Denver Building and Construction Trades Council v. National Labor Relations Board

186 F.2d 326
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedDecember 11, 1950
Docket10271_1
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 186 F.2d 326 (Denver Building and Construction Trades Council v. National Labor Relations Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Denver Building and Construction Trades Council v. National Labor Relations Board, 186 F.2d 326 (D.C. Cir. 1950).

Opinions

FAHY, Circuit Judge.

The Denver Building and Construction Trades Council, referred to as the Council, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, A. F. L. Local 68, referred to as the I. B. E. W., and the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada, A. F. L. Local 3, petition this court to set aside an order of the National Labor Relations Board. The Board answers and requests enforcement of its order.

In essence the order requires petitioners to cease and desist from engaging in or inducing or encouraging the employees of a contractor, known as Doose & Lintner Construction Co., to engage in a strike with an object of forcing it “to cease doing business with” an electrical concern known as Gould & Preisner.

The contractor, Doose & Lintner, was constructing a commercial building on Bannock Street in Denver. Gould & Preisner were subcontractors for some electrical work and supplies. Their employees were non-union. All other employees on the job including those of other subcontractors as well as of the contractor, were members of craft unions affiliated with the petitioning Council. A representative of the I. B. E. W. complained to the electrical subcontractor about non-union men working on the job and reported to the business representative of the Council that the contractor was using the services of this subcontractor. The Council decided to place a picket stating that the Bannock Street job was unfair to the Council. After advising members of the contracting and of the electrical subcontracting firms that union men could not work on the job with nonunion men and if the subcontractor worked there the Council would have to picket the job as “unfair”, picketing in fact began [328]*328with a placard reading “This Job Unfair to Denver Building .and Construction Trades Council”. During the period of picketing, from January 9 through January 22, 1948, no union members worked on the project.

The Board held that petitioners had engaged in an unfair labor practice violative of § 8(b) (4) (A) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(b) (4) (A), the pertinent part of which, with its immediate context, is set forth in the margin.1

I. Jurisdiction

We consider first the question of the Board’s jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause, strongly contested by petitioners. The Board’s authority extends to unfair labor practices “affecting commerce”, that is, “in commerce, or burdening or obstructing commerce or the free flow of commerce”, 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(7). Commerce is defined as interstate and foreign commerce. Id. § 152(6).

The alleged unfair practice was not in commerce itself as defined in the Act. There is no evidence or definite finding of any interstate or foreign commerce at the Bannock Street location. The only interstate commerce involved even indirectly, so far as the evidence or findings enlighten us, is the annual purchase by the électrical subcontractor of approximately $56,000 of goods which move to its place of business in Denver from out of the State. As to the Bannock Street building itself the finding is that $348.55 of the 'subcontractor’s materials were used there prior to termination of its services as a result of the picketing and consequent strike; There is no evidence that any of this material actually came from without the State, but it was assumed by the Board that since 65% of all the purchases of .Gould & Preisner were so derived a like percentage of the materials used on the Bannock Street job had a like derivation. The report of the trial examiner, adopted in this respect by the Board, found that “any widespread application of such practices might well result in substantially decreasing the inflow of materials” from points outside Colorado; that “Gould & Preisner’s annual inflow of over $55,000 worth of materials is not negligible. Such an inflow is sufficient to1 establish the Board’s jurisdiction”.

We do not disturb the assertion of jurisdiction by the Board though the decision in this regard is a close one. The stated basis of jurisdiction would rest firmly enough upon the principles of decided cases under the Labor Act had the events in question occurred at the premises of Gould & Preisner. There the incoming interstate movement of goods would be obstructed or threatened with obstruction by the relationship of the forbidden practices to industrial strife. The holding in National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, 1939, 306 U.S. 601, 607, 307 U.S. 609, 59 S.Ct. 668, 672, 83 L.Ed. 1014, that “we can perceive no basis for inferring any intention of Congress to make the operation of the Act depend on any particular volume of commerce affected more than that to which courts would apply the maxim de minimis” is more than broad enough to bring within the coverage of the Act, so far as quantity is concerned, the interstate purchases of Gould & Preisner. The fact that their movement was from out of the State into Colorado, rather than, the reverse, would not change the result. The impact of industrial strife on interstate commerce at its destination, as well as at its origin, is sufficiently close to meet the requirements of the statute and the Commerce Clause. International [329]*329Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. N. L. R. B., 2 Cir., 1950, 181 F.2d 34. See, also, United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 1942, 315 U.S. 110, 121, 62 S.Ct. 523, 86 L.Ed. 726; United States v. Sullivan, 1948, 332 U.S. 689, 698, 68 S.Ct. 331, 92 L.Ed. 297 [regulation of branding of articles that have completed interstate shipment and are being held for local sale]; N. L. R. B. v. J. L. Hudson Co., 6 Cir., 1943, 135 F.2d 380, certiorari denied 320 U.S. 740, 64 S.Ct. 40, 88 L.Ed. 439; J. L. Brandeis & Sons v. N. L. R. B., 8 Cir., 1944, 142 F.2d 977, certiorari denied 323 U.S. 751, 65 S.Ct. 85, 89 L.Ed. 601; N. L. R. B. v. May Department Stores, 8 Cir., 1944, 146 F.2d 66, modified in other part 326 U.S. 376, 66 S.Ct. 203, 90 L.Ed. 145 [unfair labor practice in department store purchasing large amounts of stock in interstate commerce] ; N. L. R. B. v. Van De Kamp’s Holland Dutch Bakers, 9 Cir., 1946, 152 F.2d 818. Here, however, the immediate impact of the controversy was not the place of business of Gould & Preisner but the Bannock Street location. None of the cases heretofore decided by the Supreme Court under the Labor Act presents a similar jurisdictional situation. In each, as illustrated by the Fainblatt casé, the unfair labor practice occurred at a place of business where interstate commerce was engaged in though the effect of the forbidden practice was felt first on a local activity such as production or manufacturing. In some of the recent cases decided by the courts of appeals involving the building construction business the impact has also been immediate in point of location. Thus in International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. N. L. R. B., 2 Cir., 1950, 181 F.2d 34

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186 F.2d 326, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/denver-building-and-construction-trades-council-v-national-labor-relations-cadc-1950.