National Labor Relations Board v. Triumph Curing Center and M. F. Lee D/B/A Lee's Sewing Company, Inc.

571 F.2d 462, 98 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2047, 1978 U.S. App. LEXIS 12360
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMarch 2, 1978
Docket76-2884
StatusPublished
Cited by49 cases

This text of 571 F.2d 462 (National Labor Relations Board v. Triumph Curing Center and M. F. Lee D/B/A Lee's Sewing Company, Inc.) 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. Triumph Curing Center and M. F. Lee D/B/A Lee's Sewing Company, Inc., 571 F.2d 462, 98 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2047, 1978 U.S. App. LEXIS 12360 (9th Cir. 1978).

Opinions

JAMESON, District Judge:

This case is before the court upon the petition of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), pursuant to Section 10(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), for enforcement of its order issued on January 29, 1976, against respondents Triumph Curing Center, Inc. (Triumph) and M. R. Lee, doing business as Lee’s Sewing Company (Lee). The Board found that the respondents had engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act and ordered the companies to recognize and bargain with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (Union) as the authorized representative of the pressing employees working at Lee’s plant at 1875 Mission Street, San Francisco.1 The Board’s decision and order is reported at 222 NLRB No. 103.

In its decision and order the Board adopted the findings, conclusions and recommended order of the administrative law judge who presided over a fourteen day hearing held during March and April, 1975. The judge had concluded, inter alia, that (1) Triumph and Lee were an integrated enterprise and joint employer; (2) respondents violated Section 8(a)(1) of the Act by soliciting employees to withdraw from the Union, by offering Triumph employees jobs at Lee if they resigned from the Union, and by assisting employees in procuring their withdrawal from the Union; and (3) respondents violated Sections 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act by engaging in sham bargaining at the premises of Triumph, by deviously transferring Triumph’s operations at Lee, and by [466]*466denying the Union recognition at Lee after Triumph closed. The Board found also that Triumph employees who engaged in a strike were unfair labor practice strikers and that their misconduct did not require denial of a bargaining order.

We find substantial evidence in the record as a whole to support the Board’s findings and conclude that its order must be enforced.

Factual Background

Floyd Andrews is a general contractor in the garment industry in San Francisco. He contracts with manufacturers, which design and market garments, to manufacture their products for them. In turn Andrews arranges with subcontractors to cut, sew, and press the garments.

Until Triumph closed its operations in May, 1974 it was a subcontractor engaged solely in the pressing of new clothing. It was owned by Andrews and his wife. Lee is a subcontractor engaged in cutting, sewing and pressing clothing. Before Triumph closed, Lee was engaged chiefly in sewing. Although Lee is ostensibly a sole proprietorship owned by Marian Lee, as set out below, its operations at 1875 Mission are controlled by Andrews.

Triumph recognized the Union without an election in 1965. They were parties to several collective bargaining agreements, the most recent of which ran from September 1, 1970 to September 1, 1973. In May, 1973, a Union representative, Mattie Jackson, gave Triumph notice that the Union did not want to renew the existing agreement and desired to renegotiate it. Negotiations were delayed while she was engaged in bargaining with another company.

The parties first met on November 13, 1973. Prior to that bargaining session Andrews met with his negotiator, Charles Horn, to review the existing agreement. Andrews was concerned that certain clauses could jeopardize Triumph’s business. He feared that the Union would use those clauses to organize his non-union customers and instructed Horn to eliminate the clauses from the new agreement.

After the initial meeting, Jackson encountered difficulties in arranging the second. Andrews said that January would be the earliest time possible. Jackson then proposed December 13, but received no response. As a result, the Union filed an unfair labor practice charge. The charge was subsequently withdrawn after bargaining resumed.

Between January 15 and May 8,1974, the parties held numerous bargaining sessions, but were unable to reach an agreement, despite the intervention of federal mediators. In particular, they could not agree on the contract clauses which Triumph sought to delete because of its fear that the Union might use “these clauses to organize the non-union customers of Triumph”.

On March 29, the employees of Triumph went on strike to protest the company’s conduct at the bargaining table. The strike persisted throughout April while the parties continued to negotiate. On April 29, Horn told Jackson that Triumph’s future looked “bright”. On May 2, he told Jackson that Triumph was considering closing. On May 8, Triumph closed down all operations. Lee opened a pressing operation at its plant at 1875 Mission, and the strikers moved the picket line there. The picket line continued for over a year, although on October 8, 1974, Jackson sent Andrews a letter notifying him that the strike had officially terminated and conveying the offer of all the striking employees to return to work. ■ ■

Issues Presented

1. Whether substantial evidence on the record as a whole supports the Board’s finding that Triumph and Lee are a joint employer and single integrated enterprise.

2. Whether substantial evidence on the record as a whole supports the Board’s findings that respondents violated Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act.

3. Whether the Board properly concluded that strike and picket line misconduct by [467]*467certain Union organizers did not require denial of a bargaining order.2

I.

The Joint Employer Issue

The propriety of the Board’s findings of unfair labor practices turns upon the threshold question of whether Triumph and Lee were a joint employer and integrated enterprise. Cf. Darlington Manufacturing Co. v. NLRB, 397 F.2d 760, 763 (4 Cir. 1968), cert. denied 393 U.S. 1023, 89 S.Ct. 632, 21 L.Ed.2d 567 (1969). Respondents contend that inasmuch as Triumph and Lee were under separate ownership, operated at separate locations, and had separate payrolls, employees, and working conditions, they were separate business entities. They rely upon Milo Express Inc., 212 NLRB 313 (1974) to support their position.

In Milo Express, the Board found that two trucking companies owned by the same persons were not an integrated enterprise. Respondents argue that because they were not commonly owned this case is even stronger against a finding of an integrated business. In Milo Express, however, except for common ownership, the two trucking companies had no operational relationship. One company operated intrastate, the other interstate. They had separate equipment, management, payrolls and bookkeepers. With limited exceptions, the two companies operated independently, without any intracompany dealings.

In contrast, Triumph and Lee were highly interdependent operations, supervised by Andrews, as integral parts of his garment production operations. Nearly all of Lee’s cutting and sewing work at 1875 Mission Street was obtained by Andrews and all of the garments sewn by Lee were pressed by Triumph. The sewn, but unpressed, garments were transported to Triumph in Lee’s trucks and then, after pressing, delivered to the marketing company the same way.

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571 F.2d 462, 98 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2047, 1978 U.S. App. LEXIS 12360, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-triumph-curing-center-and-m-f-lee-dba-ca9-1978.