Court Opinion

ID: 9656547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:50:48.02451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:33.186879
License: Public Domain

Fairchild, J.
(dissenting). In my opinion the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to enjoin the conduct of appellant union and the judgment ought to be reversed. The peaceful, orderly, one-man, truthful picketing was entirely lawful unless motivated, as found by the court, to halt construction “to *155attempt to coerce the plaintiff Arnold G. Zahn to force his employees to organize into a union shop, or in the alternative, to force . . . Zahn to release his contract with the plaintiff county of Door.”
The union’s conduct affected interstate commerce. This appears from the stipulated fact that material valued at $225,000, manufactured outside Wisconsin, was to be used. The issue of whether the union’s conduct was so motivated as to be wrongful was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. Wisconsin E. R. Board v. Chauffeurs, etc., Local 200 (1954), 267 Wis. 356, 366, 66 N. W. (2d) 318. Congress has pre-empted the field as to conduct with which the National Act expressly deals. Guss v. Utah L. R. Board (1957), 353 U. S. 1, 9, 77 Sup. Ct. 598, 1 L. Ed. (2d) 601.
The majority opinion appears to be based upon the proposition that conduct which would be an unfair labor practice under the Federal Act can be enjoined by a state court if an arm of the state seeks that relief because of damage to its interests. I respectfully conclude that this view is in error in two respects:
(1) It is based upon an assumption that the county is disqualified, under the National Act, from arousing the jurisdiction of the national board by filing a charge. Whence does this disqualification arise? It is not from the statute itself, but from a regulation adopted by the national board which provides that a charge may be filed by “any person.” Concededly the National Act defines “person” in a way that does not expressly include an arm of a state. Nevertheless the only statutory prerequisite to issuance of a complaint by the board is that an unfair labor practice be “charged.”
(2) The majority reasons that if a county cannot file a charge with the national board, conduct which would be an unfair labor practice affecting interstate commerce may be dealt with by a state court upon complaint of the county. *156It must be true that the identical conduct is also within the jurisdiction of the national board because Zahn, the employer, and other interested persons, would clearly be qualified to file a charge with the national board. There are issues of fact and law. Opposite and conflicting results could be reached in the two fora. Congress did not intend that result.
The picketing involved in this action is unlawful, if at all, only because it is conduct in the field of labor relations and constitutes an unfair labor practice under the National Act. If mass picketing or violence or overt threats of violence were involved, state action to prevent those things would appear to be proper. United Automobile Workers v. Wisconsin E. R. Board (1956), 351 U. S. 266, 274, 76 Sup. Ct. 794, 100 L. Ed. 1162. But with violence absent, and an effect upon interstate commerce present, then the matter is wholly in the field which is now held to be pre-empted by congress, and intrusted exclusively to the jurisdiction of the national board.