Opinion ID: 3065405
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deference to the Board

Text: The majority’s opinion turns in part on finding Overstreet controlling. Maj. Op. 1461, 1468, 1475. However, beyond the magic words of “the National Labor Relations Act” and “the First Amendment,” the facts of Overstreet, a secondary boycott case, are fundamentally different.2 In Overstreet, the outcome turned in part on whether the union’s bannering activities constituted “threaten[ing], coerc- [ing], or restrain[ing] any person engaged in commerce” under Section 8(b)(4)(II) of the NLRA. The opinion characterized those words as “vague” and their application as “far from self-evident.” Overstreet, 409 F.3d at 1212. Given this ambiguity, the court inquired into whether the Board’s “proposed construction of the Act ‘would give rise to serious constitutional questions’ ” and therefore require construing ambiguous statutory language to avoid such questions. Id. at 1209 (quoting NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U.S. 490, 501 (1979)). Overstreet held “serious constitutional questions” are implicated where an injunction would present “a significant risk that the First Amendment will be infringed” even without deciding whether the proposed injunction would actually violate the First Amendment. Id. (quoting Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U.S. at 502). Because one permissible 2 I agree with the majority’s statement that there is “no reason” the analysis from Overstreet should not survive the Supreme Court’s decision in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 129 S. Ct. 365 (2008), but this does not alter my conclusion that the majority is incorrect to apply the Overstreet analysis here. MCDERMOTT v. AMPERSAND PUBLISHING 1479 interpretation of Section 8(b)(4)(II) avoided those questions and the risk of infringing the First Amendment, the court applied the uninfringing interpretation. See id at 1209-10. Unlike Overstreet, here, the NLRA’s protections of employees’ rights to “assist labor organizations” and “to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection” clearly apply to media employees, because the Supreme Court has held an agency of the press has no “special immunity” from application of the NLRA or any general law. Associated Press v. NLRB, 301 U.S. 103, 132-33 (1937); see 29 U.S.C. § 157 (NLRA Section 7). Section 8’s declaration of an unfair labor practice when employers “interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise” of Section 7 rights “by discrimination in regard to hir[ing] or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization,” as the ALJ found the News-Press did here, unambiguously applies. See 29 U.S.C. § 158(a). Therefore, the Overstreet standard should not guide the present outcome, and “the Board’s determination on the merits will be given considerable deference.” Miller ex rel. NLRB v. Cal. Pac. Med. Ctr., 19 F.3d 449, 460 (9th Cir. 1994). Finding the Overstreet standard inapplicable is further buttressed by comparing its facts to this case. In Overstreet, the Board sought an injunction prohibiting union bannering of retail stores selling products from firms with which the union had a labor dispute, pending NLRB resolution of the complaint. Overstreet, 409 F.3d at 1203. The injunction thus had direct bearing on the union’s ability to continue its speech. That secondary-boycott situation bears no resemblance to the facts in this case, an organizing case in which pretextually terminated employees are seeking reinstatement. Indeed, the News-Press conceded at argument that the terms of the injunction do not require the paper to change its editorial pol1480 MCDERMOTT v. AMPERSAND PUBLISHING icy, nor give employees the power to direct the editorial policy. Overstreet thus has no application to an injunction which simply does not implicate the First Amendment risk the News-Press alleges.