LOCAL 901, INTERNAT'L BRO. OF TEAMSTERS, ETC. v. Compton, 5771.

• Decision Date: 15 June 1961
• Docket Number: No. 5771.,5771.
• Parties: LOCAL 901, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, Respondent, Appellant, Raymond J. COMPTON, Regional Director, Etc., Petitioner, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

291 F.2d 793 (1961)

LOCAL 901, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, Respondent, Appellant,

Raymond J. COMPTON, Regional Director, Etc., Petitioner, Appellee.

No. 5771.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

June 15, 1961.

George L. Weasler, Santurce, P. R., for appellant.

Winthrop A. Johns, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Washington, D. C., with whom Stuart Rothman, Gen. Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Associate Gen. Counsel, and James T. Youngblood, Atty., Washington, D. C., were on brief, for appellee.

Before WOODBURY, Chief Judge, and MAGRUDER^* and HARTIGAN, Circuit Judges.

WOODBURY, Chief Judge.

Editorial El Imparcial, Inc., a Puerto Rican corporation, filed an amended charge with the appellee-Regional Director alleging that the appellant-Union had engaged in and was engaging in unfair labor practices in violation of the secondary boycott provisions embodied in § 8 (b) (4) (i) (ii) (B) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, as amended by § 704 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 542, 543, quoted in the margin.¹ The appellee-Director, after investigation concluded that there was reasonable cause to believe that the appellant-Union had engaged in the unfair labor practices alleged in the amended charge and that a complaint should issue. He therefore, on behalf of the Board, filed a petition in the court below under § 10(l) of the Act asking for injunctive relief pending the final adjudication of the matter by the Board. The appellant-Union answered with a general denial and affirmative defenses, and after hearing the court below made findings of fact on the basis of which it entered the order granting injunctive relief from which the Union has taken this appeal.

The facts are as follows. Editorial El Imparcial, Inc., has for many years been engaged in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the business of publishing a Spanish language daily newspaper called "El Imparcial." Its offices and plant are located in a building owned and operated by another corporation in which in October, 1959, Star Publishing Company, Inc., a Puerto Rican corporation, leased space for use in publishing a daily English language newspaper called "The San Juan Star." Just prior to commencing publication in November, 1959, Star entered into a one-year contract with El Imparcial under which El Imparcial agreed to print the "San Juan Star" on its presses from mats supplied by Star. Under this contract Star set the type for its newspaper in its own composing room, did its own engraving and prepared its own mats which it took down to El Imparcial's press room. At that point El Imparcial employees took over, cast the plates, put them in the presses and ran off the paper on Star's newsprint. Star employees received the printed papers in El Imparcial's mail room where they were bundled partly by Star's men for distribution by Star employees.² Aside from the printing contract there was no relationship whatever between Star and El Imparcial. Both newspapers subscribe to national news services, advertise products imported into Puerto Rico for sale and annually receive substantial amounts of goods and materials, obviously including their newsprint, from outside Puerto Rico.

In consequence of a labor dispute El Imparcial's employees went on strike on May 26, 1960, and picketed the building in which both it and Star had their offices and the former had its printing plant. From the outset there was violence on the picket line and on May 30 Star's 124 employees refused to cross the picket line to report for work for fear of personal injury. Negotiations between Star's president and publisher and lower union officials having come to naught, Star's president met by appointment with one Chavez, the Union's regional organizer. At this meeting Chavez said his Union had "nothing against" Star and that the pickets were not stopping Star employees from entering the building and asked what he was expected to do. Star's president said that he wanted the Union to assure his men that they would not be molested and that they were not in any danger. Chavez promised to give that assurance provided "you will agree that your men will not enter the El Imparcial part of the building, that they will not help El Imparcial in any way, and that you will not use any of El Imparcial's equipment." Star's president and publisher agreed. Thereupon Star ceased having its printing done under its contract with El Imparcial and made arrangements to have its paper printed on the presses of another newspaper, the "Island Times." Thereafter Star employees wearing identifying placards entered the building without interference by the pickets.

The court below found that soon after the strike began the Union embarked on a campaign to compel persons to stop advertising in "El Imparcial" and in furtherance of that objective "threatened, coerced and restrained" two advertising agencies engaged in the business of placing advertisements for clients, some of whom were engaged in interstate commerce, and also Goodyear Western Hemisphere Corp. which operated a retail store and re-tread plant in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, selling a variety of imported goods, and Cerveceria Corona, Inc., a local brewery, "with strike activities or other reprisals" unless they stopped advertising in "El Imparcial." Basically on these facts the court below found reasonable cause to believe that the Union had and was engaged in acts and conduct in violation of the secondary boycott provisions of the Act cited above and that unless enjoined the acts and conduct were likely to be repeated or continued.

There can be not doubt, indeed the appellant-Union does not seriously dispute, that Chavez's conduct as agent for the Union had the effect of restraining or coercing Star by requiring it as a condition of continued publication "to cease doing business" with El Imparcial. On this phase of the case the Union's basic contention is that the affairs of Star and El Imparcial were "so intertwined" that Star was not a "secondary employer" or "neutral" with respect to the Union's dispute with El Imparcial but that on the contrary Star's and El Imparcial's business relationship made them "co-employers" or at least "allies."...