Opinion ID: 510613
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Labor Law Issues

Text: 19 Between 1973 and 1979, the NLRB entertained a series of challenges to the Rules under sections 8(e) and 8(b)(4)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 158(e) & 158(b)(4)(B) (1982). Those provisions generally proscribe union activity, unilateral or in concert with an employer, that is intended to have secondary effects--i.e., that seeks to affect labor or business relationships outside its own collective bargaining relations. Specifically, truckers and consolidators alleged that the Rules were an illegal hot cargo agreement--a form of prohibited secondary activity--because the ILA was attempting to obtain for its members work that had traditionally been performed at off-pier facilities. The union and the carriers, by contrast, argued that the Rules were not intended to be a vehicle for securing for longshoremen work that had traditionally been performed by truckers or consolidators; instead, they maintained that the work in question was analogous to work falling within the ILA's traditional jurisdiction. In their view, the Rules were thus a valid work preservation agreement. 20 The NLRB defined the work in dispute as the off-pier stuffing and stripping of containers. See, e.g., International Longshoremen's Ass'n (Dolphin Forwarding, Inc.), 236 N.L.R.B. 525, 526 (1978). With the work so defined, the NLRB agreed with the complaining parties that the Rules were an unlawful attempt by the ILA to acquire extra-jurisdictional work. It consequently ordered the ILA and certain signatory carriers to cease and desist from enforcing the Rules. This court, however, in International Longshoremen's Ass'n v. NLRB, 613 F.2d 890 (D.C.Cir.1979), declined to enforce an NLRB cease and desist order against the Rules. 21 The Supreme Court affirmed our decision, holding that the NLRB had misapplied the work preservation doctrine. ILA I, 447 U.S. at 507-11, 100 S.Ct. at 2315-17. According to the Court, the NLRB ignore[d] the fact that the impact of containerization occurred at the interface between ocean and motor transport.... The work in question, therefore, could reasonably be regarded as work traditionally performed either by longshoremen or by off-pier trucking and cargo-handling businesses. The Court remanded the case for the NLRB to consider in the first instance whether the historical and functional relationship between this retained work and traditional longshore work can support the conclusion that the objective of the [Rules] was work preservation rather than the satisfaction of union goals elsewhere. Id. at 508, 100 S.Ct. at 2315. After the NLRB had reconsidered the matter, the Supreme Court revisited the issue, holding that the Rules in their entirety are a permissible work preservation agreement. ILA II, 473 U.S. at 84, 105 S.Ct. at 3058. 22 Despite these two journeys from the NLRB to the Supreme Court, the question whether the Rules may lawfully be implemented and enforced by ocean common carriers remains an open one. For, in ILA II, the Court did not confront the issue it had specifically reserved in ILA I: whether the Rules on Containers run afoul of the proscriptions against unreasonable and discriminatory practices with which ocean carriers must comply under the federal shipping laws. Thus, after surviving barrages from multiple legal arsenals, it is clear only that the proponents of the Rules have won an important battle; they have not emerged victorious in this twenty-years' war.