International Brotherhood of Teamsters, etc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 3, 1960

126 N.L.R.B. 411 (N.L.R.B. 1960)

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, ETC 411
Storekeeper The storekeeper maintains the storeroom in the en-
gineering department and is responsible for receiving, storing, issuing,
and maintaining records of all materials used in the department
Approximately 40 percent of his working time is devoted to making
and maintaining records We find that the storekeeper is a plant
clerical employee and, therefore, excluded from the unit 9
On the basis of the foregoing, and upon the entire record in the
case, we find that a unit of all technicians and model shop employees
of the ` engineering department of the Employer's Vandaha, Ohio,
plant, but excluding all production and maintenance employees, pro-
fessional employees, plant and office clerical employees, guards, and
supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b)
of the Act
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication ]
9 Barrett Division, AUsed Chemseal & Dye Corp , 116 NLRB 1645, 1651
International Brotherhood of Teamsters , Chauffeurs, Ware-
housemen and Helpers , Local Union No. 71 and General
Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers, Local Union No. 509,
International Brotherhood of Teamsters , Chauffeurs, Ware-
housemen and Helpers of America and The New Dixie Lines,
Inc: Case No 11-CC 17. February 3, 1960
DECISION AND ORDER
On November 3, 1959, Trial Examiner A Norman Somers issued
his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding
that the Respondents had engaged in and were engaging in certain
unfair labor practices and recommending that they cease and desist
therefrom and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy
of the Intermediate Report attached hereto Thereafter, the Charging
Party filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and the Respond-
ents filed a reply to the exceptions
The Board 2 has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made
at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed
The rulings are hereby affirmed The Board has considered the In-
termediate Report, the exceptions, the reply, and the entire record
3 The New Dixie Lines, Inc , and Jocie Motor Lines , Inc, a wholly owned and controlled
subsidiary , are operated as a single employer and are commonly identified by the com-
posite name Jocie New Dixie
2Pursuant to Section 3(b) of the Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection
with this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Leedom and Members Bean and
Jenkinsl
1,26 NLRB No 54
412 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
in the case, and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recom-
mendations of the Trial Examiner.3
ORDER
Upon the entire record in this case, and pursuant to Section 10(c)
of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor
Relations Board hereby orders that the Respondent Unions, their
officers, representatives, and agents, shall :
1. Cease and desist from engaging in or inducing and encouraging
employees of employers other than The New Dixie Lines, Inc., and/or
Jocie Motor Lines, Inc., to engage in strikes or concerted refusals in
the course of their employment to transport or otherwise handle goods
or to perform services, with an object of forcing or requiring such
other employers or any other persons to cease doing business with
The New Dixie Lines, Inc., and/or Jocie Motors Lines, Inc.
2. Take the following affirmative action which the Board finds will
effectuate the policies of the Act :
(a) Post at their business offices copies of the notice attached hereto
marked "Appendix." 4 Copies of said notice, to be furnished by the
Regional Director for the Eleventh Region, shall, after being duly
signed by authorized representatives of the Respondent Locals, be
posted by them for a period of 60 consecutive days thereafter, in
conspicuous places, including all places where notices to members are
customarily posted. Reasonable steps shall be taken by the Respond-
ent Locals to insure that said notices are not altered, defaced, or
covered by any other material.
(b) Mail to the Regional Director copies of the said notices for
posting by The New Dixie Lines, Inc., Jocie Motor Lines, Inc., and
by all employers in the area of Charlotte, North Carolina, whose
premises are visited in the normal course of business by trucks and
equipment of The New Dixie Lines, Inc., and Jocie Motor Lines, Inc.,
if those employers are willing, likewise for 60 days, in conspicuous
places, including all places where notices to employees are customarily
posted. Copies of said notice, to be furnished by the Regional Di-
rector, shall, after being duly signed by Respondents, be forthwith
returned to the Regional Director for such posting, subject to the
consent of said employers, as indicated.
(c) Notify the Regional Director for the Eleventh Region, in
writing, within (10) days from the date of this Order, what steps have
been taken to comply herewith.
8 There were no exceptions to the Trial Examiner ' s substantive findings of 8(b) (4) (A)
violations Contrary to the Charging Party 's exceptions , we find that the Order herein
adequately effectuates the policies of the Act.
4In the event that this Order is enforced by a decree of a United States Court of
Appeals, there shall be substituted for the words "Pursuant to a Decision and Order" the
words "Pursuant to a Decree of a United States Court of Appeals, Enforcing an Order."
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, ETC.
APPENDIX
413
NOTICE TO ALL OUR MEMBERS AND TO ALL EMPLOYEES OF EMPLOYERS
DOING BUSINESS WITH THE NEW DIXIE LINES, INC., AND/OR JOCIE
MOTOR LINES, INC.
Pursuant to a Decision and Order of the National Labor Relations
Board, and in order to effectuate the policies of the National Labor
Relations Act, we hereby notify you that :
WE WILL NOT engage in , or induce or encourage employees of
employers other than 'The New Dixie Lines, Inc., and/or Jocie
Motor Lines, Inc., to engage in strikes or concerted refusals in the
course of their employment to transport or otherwise handle
goods, or to perform services, with an object of forcing or requir-
ing such other employers or any other persons to cease doing
business with The New Dixie Lines, Inc., and/or Jocie Motor
Lines, Inc.
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAM-
STERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN
AND HELPERS , LOCAL UNION No. 71,
Labor Organization.
Dated---------------- By-------------------------------------
(Representative) (Title)
GENERAL DRIVERS, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELP-
ERS LOCAL UNION No. 509, INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS
WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA,
Labor Organization.
Dated---------------- By-------------------------------------
(Representative) (Title)
This notice must remain posted for 60 days from the date hereof,
and must not be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
INTERMEDIATE REPORT
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This case was heard before the duly designated Trial Examiner in Charlotte, North
Carolina, on October 6, 1959. The issue presented by the pleadings was whether
Respondent Unions engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section
8(b)(4)(A) of the Act The parties , all represented by counsel , waived oral argu-
ment, and the General Counsel has filed a brief . Upon the entire record ( as cor-
rected on notice to the parties ), and from my observation of the witnesses , I hereby
make the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. THE JURISDICTION OF THE BOARD
The New Dixie Lines , Inc., and Jocie Motor Lines, Inc, its wholly owned and
controlled subsidiary , operate, as a single integrated enterprise and as a single em-
414 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ployer, a motor freight carrier business . It has its main office in Richmond, Vir-
ginia, and terminal facilities in various cities, including Charleston , South Carolina,
and Charlotte , North Carolina , where it interlines freight with other interstate car-
riers. The annual revenue of the business is in excess of $50,000, and the Board's
jurisdiction over the proceeding is undisputed.
II. THE LABOR ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
The Respondents , Locals 509 and 71 of the International Brotherhood of Team-
sters, are labor organizations within .the meaning of the Act.
III. THE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES
The events , apart from the inferences warranted by them , are undisputed. In
large part they were stipulated , and in remaining part were established by un-
contradicted testimony.
In May 1959 , Local 509 called a strike among the truckdrivers of Jocie New Dixie
(the composite name by which the two companies are identified ) at Charleston,
South Carolina . On and after June 18, it placed pickets at Jocie New Dixie 's prem-
ises in Charleston and in Charlotte , North Carolina. At Charlotte, Local 509 had
the assistance of Local 71. No claim of illegality is made in respect to the picketing
at the premises or terminals of Jocie New Dixie. The subject of this proceeding is
the activity in support of the strike conducted by the Respondent Unions at the
premises of stranger employers in the general vicinity of Charlotte , who have busi-
ness dealings with Jocie New Dixie.
It is not disputed that the truckdrivers of Jocie New Dixie regularly report at
Jocie New Dixie's own terminal in Charlotte and that it is possible to establish and
Respondents did establish and conduct a picket line at the entrance to these prem-
ises, where they publicized the strike with Jocie New Dixie.
It is not disputed also that on and after June 18, 1959, and until an injunction is-
sued from a district court under Section 10(1) of the Act, members of Locals 509 and
71 did not confine their picketing to the plants or terminal facilities of Jocie New
Dixie, but picketed also at premises of other employers doing business with Jocie
New Dixie , where employees of employers other than Jocie New Dixie load freight
to be carried by Jocie New Dixie trucks , unload freight delivered by the latter, or
pick up or deliver freight handled by Jocie New Dixie. Since the character of the
activity at each of these premises is substantially the same, there is no need to detail
the separate incidents at the respective premises of these employers . It is sufficient to
note that the picketing at these premises took place when the trucks or equipment of
Jocie New Dixie appeared at the docks or the loading platforms of these companies
and continued for the duration of Jocie New Dixie's sojourn at those premises.'
The picketing was done on the curb at the approach to the premises and as near
thereto as it was possible to be without actually entering upon them.
It is not disputed that the signs carried at least this legend:
Jocie New Dixie Lines
ON STRIKE
Unfair to Teamsters Local 509
It is not disputed , also, that some of the signs had additionally written and others
printed on them "Local 71." Respondents dispute that the reference to Local 71
was inserted with the knowledge or authorization of any one in authority for Local
71. This phase of the case, whatever its bearing on the issues of in any private dis-
pute between the litigants in another forum, is not an issue in this proceeding. We
are concerned only with whether Respondent Unions extended the activity in sup-
port of a dispute with Jocie New Dixie, whether it be Local 509's dispute or that of
Locals 509 and 71, to a neutral domain in violation of Section 8(b) (4) (A) of the
Act Of course, if Local 71 authorized the insertion of its name on the signs, it
would be an evidentiary item showing that both locals engaged in the same type of
activity at the neutral premises . Tnat, however , is not disputed . Locals 71 and 509
1 The roster of companies where this occurred , include General Metal Service Co :
Clorox Chemical Co ; General Electric Co , Patent Scaffolding Co , Caroline Freight
Carrier , Lowe ' s Hardware Co ; Johnson Trucking , Reichold Chemicals Co ; Great Atlantic
and Pacific Tea Company ; Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co , and Southern Biscuit Company
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, ETC. 415
did engage in the same kind of activity on the neutral premises in support of the
dispute with Jocie New Dixie. It was fully admitted that the picketing activity car-
ried on near the premises of the neutrals was with the consent of Local 509. The
pro forma denial that Local 71 authorized such activity by its own members van-
ished in the face of the undisputed evidence that Local 71 did authorize it. In charge
of the picketing activity of members of Local 71 at these neutrals' premises were
J. C. Norwood and Jack Goodman. They were the acknowledged stewards of Local
71 at Jocie New Dixie in Charlotte. Local 71 suggested, a bit faintly, that the
stewardship of these persons terminated with Jocie New Dixie's election to declare
the contract terminated because of Local 71's strike activity in support of Local
509. On the other hand, Local 71 has stoutly asserted that the contract has continued
in effect, with the result that its own position estops it from asserting the termination
of the stewardship it established for Norwood and Goodman under the contract.
Independently of this, the record establishes that these two were exercising leader-
ship on the picket line, and that Norwood reimbursed members of Local 71 with the
latter's funds and with its authority, for working time lost in engaging in picketing
activity. Also, according to uncontradicted testimony, the president and the two
business agents of Local 71 entered and left the premises of Great Atlantic and
Pacific Tea Company, one of the stranger employers (supra, footnote 1), at a time
when members of Local 71 were displaying these picket signs at or near its premises.
The conceded picketing activity occurring at or about the premises of the
neutral employers in question falls within the language of the prohibition of
Section 8(b) (4) (A). It would seem too late in the day to argue that a sign such
as the one admittedly used here is not an inherent inducement and encouragement
to other employees to refrain from transporting or handling freight with which the
employer named on the picket sign is involved. Nor do I see any pertinency in
Respondents' explanation that the purpose of the picketing was to inform the
"public" of the dispute, with Jocie New Dixie. Such a point is meaningless in a
context in which the "public" to which these signs are addressed includes employees
on whose work depends the capacity of the neutral employers to use Jocie New
Dixie's services. I do not see that the sting is softened by the fact, which Respond-
ents seem to underscore, that the picketers were instructed not to talk to employees
of stranger employers or to solicit their assistance in honoring the picket lines.
Marion C. Whitehead, president of Local 509, described that instruction as one in
which the picketers were to "let the picket signs speak for themselves." It is too
well recognized to require documentation that a picket sign with the simple legend
"strike" or "unfair," speaks with an eloquence which requires no words from the
bearer of the sign. Such a sign carries with it by implication the message of soli-
darity evolved out of a long tradition in the labor movement. The ordinary worker
seeing the picket sign does not need to have spelled out for him the message to
desist from performing his regular services on goods or merchandise handled by
the employer named in the sign. The fact that the picket signs would thus have
made oral appeal superfluous does not mean that word of mouth appeals were
entirely excluded, as the contrary evidence recited below would indicate they
were not.2
Respondents thus do not raise even a colorable issue as to whether their activity,
in point of fact, fell within the plain language of the prohibition of Section
8(b)(4)(A). Their defense, in essence, is that the picketing at the neutrals' premi-
ses, confined as it was only to those occasions when the trucks and equipment of
Jocie New Dixie appeared there, was specially privileged, despite the language of
Section 8(b) (4) (A ), as an incidental phase of primary strike activity. This is
on the theory that the situs of the dispute with Jocie New Dixie was not only at the
' Union President Whitehead testified that the picketers could break their silence when
asked questions. According to the undisputed testimony of J. W. Barefoot, president of
Jocie New Dixie, truckers employed by various freight carriers, on seeing the picket sign
near the premises of Clorox Chemical Company, stopped, and after being spoken to by
Union Stewards Norwood and Goodman, and one L Y Kinley, a member of Local 71,
refrained from entering the premises At the premises of Lowe's Hardware, Homer
Bullock, one of Local 71's pickets, told George Sims, Jr, the shipping clerk in Lowe's
warehouse, that he could not unload merchandise from incoming trucks of Jocie New
Dixie, and that if he did, Lowe's premises would be picketed as long as the truck was
there
416 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
latter's premises but wherever its trucks and equipment made their appearance.
Such a defense was once available, with certain conditions, under the doctrine of
Moore Dry Dock Company, 92 NLRB 547, but it has in the past 6 years been dras-
tically limited. The "common situs" or "ambulatory situs" defense in respect to pick-
eting at neutral employers' premises is no longer available where, as here, the primary
employer has a fixed site or premises of its own, where it is possible to conduct
a picket line and effectively publicize the dispute. This limitation was laid down
in the Washington Coca Cola case,3 and has been followed and applied in an
unbroken line of cases involving, in largest part, some local of the International
with which the Respondents are affiliated.4
It is concluded that Respondents' conduct factually falls within the prohibitory
language of Section 8(b)(4),(A) and also comes within the scope of its legal pro-
hibition.5 It is accordingly found and concluded that on and after June 18, 1959,
Respondents, in violation of Section 8(b) (4)-(A) of the Act, induced and encouraged
employees of employers other than Jocie New Dixie to engage in a concerted
refusal, in the course of their employment, to transport or otherwise handle goods,
articles, materials, and commodities, and to perform services, with an object of
forcing or requiring such other employers, or other persons, to cease doing business
with Jocie New Dixie.
IV. THE REMEDY
It having found that Locals 509 and 71 engaged in violations of Section
8(a) (4) (A) of the Act, it will be recommended that they cease and desist there-
from and take certain affirmative action designed to effectuate the policies of the
Act. Since the recommendation will be to cease and desist from engaging in the
proscribed conduct with respect to the employees of any employer having dealings
with Jocie New Dixie, it will not be necessary to include specifically within the
notice or the recommended order the names of the stranger employers to whose
premises Respondents extended their conflict with Jocie New Dixie. The activity
in question was a pervasive one plainly beamed at all neutral premises in the Char-
lotte area, where Jocie New Dixie trucks or equipment appeared in the regular
course of business. It will accordingly be recommended that the customary notices
be posted, if those employers are willing, also at the premises of every employer in
the Charlotte area, where trucks and equipment of Jocie New Dixie appear in the
normal course and conduct of business.
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings, and upon the entire record, I make
the following:
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. By inducing and encouraging employees of employers other than The New
Dixie Lines, Inc., and Jocie Motor Lines, Inc., to engage in a concerted refusal in
the course of their employment to transport or otherwise handle goods and to
perform services, with an object of forcing or requiring such other employers, or
other persons, to cease doing business with The New Dixie Lines, Inc., and Jocie
Motor Lines, Inc., Respondents have engaged and are engaging in unfair labor prac-
tices within the meaning of Section 8(b) (4) (A) of the Act.
2. The said unfair labor practice affect commerce within the meaning of Section
2(6) and (7) of the Act
[Recommendations omitted from publication.]
3 Brewery d Beverage Drivers and Workers , Local No 67 , International Brotherhood
of Teamsters ( Washington Coca Cola Bottling Works, Inc), 107 NLRB 299, enforced
220 F 2d 380 (C A, D C )
4 E g . Southwestern Motor Transport, Inc , 115 NLRB 981, 983-984 , W H Arthur
Company , 115 NLRB 1137, 1138 ; Euclid Foods , Inc, 118 NLRB 130, 131, The Light Co ,
Inc, 121 NLRB 221, 227 ; K-C Refrigeration Transport Company, lite, 124 NLRB 124.5
5 Respondents also endeavored to raise the defense of immunity under a "hot cargo"
provision in its contract Asked how this squares with the Supreme Court's decisions
that this is no defense in a case such as this, where the appeal for strike support is not
confined to the stranger employer but is made directly to the employees ( Local 1976,
United Brotherhood of Carpenters , etc., AFL, at at. ( Sand Door d Plywood Co ), 357 U S
93), the explanation given was that Respondents "rely upon the possibility of reinter-
pretation " This logic , carried to its ultimate , is that even the plain command of a
statute can be disregarded by relying upon the possibility of a repeal of the statute