Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/348/468/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-08-23 17:36:56
Document Index: 689611144

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 303', '§ 416', '§ 8', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 7']

WEBER V. ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., 348 U. S. 468 - Volume 348 - 1955 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 348 > WEBER V. ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., 348 U. S. 468 (1955) > Full Text
364 Mo. 573, 265 S.W.2d 325, reversed.
Respondent is engaged in the interstate manufacture and sale of beer and other commodities, with its principal place of business in St. Louis, Missouri. Its employees include members of both the IAM and the Carpenters. Respondent has always required a large amount of millwright work to be performed by outside contractors in the expansion of its facilities. After the IAM was certified
Page 348 U. S. 470
in 1948 by the National Labor Relations Board as the exclusive bargaining representative of respondent's machinists, respondent executed a collective bargaining contract with the IAM for 1949 which provided in part that, when the repair or replacement of machinery was necessary, this work would be given only to those contractors who had collective agreements with the IAM. As a result of protests from the Carpenters, who claimed the same type of work for their own members, the clause was deleted from the 1950 contract between respondent and the IAM, but it was later reinstated in the 1951 contract. The Carpenters again protested, this time threatening that they would sign no contract with respondent covering those employees who were members of the Carpenters until the clause was deleted from the IAM contract. When the 1951 IAM contract expired and negotiations for a 1952 contract began, respondent refused to agree to the insertion of the clause in the new contract. An impasse was reached in the negotiations, and finally the IAM went on strike.
On November 18, 1952, the National Labor Relations Board quashed the notice of a hearing, holding that no "dispute" existed within the meaning of the invoked subsection. The Board reasoned that, at the time of the strike, the IAM could not have been requesting the assignment of "particular" work to IAM members, because the IAM was not complaining about the assignment
Page 348 U. S. 471
of work by respondent to its own employees, and as to work assigned by respondent's contractors, (1) the IAM had made no demand on those contractors to give their work to IAM labor, and (2) no millwright work performed by respondent's contractors at that time was in fact being performed by other than IAM labor. District No. 9, International Association of Machinists, 101 N.L.R.B. 346.
In the meantime, on April 19, 1952, after it had filed the charge with the Board but before the Board had acted upon it, respondent sought an injunction against the IAM in the State Circuit Court in St. Louis. In its complaint, respondent alleged that the strike constituted "a secondary boycott under the common law of the State of Missouri," and also was in violation of Subsections (A), (B) and (D) of § 8(b)(4) of the Taft-Hartley Act [Footnote 2] and
Page 348 U. S. 472
of § 303(a)(1), (2) and (4) of that same Act. [Footnote 3] A temporary injunction issued. On April 30, respondent amended its complaint with the additional claim that the IAM's conduct constituted an illegal conspiracy in restraint of
Page 348 U. S. 473
trade under Missouri common law and conspiracy statutes. Mo.Rev.Stat.1949, § 416.010. The temporary injunction was thereupon made permanent on September 30, 1952, some time before the Board, it will be recalled, held that there was no violation of § 8(b)(4)(D) of the Taft-Hartley Act. This injunction was vacated, but immediately reentered, on October 3, 1952.
The principal question that the case raises, whether the state court had jurisdiction to enjoin the IAM's conduct or whether its jurisdiction had been preempted by the authority vested in the National Labor Relations Board, has an importance in the federal-state relations regarding
Page 348 U. S. 474
industrial controversies that led us to grant certiorari. 348 U.S. 808.
1. The Court has ruled that a State may not prohibit the exercise of rights which the federal Acts protect. Thus, in Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538, the State enjoined a labor union from functioning until it had complied with certain statutory requirements. The injunction was invalidated on the ground that the Wagner Act included a "federally established right to collective bargaining" with which the injunction conflicted. International Union v. O'Brien, 339 U. S. 454, involved the strike vote provisions of a state act which prohibited the calling of a strike until a specific statutory procedure had been followed. The state act was held to conflict not only with the procedure and other requirements of the Taft-Hartley strike provisions, but also with the protection afforded by § 7 of that Act. [Footnote 4] In Amalgamated Association v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 340 U. S. 383, the state court issued an injunction under a statute which made it a misdemeanor to interrupt by strike any essential public utility services. It was held that the state statute was invalid in that it denied a right
Page 348 U. S. 475
which Congress had guaranteed under § 7 of the Taft-Hartley Act -- the right to strike peacefully to enforce union demands for wages, hours and working conditions. Last Term, the Court noted in Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485, 346 U. S. 499, that
2. A State may not enjoin under its own labor statute conduct which has been made an "unfair labor practice" under the federal statutes. Such was the holding in the Garner case, supra. The Court pointed out that exclusive primary jurisdiction to pass on the union's picketing is delegated by the Taft-Hartley Act to the National Labor Relations Board. See also Plankinton Packing Co. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 338 U.S. 953, Building Trades Council v. Kinard Construction Co., 346 U.S. 933. And in Capital Service, Inc. v. Labor Board, 347 U. S. 501, a picket line established at retail stores to induce the organization of a manufacturer's employees was enjoined by the State as contrary to its public policy. [Footnote 5]
Page 348 U. S. 476
This Court granted a limited certiorari which assumed that exclusive jurisdiction over the subject matter was in the National Labor Relations Board. [Footnote 6] The Board was allowed to obtain an injunction against enforcement of the conflicting state court injunction.
4. On the other hand, in the following cases, the authority which the State exercised was found not to have been exclusively absorbed by the federal enactments.
Page 348 U. S. 477
Contrary to the assumption of the Missouri Supreme Court, the Board had not ruled that no unfair labor practice was involved in the conduct by the IAM of which respondent complained. The Board had determined only that there was no violation of Subsection (D) of § 8(b)(4).
Page 348 U. S. 478
That was, in fact, the extent of the ruling it was empowered to make, because (D) was the only subsection alleged to have been violated. In its complaint in the state court, however, respondent broadened its allegations to include violations of Subsections (A) and (B).
Nor is it within our competence now to determine whether the conduct in controversy is subject to the authority of Subsections (A) or (B). Under the Board's decisions, for example, it may become pertinent whether this is eventually deemed primary pressure, directed at respondent to force insertion of the disputed clause in its contract with the IAM, rather than secondary pressure, aimed at subcontractors to force them to use IAM labor. [Footnote 7] We are not now ruling on that distinction. However, the point is pertinent to our discussion, because, even if it were clear that no unfair labor practices were involved, it would not necessarily follow that the State was free to issue its injunction. If this conduct does not fall within the prohibitions of § 8 of the Taft-Hartley Act, it may fall
Page 348 U. S. 479
within the protection of § 7, as concerted activity for the purpose of mutual aid or protection.
We do not think this distinction is decisive. In Garner, the emphasis was not on two conflicting labor statutes, but rather on two similar remedies, one state and one federal, brought to bear on precisely the same conduct.
Page 348 U. S. 480
And in Capital Service, Inc. v.Labor Board, supra, we did not stop to inquire just what category of "public policy" the union's conduct allegedly violated. Our approach was emphasized in United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Construction Corp., supra, where the violent conduct was reached by a remedy having no parallel in, and not in conflict with, any remedy afforded by the federal Act.
By the Taft-Hartley Act, Congress did not exhaust the full sweep of legislative power over industrial relations given by the Commerce Clause. Congress formulated a code whereby it outlawed some aspects of labor activities and left others free for the operation of economic forces. As to both categories, the areas that have been preempted by federal authority, and thereby withdrawn from state power, are not susceptible of delimitation by fixed metes and bounds. Obvious conflict, actual or potential, leads to easy judicial exclusion of state action. Such was the situation in Garner v. Teamsters Union, supra. But, as the opinion in that case recalled, the Labor Management Relations Act "leaves much to the states, though Congress has refrained from telling us how much." 346 U.S. at 346 U. S. 488. This penumbral area can be rendered progressively
Page 348 U. S. 481
"Defendants' [IAM's] picket line was so placed and maintained that it prevented the movement of railroad cars into and out of plaintiff's [respondent's] premises by a common carrier without danger of physical
Page 348 U. S. 482
injury to the pickets, and movement of the cars was stopped for that reason."
The Missouri Supreme Court stated that "the transportation into and out of the plant was stopped because it endangered their (presumably the pickets") lives and limbs;' . . .
265 S.W.2d 330. We do not read this as an unambiguous determination that the IAM's conduct amounted to the kind of mass picketing and overt threats of violence which, under the Allen-Bradley Local case, gives the state court jurisdiction. It does not preclude the conclusion that the transportation was stopped for fear of crossing an otherwise peaceful picket line. In any event, the state injunction enjoined all picketing.
"(4) to engage in, or to induce or encourage the employees of any employer to engage in, a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services, where an object thereof is: (A) forcing or requiring any employer or self-employed person to join any labor or employer organization or any employer or other person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person; (B) forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 9; . . . (D) forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor organization or in another trade, craft, or class, unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work. . . ."
"(4) forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor organization or in another trade, craft, or class unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the National Labor Relations Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work. . . ."
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