Employing Lithographers of Greater Miami v. National Labor Relations Board

301 F.2d 20
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMarch 29, 1962
DocketNos. 18988, 18858
StatusPublished

This text of 301 F.2d 20 (Employing Lithographers of Greater Miami v. National Labor Relations Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Employing Lithographers of Greater Miami v. National Labor Relations Board, 301 F.2d 20 (5th Cir. 1962).

Opinion

GRIFFIN B. BELL, Circuit Judge.

These cases are before the Court upon the petition of the Employing Lithographers of Greater Miami, Florida, an association of several Employers herein called Employer, to review and modify an order of the National Labor Relations Board, and upon the petition of the Board for enforcement of its order against Amalgamated Lithographers of [23]*23America, and Local 78, Amalgamated Lithographers of America, herein called the Union. We allowed the Union to intervene in case No. 18,858, and upon motion consolidated the cases.1

The Board found that the Union violated Sections 8(b) (3) and 8(b) (4) (i) and (ii) (A) 2 of the Act by inducing the employees here involved to engage first in a refusal to work overtime, and later in a full strike with the objective of forcing the inclusion in their contract with the Employer of “Trade Shop” and “Refusal to Handle” clauses proscribed by Section 8(e) of the Act, as amended, despite the proposed “Separability” clause. The Board found the “Struck Work”, “Chain Shop” and “Right to Terminate” clauses which the Union sought to include to be lawful. The Employer contends that the latter clauses are within the proscription of the Act while the Union asserts that none of the clauses in question are proscribed, and in the alternative, if proscribed, then Section 8(e) 3 of the Act is unconstitutional.

All facts are stipulated. The Union entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the Employer under date of September 1, 1957 to expire on February 29, 1960. On December 29, 1959 the Union notified the employer of its desire to terminate the agreement on [24]*24the termination date and to meet for the purpose of negotiating a new contract. Between January 20, 1960 and April 22, 1960 representatives of the Union and Employer met eighteen times in negotiating sessions.4

Shortly after negotiations began the Union demanded the inclusion in the contract of the six clauses which are the subject matter of this appeal. Beginning on March 2 the Union induced the employees to engage in a refusal to work overtime notwithstanding the requirement of the employer. On several occasions the employer requested the Union to lift the overtime ban, but to no avail. The Union then caused the refusal to work overtime to be converted into a full strike by inducing the employees to walk out and refuse to perform any services, and several days later set up picket lines at the struck establishments. It was stipulated that an object of the refusal to work overtime and the strike was to require the Employer to enter into contracts containing the six disputed clauses. After issuance of the complaint herein, the Regional Director sought injunctive relief against the Union under Section 10(l) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(l), and the Union entered into a stipulation, approved by the District Court, withdrawing the disputed contract demands for so long as the stipulation remained in effect and unmodified by the court. All parties waived hearing before a Trial Examiner and agreed that the Board might make findings of fact and conclusions of law on the basis of the allegations in the original complaint as admitted in the answer, the allegations in the first and second amendments to the complaint to which no answers were filed, and the stipulated facts.

Before reaching the question of the legality of these clauses, we consider the assertion of the Union that Section 8(e) is unconstitutional in any event and therefore the order of the Board cannot stand.5

Section 8(e) contains two exemption-provisos, one exempting the construction industry from the application of the section alone, and the other exempting the apparel and clothing industry from the application of it and also Section 8(b) (4) (B). We put aside the exemption of the construction industry for it is conceded that special circumstances existed to support it and that there are-basic differences between the lithographic industry and the construction industry. Indeed, it was conceded that special circumstances existed to support the exemption of the apparel and clothing industry. The constitutional attack is based on the narrow ground that the garment industry and the lithographic industry have similarly integrated processes of production. Thus, it is urged, the lithographic industry should have been granted the same exemption, and Section 8(e) is therefore unconstitutional as a violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

The Union recognizes that it carries a heavy burden in bringing its attack under the due process provision of the Fifth Amendment. Unlike the Fourteenth Amendment it contains no equal protection clause. Currin v. Wallace, 1938, 306 U.S. 1, 59 S.Ct. 379, 83 L.Ed. 441; Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 1937, 301 U.S. 548, 57 S.Ct. 883, 81 L.Ed. 1279. 'Of course, it does restrain such gross discriminatory legislation as amounts to- a denial of due process. Hirabayashi v. United States, 1943, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774; and Bolling v. Sharpe, 1954, 347 U.S. 497, 74 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed. 884. This question before [25]*25us then is whether the exemption of the •garment and apparel industry is so grossly discriminatory or arbitrary as to be violative of due process when related to the lithographic workers.

In Hirabayashi, involving a curfew imposed during World War II alone on •citizens of Japanese ancestry, the court, citing Keokee Consol. Coke Co. v. Taylor, 1913, 234 U.S. 224, 34 S.Ct. 856, 58 L.Ed. 1288, stated that Congress may hit at a particular danger where it is seen, without providing for situations which are not so evident or urgent.

In Keokee, a Virginia statute forbidding payment to workers by certain classes of employers by any order unless redeemable for its face value in lawful money of the United States was upheld. Mr. Justice Holmes speaking for a unanimous court said:

“It is more pressed that the act discriminates unconstitutionally against certain classes. But while there are differences of opinion as to the degree and kind of discrimination permitted by the 14th Amendment, it is established by repeated decisions that a statute aimed .at what is deemed an evil, and hitting it presumably where experience shows it to be most felt, is not to be upset by thinking up and enumerating other instances to which it might have been applied equally well, so far as the court can see. That is for the legislature to judge unless the case is very clear.” (p. 227, 34 S.Ct. p. 857)

In National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 1937, 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893, the court reiterated the familiar rule that the cardinal principle of statutory construction is to save and not to destroy and that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the •other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.

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Related

Gibbons v. Ogden
22 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court, 1824)
Keokee Consolidated Coke Co. v. Taylor
234 U.S. 224 (Supreme Court, 1914)
Sonzinsky v. United States
300 U.S. 506 (Supreme Court, 1937)
Steward MacHine Co. v. Davis
301 U.S. 548 (Supreme Court, 1937)
Currin v. Wallace
306 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court, 1939)
Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins
310 U.S. 381 (Supreme Court, 1940)
Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader
310 U.S. 469 (Supreme Court, 1940)
Detroit Bank v. United States
317 U.S. 329 (Supreme Court, 1943)
Hirabayashi v. United States
320 U.S. 81 (Supreme Court, 1943)
Bolling v. Sharpe
347 U.S. 497 (Supreme Court, 1954)
National Labor Relations Board v. Harris
200 F.2d 656 (Fifth Circuit, 1953)

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Bluebook (online)
301 F.2d 20, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/employing-lithographers-of-greater-miami-v-national-labor-relations-board-ca5-1962.