck employer. While, in Morton, preemption was premised on the fact that the secondary pressure did not come within the ban fixed by § 8(b)(4)(B) and adopted by § 303(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, as amended, 73 Stat. 545, 29 U.S.C. § 187(a) (1964 ed.), the conduct there occurred in the context of a peaceful economic strike by employees, a sphere in which the federal interest is especially pervasive. By contrast, the present case, involving secondary pressure wielded to impose representation on unwilling supervisors, finds itself at that far corner of labor law where, as we have shown, federal occupation is at a minimum, and state power at a peak.
Hattiesburg Unions v. Broome Co., 377 U. S. 126 , cited to us by MEBA, may illustrate this concern. There, the union's organizational picketing at a common situs was enjoined by the State because its objective violated state law. In urging that the picketing's possible violation of § 8(b)(4)(B) preempted state authority, the Solicitor General suggested that it may also have been "lawful picketing" outside the State's reach so far as not prohibited by the section. Memorandum, p. 6, n. 7. See also Michelman, State Power To Govern Concerted Employee Activities, 74 Harv.L.Rev. 641, 652-653 (1961) (citations omitted):
In Marine Engineers v. Interlake S.S. Co., 370 U. S. 173 , we overturned a state ban on picketing arguably violating § 8(b)(4)(B); and, to the counter-argument that the picketing group was not a "labor organization" subject to § 8(b), we pointed out that this decision was for the Board. Unlike the present case, in Interlake, the § 8(b) (4)(B) remedy had not been tried; but, quite apart from that consideration, had the Board held the union a "labor organization" and also held those being organized to be "employees" -- another point not recently decided by the Board -- complete relief against the picketing might well have been available under § 8(b)(7). See 370 U.S. at 370 U. S. 182 -183.
It is true that we said in Garmon that States have no power to regulate "activities" arguably subject to the federal Act; picketing which, because of its secondary aspects, is arguably subject to § 8(b)(4)(B) is, by one construction, an "activity." But Garmon was not a case in which only incidental aspects of picketing were arguably