Court Opinion

ID: 9463038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:56:41.739857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:54.459245
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Because of subsequent developments in the picture of the continuing controversy between Kable and the Graphic Arts Union as reflected in other litigation now pending in this court, the present case, although not technically moot, probably is largely academic insofar as the impact of this court’s decision on the present parties is concerned. That being so and the case being a close one, I entertain some hesitancy in engaging in the preparation of a dissenting opinion. Nevertheless, and despite the careful draftsmanship of Judge Noland in the majority opinion, I believe it is necessary to record my disagreement with the majority opinion because it exceeds, in my opinion, the proper confines for the application of the so-called ally doctrine.
Certainly we may assume that if it had not been for the strike (the “but for” test), the engraving work would have been done by employees of Kable. That should not be per se dispositive. The plain impact of the Board order as enforced by this court is that any minimal contact by the struck supplier with a competitor who furnishes the material or services customarily supplied by the struck employer will be sufficient to link the two as allies. I do not conceive this to be the underlying rationale which caused the ally doctrine to be developed. The reason for the doctrine, as I understand it, was to prevent an arrangement, even though an indirect one, from being made by the primary supplier with another supplier to fill orders from regular customers during the time of the strike for the purpose of having a strikebreaking effect.
The Kable situation was not the ordinary one in which the struck manufacturer of gizmos arranges for someone else to cover his customers during the period of the strike with the full intention of taking on the account again itself after the cessation of the strike. Here although Kable had operated in essence an integrated business it was nevertheless one which consisted of distinct and separable steps. The first one of those was that of the pre-press work of preparing plates and similar items. The printing process was performed by different employees who although themselves members of the Pressmen’s Union were willing to proceed across the picket line of the Graphic Arts Union to perform the printing work. Of necessity the items of a pre-press nature had to be keyed to the printing operation if that phase of the work was to be successful. It strikes me that the difficulties of Kable sufficiently insulating itself from contact with the replacement supplier so as to avoid the taint of being an ally under the Board standard in this case are such as to eliminate all practical possibility for a competitor in the area of prepress preparation to engage in the work for its own benefit. Any so attempting will be subject to what amounts to an effective secondary boycott without the protection of the Act.
In this case there seems to be no real dispute that there was not an arrangement proved. The conclusion that the Board reached of an alliance must of necessity rest upon inference. While the inference-drawing by the Board must be accorded the greatest respect by the reviewing court, I do not conceive that the basis for an inference should be speculation and conjecture. I find no more here.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.