Court Opinion

ID: 9424196
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:10:47.105314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:48.836419
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Stewart join,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that the Florida courts were in error in concluding that the National Labor Relations Act does not govern relations between the operators of foreign-flag vessels and the American longshoremen who work on such vessels while they are in American ports. However, I would not rest reversal on the conclusion that the union’s conduct in this case was “ ‘arguably subject’ to regulation under § 7 or § 8 of the Act.” The union’s picketing was clearly not proscribed by any part of § 8 of the Act. The only possible dispute could be over whether the picketing was activity protected by § 7 of the Act or whether the picketing was neither protected nor prohibited by the Act and therefore was subject to state regulation or prohibition. If the National Labor Relations Act provided an effective mechanism whereby an employer could obtain a determination from the National Labor Relations Board as to whether picketing is protected or unprotected, I would agree that the fact that picketing is “arguably” protected should require state courts to refrain from interfering in deference to the expertise and national uniformity of treatment offered by the NLRB. But an employer faced with “arguably protected” picketing is given by the present federal law no adequate means of obtaining an evaluation of the picketing by the NLRB. The employer may not himself seek a determination from the Board and is *202left with the unsatisfactory remedy of using “self help” against the pickets to try to provoke the union to charge the employer with an unfair labor practice.
So long as employers are effectively denied determinations by the NLRB as to whether “arguably protected” picketing is actually protected except when an employer is willing to threaten or use force to deal with picketing, I would hold that only labor activity determined to be actually, rather than arguably, protected under federal law should be immune from state judicial control. To this extent San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959), should be reconsidered. I concur in the Court’s judgment in this case because in my view the record clearly indicates that the peaceful, nonobstructive picketing on the public docks near the ships was union activity protected under the National Labor Relations Act. See Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485, 499-500 (1953).