Opinion ID: 391427
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: HUDGENS v. NLRB

Text: 5 The bedrock on which our decision in this case rests is Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507, 96 S.Ct. 1029, 47 L.Ed.2d 196 (1976). There striking warehouse employees of a shoe company picketed in front of one of the employer's retail stores. The store was located in a shopping center mall that housed sixty retail stores and was surrounded by a large parking lot. Four picketers carrying placards patrolled the area in the interior of the shopping center mall adjacent to the entrance to the shoe store. The owner of the shopping center threatened to have the picketers arrested for trespassing if they did not leave, so the picketers left and subsequently filed unfair labor practice charges. 6 The Court in Hudgens made clear that Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551, 92 S.Ct. 2219, 33 L.Ed.2d 131 (1972), had overruled Food Employees v. Logan Valley Plaza, 391 U.S. 308, 88 S.Ct. 1601, 20 L.Ed.2d 603 (1968). 424 U.S. at 518, 96 S.Ct. at 1035. It follows that the proper resolution of this case depends on an analysis of the National Labor Relations Act, not the application of first amendment authorities. Section 7 of the Act 6 guarantees employees the right to engage in concerted activities in support of collective bargaining, including striking and picketing. See, e. g., United Steelworkers v. NLRB, 376 U.S. 492, 499, 84 S.Ct. 899, 904, 11 L.Ed.2d 863 (1964). Here, as in Hudgens, the section 7 rights of employees conflict with the private property rights of a building owner. The standard to be used in adjusting this conflict appears in NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U.S. 105, 112, 76 S.Ct. 679, 684, 100 L.Ed. 975 (1956). There it was held that conflicts between section 7 rights and private property rights must be resolved with as little destruction of one as is consistent with the maintenance of the other. Id. Hudgens twice quoted this passage with approval. 424 U.S. at 521, 522, 96 S.Ct. at 1037, 1038. It was also quoted in Central Hardware Co. v. NLRB, 407 U.S. 539, 544, 92 S.Ct. 2238, 2241, 33 L.Ed.2d 122 (1972). The Court in Hudgens remanded the case to the Board to allow it to have the first opportunity to accommodate section 7 rights with private property rights. 424 U.S. at 523, 96 S.Ct. at 1038. 7 The Board's accommodation on remand is particularly relevant to this case. It found that the owner of the shopping center violated section 8(a)(1) by threatening to have the picketers arrested unless they stopped picketing on the mall. Scott Hudgens, 230 N.L.R.B. 414 (1977). Crucial to the Board's decision was its finding that the picketers could not identify potential customers of the shoe store when they entered the mall, but only when they entered the store. Id. at 416. Indeed, shoppers buying on impulse might not know that they were potential customers of the shoe store when they entered the mall. Id. at 417. Since a contrary holding would have insulated store owners in malls from the effects of picketing, a union's most effective weapon in a strike, the Board concluded that shopping center owners' property rights must yield to the picketers' section 7 rights. 8 The Board distinguished Babcock & Wilcox and Central Hardware because the unions could identify the targets of their activities in those cases without entering the employers' property. Id. at 416. Those cases involved organizational campaigns rather than strikes. The unions seeking to organize the employees could identify them and reach them by telephone or at home with much less difficulty than the union in Hudgens could identify and reach the shoe store's customers. Reaching potential customers of the shoe store through advertising would have been expensive. Inasmuch as there were sixty stores in the shopping center, picketing at the entrances to the shopping center would not permit the union to identify and confront potential customers of the shoe store. Picketing on the mall in front of the shoe store was therefore held to be protected activity.