Standard Oil Co. v. Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union

144 N.E.2d 517, 76 Ohio Law. Abs. 266, 40 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2445, 1957 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 305
CourtCuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
DecidedJuly 1, 1957
DocketNo. 697574
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 144 N.E.2d 517 (Standard Oil Co. v. Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Standard Oil Co. v. Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union, 144 N.E.2d 517, 76 Ohio Law. Abs. 266, 40 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2445, 1957 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 305 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1957).

Opinion

OPINION

By THOMAS, J.:

This may seem a little late in the day to open Court, but I am [267]*267prepared now to render the decision on the case that has been on trial this past week.

Plaintiff, Standard Oil Company of Ohio seeks a permanent injunction against certain concerted activities of the Defendants, Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union, its Local Union 11-395 and certain individual members and representatives of said Union, which concerted activities have been carried on and undoubtedly will be carried on unless permanently enjoined. This activity is in furtherance of the present strike of the Company’s refinery workers, the strike being primarily one to secure retroactivity of an agreed wage increase.

Specifically, the Company requests a permanent injunction prohibiting picketing or any other concerted activity directed at the employees of the Company’s distribution centers who are members of the Independent Petroleum Workers, Inc., and which activity the Company says is inducing the breach of a collective bargaining agreement presently existing between the Independnt Petroleum Workers, Inc., and the Company, and which agreement, among other provisions, contains a no-interruption and no-stoppage-of-work clause.

The Defendants, by their answer and by the positions taken during the trial of this case, oppose the injunction on two main counts.

First, the Defendants urge that since the business of the Company is interstate in character, this Court is without jurisdiction to issue an order in this case because of the claimed pre-empting and exclusive effect of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act.

Second, the Defendants urge that even if this Court should hold it has jurisdiction to act, no injunction should be issued in any event against peaceful picketing and concerted activities carried on at the Company’s distribution centers. And, further, they deny that such picketing if carried on will necessarily induce a breach of the agreement between the I. P. W. Incorporated and the Company.

The significant facts of this controversy are undisputed.

(1) It is admitted that beginning June 7th, the first day of the strike, the East 49th Street Distribution Center, operated by the Company, was picketed by members of Local 11-395 at the direction of the International and Local Unions at, geographically speaking, the intersection of East 49th Street and the separate entrance driveway and the separate exit driveway which leads west from East 49th Street into this very large bulk and distribution center, known as the Sohio Distribution Center, and located at 4800 East 49th Street.

(2) This picketing was carried on between June 7th and June 12th by a varying number of pickets. According to the photographs introduced in evidence and according to the testimony, these pickets have varied in number from, perhaps, four to six to ten to twenty and on the morning of the 12th, the undisputed testimony of one witness was that the number reached a figure of 50 to 75.

(3) It is established in the evidence that at no time was there any physical abuse or were the truck drivers physically affected by the picketing. In terms of personal violence, this record is entirely and completely devoid of any showing of any such violence.

[268]*268(4) It is established that as the tank trucks either approached the exit to go out onto 49th Street or approached the entrance to return into the Sohio Distribution Center, pickets either by what they said to the drivers or in some instances by walking in front of the trucks, would cause or get the trucks to stop. And following the stoppage of these trucks there would be conversations between the pickets and the drivers. On various occasions the old word “scab” was used over and over again as well as certain other epithets which are, perhaps unfortunately, part of the parlance of the picket line.

There were certain individual cases which do not certainly figure in my decision. There were some claimed individual threats made, but I don’t find that those constituted any planned or designed acts on the part of the Defendants.

(5) Coming now then to the fifth finding of fact. On the 7th and 8th of June a number of the drivers refused to cross the picket lines with their trucks. On Monday, the 10th of June, a larger number of drivers ceased operating and finally things ground to a stop on the 11th and nothing moved at all. Likewise on the 12th.

(6) During the morning of the 12th Judge Charles W. White, of this Court, granted the Company’s request for a temporary restraining order. The Defendants were served by about noon or soon thereafter on the 12th with a temporary restraining order.

(7) Evidence shows that this restraining order was immediately explained to the truck drivers, and that by 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon, when the picketing ceased, the trucks started to roll again.

(8) The eighth finding of fact is that operations continued at full tilt until about 5:45 in the afternoon, when the pickets reappeared. Again the drivers refused to cross the picket line until the picketing ceased.

That evening, the 12th, or the next morning of the 13th, it is not exactly clear in my mind from the evidence, which is true, but by the morning of the 13th picketing stopped completely, has not been resumed, and ever since the operations of the Sohio Distribution Centers have been continued at full production.

(9) The ninth finding of fact. On March 18, 1957, a collective bargaining agreement was signed by the Company and the Independent Petroleum Workers, Inc. This was for one year, beginning March 18, 1957. The recognition clause of that contract provides, and this is Section 2:

“The Union having been certified by the National Labor Relations Board pursuant to an election conducted on July 15, 1946,” and then the representation case number is given, “and pursuant to an election conducted on April 5, 1955, the Company recognizes the Union as the sole and exclusive collective bargaining representative for all maintenance and operations employees of the Cleveland Sales Division, including drivers, bulk station agents, except the agent at Noble Bulk Station, loaders, warehousemen, garage men, watchmen, recappers and maintenance employees, including burner service * * And then the section continues to describe the units covered by the recognition section.

[269]*269So clearly it has been established in the evidence that this Union was and is the bona fide bargaining representative of the employees of the Sohio Distribution Centers and other centers.

That same contract contains a clause, Section 12, which reads as follows:

“Strikes and lock-outs.”
“(a) During the life of this Agreement there shall be no interruptions or stoppages of work by the Union through strikes, slow-downs, sit-downs or otherwise and there shall be no lock-outs by the Company.”
“(b) Any employees found by the Company to have violated (a) shall be subject to discharge, provided, however, he shall have the right of recourse under the grievance procedure hereinbefore set out.”

(10) On the average about 50 Sohio tank trucks driven by 180 drivers, work in and out of the Sohio Distribution Center during the course of a day.

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Bluebook (online)
144 N.E.2d 517, 76 Ohio Law. Abs. 266, 40 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2445, 1957 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 305, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/standard-oil-co-v-oil-chemical-atomic-workers-international-union-ohctcomplcuyaho-1957.