Court Opinion

ID: 9581605
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:16:40.66382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:07.205456
License: Public Domain

MORRIS, Judge
(dissenting).
This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court of Williams County enjoining the defendants from picketing the construction site of a plant being built by the Signal Oil and Gas Company, a foreign corporation. The plaintiffs are construction contractors engaged in the performance of a contract entered into with the Signal Oil and Gas Company which is not a party to this action. The defendants are labor unions or officers or representatives of such unions.
The plaintiffs’ complaint in part alleges that on the 19th day of August, 1953, at about nine a. m. they each received in the mail a request and notice as follows:
“A meeting has been arranged between the Contractors of the Tioga Gas Plant and Representatives of the Building and Construction Trades Council on Wednesday the 19th of Ail' *162gust at 10:00 in the morning at Signal Oil Company’s Field House in Tioga.
“We request that a representative from your company attend this meeting and that such representative have the authority to make a final decision on important matters that might effect the entire job in the future.”
It was signed “Minot Building and Construction Trades Council, Harold N. Olson, President.” It is then alleged:
“That at ten o’clock A.M., on the 19th day of August, 1953, representatives of Plaintiffs informed Defendants that they had had no adequate notice, and that they were unable to discuss terms and conditions of employment with the Defendants, and that they had no proof that the Defendants represented their employees, and that therefore Plaintiffs could not enter into any negotiations with Defendants covering these employees. At approximately the same time, Defendants presented to Plaintiffs contracts which they desired Plaintiffs to execute, the force and effect of which were to require Plaintiffs to discharge their employees and employ members of the Defendants unions, or to enforce or coerce their employees to join Defendants unions. A copy of one of these instruments, marked Exhibit ‘C’ is annexed hereto and made a part hereof.”
The complaint then sets forth that the plaintiffs refused to execute these agreements and the defendants began to picket and banner the plant site of Signal Oil and Gas Company on Friday, August 21, 1953, and that the picketing has continued to the irreparable damage of the plaintiffs. It is further alleged:
"The purpose of the picketing and bannering of the plant is to enforce a boycott against these Plaintiffs and to force Signal Oil and Gas Company, Inc. to terminate its contract with them, and to render them unable to perform their contract, and to force and coerce Plaintiffs to force and coerce their employees to join Defendants unions under threat of being discharged and being replaced with employees supplied by Defendants unions.”
The complaint also sets forth in some detail the injurious effect on plaintiffs’ operations that resulted from the picketing and asks for both a temporary and a permanent injunction.
The defendants’ answer contains a general denial and specifically denies that the purpose of any bannering or picketing by any defendant was as stated in the complaint. The answer also alleges:
“that a labor dispute exists between plaintiffs and defendants and that the court is therefore without jurisdiction to grant the relief requested in the complaint and moving papers herein. * * *
“that if there is a proceeding pending before this court, the same is covered by the provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, and this court is, therefore, without jurisdiction over said subject matter.”
The court first issued a temporary injunction and after a trial was had rendered judgment decreeing that the defendants individually and collectively, their employees, servants and representatives, and any other person acting in aid or assistance of the defendants
“be and they are and each of them is hereby restrained and enjoined permanently and perpetually either directly or indirectly or by any means or methods from doing or attempting to do any of the following described acts:
“Picketing, bannering, or boycotting either the Plaintiff Oil Field Service Co., Signal Oil & Gas Co., or any of the engineers, contractors or employees of Signal Oil & Gas Co. or the plant site, warehouse, tracks, team tracks, vehicles, roads or other facilities of the Plaintiff, Oil Field Service Co. or Signal Oil & Gas Co., Inc., used or useful in connection with the natural gasoline *163and sulphur extraction plant of Signal Oil & Gas Co., Inc. adjacent to the city of Tioga, North Dakota, by:
“(1) Using cameras, pencil and paper, or other means ostensibly to record the identity of persons and vehicles engaging in business intercourse with Plaintiff Oil Field Service Co. in effecting ingress and egress to and from the plant site;
“(2) Maintaining a rotating picket line back and forth, across, and directly in front of the plant entrances;
“(3) Engaging in any picketing, ban-nering, or boycotting by any and all other coercive measures which, if prolonged, is calculated or likely to intimidate persons engaged or undertaking to engage in business intercourse with plaintiff or induce violence.”
The defendants appeal from this judgment and demand a trial anew in this court.
It is stipulated that the work being performed for and by the plaintiffs under their contract with the Signal Oil and Gas Company affects interstate commerce within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 which will be hereinafter referred to as the Taft-Hartley Act.
The overall issue is whether the conduct of the defendants that has been enjoined falls within the province of the National Labor Relations Board as allocated to it by the Taft-Hartley Act to the exclusion of state jurisdiction.
“A State may not enjoin under its own labor statute conduct which has been made an ‘unfair labor practice’ under the federal statutes. Such was the holding in the Garner case, supra. [Garner v. Teamsters, Chauffeurs Union, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228.] The Court pointed out that exclusive primary jurisdiction to pass on the union’s picketing is delegated by the Taft-Hartley Act to the National Labor Relations Board.” Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480, 485, 99 L.Ed. 546.
We must determine whether the conduct of the defendants in this case has been made “an unfair labor practice” under the Taft-Hartley Act. Plaintiffs’ employees are not unionized. In an informal poll the majority of the employees expressed a preference for nonunion status. None of the defendants have been certified as a bargaining agency for the employees by the National Labor Relations Board. No election has been held for the selection of a bargaining agency as provided by Title 29 U.S.C.A., § 159.
Despite the fact that the defendants had no authority to bargain for or in behalf of plaintiffs’ employees they demanded that the plaintiffs recognize them as bargaining agents and enter into contracts with the various defendants regarding membership, wages, hours, and working conditions pertaining to employees performing work in various building trades represented by the defendant unions.
The Minot Building and Construction Trades Council called a meeting on August 19, 1953, at which they requested the presence of a representative from each of the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs were not represented at the meeting. Signal Oil and Gas Company was represented by Lloyd Miller who was in charge of the construction of the Tioga plant. He testified at length as a witness for plaintiffs. He stated that the representatives of the unions explained the purpose of the meeting, which was to negotiate a contract with Oil Field Service Company and Diederich and Bye to employ union help in the performance of their job and that they wanted Miller to negotiate a contract. He told the representatives of the defendants that he had no authority to interfere with the internal operations of the plaintiffs. The defendants asked him to intercede in behalf of the unions and he advised them that it was not his place to do so. He also stated that they wanted him to negotiate a contract with the plaintiffs. He said: “I received samples from the different crafts of contracts that they wanted to ne*164gotiate.” Miller also testified that the representatives of the defendants wanted him to either stop the work or induce the plaintiffs to negotiate a contract immediately and that “the Minot Labor Council had already authorized the representatives of that group to banner our job if an acceptable contract was not arranged for between the contractors and the respective unions.”
The plaintiffs introduced in evidence several of these contracts, among them being the contract referred to in and attached to plaintiffs’ complaint. This contract is Exhibit D. It was proffered on behalf of Local Union Number 714, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. It was strictly a closed shop contract as disclosed by these paragraphs:
Article 2. “Sec. 3: The Employer shall employ only members in good standing of the Union on all electrical work; should however, the Union be unable to furnish the Employer with workmen within 48 hours of the time the Union or its representative receives the request, the Union shall issue temporary working cards to workmen who apply and are acceptable to both parties until such time as the Union can furnish workmen. Any such workman shall receive at least the minimum wages and work under the conditions of this agreement.”
Article 3. “Sec. 9. Apprentices shall be registered with the Union before being put to work. Apprentices must sign an apprenticeship application and appear before the Joint Apprenticeship Committee for interview. All apprentices shall be governed by the standards and rules established by the Joint Apprenticeship Committee.”
Another contract, known in this record as Exhibit G, was submitted on the printed form of the Minot Master Plumbers and Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 627 and contained the following clause:
“Whenever, after reasonable notice, which shall be defined as forty-eight (48) hours, the Local is unable to furnish a sufficient number of duly qualified men to meet the necessary requirements of the employer, then the employer may secure from other sources such additional qualified men as may be necessary; provided that it be understood that such additional men shall become a party to this agreement before thirty (30) days have expired.”
This clause seems to indicate that the contract is a union shop or union-security agreement rather than a strictly closed shop contract. See National Labor Relations Board v. National Maritime Union, 2 Cir., 175 F.2d 686.
With respect to the Signal Oil and Gas Company for whom the plant was being constructed, the trial court found:
“The Defendant labor unions demanded that Signal as owner of the gasoline extraction plant being constructed, compel the Plaintiffs and each of them to enter into agreements for the employment of members of the Defendant unions only on the construction of that plant, under agreements substantially in the form of the agreement which is Plaintiffs’ Exhibit ‘D’.”
The trial court also reached this conclusion:
“That the Defendants sought by means of picketing, bannering and boycotting to coerce and induce employees of carriers transporting commodities and other materials to the plant site of Signal Oil and Gas Company, among other persons, to engage in a concerted refusal in the course of their employment to transport or otherwise handle materials or commodities consigned to the’plant site, the object thereof being to force or require Signal Oil and Gas Company to cease doing business with the Plaintiffs.”
“That the picketing, bannering and boycotting carried on by the Defendants for the purposes mentioned in the preceding paragraph was an unfair labor practice as defined by Sec. 8(b), paragraph 4 of the Labor Manage*165ment Relations Act of 1947.” 29 U.S. C.A. § 158(b)(4).
It is an unfair labor practice under the Taft-Hartley Act for an employer
“by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization: Provided, That nothing in this subchapter, or in any other statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization (not established, maintained, or assisted by any action defined in this subsection as an unfair labor practice) to require as a condition of employment membership therein on or after the thirtieth day following the beginning of such employment or the effective date of such agreement, whichever is the later, (i) if such labor organization is the representative of the employees as provided in section 159(a) of this title, in the appropriate collective-bargaining unit covered by such agreement when made and has at the time the. agreement was made or within the preceding twelve months received from the Board a notice of compliance with section 159(f), (g), (h) of this title, * * *.” 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(a)(3).
It is an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents
“to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee in violation of subsection (a) (3) of this section * * 29 U.S. C.A. § 158(b)(2).
It is also 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; (B) forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 159 of this title; (C) forcing or requiring any employer to recognize or bargain with'a particular labor organization as the representative of his employees if another labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section .159 of this title; * * 29 U.S.C.A., § 158(b)(4).
Thus it is an unfair labor practice for an employer by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization and it is equally an unfair labor practice for a labor organization to force or require an employer to do so or to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless that labor organization has been certified as the representative of the employees by the National Labor Relations Board.
In this case the defendants demanded that the plaintiffs bargain with the defendants and enter into union security contracts with them. The demands included a closed' shop contract on the part of at least one defendant and a contract containing a preference and referral clause on the part of another. The closed shop contract would if entered into have been of itself a violation of the Taft-Hartley Act and no union contract could lawfully be entered into under the Taft-Hartley Act except with a certified bargaining agent of the employees. Thus the entire demand upon Signal Oil and Gas Company arid upon the pla&tiffs *166was an unfair labor practice. The form of the contracts, however, is not of great importance. The controversy never reached the point where actual bargaining took place and no specific contract was demanded of either the plaintiffs or the Signal Oil and Gas Company. The forms submitted were specimens which the defendants hoped to use as a basis for bargaining.
In some of the specimen contracts it was specifically provided that “The Contractor recognizes the Union as the exclusive bargaining agents’ of its employees who are covered by this agreement.” In others the position of the defendants as bargaining agents was clearly implied.
On August 21, 1953, the defendant unions acting jointly and through the defendant Building and Construction Trades Council set up a rotating picket line’ at the entrances to the plant site of the Signal Oil and Gas Company. Pickets carried banners bearing the legend: “This Project Unfair to Organized Labor.” None of the pickets were employees of the plaintiffs.
During the trial many controversies developed over the admission of evidence. Plaintiffs’ attorneys repeatedly stated that' they alleged and were attempting' to prove that the defendants demanded closed shop contracts in violation of law. On the other hand, the avowed purpose of the defendants was to compel the plaintiffs to negotiate and enter into contracts with the unions. The witness Watts was a business representative of Iron Workers Local Union 708. He was also one of the representatives of the Building and Construction Trades Council in the attempt to negotiate. His direct examination concludes as follows :
“Q. Would you be willing to meet at any time with representatives of the Plaintiffs for the purpose of discussing this controversy? A. Yes, sir.”
Arthur J. Johnson, a representative of the carpenters union for the State of North Dakota, testified that at the meeting of. August .19, or at any other meeting that he attended with Mr. Miller, neither he nor any other representative of a union asked Mr. Miller to force either of the plaintiffs to enter into a contract that would require the employment only of union persons.
By ignoring entirely the evidence of the defendants the majority opinion reaches the conclusion that the sole purpose of the picketing was to compel Oil Field Service Company to enter into union contracts with the defendants in violation of the laws of North Dakota; that Taft-Hartley expressly permits states to prohibit the execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment and therefore the state court has jurisdiction to enjoin picketing for the purpose of compelling the execution of such contracts. The solution is not that simple. Upon the whole record I conclude that the primary purpose of the picketing was to compel the plaintiffs to recognize the defendants as bargaining agents for their employees and to negotiate employment contracts with the defendants. The picketing was designed to bring this compulsion to bear indirectly through Signal Oil and directly through interfering with plaintiffs’ operations at the plant site.
It is clear that the conduct of the defendants in picketing the plant site of Signal Oil and Gas Company constituted unfair labor practices under Section 8 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158. It was designed to compel the plaintiff employers to bargain with defendants who were not authorized to represent the employees and by discrimination in regard to hire and tenure of employment to encourage membership in a labor organization. The picketing with respect to Signal Oil and Gas Company was for the purpose of exerting secondary pressure in furtherance of that design.
In point is the case of Local 74, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, etc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 341 U.S. 707, 71 S.Ct. 966, 970, 95 L.Ed. 1309. In that case Stanley, who owned a dwelling house, contracted with Parker to improve and renovate it. Parker employed union men. A retail store called *167“Watson’s” contracted with Stanley, with Parker’s implied consent, to install wall and floor coverings in the house. Watson’s employed nonunion labor. In an effort to force the owner Stanley to cancel his installation contract with Watson’s a union ordered a strike or concerted cessation of work on the part of union carpenters. The National Labor Relations Board found this conduct to be an unfair labor practice and was sustained by the supreme court, which said:
“As determined in the Denver case [National Labor Relations Board v. Denver Building and Construction Trades Council, 341 U.S. 675, 71 S.Ct. 943, 95 L.Ed 1284] it is enough that one of the objects of the action complained of was to force Stanley to cancel Watson’s contract. It does not immunize such action from § 8(b) (4) (A) to show that it also had as an object the enforcement of a rule of the. union that its members should not work on a project on which nonunion men were employed. The statute did not require the individual carpenters to remain on this job. It did, however, make it an unfair labor practice for the union or its agent to engage in a strike, as they did here, when an object of doing so was to force the project owner to cancel his installation contract with Watson’s.”
On the question as to whether conduct of the defendants comes within the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board the decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Local Union No. 55, 10 Cir., 218 F.2d 226, 231, is helpful because of the similarity in facts. In that case the board had issued a cease and desist order against respondent unions. The Professional and Business Men’s Life Insurance Company was engaged in a residential dwelling construction project. It acted as its own general contractor and as such employed skilled workers and laborers. In addition it contracted with various subcontractors to perform specialized construction work. Several subcontractors had signed collective bargaining contracts with building ' trade unions. The insurance company operated an open shop with respect to its own employees. This resulted in a controversy with unions that objected to having union members work alongside nonunion men. None of the respondent unions were certified bargaining agencies for insurance company employees. In a poll employees of the insurance company voted against one of the respondent unions as their bargaining agent.
Being unsuccessful in their efforts to force the insurance company to sign a collective bargaining agreement, the respondents placed the insurance company on their unfair list and picketed the construction site.
In determining that the facts and the law afforded a sound basis for the order of the board, the court said:
“Here, at the common situs, construction work was being carried on by the Insurance Company, the primary employer, and by certain subcontractors. The object of the picketing was to compel the Insurance Company to recognize one of the respondents as the bargaining agent for its employees and to cease working nonunion men alongside of union members. The picketing signs were not directed at the primary employer alone, but at the project, at which secondary employers were also working. It read: ‘Working Conditions on This Job Unfair to Carpenters’ District Council.’ It is a reasonable inference from the evidence that a primary purpose of the picketing was to cause the employees of the subcontractors to cease working on the project and prevent the subcontractors from completing the construction under their subcontracts, as a means of compelling the Insurance Company to recognize one of the respondents as the bargaining agent for its employees and to cease working nonunion men on the project. That was the only way that the respondents could accomplish their objectives, so long as union employees of the subcontractors were willing to *168work on the project with nonunion employees of the Insurance Company and the nonunion, employees of the Insurance Company were unwilling to recognize either of the respondents as their bargaining agent and to become members of the Union.
“We conclude that under the undisputed facts and the' reasonable inferences deductible therefrom, which it was the peculiar province of the Board to determine, the Board was fully warranted in concluding that the picketing was designed to create pressures that would cause the subcontractors to stop the work on their subcontracts with the Insurance Company, as well as to compel the Insurance Company to recognize one of the respondents as the bargaining agent of its employees. We think that conclusion must follow, when consideration is given to the pressure that had theretofore been directed at the secondary employers, the purpose of which plainly was to induce them to cease doing business with the primary employer and thus compel the latter to unionize its employees and recognize the respondents as their bargaining agent.

“The 8(b) (2) Violations

“Section 8(a) (3) of the Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer by discrimination, in regard to hire or tenure of employment, or any term or condition of employment, to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization, except insofar as permitted by a valid union-security agreement. By § 8(a) (3) (i) of the Act, the employer is forbidden to enter into a union shop contract with a labor organization, unless such labor organization ‘is the representative of the employees as provided in Section 9(a), ⅛ the appropriate collective-bargaining unit, covered by such agreement when made’. Neither of the respondents was the representative of the employees of.the Insurance Company as provided in § 9(a) of the Act.
“The question presented is whether the respondents, by demanding and using pressure to enforce their demands that only members of the Union be employed on the Insurance Company’s project, attempted to cause the Insurance Company to discriminate against nonunion employees in violation of § 8(a) (3) of the Act, thereby violating § 8(b) (2) of the Act. The evidence established that the respondents repeatedly endeavored, both through direct and indirect pressures, to induce the Insurance Company to abandon its open shop policy and employ only members of the respondents, and that in the midst of such pressures the respondents urged the Insurance Company to sign a collective bargaining contract which was tantamount to a closed shop agreement and an illegal union-security agreement.
“The respondents contend that their demands upon the Insurance Company would not have required the dismissal of any of its employees currently on the job. Certainly, the objective of the respondents was to compel the Insurance Company to cease employing nonunion men, including both its present and its- future employees. But, if the demands of respondents went only so far as they contend, they would still have been a violation of § 8(b) (2) of the Act. That section proscribes union attempts to cause discrimination based on union membership, not only against specific employees, but also against potential employees. The ‘prohibition is not confined to those instances in which specific non-union employees are unlawfully discriminated against. It extends as well to instances in which the union, or its agents, seeks to cause the employer to accept conditions under which any non-union, employee or job applicant will be unlawfully discriminated against.’ [N. L. R. B. v. National Maritime Union, 2 Cir., 175 F.2d 686.]” See also Piezonki v. National Labor Relations Board, 4 Cir., 219 F.2d 879.
*169It is contended on behalf of the plaintiffs that despite the fact that the conduct of the defendants amounted to unfair' labor practices under the Taft-Hartley Act a state court has jurisdiction and power to enjoin the acts and conduct of the defendants in picketing the plant site of the Signal Oil and Gas Company for two reasons. The first is that, because of the provisions of Chapter 120, Section 14(b), 61 U.S.Statutes, p. 151, 29 U.S.C.A. § 164(b), and the laws of North Dakota, to which we will later refer, an exception to the Taft-Hartley Act is created under which a state court may enjoin the acts and conduct of the defendants; and the second is that a state court may enjoin the acts and conduct of the defendants under the police powers of the state.
Chapter 120, Section 14(b), 61 U.S.Statutes p. 151, 29 U.S.C.A. § 164(b), provides:
“Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a,, labor organization as a condition of employment in any State or Territory in which such execution or. application is prohibited by State or Territorial law.”
Section 34-0114, NDRC 1953 Supp. provides :
“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The right of persons to work shall not be denied or abridged on account of membership or nonmember-ship in any labor union or labor organization, and all contracts in negation or abrogation of such rights are hereby declared to be invalid, void and unenforceable.”
Under this section of the state law both closed shop and union shop contracts are void and unenforceable.
The record does not warrant the conclusion that the picketing was solely for the purpose of forcing or requiring the plaintiff employers to execute contracts falling in either category. If we should assume that it did include among its purposes that of securing a Union contract the conduct of the defendants 'in this case would still come within the definition of “unfair labor practice” defined in 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(b) (4) because none of the defendant unions had been certified as a representative of the employees under 29 U.S.C.A. § 159.
The decision in Garner v. Teamsters, Chauffeurs & Helpers Local Union No. 776, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, 164, 98 L.Ed. 228, is particularly applicable here. That case involved employers engaged in interstate commerce. No labor dispute or strike was in progress. The respondents established a rotating picket line at the employers’ loading platform. None of the pickets were employees of the employers. They carried banners reading: “Local 776 Teamsters Union (A.' F. of L.) wants Employees of Central Storage & Transfer Co. to join them to gain union wages, hours and working conditions.” The picketing was peaceful but drivers for other carriers refused to cross the picket line and thus hampered interchange of freight with unionized concerns which drastically reduced the business of the employers. The courts below found that the purpose of the picketing was to coerce the employers into compelling or influencing their employees to join the union. The court said:
“This is not an instance of injurious conduct which the National Labor Relations Board is without express power to prevent and which therefore either is ‘governable by the state or it is entirely ungoverned.’ * * *
“Congress has taken in hand this particular type of controversy where it affects interstate commerce. In language almost identical to parts of the Pennsylvania statute, it has forbidden, labor unions to exert certain types.of coercion on employees through the medium of the employer. It is not necessary or appropriate for us to surmise how the National Labor Relations Board might have decided this controversy had petitioners presented 'it-to' *170that body. The power and duty of primary decision lies with the Board, not with us. But it is clear that the Board was vested with power to entertain petitioners’ grievance,, to issue its own complaint against respondents and, pending final hearing, to seek from the United States District Court an injunction to prevent irreparable injury to petitioners while their case was being considered. The question then is whether the State, through its courts, may adjudge the same controversy and extend its own form of relief. * *
“We conclude that when federal power constitutionally is exerted for the protection of public or private interests, or both, it becomes the supreme law of -the land and cannot be curtailed, circumvented or extended by a state procedure merely because it will apply some doctrine of private right. To the extent that the private right may conflict with the public one, the former is superseded. To the extent that public interest is found to require official enforcement instead of private initiative, the latter will ordinarily be excluded. Of course, Congress, in enacting such legislation as we have here, can save alternative or supplemental state remedies by express terms, or by some clear implication, if it sees fit.
“On the basis of the allegations, the petitioners could have presented this grievance to the National Labor Relations Board. The respondents were subject to being summoned before that body to justify their conduct. We think the grievance was not subject to litigation in the tribunals of the State.”
The Garner case was recently followed in Texas Const. Co. v. Hoisting and Portable Engineers’ Local Union, 178 Kan. 422, 286 P.2d 160.
The plaintiffs rely extensively on Algoma Plywood & Veneer Co. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U.S. 301, 69 S.Ct. 584, 93 L.Ed. 691. This case did not involve a strike or picketing. It involved the application of a contract prohibited by state law. A provision in a state employment law made it an unfair labor practice for .an employer to enter into an all union agreement with .the representatives of his employees unless approved by the specified majority of the employees. The company entered into such an agreement with a union without securing the approval of the required number of employees. An employee who refused to pay dues was discharged at the request of the union. The Wisconsin board ordered his reinstatement and compensation of loss of pay on the ground that the maintenance of membership clause was violative of the Wisconsin statute. Its action which was upheld by the court was taken pursuant to a state law that had been violated in a manner coming within the terms of Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act which I have quoted above. That disclaimer does not include the act of picketing as such or the secondary boycott. We must bear in mind that the injunction in this case was directed at the act of picketing and not the execution or application of a contract prohibited by state law.
Local Union No. 10, United Ass’n of Journeymen, Plumbers, etc. v. Graham, 345 U.S. 192, 73 S.Ct. 585, 97 L.Ed. 946, is not in point.
“The basic question here is whether the Commonwealth of Virginia, consistently with the Constitution of the United States, may enjoin peaceful picketing when it is carried on for purposes in conflict with the Virginia Right to Work Statute.”
Interstate commerce was not involved. There was no question of conflict between federal and state jurisdiction.
The first and primary purpose of the picketing was to force the plaintiffs to bargain with the defendant unions who were not certified bargaining agencies by directly hampering the plaintiffs in the performance of their construction contract with Signal Oil and Gas Company and by exerting secondary pressure on the plaintiffs through *171Signal Oil and Gas.Company to force the plaintiffs to bargain with the defendants and execute union security contracts with them. The point of bargaining was never reached either before or after the establishment of the picket line. Granting that a subordinate purpose of defendants’ conduct was to secure contracts, the execution and application of which were prohibited by state law and which were also unlawful under the Taft-Hartley Act, this purpose does not remove the conduct of the defendants from the area of control of the National Labor Relations Board and place it within the jurisdiction of the state courts.
The power to prevent acts of picketing that are in violation of the Taft-Hartley Act and do not contravene the general police power of the state rests exclusively in the National Labor Relations Board. The fact that the picketing may also violate state law does not impinge upon that power. Capital Service, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 9 Cir., 204 F.2d 848.
"Controlling and therefore superseding federal power cannot be curtailed by the State even though the ground of intervention be different than that on which federal supremacy has been exercised.” Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480, 487, 99 L.Ed. 546.
National Labor Relations Board v. White Construction & Engineering Company, 5 Cir., 204 F.2d 950, 953, involved a petition to enforce an order of the National Labor Relations Board requiring the employer to bargain with a named union as the accredited representative of the employer’s fabricating shop employees. The employer contended :
“that because the union’s business agent is demanding a ‘union shop’ agreement with the employer which has the effect of requiring respondent’s employees to eventually join the union, the whole proceeding violates the spirit of the ‘Right to Work’ provisions of section 12 of the Declaration of Rights of the ‘Florida- State Constitution, F.S. A., adopted November 7, 1944. The section in effect provides that the right of persons to work shall not be denied or abridged on account of membership or non-membership in any labor union. In this connection respondent-points to section 14(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 164(b), which provides that ‘Nothing in this subchapter shall g be construed as authorizing the execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of 'employment in any State or Territory in which such execution or application is prohibited by State or Territorial law.’”
In discussing this contention the court said:
“Even if this provision is applicable here, and pretermitting the fact that the question is raised by an employer and not by an employee whose right to work would be affected, there is nothing in either of these provisions which relieves respondent of its duty to bargain with the duly accredited bargaining representative. These matters, if relevant at all, would pertain only to the kind of contract to be negotiated. It is the employer’s duty to negotiate in good faith, even though the parties are unable to agree on a contract, N. L. R. B. v. American Nat’l Ins. Co., 343 U.S. 395, 72 S.Ct. 824, 96 L.Ed. 1027; N. L. R. B. v. Mayer, 5 Cir., 196 F.2d 286.”
Thus the court reached the conclusion that although the union was demanding a union shop agreement contrary to the right to work provisions of the Florida Constitution the demand related only to the kind of contract to be negotiated and it was the duty of the employer to bargain despite the provisions of Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hart-ley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 164(b), and the National 'Labor Relations Board had the power to require the employer to bargain. By analogy it would seem that in the case before us that the demands for a union shop which was contrary to our state law *172does not- preclude the National Labor Relations • Board from acting under the Taft-Hartley Law.
61 U.S.Statutes, p. 151, Chapter 120, Section Í4(b), 29 U.S.C.A. § 164(b), does not afford an exception to the application of the Taft-Hartley Act so as to deprive the National Labor Relations Board of jurisdiction over the acts and conduct of the defendants here involved and thus permit a state court to exercise jurisdiction over and enjoin such acts and conduct.
The trial court felt that the conduct of the defendants warranted the granting of plaintiffs’, application for an injunction under the general police powers of the state. A similar question was considered in Allen-Bradley Local, etc. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 315 U.S. 740, 62 S.Ct. 820, 86 L.Ed. 1154. In that case a cease and desist order of the state board was upheld under the police power of the state and as not being repugnant to the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. The order was held to be within the proper exercise of the state’s police power to prevent mass picketing of the employer’s factory, threatening injury to employees or their property, obstructing or interfering with entrance to or egress from the factory, obstructing or interfering with the use of public streets, roads, and sidewalks, and picketing the domiciles of employees. In this case the only evidence of the conduct of the pickets other than maintaining a rotating picket line and carrying banners comes from the witness Cook, field construction engineer for Signal Oil and Gas Company, who stated that on the first two mornings and through the day there were men at the front gate with cameras around their necks who seemed to be taking pictures of cars and drivers coming through the gate and one or two other persons were taking down license plate numbers. The latter activity continued almost every day that the pickets were there. There appears to have been no acts or ■ threats of violence. There is no evidence that anyone was disturbed by this activity or deterred from the purposes in which they were engaged. -The facts 'here disclosed do not warrant the exercise of the police power of the state or justify its invocation by a state court as a ground for injunctive relief.
BURKE, C. J., concurs.