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ELECTRICAL WORKERS V. LABOR BOARD, 341 U. S. 694 - Volume 341 - 1951 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 341 > ELECTRICAL WORKERS V. LABOR BOARD, 341 U. S. 694 (1951) > Full Text
ELECTRICAL WORKERS V. LABOR BOARD, 341 U. S. 694 (1951)
Held: this finding and the order are sustained. See Labor Board v. Denver Building Trades Council, ante, p. 341 U. S. 675. Pp. 341 U. S. 695-706.
1. The actions complained of had sufficient effect upon interstate commerce to sustain the jurisdiction of the Board. P. 341 U. S. 699.
2. The findings demonstrate that the picketing was directed at the union employees of the carpentry subcontractor to induce them to strike, and thus force the carpentry subcontractor to force the general contractor to terminate the contract of the electrical subcontractor. Pp. 341 U. S. 699-700.
3. It was sufficient that an objective, although not necessarily the only objective, of the picketing was to force the general contractor to terminate the contract of the electrical subcontractor. P. 341 U. S. 700.
4. Section 8(c) does not immunize peaceful picketing which induces a secondary boycott made unlawful by § 8(b)(4). Pp. 341 U. S. 700-705.
5. The prohibition of inducement or encouragement of secondary pressure by § 8(b)(4)(A) carries no unconstitutional abridgment of free speech. P. 341 U. S. 705.
The National Labor Relations Board found that petitioners had committed an unfair labor practice within the meaning of § 8(b)(4)(A) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, and ordered them to cease and desist. 82 N.L.R.B. 1028. The Court of Appeals ordered enforcement. 181 F.2d 34. This Court granted certiorari. 340 U.S. 902. Affirmed, p. 341 U. S. 706.
This is a companion case to No. 393, Labor Board v. Denver Building and Construction Trades Council (the Denver case), ante, p. 341 U. S. 675, and No. 85, Local 74, United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. Labor Board (the Chattanooga case), ante, p. 341 U. S. 707.
amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, [Footnote 1] when, by peaceful picketing, the agent induced employees of a subcontractor on a construction project to engage in a strike in the course of their employment, where an object of such inducement was to force the general contractor to terminate its contract with another subcontractor. For the reasons hereafter stated, we hold that an unfair labor practice was committed.
being to force or require Giorgi to cease doing business with Langer in violation of § 8(b)(4)(A). [Footnote 2]
With the consent of the present petitioners, a restraining order was issued against them by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, pursuant to § 10(1). [Footnote 3] The complaint was referred to the same trial examiner who heard the Denver case, ante, p. 341 U. S. 675. He distinguished the action of petitioners from that which he had found in the Denver case to constitute a strike signal, and recommended dismissal of the complaint on the ground that petitioners' action here was permissible under § 8(c), despite the provisions of § 8(b)(4)(A). The Board, with two members dissenting, upheld its jurisdiction of the complaint against a claim that the actions complained of did not sufficiently affect interstate commerce. The majority of the Board so holding then affirmed the rulings which the examiner had made during the hearings, adopted certain of his findings, conclusions and recommendations, attached his intermediate report to its decision, but declined to follow his recommendation to dismiss the complaint. The Board expressly held that § 8(c) did not immunize petitioners' conduct from the proscriptions of § 8(b)(4)(A). 82 N.L.R.B. 1028. It ordered petitioners to --
Petitioners asked the United States Court of Appeals, under § 10(f), [Footnote 4] to review and set aside that order. The Board answered and asked enforcement of it. With one judge dissenting, the court below ordered enforcement. 181 F.2d 34. We granted certiorari. 340 U.S. 902. See Labor Board v. Denver Building and Construction Trades Council, ante, p. 341 U. S. 675.
1. Petitioners contest the jurisdiction of the Board on the ground of the insufficiency of the effect of the actions complained of upon interstate commerce. The facts, which were found in detail in the intermediate report, approved by the Board, and upheld by the court below, are, in our opinion, sufficient to sustain that jurisdiction on the grounds stated in the Denver case, ante, p. 341 U. S. 675. In addition, the contractor and both subcontractors in the instant case had their principal places of business in New York. The performance of their contractual obligations on this project in Connecticut accordingly emphasizes the interstate movement of the services and materials which they here supplied.
2. The secondary character of the activities here complained of and their objectives also come within the pattern of the Denver case. In the instant case, a labor dispute had been pending for some time between Langer and the Electricians Union, but no demands were made upon him directly by either of petitioners in connection with this project. There are no findings that the picketing was aimed at Langer to force him to employ union workmen on this job. On the contrary, the findings demonstrate that the picketing was directed at Deltorto's employees to induce them to strike, and thus force Deltorto,
3. The Denver case also covers the point that it was sufficient that an objective of the picketing, although not necessarily the only objective of the picketing, was to force Giorgi to terminate Langer's uncompleted contract, and thus cease doing business with him on the project.
4. The principal feature of the instant case, not squarely covered by the Denver case, is that there is no finding here that the picketing and other activities of petitioners were mere signals in starting and stopping a strike in accordance with bylaws or other controlling practices of the Electricians and Carpenters Unions. The complaint here is not that petitioners, like the Trades Council in the Denver case, themselves engaged in or called a strike of Deltorto's carpenters in order to force the general contractor to cease doing business with the electrical subcontractor. Here, the complaint is that petitioners, by peaceful picketing, rather than by prearranged signal, induced or encouraged the employees of Deltorto to strike (or to engage in a concerted refusal to perform any services for Deltorto) in the course of their employment to force Giori, the contractor, to cease doing business with Langer, the electrical subcontractor.
While, in the Denver case, we have held that § 8(c) [Footnote 5] had no application to a strike signal, there are other considerations that enter into the decision here. The question here is what effect, if any, shall be given to § 8(c) in its application to peaceful picketing conducted by a labor organization or its agents merely as an inducement
or encouragement of employees to engage in a secondary boycott. Petitioners contend that § 8(c) immunizes peaceful picketing, even though the picketing induces a secondary boycott made unlawful by § 8(b)(4). The Board reached the opposite conclusion, and the court below approved the Board's order as applied to the facts of this case which it recognized as amounting to "bare instigation" of the secondary boycott. [Footnote 6] We agree with the Board.
and persuasion. [Footnote 7] There is no legislative history to justify an interpretation that Congress, by those terms, has limited its proscription of secondary boycotting to cases where the means of inducement or encouragement amount to a "threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit." Such an interpretation would give more significance to the means used than to the end sought. If such were the case, there would have been little need for § 8(b)(4) defining the proscribed objectives, because the use of "restraint and coercion" for any purpose was prohibited in this whole field by § 8(b)(1)(A).
"Induce or encourage" appear in like context in § 303. The action proscribed by the terms of § 8(b)(4) is made in § 303 the basis for the recovery of damages in a civil action. Because § 8(c) is in terms limited to unfair labor practice proceedings and § 303 refers only to civil actions for damages, [Footnote 8] it seems clear that § 8(c) does not apply to an action under § 303. That section does not mention unfair labor practices through which alone the
United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 81 N.L.R.B. 802, 811. Also,
"It was the objective of the unions' secondary activities . . . , and not the quality of the means employed to accomplish that objective, which was the dominant factor motivating Congress in enacting that provision. . . . In these circumstances, to construe Section 8(b)(4)(A) as qualified by Section 8(c) would practically vitiate its underlying purpose, and amount to imputing to Congress an unrealistic approach to the problem."
(Emphasis in original.) Id. at 812.
5. The prohibition of inducement or encouragement of secondary pressure by § 8(b)(4)(A) carries no unconstitutional abridgment of free speech. The inducement or encouragement in the instant case took the form of picketing followed by a telephone call emphasizing its purpose. The constitutionality of § 8(b)(4)(A) is here questioned only as to its possible relation to the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. This provision has been sustained by several Courts of Appeals. [Footnote 9] The substantive evil condemned by Congress in § 8(b)(4) is the secondary boycott, and we recently have recognized the constitutional right of states to proscribe picketing in furtherance of comparably unlawful objectives. [Footnote 10] There is no reason why Congress may not do likewise.
6. Petitioners object to the breadth of the Board's order as stated in 82 N.L.R.B. at 1030, supra, pp. 341 U. S. 698-699. They contend that its language prohibits inducement not only of employees of Deltorto, but also the inducement of employees of any other employer to strike, where an object thereof is to force Giorgi or any other employer or person to cease doing business with Langer. To confine the order solely to secondary pressure through Giorgi or Deltorto would leave Langer and other employers who
do business with him exposed to the same type of pressure through other comparable channels. The order properly enjoins petitioners from exerting this pressure upon Langer, through other employers, as well as through Giorgi and Deltorto. We may well apply here the principle stated in International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S. 392, 332 U. S. 400:
And see United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 340 U. S. 76, 340 U. S. 90.
This issue is extensively reviewed and determined in favor of the view that § 8(c) does not immunize otherwise unfair labor practice against § 8(b)(4)(A) in United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 81 N.L.R.B. 802, 807-816. In affirming that conclusion, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit said:
Labor Board v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 184 F.2d 60, 62.
Petition for certiorari was filed in this Court, and action on the petition was withheld pending decision of the instant cases. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters filed a brief as amicus curiae in connection with the hearings of these cases, and the petition of certiorari is this day being denied. post, p. 947. See also United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. Sperry, 170 F.2d 863, 868-869; Printing Specialties Union, 82 N.L.R.B. 271; Bricklayers Union, 82 N.L.R.B. 228; Local 1796, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 82 N.L.R.B. 211; Dennis, The Boycott Under the Taft-Hartley Act, N.Y.U. Third Annual Conference on Labor (1950), 367, 382-386.
See Labor Board v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 184 F.2d 60, 62, cert. denied this day as No. 387, post, p. 947; Labor Board v. Local 74, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 181 F.2d 126, 132, aff'd as No. 85, post, p. 341 U. S. 707; Labor Board v. Wine, Liquor & Distillery Workers Union, 178 F.2d 584, 587-588; Printing Specialties and Paper Converters Union v. Le Baron, 171 F.2d 331, 334-335; United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. Sperry, 170 F.2d 863, 868-869. See also, as to § 8(b)(4)(C), Douds v. Local 1250, Retail Wholesale Dept. Store Union, 170 F.2d 700, 701.
See Building Service Employees International Union v. Gazzam, 339 U. S. 532; International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Hanke, 339 U. S. 470; Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U. S. 460; Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490.
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