Court Opinion

ID: 9446785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:18:20.732616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:46.853381
License: Public Domain

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
William N. Bachman is now and continuously has been the acting head of *606the machine tool and die business which he started in 1927 and conducts in the three shops in St. Louis, which he acquired as the business expanded and now owns. He now has his two sons working with him and the business has been separated in form into two family-owned corporations referred to herein respectively as “Plastics” and “Bach-man”. Under the present form Plastics gives checks to Bachman and Bachman gives checks to Plastics for the amounts intended to be charged to the outside customers for products as they reach a certain stage and-are taken from one of the shops to the other, in the regular course of the business, and that procedure enables the lady in Mr. Bachman’s office, who keeps the books, to make the proper entries against those customers. There is no bargained buying and selling for profit between the two corporations.
Mr. Bachman owns dominant stock interests and occupies the position of President in both corporations and exercises actual control of their respective labor relations policies, the employees in Bach-man being skilled workmen and those in Plastics unskilled, belonging to different unions. The employees in the Plastics shop bargained with him concerning wages and working conditions in sessions contemplated by the federal act and, failing agreement, went on strike to put pressure on him to meet their demands, and then picketed in front of the Bach-man shop, where he had his office, to add to the pressure.
The sole issue in the case is whether or not that picketing violated Section 8 (b) (4) (A) of the Federal Act.
The Labor Board found that it did not violate the Act because there was a single management and control of labor relations policy at the shops and the interests against which the picketing was directed were in actuality not neutral or wholly disinterested in the labor dispute. The argument to the contrary is in essence that the form of separate corporations into which the business has been cast precludes basing decision on such considerations and compels a ruling that the Section prohibited the picketing at Bachman.
It seems to me that the Labor Board ruled properly within its competency as shown in its findings, decision and order.
After the active head man of the business had bargained in a labor dispute with the union representatives of the unskilled employees in many sessions and had rendered decision against their demands with such finality that they went on strike to coerce him, they cannot regard him as neutral or wholly disinterested in the labor dispute. If he had continued to carry on the business as an individual, as he had done since 1927, instead of in the corporate form that was adopted, there could have been no question of the right of the unskilled strikers to include this shop where he and his skilled men were at work as part of the same business as that in which the strikers were employed. His control of all their labor relations would have unified them in interest with him and there could have been no question of the right of the strikers to apply lawful pressure at the shop where he had his office.
It does not seem to me that the record shows any real change that is material here, occurred in the way the same machine tool and die business was carried on after the corporations were formed. Mr. Bachman continued to control all labor relations policies as before and those relations are what are involved here. The skilled men retaining their jobs are still allied with Mr. Bachman in economic interest. As Mr. Bachman testified concerning initial phases of the strike, the employees of the Bachman Corporation refused to work “just a few hours, until they learned the score, then they were back on the job.” Mr. Bachman is not resisting the strikers just for himself or for owners. He tries to keep the skilled and unskilled employees in cooperation and there the interest of the skilled employees comes ahead of owners in the sense that he must see to it that whether profit is left for owners or not the skilled employees who stay with him must get their full pay. He stands for *607their interest and they are allied (the same as the corporations) to resist the demands of the strikers upon the fruits of their common efforts.
The Labor Board does not rest its decision on “straight line operation” by, or “farmed out” work for, the struck employer, but I consider its decision justified by the common ownership and management of the business carried on in the three shops and Mr. Bachman’s control of the labor relations policy towards all the employees.
The fact is stressed that the two corporations make separate tax returns and doubtless other tax returns are made in respect to the three shop buildings, used in the business. But the Board’s concern is with the labor practices and relations. It cannot be bound by the adjustments that may satisfy revenue requirements.
The question in this case whether the relations of the unskilled workmen to Mr. Bachman, to the skilled workmen and to the corporations are such that the picketing in issue was directed against interests in fact allied in respect to the labor dispute against the strikers was properly for the Labor Board. The alternative procedure to have it determined in federal court injunction suits is inappropriate.