Warehousemen's Union, Local 117 v. National Labor Relations Board

121 F.2d 84, 74 App. D.C. 28, 8 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 949, 1941 U.S. App. LEXIS 4575
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedMay 5, 1941
Docket7650, 7671
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 121 F.2d 84 (Warehousemen's Union, Local 117 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
Warehousemen's Union, Local 117 v. National Labor Relations Board, 121 F.2d 84, 74 App. D.C. 28, 8 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 949, 1941 U.S. App. LEXIS 4575 (D.C. Cir. 1941).

Opinions

RUTLEDGE, Associate Justice.

The parties seek respectively to set aside and to secure enforcement of the Board’s order directing McKesson & Robbins, Inc. (McKesson),1 to desist from unfair labor practices. These consisted in giving effect to a closed-shop agreement, the validity of which is in question. That depends, in turn, upon the effect to he given to a so-called truce agreement, made five months previously in settlement of a controversy between two unions.

The controversy began late in 1936 as a jurisdictional dispute over membership between unions affiliated with the A. F. [86]*86of L., Teamsters2 and Longshoremen.3 It closed the employer’s plants from early January, 1937, untií June 14 following. At that time they reopened under the truce agreement which was reached at the instance of a citizens’ committee. Shortly, the agreement provided that the men would return to work retaining their then existing union affiliations, and that the dispute would be submitted for settlement to the annual convention of the A. F. of L., to be held in the following October. Both unions agreed to be bound by the convention’s decision. When the agreement was made both organizations were affiliated with the A. F. of L., but in August, 1937, pursuant to a referendum previously taken, the Longshoremen withdrew from the A. F. of L.4 and affiliated with the C. I. O. In September Longshoremen notified the employer that they represented a majority of the employees affected and wished to enter into bargaining negotiations. In October the A. F. of L. convention decided the dispute in favor of Teamsters. Shortly thereafter the employees were notified concerning the decision and informed that they would be expected to comply with it. Late in October Longshoremen filed with the Board a petition stating it had been selected as the collective bargaining representative of a majority of the employees in the two plants involved and asking the Board to certify it as their exclusive representative. On November 15, 1937, McKesson executed the closed-shop contract with Teamr sters and put it into effect immediately. It appears to have regarded itself as obligated to take this action by the terms of the truce agreement. Employees who refused to transfer their union affiliations to Teamsters were discharged. One of the plants was closed as a result of picketing by Teamsters in an effort to enforce the closed-shop agreement. Some of its employees who transferred to Teamsters were given employment at the other plant. Employees who refused to transfer were denied such employment. On November 23, the C. I. O. local filed charges of unfair labor practices against McKesson, upon which the Board issued its complaint in July, 1938, and held hearings before a trial examiner in the following September.

In February, 1938, the Board ordered and held an election in the representation proceeding to determine whether Teamsters or the Longshoremen represented a majority of the employees. Only employees who were on the payroll in the week of October 28, 1937, prior to the closed-shop contract, were made eligible to vote. The election resulted in favor of Teamsters by a vote of 32 to 27. The Board took no action upon the regional director’s recommendation that Teamsters be certified as exclusive bargaining agent, withholding this pending the outcome of the unfair practice proceeding. This resulted in the decision and order in question here; made in January, 1940.

In brief, the Board found that on November 15, 1937, when the closed-shop contract was made, Teamsters did not represent a majority of the employees. Therefore the contract was invalid and the action taken by the company to give it effect constituted unfair labor practices. It held that the truce agreement was ineffective to create and maintain until November 15 the majority representation which the statute 149 Stat. 452, 29 U.S.C.(Supp. V) § 158 (3), 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(3)] requires to validate a closed-shop contract, and it declined to certify Teamsters as bargaining agent on the strength of the election held in the previous February.

It may be added that the employer is a Maryland corporation, having a large number of wholesale houses in different states, [87]*87each, of which is a division having its own warehouse. Two Seattle plants are involved in this case, McKesson-Stewart and McKesson-Blumauer. The company purchased the latter October 1, 1937, and operated it until November 16 following, when it was closed following the' putting into effect of the closed-shop contract. Thereafter it conducted its combined Seattle business through the McKesson-Stewart plant, under the name of McKesson & Robbins, Inc., Stewart Holmes and Blumauer Frank Division. The truce agreement applied also to other companies affected by the same controversy between the unions, and McKesson entered into closed-shop contracts with A. F. of L. affiliates with reference to other plants not affected by the truce agreement at about the same time it made the contract with Teamsters involved here.

It is but fair to say that until August, 1937, McKesson stood in the cross fire of battle between contending unions, victim of the struggle rather than combatant. As far as the record shows, it maintained a hands-off policy as long as the fight was confined to the ranks of the A. F. of L., both in the Seattle plants and elsewhere. But late in July, 1937, the Longshoremen’s referendum resulted in favor of withdrawing from the A. F. of L. and joining the C. I. O. Almost immediately, in August, McKesson made a general working agreement with the A. F. of L., applicable in its plants throughout the country wherever it could be put into effect without violating the law. It provided for recognition of A. F. of L. affiliates as bargaining representatives and for closed-shop agreements with them wherever they might have a majority of the company’s employees. But there was no similar agreement with the C. I. O. applicable in circumstances where its affiliates might have majorities. This, combined with the fact that the agreement with A. F. of L. came so quickly after the Longshoremen’s referendum, might be taken to indicate the company’s preference as between the two organizations. However this may be, the validity of the closed-shop contract depended not upon the delicacy or even the danger of the company’s position nor upon the risks which it ran in signing or refusing to sign it, but upon the existence of the conditions prescribed by the statute for giving such an agreement effect.

The underlying issue is whether the closed-shop contract of November 15, 1937, was valid. The unfair practices which the Board found the company had committed consisted in acts by which the contract was put into effect. If the contract stands, these acts were legal. If it falls, they fall with it — outside the law. Whether the contract was valid depends in turn upon whether the circumstances of its execution complied with the conditions prescribed in Section 8(3) of the Wagner Act.5 They are that the labor organization with which the agreement is made shall be one which is (1) “not established, maintained, or assisted” by any unfair labor practice; and (2) is the representative of a majority of the employees in the appropriate unit covered by the agreement “when made” International Ass’n of Machinists v. N. L. R. B., 1940, 311 U.S. 72, 61 S.Ct. 83, 85 L. Ed. 50, affirming 1939, 71 App.D.C.

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Bluebook (online)
121 F.2d 84, 74 App. D.C. 28, 8 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 949, 1941 U.S. App. LEXIS 4575, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/warehousemens-union-local-117-v-national-labor-relations-board-cadc-1941.