Court Opinion

ID: 9426093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:49.411029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:59.077593
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Brennan, and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
As part of its effort to organize mechanical contractors in the Dallas area, the respondent Local Union No. 100 *639engaged in peaceful picketing to induce the petitioner Connell Construction Co., a general contractor in the building and construction industry, to agree to subcontract plumbing and mechanical work at the construction site only to firms that had signed a collective-bargaining agreement with Local 100. None of Connell’s own employees were members of Local 100, and the subcontracting agreement contained the union’s express disavowal of any intent to organize or represent them. The picketing at Connell’s construction site was therefore secondary activity, subject to detailed and comprehensive regulation pursuant to § 8 (b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act, as added, 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b)(4), and §303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 158, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 187. Similarly, the subcontracting agreement under which Connell agreed to cease doing business with nonunion mechanical contractors is governed by the provisions of § 8 (e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (e). The relevant legislative history unmistakably demonstrates that in regulating secondary activity and “hot cargo” agreements in 1947 and 1959, Congress selected with great care the sanctions to be imposed if proscribed union activity should occur. In so doing, Congress rejected efforts to give private parties injured by union activity such as that engaged in by Local 100 the right to seek relief under federal antitrust laws. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment before us.
I
For a period of 15 years, from passage of the NorrisLaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, in 19321 until enactment of *640the Labor Management Relations Act (the Taft-Hartley Act), 61 Stat. 136, in 1947, union economic pressure directed against a neutral, secondary employer was not subject to sanctions under either federal labor law or antitrust law, at least in the absence of proof that the union was coercing the secondary employer in furtherance of a conspiracy with a nonlabor group. See United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219; Allen Bradley Co. v. Electrical Workers, 325 U. S. 797. “Congress abolished, for purposes of labor immunity, the distinction between primary activity between the ‘immediate disputants’ and secondary activity in which the employer disputants and the members of the union do not stand ‘in the proximate relation of employer and employee ....’” National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612, 623.
In Hunt v. Crumboch, 325 U. S. 821, for example, the Court found that union conduct in forcing a freight carrier out of business was protected activity beyond the reach of the federal antitrust laws even though it involved secondary pressure that culminated in the union’s compelling the carrier’s principal patron to break its contract with the carrier and to discharge the carrier from further service. “That which Congress has recognized as lawful,” the Court noted, “this Court has no constitutional power to declare unlawful, by arguing that Congress has accorded too much power to labor organizations.” Id., at 825 n. 1.
Congressional concern over labor abuses of the broad immunity granted by the Norris-LaGuardia Act was one of the considerations that resulted in passage of the Taft*641Hartley Act in 1947, which, among other things, prohibited specified union secondary activity. See National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, supra, at 623. The central thrust of that statutory provision was to forbid “a union to induce employees to strike against or to refuse to handle goods for their employer when an object is to force him or another person to cease doing business with some third party.” Carpenters’ Union v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93, 98.2 In condemning “specific union conduct directed to specific objectives,” ibid., however, Congress deliberately chose not to subject unions engaging in prohibited secondary activity to the sanctions of the antitrust laws.
Section 12 (a) (3) of the Hartley bill, H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., as initially passed by the House, defined “unlawful concerted activities” to include an “illegal boycott.” 1 NLRB Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, p. 205 (hereinafter Leg. Hist, of LMRA). Section 12 (c) provided that the Norris-LaGuardia Act should have no “application in any action or proceeding in a court of the United States involving any activity defined in this section as unlaw*642ful.” 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 206-207. The Committee on Education and Labor explained in its report on the Hartley bill:
“Illegal boycotts take many forms. . . . Sometimes they are direct restraints of trade, designed to compel people against whom they are engaged in to place their business with some other than those they are dealing with at the time .... Under [§ 12], these practices are called by their correct name, ‘unlawful concerted activities.’ It is provided that any person injured in his person, property, or business by an unlawful concerted activity affecting commerce may sue the person or persons responsible for the injury in any district court having jurisdiction of the parties and recover damages. The bill makes inapplicable in such suits the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which heretofore has protected parties to industrial strife from the consequences of their lawlessness, no matter how violent their disputes became. Persons who engage in unlawful concerted activities are subject to losing their rights and privileges under the act.” H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 24, 44, 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 315, 335.
The Senate, however, refused to adopt the House’s removal of antitrust immunity for prohibited secondary activity, choosing instead to make the remedies available under federal labor law exclusive. The Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare approved S. 1126, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., which provided that proscribed secondary conduct would be an unfair labor practice and could be enjoined on application of the National Labor Relations Board. No private remedy for an injured employer was authorized in the bill approved by the Committee. See S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 7-8, 22, 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 413-414, 428.
Four members of the Senate Committee, although *643supporting the provisions of S. 1126 as reported by the Committee, felt that a number of the provisions of the bill could be stronger. S. Rep. No. 105, supra, at 50, 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 456. In particular, the minority Senators proposed:
“An amendment reinserting in the bill a section making secondary boycotts and jurisdictional strikes unlawful and providing for direct suits in the courts by any injured party. . . .
“The amendment proposes that [the injured party] be entitled to file a suit for damages and obtain a temporary injunction while that suit is being heard. . . .
“The amendment, furthermore, removes the protection of the Clayton Act from monopoly agreements to fix prices, allocate customers, restrict production, distribution, or competition, or impose restrictions or conditions on the purchase, sale, or use of material, machines, or equipment. While the existence of the union should not be a combination in restraint of trade, we see no reason why unions should not be subject in this field to the same restriction as are competing employers.” S. Rep. No. 105, supra, at 54-55, 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 460-461.
Senator Ball, one of the four minority Senators on the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, did in fact offer an amendment on the Senate floor that was “designed to correct the interpretation of the Norris-LaGuardia and Clayton acts made by the Supreme Court in the Hutchinson [sic] case, and a number of other cases brought by former Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold, when he attempted to break up monopolistic practices on *644the part of labor unions, sometimes acting on their own, sometimes in conspiracy with employers.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4838, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 1354.3
Although stating that he personally agreed with the changes proposed by Senator Ball, Senator Taft argued for defeat of the Ball amendment, explaining that resistance to providing a private injunctive remedy in cases of secondary boycotts was so strong that an attempt to eliminate the labor exemption from the antitrust laws would lead to the defeat of any effort to provide for a private damages remedy for injured parties. Senator Taft proposed as a substitute that private parties be given only the right to sue for actual damages. 93 Cong. Rec. 4843-4844, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 1365. The Ball amendment was thereafter defeated, 93 Cong. Rec. 4847, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 1369-1370, and Senator Taft introduced his proposal “to restore to people who lose something because of boycotts and jurisdictional strikes the money which they have lost.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4858, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 1370-1371.
In response to Senator Morse’s claim that the proposal would impose virtually unlimited liability on unions, Senator Taft made plain that he was not advocating the use of antitrust sanctions against prohibited secondary activity. “Under the Sherman Act the same question of boycott damage is subject to a suit for [treble] dam*645ages and attorneys’ fees. In this case we simply provide for the amount of the actual damages.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4872-4873, 2 Leg. Hist. of LMRA 1398; see Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, 260 n. 16. Senator Taft’s proposal for a private damages remedy under federal labor law was adopted by the Senate. 93 Cong. Rec. 4874-4875, 2 Leg. Hist. of LMRA 1399-1400.
In Conference, the House members agreed to eliminate the provisions of the Hartley bill which, like the Ball amendment, provided that the Norris-LaGuardia Act should have no application to private suits for unlawful secondary activity. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (House Managers’ statement), 58-59, 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 562-563. With only “clarifying changes,” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, supra, at 67, 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRA 571, the House-Senate Conferees and then both Houses of Congress agreed to regulate union secondary activity by making specified activity an unfair labor practice under § 8 (b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act, authorizing the Board to seek injunctions against such activity, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (l), and providing for recovery of actual damages in a suit by a private party under Senator Taft’s compromise proposal, which became § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 187.4 Congress in 1947 did not prohibit all *646secondary activity by labor unions, see Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93; and those practices which it did outlaw were to be remedied only by seeking relief from the Board or by pursuing the newly created, exclusive federal damages remedy provided by § 303. Teamsters v. Morton, supra.
II
Contrary to the assertion in the Court’s opinion, ante, at 634, the deliberate congressional decision to make § 303 the exclusive private remedy for unlawful secondary activity is clearly relevant to the question of Local 100’s antitrust liability in the case before us. The Court is correct, of course, in noting that § 8 (e)’s prohibition of “hot cargo” agreements was not added to the Act until 1959, and that § 303 was not then amended to cover § 8 (e) violations standing alone. But as part of the 1959 amendments designed to close “technical loopholes” perceived in the Taft-Hartley Act, Congress amended § 8 (b) (4) to make it an unfair labor practice for a labor organization to threaten or coerce a neutral employer, either directly or through his employees, where an object of the secondary pressure is to force the employer to enter into an agreement prohibited by § 8 (e).5 At the same *647time, Congress expanded the scope of the § 303 damages remedy to allow recovery of the actual damáges sustained as a result of a union’s engaging in secondary activity to force an employer to sign an agreement in violation of § 8 (e).6 In short, Congress has provided an employer like Connell with a fully effective private damages remedy for the allegedly unlawful union conduct involved in this case.
The essence of Connell’s complaint is that it was coerced by Local 100’s picketing into “conspiring” with the union by signing an agreement that limited its ability *648to subcontract mechanical work on a competitive basis.7 If, as the Court today holds, the subcontracting agreement is not within the construction-industry proviso to § 8 (e), then Local 100’s picketing to induce Connell to sign the agreement constituted a § 8 (b) (4) unfair labor practice, and was therefore also unlawful under § 303 (a), 29 U. S. C. § 187 (a).8 Accordingly, Connell has the right to sue Local 100 for damages sustained as a result *649of Local 100’s unlawful secondary activity pursuant to i 303 (b), 29 U. S. C. § 187 (b). Although “limited to actual, compensatory damages,” Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S., at 260, Connell would be entitled under § 303 to recover all damages to its business that resulted from the union’s coercive conduct, including any provable damage caused by Connell’s inability to subcontract mechanical work to nonunion firms. Similarly, any nonunion mechanical contractor who believes his business has been harmed by Local 100’s having coerced Connell into signing the subcontracting agreement is entitled to sue the union for compensatory damages; for § 303 broadly grants its damages action to “[wjhoever shall be injured in his business or property” by reason of a labor organization’s engaging in a §8 (b)(4) unfair labor practice.9
*650Moreover, there is considerable evidence in the legislative materials indicating that in expanding the scope of §303 to include a remedy for secondary pressure designed to force an employer to sign an illegal “hot cargo” clause and in restricting the remedies for violation of § 8 (e) itself to those available from the Board, Congress in 1959 made the same deliberate choice to exclude antitrust remedies as was made by the 1947 Congress.
While the House was considering labor reform legislation in the summer of 1959, specific proposals were made to apply the antitrust laws to labor unions. Representative Hiestand of California introduced a bill which “would solve many of the problems attending unbridled union power as it exists and operates in this country. My proposal is in the nature of antitrust legislation, applied to labor unions.” 105 Cong. Rec. 12135,2 NLRB Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, p. 1507 (hereinafter Leg. Hist, of LMRDA). Representative Alger of Texas joined in cosponsoring the legislation, stating that “[ujnion monopoly power” manifests itself in “restrictive trade practices such as price fixing, restrictions on use of new processes and technological improvements, exclusion of products for the market, and so forth .... This bill deals directly with [this aspect] of union monopoly power.” 105 Cong. Rec. 12136, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1507. Representative Alger added the following explanation of the bill:
“Under the language of H. R. 8003 any attempt *651by a union to induce an employer or a group of employers to comply with a union demand which would result in restrictive trade practices would be unlawful, and an employer faced with such a demand could seek legal remedies to restrain the union from enforcing its demand. The consequent denial to unions of the right to fix prices or impose other artificial market limitations would not in any way interfere with normal and legitimate union functions or with their proper collective bargaining powers. They would merely be placed on an equal footing with all other groups in society as was the case during the fifty years prior to the Hutcheson decision.” 105 Cong. Rec. 12137, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1508.
The Landrum-Griffin bill, H. R. 8400, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., which, as amended, was enacted as the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959,10 by contrast, clearly provided that the new secondary-boycott *652and “hot cargo” provisions were to be enforced solely through the Board and by use of the § 303 damages remedy. See 105 Cong. Rec. 14347-14348, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1522-1523. Recognizing this important difference, Representative Alger proposed to amend the Landrum-Griffin bill by adding, as an additional title, the antitrust provisions of H. R. 8003. 105 Cong. Rec. 15532-15533, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1569. Representative Alger once again stated that his proposed amendment would make it unlawful for an individual local union to “[e] liter into any arrangement — voluntary or coerced — with any employer, groups of employers, or other unions which cause product boycotts, price fixing, or other types of restrictive trade practices.” 105 Cong. Rec. 15533, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1569.
Representative Griffin responded to Representative Alger’s proposed amendment by observing:
“[It] serves to point out that the substitute [the Landrum-Griffin bill] is a minimum bill. It might be well at this point to mention some provisions that are not in it.
“There is no antitrust law provision in this bill.
“This is truly a minimum bill that a responsible Congress should pass. I believe I speak for the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Landrum], as well as myself when I say that if amendments are offered on the floor to add antitrust provisions or others that have been mentioned, I, for one, will oppose them. The gentleman from Georgia and I have tried to balance delicately the provisions which we believe should be in a bill at this time and which a majority of this body could support.” 105 Cong. Rec. 15535, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1571-1572.
The Alger amendment was rejected, as were additional *653efforts to subject proscribed union activities to the antitrust laws and their sanctions. See, e. g,, 105 Cong. Rec. 15853, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1685 (amendment offered by Rep. Hoffman). The House then adopted the Landrum-Griffin bill over protests that it “does not go far enough, that it needs more teeth, and that more teeth are going to come in the form of legislation to bring labor union activities under the antitrust laws.” 105 Cong. Rec. 15858, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1690 (remarks of Rep. Alger); see 105 Cong. Rec. 15859-15860, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1691-1692 (adoption of the Landrum amendment to H. R. 8342, substituting in lieu of the text thereof the text of H. R. 8400 as amended).
The House-Senate Conferees made some substantive changes in the language of the amendments to § 8 (b) (4), and also added the construction- and garment-industry provisos to § 8 (e). See generally Cox, The LandrumGriffin Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, 44 Minn. L. Rev. 257. But no change was made in the nature of the sanctions authorized for violations of either section by the House-passed Landrum-Griffin bill: An injured party could either seek relief from the Board or bring suit for damages under § 303 against unions that violate the revised secondary-boycott prohibitions. No provisions were made for exposing proscribed union secondary activity or “hot cargo” agreements to antitrust liability. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1147, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 934.11
*654Indeed, two years after enactment of the LandrumGriffin Act, Senator McClellan, whose committee hearings into abuses caused by concentrated labor power had played a major role in generating support for the 1959 labor reform legislation, together with five other Senators, introduced a bill to provide antitrust sanctions for illegal “hot cargo” agreements in the transportation industry, despite the fact that such agreements were already expressly prohibited by § 8 (e).12 As it had in 1947 and 1959, however, Congress in 1961 rejected this effort to subject illegal union secondary conduct to the sanctions of the antitrust laws.
In sum, the legislative history of the 1947 and 1959 amendments and additions to national labor law clearly demonstrates that Congress did not intend to restore antitrust sanctions for secondary boycott activity such as that engaged in by Local 100 in this case, but rather *655intended to subject such activity only to regulation under the National Labor Relations Act and § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act. The judicial imposition of “independent federal remedies” not intended by Congress, no less than the application of state law to union conduct that is either protected or prohibited by federal labor law,13 threatens “to upset the balance of power between labor and management expressed in our national labor policy.” Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S., at 260. See Carpenter's v. NLRB, 357 U. S., at 98-100; National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S., at 619-620. Accordingly, the judgment before us should be affirmed.

 Before 1932 this Court had held that secondary strikes and boycotts were not exempt from the coverage of the antitrust laws. E. g., Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443; Bedford *640Cut Stone Co. v. Journeymen Stone Cutters’ Assn., 274 U. S. 37. Duplex and its progeny were overruled by Congress with passage of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70. See Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union v. Lake Valley Farm Products, Inc., 311 U. S. 91, 100-103; United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219, 229-231, 235-237.

 The Act added § 8 (b) (4) to the National Labor Relations Act, making it an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents “to engage in, or to induce or encourage the employees of any employer to engage in, a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services, where an object thereof is: (A) forcing or requiring any employer or self-employed person to join any labor or employer organization or any employer or other person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person . . . ." 61 Stat. 141.

 The amendment introduced by Senator Ball provided in part that the Clayton Act and the Norris-LaGuardia Act “shall not be applicable in respect of violations of subsection (a) [defining prohibited secondary conduct], or in respect of any contract, combination, or conspiracy, in restraint of commerce, to which a labor organization is a party, if one of the purposes of such contract, combination, or conspiracy is to fix prices, allocate customers, restrict production, distribution, or competition, or impose restrictions or conditions upon the purchase, sale or use of any material, machines, or equipment.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4757 (1947).

 Section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 158-159, provided:
“(a) It shall be unlawful, for the purposes of this section only, in an industry or activity affecting commerce, for any labor organization to engage in, or to induce or encourage the employees of any employer to engage in, a strike or a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services, where an object thereof is—
"(1) forcing or requiring any employer or self-employed person to join any labor or employer organization or any employer or other person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise *646dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person;
“(b) Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason o[f] any violation of subsection (a) may sue therefor in any district court of the United States subject to the limitations and provisions of section 301 hereof without respect to the amount in controversy, or in any other court having jurisdiction of the parties, and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit.”

 Section 8 (b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 19S9, *64773 Stat. 519, 542-543, now provides in part that it shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents:
“ (4) (i) to engage in, or to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce to engage in, a strike or a refusal in the course of his employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services; or (ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is—
“(A) forcing or requiring any employer or self-employed person to join any labor or employer organization or to enter into any agreement which is prohibited by subsection (e) of this section ....” 29 U. S. C. §158 (b)(4).

 Section 303, as amended by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 519, 545, now provides:
“(a) It shall be unlawful, for the purpose of this section only, in an industry or activity affecting commerce, for any labor organization to engage in any activity or conduct defined as an unfair labor practice in section 158 (b) (4) of this title.
“(b) Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason o[f] any violation of subsection (a) of this section may sue therefor in any district court of the United States subject to the limitations and provisions of section 185 of this title without respect to the amount in controversy, or in any other court having jurisdiction of the parties, and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit.” 29 U. S. C. § 187.

 Indeed, Connell’s original state-court complaint was filed before Connell had signed any agreement with Local 100. See ante, at 620. At that point it was apparent that the primary reason for the lawsuit was Connell’s request for an injunction to stop the union’s picketing.

 If, contrarj- to the Court’s conclusion, see ante, at 626-633, Congress intended what it said in the proviso to § 8 (e), then the subcontracting agreement is valid and, under the view of the Board and those Courts of Appeals that have considered the question, Local 100’s picketing to obtain the agreement would also be lawful. See, e. g., Orange Belt District Council of Painters v. NLRB, 117 U. S. App. D. C. 233, 236, 328 F. 2d 534, 537; Construction Laborers v. NLRB, 323 F. 2d 422 (CA9); Northeastern Indiana Bldg. Trades Council, 148 N. L. R. B. 854, enforcement denied on other grounds, 122 U. S. App. D. C. 220, 352 F. 2d 696. Connell would therefore have neither a remedy under § 303 nor one with the Board.
It would seem necessarily to follow that conduct specifically authorized by Congress in the National Labor Relations Act could not by itself be the basis for federal antitrust liability, unless the Court intends to return to the era when the judiciary frustrated congressional design by determining for itself "what public policy in regard to the industrial struggle demands.” Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 485 (Brandéis, J., dissenting). See United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219. In my view, however, even if Local 100’s conduct was unlawful, Connell may not seek to invoke the sanctions of the antitrust laws. Accordingly, I find it unnecessary to decide in this case whether the subcontracting agreement entered into by Connell and Local 100 is within the ambit of the construction-industry proviso to § 8 (e), and if it is, whether it was permissible for Local 100 to utilize peaceful picketing to induce Connell to sign the agreement.

 If Connell and Local 100 had entered into a purely voluntary “hot cargo” agreement in violation of §8 (e), an injured nonunion mechanical subcontractor would have no § 303 remedy because the union would not have engaged in any § 8 (b) (4) unfair labor practice. The subcontractor, however, would still be able to seek the full range of Board remedies available for a § 8 (e) unfair labor practice. Moreover, if Connell had truly agreed to limit its subcontracting without any coercion whatsoever on the part of Local 100, the affected subcontractor might well have a valid antitrust claim on the ground that Local 100 and Connell were engaged in the type of conspiracy aimed at third parties with which this Court dealt in Allen Bradley Co. v. Electrical Workers, 325 U. S. 797. At the very least, an antitrust suit by an injured subcontractor under circumstances in which Congress had failed to provide any form of private remedy for damage resulting from an illegal “hot cargo” agreement would present a very different question from the one before us — a question which it is not now necessary to answer. Cf. Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 708 n. 9 (opinion of Goldberg, J.).
On the other hand, the signatory of a purely voluntary agreement that violates § 8 (e) is fully protected from any damage that might result from the illegal “hot cargo” agreement by his ability simply to ignore the contract provision that violates §8(e). If the union should attempt to enforce the illicit “hot cargo” clause through any *650form of coercion, the employer may then bring a § 303 damages suit or may file an unfair labor practice charge with the Board. See 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (4) (B). Since § 8 (e) provides that any prohibited agreement is “unenforcible and void,” any union effort to invoke legal processes to compel the neutral employer to comply with his purely voluntary agreement would obviously be unavailing.

 The legislative proceedings leading to the passage of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (the LandrumGriffin Act), 73 Stat. 519, began in January .1959 when Senator John Kennedy introduced S. 505, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. In March 1959 Senator Kennedy introduced S. 1555, incorporating 46 amendments to S. 505 made by the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. S. 1555, with various additional amendments, was approved by the Senate on April 25, 1959, and sent to the House, where it was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. On July 30, 1959, the House Committee favorably reported H. R. 8342, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. One week earlier H. R. 8400 and H. R. 8401, identical bills, were introduced in the House by Representatives Landrum and Griffin, respectively. The House voted on August 13, 1959, to substitute the text of H. R. 8400 for the text of the House Committee bill, and the Landrum-Griffin bill was then inserted by the House in S. 1555 in lieu of its provisions. The Conference made several substantive changes in the Landrum-Griffin bill, which was then passed by both the House and Senate and approved by the President. See generally 1 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA vii-xi.

 Representative Hiestand, during House debate on the report of the Conference Committee, recommended adoption of the bill as amended by the Conference and complimented Representatives Landrum and Griffin for their efforts in guiding the bill through Congress. But in expressing concern over the fact that the legislation did not restore antitrust sanctions for union secondary activity and other anticompetitive restraints of trade, he warned: “[W]e *654should act today with full knowledge that passage of the LandrumGriffin bill will not solve every problem. The heart of the problem, the very heart, is the sheer power in the hands of labor union leaders due to their above-the-law status with respect to our antimonopoly laws.” 105 Cong. Rec. 18132; 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1719.

 Section 2 (b) (2) of Senator McClellan’s bill, S. 2573, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., provided that the Sherman Act be amended to read in part:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, every contract, agreement, or understanding, express or implied, between any labor organization and any employer engaged in the transportation of persons or property, whereby such employer undertakes to cease, or to refrain from, purchasing, using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in any of the products or services of any producer, processor, distributor, supplier, handler, or manufacturer which are distributed in trade or commerce in any territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or between any such territory and another, or between any such territory or territories and any State or States or the District of Columbia or with foreign nations, or between the District of Columbia and any State or States or foreign nations, or to cease doing business with any other person shall be unlawful.”

 I fully agree with the Court’s conclusion, ante, at 635-637, that federal labor law pre-empts the state law that Connell sought to apply to Local 100’s secondary activity in this case.