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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 2', '§ 8', '§ 8']

AMERICAN NEWSPAPER PUB. ASSN. V. LABOR BOARD, 345 U. S. 100 (1953) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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AMERICAN NEWSPAPER PUB. ASSN. V. LABOR BOARD, 345 U. S. 100 (1953)
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In an unfair labor practice proceeding, petitioner's charges under § 8(b)(6) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, were dismissed by the Board. 86 N.L.R.B. 951. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 193 F.2d 782. This Court granted a limited certiorari. 344 U.S. 812. Affirmed, p. 345 U. S. 111. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In November, 1947, petitioner filed with the National Labor Relations Board charges that the International chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The trial examiner recommended that ITU be ordered to cease and desist from several of its activities, but that the "featherbedding" charges under § 8(b)(6) be dismissed. 86 NLRB 951, 964, 1024-1033. The Board dismissed those charges. 86 NLRB at 951, 963. Petitioner then filed the instant proceeding in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seeking review and modification of the Board's orders. That court upheld the Board's dismissal of all charges under § 8(b)(6). 193 F.2d 782, 796, 802. See also 190 F.2d 45. A comparable view was expressed in Rabouin v. Labor Board, 195 F.2d 906, 912-913, but a contrary view was taken in Gamble Enterprises v. Labor Board, 196 F.2d 61. Because of this claimed conflict upon an important issue of first impression, we granted certiorari in the instant case, 344 U.S. 812, [Footnote 3] and in Labor chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
With the introduction of the linotype machine in 1890, the problem took on a new aspect. When a newspaper advertisement was set up in type, it was impressed on a cardboard matrix, or "mat." These mats were used by their makers and also were reproduced and distributed, at little or no cost, to other publishers who used them as molds for metal castings from which to print the same advertisement. This procedure bypassed all compositors except those who made up the original form. Facing this loss of work, ITU secured the agreement of newspaper publishers to permit their respective compositors, at convenient times, to set up duplicate forms for all local advertisements in precisely the same manner as though the mat had not been used. For this reproduction work, the printers received their regular pay. The doing of this "made work" came to be known in the trade as "setting bogus." It was a wasteful procedure. Nevertheless, it has become a recognized idiosyncrasy of the trade, and a customary feature of the wage structure and work schedule of newspaper printers. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Before the enactment of § 8(b)(6), the legality and enforceability of payment for setting "bogus," agreed to by the publisher was recognized. Even now, the issue before us is not what policy should be adopted by the Nation toward the continuance of this and other forms of featherbedding. The issue here is solely one of statutory chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
From the above language and its history, the court below concluded that the insistence by ITU upon securing payment of wages to printers for setting "bogus" was not an unfair labor practice. It found that the practice called for payment only for work which actually was done by employees of the publishers in the course of their employment, as distinguished from payment "for services which are not performed or not to be performed." Setting "bogus" was held to be service performed, and it remained for the parties to determine its worth to the employer. The Board here contends also that the insistence of ITU and its agents has not been "in the nature of an exaction," and did not "cause or attempt to cause an employer" to pay anything "in the nature of an exaction." Agreement with the position taken by the court chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
A restraining influence throughout this congressional consideration of featherbedding was the fact that the constitutionality of the Lea Act penalizing featherbedding in the broadcasting industry was in litigation. That Act, known also as the Petrillo Act, had been adopted April 16, 1946, as an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934. Its material provisions are stated in the margin. [Footnote 6] December 2, 1946, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held that it violated the First, Fifth, and Thirteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
As indicated above, the Taft-Hartley bill, H.R.3020, when it passed the House, April 17, 1947, contained in §§ 2(17) and 12(a)(3)(B) an explicit condemnation of featherbedding. Its definition of featherbedding was based upon that in the Lea Act. For example, it condemned practices which required an employer to employ "persons in excess of the number of employees reasonably required by such employer to perform actual services," as well as practices which required an employer to pay "for services . . . which are not to be performed." [Footnote 9] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
I fail to see how the reproduction of advertising matter which is never used by a newspaper, but which indeed is set up only to be thrown away, is a service performed for the newspaper. The practice of"setting bogus" is old and deeply engrained in trade union practice. But so chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
But the situation in this case is to me quite different. Here, the typesetters, while setting the "bogus," are making no contribution whatsoever to the enterprise. Their "work" is not only unwanted, it is indeed wholly useless. It does not add directly or indirectly to the publication of the newspaper nor to its contents. It does not even add an "unwanted" page or paragraph. In no sense that I can conceive is it a"service" to the employer. To be sure, the employer has agreed to pay for it. But the agreement was under compulsion. The statute does not chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Concededly, § 8(b)(6) was not designed to ban every make-work device ingenuity could spawn. Senator Taft, the prime exponent of the section as ultimately enacted, advised that general "featherbedding" legislation be held an abeyance pending this Court's decision in United States v. Petrillo. [Footnote 2/2] Meanwhile, however, § 8(b)(6) aimed to catch practices by which unions "accept money for people chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It may well be that union featherbedding practices reflect no more than labor's fears of unstable employment chanroblesvirtualawlibrary