National Labor Relations Board v. Mason Mfg. Co.

126 F.2d 810, 10 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 469, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4262
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 13, 1942
DocketNo. 9718
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 126 F.2d 810 (National Labor Relations Board v. Mason Mfg. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Labor Relations Board v. Mason Mfg. Co., 126 F.2d 810, 10 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 469, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4262 (9th Cir. 1942).

Opinion

DENMAN, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board seeks our decree confirming its findings that respondent, Mason Manufacturing Company, had committed an unfair labor practice within Section 8(1) and 8(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S. C.A. § 158(1, 3), in discharging, on or about March 30, 1938, a number of its employee upholsterers formerly members of Upholsterers, Furniture, Carpet, Linoleum & Awning Workers’ International Union of North America, Local No. 15, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and discouraging their membership in active labor organizations, including United Furniture Workers of America, Local No. 576, affiliated with the Committee for Industrial Organization, (now Congress of Industrial Organization,) and its orders that the respondent shall cease and desist from such and all other unfair labor practices and shall restore the discharged men to its employ with back pay. The facts support the Board’s jurisdiction, which is not questioned.

Respondent admits that it discharged the upholsterers in its employ because they were not members of A. F. of L. Local 15. It does not contend that, in the ab-sen.ce of any other facts, this discharge would not constitute an unfair labor practice within the provisions of section 8(1) and 8(3) of the National Labor Relations Act. It contends and claims it has established the existence of a valid closed shop agreement with Local 15, made in October 1937, for the period of a year from October 1, 1937, whereby it was required under the provision of section 8(3) as a condition of employment of its upholsterers that they should be members of that Local. The existence of such a closed shop contract is the sole question of fact necessary for the disposition of the Board’s petition.

In the proceeding below and in the argument here, it seems to have been assumed by both the Board and the respondent that a laborer who has membership in any labor organization, thereby designates or selects that union as his bargaining agent, and that any labor organization having in its membership a majority in a proper bargaining unit of the bargaining employer, such as the upholsterers employed by the respondent, may make a closed shop agreement with its employer. It is apparent from the words of the National Labor Relations Act that Congress did not so intend.

Section 8(3)1 of the act providing for a closed shop does not provide that any labor organization having a majority of the employees may make such an agreement. It must be a “labor organization” which is “the representative of the employees as provided by section 9(a) [159(a) of this title]”.2 Section 9(a) makes the representatives for collective bargaining only those “designated or selected” by “the majority of the employees” for that purpose.

[813]*813If the plain words of the section did not require it, a consideration of the many different obj ectives for which laborers may self organize necessitates such a construction of the two provisions. Laborers may organize for nothing more than to present grievances or to bargain for better wages or for a particular working condition, or for mutual benefits, insurance or the like.

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126 F.2d 810, 10 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 469, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4262, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-mason-mfg-co-ca9-1942.