Court Opinion

ID: 9419667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:52.132089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:12.469310
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Stone.
I concur in so much of the opinion as finds conflict between the licensing provisions of the Florida statute and the National Labor Relations Act. I do so only on the ground that the command of § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act that “employees shall have the right . . . to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing” conflicts with the licensing provisions of the Florida Act purporting to fix the qualifications of business agents of labor organizations.
This, of course, does not mean that labor unions or their officers are immune, in other respects, from the exercise of the state's police power to punish fraud, violence, or other forms of misconduct, either because of the commerce clause or the National Labor Relations Act. It is familiar ground that the commerce clause does not itself preclude a state from regulating those matters which, not being themselves interstate commerce, nevertheless affect the commerce, California v. Thompson, 313 U. S. 109, 113-114, 116, and cases cited; Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341, 360, and cases cited, and that the state’s authority is curtailed only as Congress may by law prescribe in the exercise of the commerce power. United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 119, and cases cited. I can find nothing in *545the National Labor Relations Act or its legislative history to suggest a Congressional purpose to withdraw the punishment of fraud or violence, or the violation of any state law otherwise valid, from the state’s power merely because the state might subject the business agent of a labor union, who violates its law, to imprisonment, which would prevent his functioning as a bargaining agent for employees under the National Labor Relations Act. Allen-Bradley Local v. Board, 315 U. S. 740, 748. See S. Rep. No. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. Rep. No. 1147, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.
For the same reasons, the National Labor Relations Act does not preclude a state from requiring a labor union, or its officers and agents, as such, to procure licenses or make reports or perform other duties which do not materially obstruct the exercise of rights conferred by the National Labor Relations Act or other federal legislation. Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 542. But it is quite another matter to say that a state may fix standards or qualifications for labor unions and their officers and agents which would preclude any of them from being chosen and from functioning as bargaining agents under § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. The right conferred on employees to bargain collectively through a representative of their own choosing is the foundation of the National Labor Relations Act. Without that right, or if it were restricted by state action, the Act as drawn would have little scope for operation. The fact that the National Labor Relations Act imposes sanctions on the employer alone does not mean that it did not, by § 7, confer the right on employees as against others as well as the employer to make an uninhibited choice of their bargaining agents. Cf. United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219. Section 7 confers the right of choice generally on employees and not merely as against the employer.
*546I dissent from so much of the opinion as holds that § 6 of the Florida statute, as applied, is invalid because it conflicts with the National Labor Relations Act. The requirement of filing by a labor organization of the information prescribed by § 6, accompanied by a filing fee of $1.00, is, as the opinion of the Court recognizes, not incompatible with the National Labor Relations Act, since it in no substantial way hinders or interferes with the performance of the union’s functions under that Act. Thomas v. Collins, supra, 542; cf. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co. v. Nebraska Comm’n, 297 U. S. 471, 478; see Smith v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 282 U. S. 133; Western Distributing Co. v. Public Service Comm’n, 285 U. S. 119; Dayton Power Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n, 292 U. S. 290; Natural Gas Co. v. Slattery, 302 U. S. 300, 306.
Notwithstanding the conflict between the commerce clause or the federal statute and the local regulation which was found in Western Union Co. v. Massachusetts, 125 U. S. 530, 554, and St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Arkansas, 235 U. S. 350, 368, I can find no logical or persuasive legal ground or practical reason for saying that Congress by the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act intended to preclude the state from exercising to the utmost extent its sovereign power to enforce the lawful demands of § 6 of the Florida Act. There is no more occasion for implying such a Congressional purpose where the union is prevented from functioning by punishment or injunction, for a violation of a valid state law, than for saying that Congress, by the National Labor Relations Act, intended to forbid the states to arrest and imprison a labor leader for the violation of any other valid state law, because that would prevent his or the union’s functioning under the National Labor Relations Act. The question is wholly one of state power. Here the state power is not restricted by the commerce clause standing alone, nor, so far as I can see, by any Congressional intention expressed *547in the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. Union Brokerage Co. v. Jensen, 322 U. S. 202, 206.