Court Opinion

ID: 9458761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:00:48.83804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:53.042368
License: Public Domain

FERGUSON, District Judge
(dissenting) :
While I am in full agreement with the conclusion that the Board’s order is subject to judicial review, I must respectfully dissent from that part of the majority opinion overturning the Board’s order.
The evidence before the Board showed the following facts:
1. Prior to mid-1968, Waterway Terminals Co. (“Waterway”) subcontracted most of its work at its two terminals in Portland, Oregon, to Western Transportation Co. and to Interstate Carloading Co. Western, whose employees were represented by the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific, Columbia River Division (“I.B.U.”) handled only barge freight at these sites while Interstate, whose employees were members of International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Local 8 (“Local 8”) performed the railcar operations.
2. At other Waterway sites, Western handled both barge and rail freight pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement which provided that employees represented by the I.B.U. would handle both kinds of freight.
3. In 1968, Western discontinued its shoreside operations and Waterway became its successor. Western’s employees, both supervisory and nonsuper-visory, were hired en masse by Waterway and performed the same functions that they had performed prior to the takeover.
4. Waterway then negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement with the I.B.U. which, in accordance with similar provisions in the old I.B.U.-Western contract, provided that employees represented by the I.B.U. would be entitled to both barge and rail work. However, Waterway continued to operate the principal terminal as in the past — that is, with Interstate employees handling the loading, unloading, cleaning and sealing of railcars.
5. In the fall of 1969, Waterway, in response to a rate increase request by Interstate, decided to adopt a more efficient method of operation to eliminate the double-handling of freight. It decided to integrate carloading with warehouse assembly and barge unloading by merging the job duties of all employees and performing the previously subcontracted railcar work with its own employees. Interstate was informed that the subcontract would be terminated, effective October 31, 1969.
6. On October 20, 1969, the I.B.U. wrote a letter reminding Waterway that the I.B.U. was the exclusive collective bargaining agent of all Waterway employees in the relevant unit classifications and stating that:
“We assume that you intend to recognize that this work [carloading work] when performed by employees of Waterway Terminals belong [sic] to our union and is covered by our Collective Bargaining Agreement with your company.”
*10207. On October 22, 1969, Local 8 wrote Waterway as follows:
“As a successor employer of our members at your carloading facility ., we assume that those men will continue to work in their present jobs and that our collective bargaining agreement will remain in full force and effect.”
8. By letter of October 23, 1969, Waterway acceded to I.B.U.’s claim to the work and, several days later, informed Local 8 that it could not lawfully negotiate with any other union than the I.B.U.
9. Although additional workers were hired to handle the increased workload, former Interstate employees, with one exception, declined Waterway’s solicitations to apply for the work. The one Interstate employee who did apply was offered employment, but turned it down.
10. After Waterway took over Interstate’s railcar functions at the beginning of November, 1969, Local 8 commenced picketing Waterway with signs reading “Waterways [sic] Unfair to Longshoremen — ILWU Local 8”.
11. On November 3 and 4, 1969, Waterway and I.B.U. filed charges with the Board in which they alleged that Local 8 had violated Section 8(b)(4)(D) of the Act. On November 14, 1969, the Board’s Regional Director filed in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon a petition for injunction against Local 8’s alleged unlawful conduct pursuant to Section 10 (Z) of the Act, on the ground that there was reasonable cause to believe that Local 8 was engaging in conduct in violation of Section 8(b) (4) (D). The court granted the injunction prayed for on December 10, 1969.
12. The unfair labor practice charges filed by Waterway and I.B.U. were consolidated by the Board for the purposes of hearing pursuant to Section 10 (k) of the Act, and hearings were held on December 11, 12, 29, 30 and 31, 1969, and January 15 and 19, 1970. The Board found that the object of Local 8’s picketing was to obtain reemployment or reinstatement of Interstate’s employees previously performing railcar operations under the existing collective bargaining agreement. The Board concluded that no jurisdictional dispute existed within the meaning of Section 10 (k) and quashed the notice of 10 (k) hearing previously issued. The Board observed that its decision did not imply that Waterway had no remedy under Section 8(b)(7) of the Act, since the question whether the picketing may have had a recognitional objective was not before the Board.
13. On November 6, 1970, Waterway filed a charge in which it alleged that Local 8 had violated Section 8(b)(7) of the Act by continuing to picket Waterway’s premises. A complaint issued, an injunction against Local 8 was obtained, and on October 1, 1970, the Board issued a decision finding that Local 8 had violated Section 8(b)(7)(A) of the Act by picketing Waterway with an objective of securing recognition at a time when Waterway had lawfully recognized the I.B. U. and a question concerning representation could not appropriately be raised. Enforcement of that order is now pending before another panel of this court.
To determine whether Local 8’s conduct in picketing Waterway was in violation of Section 8(b)(4)(D), the Board had to resolve a single factual question, namely, what was the purpose and objective of the picketing. In order to answer this question, the Board was entitled to examine the nature and origin of the dispute between Local 8 and Waterway and to consider the totality of the union’s conduct. NLRB v. Local 25, IBEW, 383 F.2d 449, 453 (2nd Cir. 1967). This it did in seven days of hearings. On the basis of these hearings and the evidence before it, the Board concluded that this was not a jurisdictional dispute within the meaning of Section 8(b)(4)(D). In the words of the Board:
“Here, the evidence is insufficient to establish a traditional jurisdictional dispute between two groups of employees. The employees represented by Local 8 were terminated during the *1021term of an existing collective-bargaining agreement as a result of Waterway’s reorganization. The evidence bearing upon Local 8’s objectives is limited to its letter of October 22, 1969, in which it merely demanded continued employment of those presently working and that the collective-bargaining agreement applicable to them be given force and effect. No other demands were made and none can be implied.
“On the basis of the foregoing, we find that Local 8’s picketing of Waterway was solely for the object of preserving the carloading work for the employees who had been doing it and who had selected Local 8 to represent them and that such a dispute is not the type of controversy Congress intended the Board to resolve pursuant to Section 8(b)(4)(D) and Section 10(k) of the Act. Accordingly, we shall quash the Notice of Hearing.” (Footnotes omitted.)
The Board’s conclusion is based on extensive evidence and is clearly not erroneous. The Board’s order should be upheld.
The petitioner has characterized the Board’s decision as redefining a jurisdictional dispute to exclude “work preservation” disputes. The Board has done no such thing. The Board’s decisions both prior and subsequent to the decision here under review clearly indicate that a “work preservation” exception to Section 8(b)(4)(D) has never been recognized. In this case the Board has merely concluded that, as a factual matter, the purpose of the picketing was not jurisdictional.
The petitioner would have this court adopt a rule that every dispute involving two competing employee groups is per se a jurisdictional dispute under Section 8(b)(4)(D). Such a simplistic rule makes no sense and would wreck havoc with the statutory scheme for resolving various types of disputes which arise between unions. Petitioner has lost sight of the fact that, although every jurisdictional dispute necessarily involves at least two unions, not every dispute between two unions is necessarily jurisdictional. As the Board has noted in its brief:
“In short, if two discrete groups were vying for work which would be assigned to one or the other, the dispute probably would be jurisdictional. On the other hand, if no transfer were involved and Local 8 and I.B.U. both claimed to represent the employees currently doing the work, Waterway would probably concede that the dispute was representational and not jurisdictional. Where the employer is seeking to merge two groups and the dispute is over the survival of representational rights in the merged group, however, Waterway’s assertion that the existence of a jurisdictional dispute is ‘beyond question’ hardly follows.”
The Board has distinguished the factual situation in this case from the typical jurisdictional dispute on the basis of the following findings: (1) Waterway was not initially caught between claiming unions. It precipitated this dispute when it chose to change its method of doing business and terminate the subcontract with Interstate. (2) This was not a dispute in which two discrete groups were vying for work which would be assigned to one or the other. (3) Waterway was not seeking to reassign work from one group to another, but to merge the two union groups and eliminate one bargaining representative. (4) The effect of Waterway’s action was to transfer railcar employees from one employer (Interstate) to another (Waterway) and to compel them to change their bargaining representative from Local 8 to I.B.U.
As the Supreme Court acknowledged in Carey v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 375 U.S. 261, 268, 84 S.Ct. 401, 11 L.Ed.2d 320 (1963), the line between essentially representational and jurisdictional disputes is “blurred”. The blurred line is not a product of the law, but a product of the facts. The factual question *1022which must be answered in each case is, “What is the purpose of the picketing?” The line of demarcation is blurred in situations where the purpose of the picketing is not clear or where the picketing may serve several purposes. In such cases the National Labor Relations Board has the responsibility to resolve the factual questions and apply the law.
The Board has been entrusted by Congress with the duty to interpret and enforce the Act. Over long years of experience, dealing with thousands of concrete factual situations, the Board has acquired a deep understanding of labor relations and substantial expertise in applying the sometimes too rigid categories of the statutory scheme to diverse factual situations in a manner best calculated to further the policies of the Act. The courts have given recognition to this expertise by permitting the Board broad discretion to assert its ju-.' risdiction “in any manner reasonably calculated to carry out its statutory duties”. Optical Workers’ Union v. NLRB, 227 F.2d 687, 691 (5th Cir. 1955), cert. denied, 351 U.S. 963, 76 S.Ct. 1027, 100 L.Ed. 1484 (1956).
In this case the Board made a factual determination as to the purpose of the picketing, which is supported by the evidence and which is clearly not erroneous. On the basis of that determination, it concluded that the dispute was not jurisdictional in nature. In a subsequent action, the Board determined that the dispute was essentially representational and should be handled under Section 8(b)(7) of the Act. It does not appear that the Board’s conclusion is inconsistent with the statutory scheme or congressional policies or that it represents a marked departure from the Board’s past decisions. This is not a case where the Board has refused to grant any relief for the employer or where the employer is placed in a dilemma caused by the complex factual situation. An employer may always file charges under Sections 8(b)(4)(B), 8(b)(4)(D) and 8(b)(7) if he is in doubt as to the nature of the dispute. Judicial review is available to insure that the Board does not abuse its discretion.
Finding no error in the Board's factual findings or its application of the law, I would uphold the Board’s decision.