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Nlrb Vs Pipefitters - Citation 104255 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Nlrb Vs. Pipefitters - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/104255
Case Number 429 U.S. 507
Respondent Pipefitters
nlrb v. pipefitters - 429 u.s. 507 (1977) u.s. supreme court nlrb v. pipefitters, 429 u.s. 507 (1977) national labor relations board v. enterprise association of steam, hot water, hydraulic sprinkler, pneumatic tube, ice machine & general pipefitters of new york and vicinity, local union no. 638 no. 75-777 argued october 6, 1976 decided february 22, 1977 429 u.s. 507 certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit syllabus a subcontractor (hudik) had a subcontract with a general contractor (austin) for the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning work in the construction of a home for the aged. the subcontract job specifications provided that austin would.....
NLRB v. Pipefitters - 429 U.S. 507 (1977)
U.S. Supreme Court NLRB v. Pipefitters, 429 U.S. 507 (1977)
Held: The union's refusal to install the climate control units was secondary activity prohibited by § 8(b)(4)(B), rather than primary activity beyond the reach of that provision. Pp. 429 U. S. 514 -532.
(a) The existence of a work preservation agreement is not an adequate defense to a § 8(b)(4)(B) unfair labor practice charge. To hold, as the Court of Appeals did, that a work stoppage is necessarily primary, and not an unfair labor practice when it aims at enforcing a legal promise in a collective bargaining agreement is inconsistent with the statute as construed in Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93 ( Sand Door ), a construction that was accepted and that has never been abandoned by Congress. Pp. 429 U. S. 514 -521.
(b) The Court of Appeals also erred in taking the view that the NLRB's "control" test, under which the union commits an unfair labor practice under § 8(b)(4)(B) when it coerces an employer in order to obtain work that the employer has no power to assign, is invalid as a matter of law because it fails to comply with the standard of National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612 , that the union's conduct be judged in light of all the relevant circumstances. It does not appear that either the Administrative Law Judge or the NLRB, in agreeing with him, articulated a different standard from that recognized as proper in National Woodwork, or that the NLRB, in applying its control test, failed to consider all of the relevant circumstances. Pp. 429 U. S. 521 -528.
(c) The record amply supports the NLRB's conclusion that the union's objectives were not confined to the employment relationship with Hudik, but included the object of influencing Austin in a manner prohibited by § 8(b)(4)(B). Pp. 429 U. S. 528 -531.
(d) The Court of Appeals was obliged to review the case under the statutory standard of whether the NLRB's findings were "supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole," and thus, in reweighing the facts and setting aside the NLRB's order, the Court of Appeals improperly substituted its own views of the facts for those of the NLRB. Pp. 429 U. S. 531 -532.
J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEWART (except for Part V) and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 429 U. S. 532 . STEWART, J., filed a dissenting statement, post, p. 429 U. S. 543 .
Under § 8(b)(4)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(4)(B), [ Footnote 1 ] a union commits an unfair
labor practice when it induces employees to refuse to handle particular goods or products or coerces any person engaged in commerce, where "an object" of the inducement or coercion is to require any person to cease doing business with any other person. A proviso, added to § 8(b)(4)(B) in 1959, declares that the section "shall [not] be construed to make unlawful, where not otherwise unlawful, any primary strike or primary picketing." Although, without the proviso, the section, on its face, would seem to cover any coercion aimed at forcing a cessation of business, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) and the judiciary have construed the statute more narrowly, both before and after the proviso was added, to prohibit only secondary, rather than primary, strikes and picketing. [ Footnote 2 ]
Among other things, it is not necessarily a violation of § 8(b)(4)(B) for a union to picket an employer for the purpose of preserving work traditionally performed by union members even though, in order to comply with the union's demand, the employer would have to cease doing business with another employer. National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612 (1967) ( National Woodwork ). The question now before us is whether a union seeking the kind of work traditionally performed by its members at a construction site violates § 8(b)(4)(B) when it induces its members to engage in a work stoppage against an employer who does not have control over the assignment of the work
sought by the union. More specifically, the issue is whether a union-instigated refusal of a subcontractor's employees to handle or install factory-piped climate-control units, which were included in the general contractor's job specifications and delivered to the construction site, was primary activity beyond the reach of § 8(b)(4)(B), or whether it was secondary activity prohibited by the statute. As we shall see, this issue turns on whether the boycott was "addressed to the labor relations of the contracting employer vis-a-vis his own employees," National Woodwork, supra at 386 U. S. 645 , and is therefore primary conduct, or whether the boycott was "tactically calculated to satisfy union objectives elsewhere," 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 644 , in which event the boycott would be prohibited secondary activity.
Austin C., Inc. (Austin), was the general contractor and engineer on a construction project known as the Norwegian Home for the Aged. [ Footnote 3 ] As the result of competitive bidding, Austin awarded a subcontract to Hudik-Ross Co., Inc. (Hudik), to perform the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning work for the Norwegian Home construction. Hudik employs a regular complement of about 10 to 20 steamfitters. For many years, these employees have been represented by respondent Enterprise Association (Enterprise), a plumbing and pipefitting union. Over the years, Hudik and Enterprise have entered into successive collective bargaining agreements, and such an agreement was in force at the time that the dispute involved in the present litigation arose. Austin had no agreement with Enterprise regarding the work to be done on the Norwegian Home project
Traditionally, members of respondent union have performed the internal piping on heating and air-conditioning units on the jobsite. Also, Rule IX of the then-current collective bargaining contract between Hudik and Enterprise provided that pipe threading and cutting were to be performed on the jobsite in accordance with Rule V, which, in turn, specified that the work would be performed by units of two employees. [ Footnote 4 ] There had been similar or identical provisions in previous collective bargaining contracts. There is no dispute that the work designated by Austin's specifications to be performed at the Slant/Fin factory was the kind of cutting and threading work referred to in Rule IX.
A divided Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, sitting en banc, set aside the Board's order. 172 U.S.App.D.C. 225, 521 F.2d 885 (1975). We granted certiorari because of an apparent conflict between the Circuits. [ Footnote 5 ] 424 U.S. 908 (1976).
Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93 (1958) ( Sand Door ), involved a collective bargaining contrast containing a provision, then quite legal, that " workmen shall not be required to handle non-union material.'" Id. at 357 U. S. 95 . The case arose when certain nonunion doors arrived at a construction site and the union notified the contractor that the doors would not be hung. The Board found that the union had committed an unfair labor practice by encouraging employees to strike or refuse to handle the disputed doors in order to force the contractor to cease doing business with the door manufacturer. The union stood squarely on the contract; and as the case arrived here the sole question was whether the collective bargaining provision was a
"defense to a charge of an unfair labor practice under § 8(b)(4)(A) when, in the absence of such a provision, the union conduct would unquestionably be a violation. [ Footnote 6 ]"
Id. at 357 U. S. 101 .
Id. at 357 U. S. 105 . These arguments were squarely rejected:
"Nevertheless, it seems most probable that the freedom of choice for the employer contemplated by § 8(b)(4)(A) is a freedom of choice at the time the question whether to boycott or not arises in a concrete situation calling for the exercise of judgment on a particular matter of labor and business policy. Such a choice, free from the prohibited pressures -- whether to refuse to deal with another or to maintain normal business relations on the ground that the labor dispute is no concern of his -- must, as a matter of federal policy, be available to the secondary employer notwithstanding any private agreement entered into between the parties. See National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U. S. 350 , 309 U. S. 364 . This is so because, by the employer's intelligent exercise of such a choice under the impact of a concrete situation when judgment is most responsible, and not merely at the time a collective bargaining agreement is drawn up covering a multitude of subjects, often in a general and abstract manner, Congress may rightly be assumed to have hoped that the scope of industrial conflict and the economic effects of the primary dispute might be effectively limited."
Id. at 357 U. S. 105 -106. The Court went on to hold that inducements of employees that are prohibited by § 8(b)(4) in the absence of a contractual provision countenancing them "are likewise prohibited when there is such a provision," 357 U.S. at 357 U. S. 106 . This was true even though the making and voluntary observance of such contracts were not contrary to law at the time that Sand Door was decided; however lawful, these contracts could not be enforced "by the means specifically prohibited" by the section. Id. at 357 U. S. 108 . The Court held that the legality of the union's conduct is to be viewed at the time of the boycott.
Sand Door's holding that employer promises in a collective bargaining contract provide no defense to a § 8(b)(4) charge against a union has not been disturbed. In contemplating the 1959 amendments to the Landrum-Griffin Act, Congress viewed that part of Sand Door in which the Court suggested that contractual provisions having secondary objectives were not forbidden by law as creating a loophole in the Act. Section 8(e) was enacted to close that loophole. See National Woodwork, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 634 . Section 8(e), 29 U.S.C. § 158(e) (1970 ed. Supp. V), makes it an unfair labor practice, with provisos, for unions and employers to enter into collective bargaining contracts whereby the employer ceases or agrees to cease doing business with any other person. Although on its face not limited to agreements having secondary objectives, the section was construed by the Board and this Court as only closing the loophole left by Sand Door and as having no broader reach than § 8(b)(4) itself. Section 8(e) does not prohibit agreements made for "primary" purposes, including the purpose of preserving for the contracting employees themselves work traditionally done by them. 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 635 .
Nor did we modify Sand Door in National Woodwork. The union in National Woodwork induced the employees of four contractors not to handle precut and prefitted doors that had arrived at the respective construction sites. In three instances, the precut doors had been specified by the architect or the owner; in the fourth, the decision to use precut doors was that of the immediate contractor employer, Frouge Corp. In each case, there was a provision in the collective bargaining contract that carpenters would not be required to handle precut or prefitted doors. [ Footnote 7 ] The General Counsel of the Board filed charges in all four cases, asserting that the agreements were forbidden by § 8(e) and that the refusal to handle in each case violated § 8(b)(4)(B). The
In reversing the Court of Appeals' § 8(e) holding and agreeing that § 8(b)(4)(B) had not been violated, we held that neither the Frouge contract nor its maintenance was illegal. Our rationale was not that the work preservation provision was valid under § 8(e) and that therefore it could be enforced by striking or picketing without violating § 8(b)(4)(B). Expressly recognizing the continuing validity of the Sand Door decision that a valid contract does not immunize conduct otherwise violative of § 8(b)(4), 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 634 , we held that neither § 8(b)(4)(B) nor § 8(e) forbade primary activity by employees designed to preserve for themselves work traditionally done by them, and that, on this basis, the union's conduct violated neither section. To determine whether the Frouge employees' refusal to handle was
386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 644 -645 (footnotes omitted). We went on to rule that there was substantial evidence to sustain the finding of the Board that both the agreement and the union activity at the Frouge jobsite related solely to the preservation of the traditional tasks of the jobsite carpenters. In consequence, we agreed that there was neither a § 8(b)(4)(B) nor a § 8(e) unfair labor practice.
reach it, not that it was immunized by the contract. Thus, regardless of whether an agreement is valid under § 8(e), it may not be enforced by means that would violate § 8(b)(4). [ Footnote 8 ]
by the union was not under the control of the immediate employer, but it found no unfair practice in the Frouge situation because Frouge did have the power to settle the dispute with the union. In sustaining the Board with respect to Frouge and in posing the issue whether under all the circumstances the boycott was tactically calculated to satisfy union objectives elsewhere, we did not purport to announce a new legal standard and then ourselves to assess the facts in light of the modified construction of the statute. Such an assessment would have been a more proper task for the Board in the first instance; [ Footnote 9 ] yet there was no remand for further proceedings in the light of a newly fashioned standard. The Board had sustained the trial examiner, who had examined the facts to determine whether the agreement and boycott had secondary objectives and concluded that they did not. This Court simply sustained the Board's findings as supported by substantial evidence, without questioning either the legal standard employed by the Board or the Board's resolution of the facts under that standard. Furthermore, the Court expressly recognized that, as the case came to it, no question was raised about the results with respect to the three contractors other than Frouge. 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 616 -617, n. 3.
history both of the relevant jobsite work traditionally done by the steamfitters and of the contractual provision calling for jobsite cutting and threading of pipe, assessed the agreement and refusal to handle in light of the actual conditions in the New York market, and concluded that, " under all the surrounding circumstances,'" Hudik was "only a means or instrumentality for exerting pressure against Slant/Fin and Austin with whom the Union has its primary dispute." [ Footnote 10 ] It thus dos not appear to us that either the Administrative Law Judge or the Board, in agreeing with him, articulated a different standard from that which this Court recognized as the proper test in National Woodwork. [ Footnote 11 ]
Nor is it the case that the Board, in applying its control standard, failed to consider all of the relevant circumstances. Surely the fact that the Board distinguishes between two otherwise identical cases because, in the one, the employer has control of the work, and in the other, he has no power over it does not indicate that the Board has ignored any material circumstance. The contrary might more rationally be inferred. Of course, the Board may assign to the presence or absence of control much more weight than would the Court of Appeals, but this far from demonstrates a departure from the "totality of the circumstances" test recognized in National Woodwork. [ Footnote 12 ]
§ 8(b)(4)(B) to find an unfair labor practice, at least where the union employs a product boycott to claim work that the immediate employer is not in a position to award, [ Footnote 13 ] and it has declined to find a violation where the employer has such power, even if awarding the work might cause him to terminate contractual relations with another employer. [ Footnote 14 ] In the latter circumstances, the "cease doing business" consequences are merely incidental to primary activity, but not in the former, where the union, if it is to obtain work, must intend to exert pressure on one or more other employers.
in that case, some Courts of Appeals, like the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, have concluded that the Board's interpretation of the statute is in error. [ Footnote 15 ]
The Board's reading and application of the statute involved in this case, however, are long established, have remained undisturbed by Congress, and fall well within that category of situations in which the courts should defer to the agency's understanding of the statute which it administers. See Bayside Enterprises v. NLRB, 429 U. S. 298 , 429 U. S. 303 -304 (1977); NLRB v. Boeing Co., 412 U. S. 67 , 412 U. S. 75 (1973); NLRB v. United Insurance Co. of America, 390 U. S. 254 , 390 U. S. 260 (1968); Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1 , 380 U. S. 16 (1965); Sand Door, 357 U.S. at 357 U. S. 107 .
That there existed inducement and coercion within the meaning of § 8(b)(4) is not disputed. The issue is whether "an object" of the inducement and the coercion was to cause the "cease doing business" consequences prohibited by § 8(b)(4), the resolution of which in turn depends on whether the product boycott was "addressed to the labor relations of [Hudik] . . . vis-a-vis his own employees," National Woodwork, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 645 , or whether the union's conduct was "tactically calculated to satisfy [its] objectives elsewhere," id. at 386 U. S. 644 . [ Footnote 16 ]
steamfitters asserted their rights to the cutting and threading work on the Norwegian Home project. It is uncontrovertible that the work at this site could not be secured by pressure on Hudik alone, and that the union's work objectives could not be obtained without exerting pressure on Austin as well. That the union may also have been seeking to enforce its contract and to convince Hudik that it should bid on no more jobs where prepiped units were specified does not alter the fact that the union refused to install the Slant/Fin units and asserted that the piping work on the Norwegian Home job belonged to its members. [ Footnote 17 ] It was not error for
the Board to conclude that the union's objectives were not confined to the employment relationship with Hudik, but included the object of influencing Austin in a manner prohibited by § 8(b)(4)(B). [ Footnote 18 ] The Court of Appeals was of the view that other inferences from the facts were possible. The court, for example, could
172 U.S.App.D.C. at 239, 521 F.2d at 899. How this observation impugns the Board's finding with respect to the union's object is not clear. The union simply refused to handle the Slant/ Fin units, and asserted that, under the contract, the cutting and threading work belonged to them. The common sense inference from these facts is that the product boycott was in part aimed at securing the cutting and threading work at the Norwegian Home job, which could only be obtained by exerting pressure on Austin. The statutory standard under which the Court of Appeals was obliged to review this case was not whether the Court of Appeals would have arrived at the same result as the Board did, but whether the Board's findings were "supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole." 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). See NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105 , 351 U. S. 112 (1956); Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S. 485 , 330 U. S. 491 (1947); Consolidated Edison Co. v.
NLRB, 305 U. S. 197 , 229 (1938). It appears to us that, in reweighing the facts and setting aside the Board's order, the Court of Appeals improperly substituted its own views of the facts for those of the Board.
SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80 , 318 U. S. 95 (1943). This rule has not been disturbed. See FPC v. Texaco, Inc., 417 U. S. 380 , 417 U. S. 397 (1974); FTC v. Sperry & Hutchinson Co., 405 U. S. 233 , 405 U. S. 249 (1972); K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 16.01, p. 397 (Supp. 1976). When an administrative agency has made an error of law, the duty of the Court is to
ICC v. Clyde S.S. Co., 181 U. S. 29 , 181 U. S. 32 -33 (1901).
See, e.g., Pipefitters Local No. 120, supra at 992; Metropolitan Dist. Council of Phila., 149 N.L.R.B. 646, 659 n. 21 (1964) ( National Woodwork ).
In many of the pre- National Woodwork cases, the unions argued that their activity was primary on the ground that they were merely enforcing valid work preservation agreements. The Courts of Appeals uniformly rejected this argument for a variety of reasons. Two of the pre- National Woodwork cases flatly held that the existence of a valid work preservation agreement cannot validate conduct that otherwise would be unlawful under § 8(b)(4)(B). Ohio Valley Carpenters, supra at 145; Local No. 5, supra at 369-370.
Post at 429 U. S. 535 . National Woodwork did not, however, adopt this standard for applying the proscriptions of § 8(b)(4)(B). The distinction between primary and secondary activity does not always turn on which group of employees the union seeks to benefit. There are circumstances under which the union's conduct is secondary when one of its purposes is to influence directly the conduct of an employer other than the struck employer. In these situations, a union's efforts to influence the conduct of the nonstruck employer are not rendered primary simply because it seeks to benefit the employees of the struck employer. National Woodwork itself embraced the view that the union's conduct would be secondary if its tactical object was to influence another employer:
(Emphasis added.) 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 645 .
Under the standard announced, we found no unfair labor practice in National Woodwork. Frouge, the struck employer, was faced with the choice of either giving the cutting and fitting work to its own employees or giving it to the door manufacturer. Cf. Fibreboard Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203 (1964). The Court sustained the Board's finding that the union's sole object was to influence Frouge to give the work to its own employees. The union thus had no object of influencing the door manufacturer, even though any influence that the union had on Frouge would have had an incidental effect on persons with whom Frouge had commercial dealings. Cf. NLRB v. Operating Engineers, 400 U. S. 297 , 400 U. S. 304 (1971) ("Some disruption of business relationships is the necessary consequence of the purest form of primary activity").
The National Woodwork opinion also noted that the Court then had no occasion "to decide the questions which might arise where the workers carry on a boycott to reach out to monopolize jobs or acquire new job tasks." 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 630 -631. That reservation was apparently meaningless, for, under the theory of the dissent, seemingly derived from National Woodwork itself, striking workers may legally demand that their employer cease doing business with another company even if the union's object is to obtain new work so long as that work is for the benefit of the striking employees. If, for example, Hudik had in the past used prepiped units without opposition from the union, and the union had demanded that Hudik not fulfill its contract with Austin on the Norwegian Home job -- all for the benefit of Hudik employees -- it would appear that the dissenters' approach would exonerate the union. Respondents take the same view. Tr. of Oral Arg. 22. We disagree, for the union's object would necessarily be to force Hudik to cease doing business with Austin, not to preserve, but to aggrandize, its own position and that of its members. Such activity is squarely within the statute.
"It is not necessary to find that the sole object of the strike" was secondary so long as one of the union's objectives was to influence another employer by inducing the struck employer to cease doing business with that other employer. See NLRB v. Denver Bldg. Council, 341 U. S. 675 , 341 U. S. 689 (1951). See also Wilson v. Milk Drivers & Dairy Employees, Local 471, 491 F.2d 200, 203 (CA8 1974); Riverton Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 453 F.2d 1035, 1040 (CA6), cert. denied, 407 U.S. 915 (1972); NLRB v. Milk Drivers & Dairy Employees, Local 84, 341 F.2d 29, 32 (CA2), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 816 (1965).
The dissenters assert that "[n]othing whatever in the record even remotely suggests that the union had any quarrel with Slant/Fin or Austin." Post at 429 U. S. 536 and 429 U. S. 539 -540. The Court has held, however, that there is no need for the Board to make such a finding in order to conclude that a § 8(b)(4)(B) violation has occurred. National Woodwork, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 645 , quoted at n 16, supra.
The Court's result cannot be squared with National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, supra, whose "totality of the circumstances" test the Court purports to apply. Ante at 429 U. S. 524 . That case and this are virtually indistinguishable in relevant respects. The contractor in National Woodwork ordered precut and prefitted doors in violation of a collective bargaining provision that doors would be cut and fitted by its own employees at the jobsite. When the workers refused to hang the doors, charges were filed alleging that the initial agreement violated § 8(e) of the NLRA as an agreement "whereby [the] employer . . . agrees to cease or refrain from handling . . . any of the products of any other employer," and that union pressure to enforce it violated § 8(b)(4)(B), as pressure intended to force the employer "to cease using . . . the product of any other . . . manufacturer. . . ." [ Footnote 2/1 ]
386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 632 . While "[t]his will not always be a simple test to apply," id. at 386 U. S. 645 , it is the test that Congress intended, and it has deep roots in the history of American labor policy.
The Court's acknowledgment that these principles must control the result here rings hollow in the face of its conclusion. For here, as in National Woodwork, the Board found that the union's actions were taken "for the purpose of preserving work [its members] had traditionally performed." 204 N.L.R.B. at 760. Cf. 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 645 -646. It defies reality to deny that the union's principal dispute was with Hudik, the immediate employer of its members. It was Hudik which had acceded to the union's demand for the work preservation clause particularly desired by its employees for their own protection. And it was Hudik which breached that clause. Nothing whatever in the record even remotely suggests that the union had any quarrel with Slant/Fin or Austin. Those companies were simply the vehicles used by Hudik to effect the breach which created the primary dispute between it and its own employees and their union. Nor is there the slightest basis for a suggestion that the true purpose of the work preservation clause or the pressure applied to enforce it was to benefit employees "other than the boycotting employees or other employees of [Hudik]." Id. at 386 U. S. 645 . Rather, the Board found that the
purpose of the job action was "preserving work [the boycotting employees] had traditionally performed" for Hudik. [ Footnote 2/2 ] Since the purpose of the union's pressure was, by the Board's own finding, work preservation, and since National Woodwork holds that work preservation is a legitimate primary objective, the only possible conclusion on this record is that the pressure here was primary, and not prohibited by § 8(b)(4)(B)
Nor is National Woodwork distinguishable, as contended, because Austin, and not Hudik, had the "right to control" the assignment of the work of cutting and threading the internal piping. Any conclusion from this that the union's pressure must have been directed at Austin, and not Hudik, is totally inconsistent with the premises and conclusion of National Woodwork. [ Footnote 2/3 ] First, Hudik was by no means a "neutral"
in the sense contemplated by Congress as warranting or requiring protection. See 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 624 -628. Hudik made the agreement with its employees to satisfy their deep concern for work preservation. But, in defiance of its obligations voluntarily assumed, Hudik accepted a subcontract knowing that it disabled it from keeping the bargain. It completely escapes me how Hudik can be said to be the neutral, and Austin the target, on those facts, particularly in face of the Board's finding that the work preservation clause was primary, and not prohibited by § 8(e). Thus, had the union been forced to strike Hudik to get the agreement, the strike would clearly also have been primary, and not prohibited by § 8(b)(4)(B). How, then, could Hudik become a neutral by violating the clause after agreeing to it? The Board did not find that the union's insistence upon compliance with the legitimate work preservation agreement was a pretext to apply pressure against Austin in some unrelated dispute; on the contrary, the Board found that the purpose of the job action, as well as of the original agreement, was work preservation. It is simply impossible to conclude that anyone but Hudik was the target of that pressure.
Nothing in this record indicates that Hudik made any attempt to reach that or any other compromise solution, and there is no reason to think that the union would not have been satisfied with such a result. [ Footnote 2/4 ] Moreover, in the long run, only Hudik could deal with the union demands, for it alone could decide to comply with the collective bargaining agreement in the future. The union could certainly have reasoned that, after Hudik knowingly breached its contract -- even if, at that time, Hudik had no power to undo the breach -- union pressure was necessary to deter Hudik from repeating its breach of the work preservation agreement in the future.
National Woodwork, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 644 . But once the Board determined that the union's object was preservation of work its members had traditionally performed for Hudik, its factfinding task was completed. The Board concluded that, despite this finding, Austin's "right to control" the disputed work required the conclusion that Austin was the union's target. This was an error of law, not a factual finding. [ Footnote 2/5 ]
The Court maintains that the collective bargaining agreement between Enterprise and Hudik is irrelevant to the determination of whether the union exerted primary or secondary pressure, relying on Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93 (1958) ( Sand Door ). With all respect, this totally misapprehends the relevance of the agreement to the issue before us, and misapplies Sand Door.
In Sand Door, the union ordered its members not to handle doors ordered by their employer from a nonunion manufacturer. The manufacturer charged secondary pressure aimed at it, and the union defended on the ground that the strike was its response to the employer-contractor's breach of a provision in their collective bargaining agreement that "workmen shall not be required to handle non-union material," and therefore primary pressure. The Court held that, although the collective bargaining provision was not illegal, [ Footnote 2/6 ] pressure to enforce it was prohibited secondary pressure. [ Footnote 2/7 ]
Thus, Sand Door holds that pressure to enforce a secondary boycott clause remains secondary, despite the then legality of the clause itself; it is not authority that union pressure to enforce a concededly primary work preservation clause (which, since the enactment of § 8(e), is legal only because it is primary), is anything but primary pressure. [ Footnote 2/8 ] The union here
does not argue, as in Sand Door, that pressure otherwise secondary is magically transformed into primary pressure by an employer's prior agreement to support a secondary boycott. Rather, §§ 8(b)(4) and 8(e) are "to be taken pari passu, " National Woodwork, supra at 386 U. S. 649 (Harlan, J., concurring), so that pressure to enforce an employer to honor a clause of a collective bargaining agreement admittedly primary, because intended to preserve work traditionally performed by unit members, is also primary. [ Footnote 2/9 ] In short, the agreement in this case, as the Board found, was for a primary purpose; pressure brought to compel Hudik to agree to it would have been primary; and pressure brought to enforce it when Hudik breached it, whether by ordering prefabricated units himself, as in National Woodwork, or by entering a contract that required it to breach it, was no less primary.
Technological change has threatened the stability of jobs in a number of industries. Workers in those industries are understandably concerned about the possibility that new technological advances or increased reliance on prefabricated materials will render their skills superfluous, and eliminate their jobs, and have sought reassurance against those fears from their employers through collective bargaining. It might be argued that, in the long run, the national interest is better served by permitting technological change to proceed at its own pace, unhampered by the demands of labor, and that the problems of workers threatened with unemployment by such "progress" can be better dealt with by some other method than collective bargaining. But it is for Congress, not the Court, to decide how this problem is best solved. National Woodwork, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 644 ; id. at 386 U. S. 649 -650 (Harlan, J., concurring). And the Court has consistently recognized that the national labor policy adopted by Congress is for "management and labor voluntarily to negotiate for solutions to these significant and difficult problems." Id. at 386 U. S. 640 . See also Fibreboard Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203 (1964). Today's decision undermines this policy by permitting an employer which has voluntarily agreed to a work preservation clause to subvert that agreement by "assigning to another party the rights [it] guaranteed to [its] own employees." Note, Secondary Boycotts and Work Preservation, 77 Yale L.J. 1401, 1417 (1968). This is surely a serious setback for national labor policy, and hardly conducive to labor peace.
Section 8(b)(4)(B) was added to the Act as § 8(b)(4)(A) by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, and amended and renumbered by the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959. For the history of these provisions, see National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612 , 386 U. S. 619 -644 (1967). The present text of § 8(b)(4)(B), in pertinent part, is set out in n. 1 of the Court's opinion, ante at 429 U. S. 509 -510.
The Court argues, contrary to this finding, that the union's object was "to acquire work that it never had," because unit members had never done "the piping work on units specified by" a contractor who preferred prefabricated units. Ante at 429 U. S. 530 n. 16. The Board's finding that the union's aim was work preservation, rather than work acquisition, disposes of this argument. At any rate, striking workers in any work preservation dispute have never before done the particular job at issue in the dispute, and are seeking to "acquire" work that has been assigned to other workers, but that is of a type that they have traditionally performed for their employer. As the majority correctly points out, ante at 429 U. S. 529 n. 16, the Court in National Woodwork had no occasion to decide what implications its analysis might have when a union seeks to acquire tasks not traditionally performed by its members, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 630 -631, and, since this is not such a situation, I have no occasion to reach that question here.
"The modern primary-secondary analysis [of National Woodwork ] requires the complete abandonment of the present 'right to control' rule. The unit has bargained for its rights and signed a contract with its employer, who happens to be a subcontractor. These two are without doubt the primary parties. The general contractor is removed from this direct confrontation, enters into the picture after the agreement has been made, receives his authority over job placement of the complaining unit derivatively from the subcontractor, and is fully aware of the consequences of such work preservation agreements. The effects upon the general contractor of any strike in this situation are thus ancillary to a primary dispute with the immediate employer vindicating bargaining unit concerns. This result is required if the right to strike is to be assured to the subcontractor's employees. . . . [T]he subcontractor is merely estopped from assigning to another party the rights he guaranteed to his own employees."
The Court purports to fail to see "[h]ow this observation impugns the Board's finding with respect to the union's object." Ante at 429 U. S. 531 . That "finding" is based exclusively on the inference that, because only Austin could satisfy the union's demands, Austin must have been the real target of the union pressure. But since there were means by which Hudik could have satisfied the union's protest, and it did not attempt to take advantage of them, the premise of the Board's argument falls. Cf. Local 74, United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. NLRB, 174 U.S.App.D.C. 456, 467, 468, 533 F.2d 683, 694-695 (1976), cert. pending, No. 75-1706.
It is true that a possible result of successful work preservation pressure by the union might be "forcing a change in Austin's manner of doing business or forcing Hudik to terminate its subcontract with Austin." 204 N.L.R.B. at 760. But the same was true in National Woodwork. There, had the union succeeded in enforcing its work preservation agreement, the contractor would likely have terminated its contract with the manufacturer of precut and prefitted doors. Such secondary effects are common in labor disputes, but do not compel the conclusion that they were the real object of the union, particularly where, as here, alternative outcomes might also have satisfied the union. See supra at 429 U. S. 538 -539, and n. 4.
172 U.S.App.D.C. at 243, 521 F.2d at 903. (Emphasis added.) Of course, this statement presumes that enforcement of the work preservation agreement is the true object of the union pressure, as the Board found was the case here, and not a mere pretext. If it were found, for example, that the union only enforced the agreement against prefabricated products manufactured by nonunion companies, and not against others, the object of the pressure would not be primary (enforcing the work preservation agreement), but secondary (influencing the labor policy of the manufacturer). Cf. National Woodwork, 386 U.S. at 386 U. S. 646 .
I disagreed with the Court in National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612 , 386 U. S. 650 . Until that decision