Court Opinion

ID: 9425600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:11.672198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.456174
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
Today’s reversal of the Texas Court of Civil Appeals does not, of course, end this case. There remain for disposition on remand two of the respondents’ defenses not reached by the Texas courts, namely (1) that Texas law does not proscribe respondents’ picketing, and (2) that, in any event, the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect respondents’ conduct.1
But the fact that today’s decision does not finally decide the legality of respondents’ picketing should not obscure the significance of the Court’s holding. Ninety-five percent of our export trade has already fled American-flag vessels for cheaper, foreign-registered shipping.2 In holding that respondents’ picketing against foreign-flag vessels does not give rise to a dispute “affecting commerce” within the National Labor Relations Board’s jurisdiction, the Court effectively deprives American seamen, among all American employees in commerce, of any federally protected weapon with which to try to save their jobs.3 Additionally, the Court creates new difficul*117ties for the Board in its administration of the Act by making the Board’s statutory jurisdiction turn on the identity of the competitor that might be affected by the picketing — a distinction relevant in the determination whether picketing is protected or prohibited activity under the Act, but a distinction rejected in other contexts in the determination of Board jurisdiction.4
There is, of course, no doubt that Congress possesses the power to subject foreign shipping in American terri*118torial waters to the federal labor laws.5 And the Court concedes that the picketing activities involved here fall literally within the term “commerce” as used in the Labor Management Relations Act. Ante, at 112.
After acknowledging the paucity of support for an exclusion in the term “commerce,” the Court, however, concludes that prior cases construing the “affecting commerce” limitation in §§ 2 (6), 2 (7), and 10 (29 U. S. C. §§ 152 (6), 152 (7), and 160) support the holding that respondents’ picketing against foreign-flag vessels is conduct not cognizable by the Board. With respect, I think that the Court misreads those cases, and also fails to take account of other relevant congressional and judicial guidance that leads to a contrary conclusion.
As the Court concedes, none of the cases relied upon reached the question before us, that is, whether American seamen may employ economic weapons to try to save their jobs by improving the competitive positions of their domestic employers vis-á-vis foreign shipping. Yet the Court relies upon those decisions as supporting the proposition that we must conclude that Congress “simply did not intend that Act [LMRA] to erase longstanding principles of comity and accommodation in international maritime trade,” ante, at 112-113, because the economic impact upon foreign shipping from respondents’ picketing might severely disrupt the maritime operations of foreign vessels. Not a word or sentence in any opinion in those cases supports that reading. Rather, those decisions *119rested squarely upon the reasoning that, in circumstances where Board cognizance of a dispute will necessarily involve Board inquiry into the labor relations between foreign crews and foreign vessels, Congress could not be understood to have granted the Board jurisdiction of the dispute.
In Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, 353 U. S. 138 (1957), the seminal case in this area, an American union attempted to organize the foreign crew of a vessel operating under a foreign flag. The Court, holding that Congress did not fashion the LMRA “to resolve labor disputes between nationals of other countries operating ships under foreign laws,” id., at 143, said:
“It should be noted at the outset that the dispute from which these actions sprang arose on a foreign vessel. It was between a foreign employer and a foreign crew operating under an agreement made abroad under the laws of another nation. The only American connection was that the controversy erupted while the ship was transiently in a United States port and American labor unions participated in its picketing.” Id., at 142.
Similarly, subsequent decisions also turned jurisdiction on the determination whether Board cognizance would require the Board to inquire into the internal relations between the foreign ship’s crew and its foreign owner. In McCulloch v. Sociedad Nacional, 372 U. S. 10 (1963), we held that the Board did not have jurisdiction to order an election on a foreign-flag vessel, for
“to follow such a suggested procedure to the ultimate might require that the Board inquire into the internal discipline and order of all foreign vessels calling at American ports.” Id., at 19.
In Incres S. S. Co. v. Maritime Workers, 372 U. S. 24 (1963), the issue was whether the Board had power to *120adjudicate the legality of the efforts of a union to organize the members of a foreign crew. Again, the Court held that the Board was without jurisdiction under the Act, since adjudication of that question would require that the Board examine into the relations between that crew and its foreign-flag employer. Id., at 27-28.
The question whether a labor dispute would necessitate Board inquiry into the relations between foreign vessels and crews' was yet again central in Longshoremen v. Ariadne Co., 397 U. S. 195 (1970), the most recent of the cases where we sustained Board jurisdiction of a dispute involving picketing of a foreign-flag ship in protest against wages being paid to American longshoremen unloading the foreign vessel in an American port. We held that the prohibited inquiry would not result in that case, explaining:
“We hold that [the longshoremen’s] activities were not ['maritime operations of foreign-flag ships’]. The American longshoremen’s short-term, irregular and casual connection with the respective vessels plainly belied any involvement on their part with the ships’ 'internal discipline and order.’ Application of United States law to resolve a dispute over the wages paid the men for their longshore work, accordingly, would have threatened no interference in the internal affairs of foreign-flag ships likely to lead to conflict with foreign or international law. We therefore find that these longshore operations were in 'commerce’ within the meaning of §2(6), and thus might have been subject to the regulatory power of the National Labor Relations Board.” Id., at 200.
Thus, the only appropriate issue in the instant case is whether NLRB cognizance of respondents’ picketing *121would require that the Board inquire into the “internal discipline and order” of foreign vessels, and thus threaten “interference in the internal affairs of foreign-flag ships likely to lead to conflict with foreign or international law.” Tested by that principle, I conclude, contrary to the Court, that this case falls under Ariadne rather than under Benz.
Ariadne is the controlling precedent even if the Court is correct that this dispute “could not be accommodated by a wage decision on the part of the shipowners which would affect only wages paid within this country.” Ante, at 114. For respondents’ picketing is not directed at forcing the shipowners to make that or any other accommodation that could be characterized as interference with relations between crews and shipowners. Respondents’ target is to persuade shippers not to patronize foreign vessels, and respondents have no concern with the form of the shipowners’ response that makes their efforts succeed.6
Similarly, Ariadne is the controlling precedent even if the Court is right that “[virtually none of the predict*122able responses of a foreign shipowner to picketing of this type . . . would be limited to the sort of wage-cost decision benefiting American workingmen which the LMRA [as it amended the NLRA] was designed to regulate.” Ante, at 115. The question whether this case falls within the Board's jurisdiction does not turn on the “predictable responses” of the foreign shipowner but, under-our cases from Benz to Ariadne, solely on the question whether cognizance of respondents’ activity would involve the Board in an examination into the internal relations between the foreign crews and shipowners. Cognizance of respondents' conduct in this case would not appear to require that inquiry. In any event, as the Texas Court of Civil Appeals correctly observed, it suffices for Board jurisdiction of that conduct that it is arguable whether that inquiry is required, for in such case it is for the Board to determine in the first instance whether that conduct involves a labor dispute within its cognizance. San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959).
But my disagreement with the Court does not rest alone on its failure adequately to rationalize and distinguish the case law. As the Court states, the Nation’s labor laws must be read in light of the longstanding involvement of Congress with maritime affairs. If that involvement is examined, however, it will demonstrate that, beginning with its first session, 1 Stat. 55, Congress has been deeply engaged in legislating to protect American vessels from competition, usually by enacting discriminatory laws against foreign-flag vessels. Myriad hearings and reports reflect congressional determination that the American merchant marine, largely because of protections afforded American seamen’s wages and working conditions in collective bargaining fostered by the National Labor Relations Act, shall have legislative help *123to support its efforts to compete on equal terms for a share of our foreign commerce.7
This congressional support was highlighted as recently as 1970, in amendments to the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, 46 U. S. C. § 1101 et seq., to which we may look with profit. The declaration of policy of that Act, as amended in 1970, states as its purpose that “[i]t is necessary for the national defense and development of [the United States’] foreign and domestic commerce that the United States shall have a merchant marine (a) sufficient to carry its domestic water-borne commerce and a substantial portion of the water-borne export and import foreign commerce of the United States . . . That merchant marine is further to be “owned and operated under the United States flag by citizens of the United States, insofar as may be practicable,” and is to be “manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel.” 46 U. S. C. § 1101. See also Merchant Marine Act, 1920, 46 U. S. C. § 861. The 1936 Act furthers those aims by providing subsidies for the construction and operation of American-flag shipping, 46 U. S. C. §§ 1151, 1171, and goes far in imposing discriminations against foreign-flag shipping in regard to certain types of freight. 46 U. S. C. *124§1241. See also 46 U. S. C. §§251, 808 (restricting coastwise trade). Far from conduct in conflict with Congress’ legislative policies in the maritime field, respondents’ picketing seeks precisely the same goals.
Yet the Court, although not remotely suggesting that respondents’ picketing constitutes an illegal intrusion by private citizens into foreign affairs, reaches a conclusion that necessarily implies that Congress was content to leave the whole problem to resolution by the States. It is inconceivable that Congress meant to leave regulation of activity in this area of predominantly national concern to disparate state laws reflecting parochial interests.
I would affirm the judgment of the Texas Court of Civil Appeals.

 See NLRB v. Fruit & Vegetable Packers, 377 U. S. 58 (1964); id., at 76 (Black, J., concurring); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940).

See S. Rep. No. 91-1080, p. 16 (1970). See also id., at 17 (Chart 7: Projected Decline in Seafaring Job Opportunities in Foreign Trade Fleet from 1969 to 1980).

 Those meager materials to be found in the congressional debates concerning the Labor Management Relations Act contradict the notion that Congress meant to distinguish among American workingmen for purposes of defining the Board's jurisdiction over labor disputes affecting commerce. See H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1947), discussed in Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, *117353 U. S. 138, 142-144 (1957). See also Longshoremen v. Ariadne Co., 397 U. S. 195, 198-199 (1970).

 Thus, the Court refused to make that distinction even where the language of the Act might have been read as indicating that Congress meant to draw it. In Teamsters v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 350 U. S. 155 (1956), a union engaged in the over-the-road trucking of freight picketed a railroad loading yard to protest the “piggy-backing” of truck trailers on railroad cars that was curtailing their opportunities for employment. The railroad, subject to the Railway Labor Act, 45 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., was a “person” exempted from the NLRA’s definition of “employer.” 29 U. S. C. § 152 (2).
Nonetheless, the Court relied upon the finding of the lower court that the “union was in no way concerned with [the railroad’s] labor policy,” and held that the dispute was subject to the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. The Court said:
“This interpretation permits the harmonious effectuation of three distinct congressional objectives: (1) to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for protecting the rights of employers, employees and the public in labor disputes so as to promote the full, free flow of commerce, as expressed in § 1 (b) of the Labor Management Relations Act; (2) to maintain the traditional separate treatment of employer-employee relationships of railroads subject to the Railway Labor Act; and (3) to minimize ‘diversities and conflicts likely to result from a variety of local procedures and attitudes toward labor controversies.’ Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485, 490.” 350 U. S., at 160-161.
In contrast, there is no wording in the statute, or any legislative history, supporting a reading that Congress meant to draw that line as to seamen.

 See Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, supra, at 142:
"It is beyond question that a ship voluntarily entering the territorial limits of another country subjects itself to the laws and jurisdiction of that country. Wildenhus’s Case, 120 U. S. 1 (1887). ... It follows that if Congress had so chosen, it could have made the Act applicable to wage disputes arising on foreign vessels between nationals of other countries when the vessel comes within our territorial waters.”

 The picket signs were not directed to improvement of the foreign crews’ wages and working conditions. The protest was carefully phrased to appeal to shippers not to patronize the foreign ships because payment of wages “substandard to those of American seamen . . . results in extreme damage to our wage standards and loss of our jobs.” Thus, cognizance of the dispute to determine the legality of the picketing as an unfair labor practice need not involve the Board in an inquiry whether the picketing called for an employer response in the form of an increase in the crews’ wages. This would not of course mean that respondents would prevail on the merits. There may well be a question, for example, whether the picketing falls within the ban of § 8 (b) (7), 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (7), as prohibited recognitional picketing. See Rosen, Area Standards Picketing, 23 Lab. L. J. 67 (1972); Note, Picketing for Area Standards: An Exception to Section 8 (b)(7), 1968 Duke L. J. 767.

 See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 91-1073 (1970); S. Rep. No. 91-1080 (1970); Hearings on H. R. 12324 and H. R. 12569 before the Subcommittee on Merchant Marine of the House Committee on Merchant Marine & Fisheries, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. (1972) (Cargo for American Ships); Hearings on H. R. 15424, H. R. 15425, and H. R. 15640 before the Subcommittee on Merchant Marine of the House Committee on Merchant Marine & Fisheries, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. (1970) (President’s Maritime Program, pt. 2); Hearings on S. 3287 before the Merchant Marine Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. (1970) (the Maritime Program) ; Hearings on H. R. 1897, H. R. 2004, and H. R. 2331 before the House Committee on Merchant Marine & Fisheries, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963) (Maritime Labor Legislation).