American Radio Association v. Mobile Steamship Association, Inc

• Decision Date: 17 December 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-748,AFL-CIO,73-748
• Citation: 42 L.Ed.2d 399,95 S.Ct. 409,419 U.S. 215
• Parties: AMERICAN RADIO ASSOCIATION,, et al., Petitioners, v. MOBILE STEAMSHIP ASSOCIATION, INC., et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

419 U.S. 215

95 S.Ct. 409

42 L.Ed.2d 399

AMERICAN RADIO ASSOCIATION, AFL-CIO, et al., Petitioners,

v MOBILE STEAMSHIP ASSOCIATION, INC., et al.

No. 73-748.

Argued Oct. 21, 1974.

Decided Dec. 17, 1974.

Syllabus

Respondents, an association representing stevedoring companies, and a shipper, sought injunctive relief in an Alabama state court against picketing of a foreign-flag ship by petitioner maritime unions which were protesting as substandard the wages paid the foreign crewmen who manned the ship. The trial court issued a temporary injunction, and the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed. Petitioners contend that the state courts were without jurisdiction to grant relief, and that the issuance of an injunction interfered with their free speech rights. Held:

1. The jurisdiction of the Alabama courts was not pre-empted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Windward Shipping v. American Radio Assn., 415 U.S. 104, 94 S.Ct. 959, 39 L.Ed.2d 195. Pp. 219-228.

(a) Even if there is a dispute between petitioners and respondents independent of petitioners' dispute with foreign-flag ships, it is subject to state-court disposition unless it satisfies the jurisdictional requirements of the NLRA. P. 221.

(b) The fact that the state court's jurisdiction is invoked by stevedores and shippers, rather than by the foreign-ship owners as in Windward, supra, does not convent into 'commerce' within the meaning of the NLRA's jurisdictional requirements, activities that plainly were not such in Windward. Pp. 221-225.

(c) Neither the shipper seeking to ship his products, the stevedores who contracted to unload the foreign-flag vessel's cargo, nor the longshoremen employed to do the unloading, were, for the purposes of jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board over a dispute directly affecting the maritime operations of foreign-flag vessels, 'engaged in or affecting commerce' within the purview of the NLRA, and therefore petitioners' picketing did not even 'arguably' constitute an unfair labor practice under § 8(b)(4) of the Act, the secondary boycott provision. Pp. 225-228.

2. The Alabama courts' action in enjoining the picketing violated no right conferred upon petitioners by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, because that action is well within that 'broad field in which a State, in enforcing some public policy, whether of its criminal or its civil law, and whether announced by its legislature or its courts, could constitutionally enjoin peaceful picketing aimed at preventing effectuation of that policy,' International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 695, A.F.L. v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U.S. 284, 293, 77 S.Ct. 1166, 1170, 1 L.Ed.2d 1347. Pp. 228-232.

(a) Since the picketing here was for a prohibited purpose, it is not entitled to protection on the ground that the place where it occurred constituted a public forum for presentation of lawful communications. Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 590 v. Logan Valley Plaza, 391 U.S. 308, 88 S.Ct. 1601, 20 L.Ed.2d 603, distinguished. P. 230.

(b) The injunction is supported by a 'valid public policy.' In the context in which the Alabama Supreme Court stated the public policy to be the prevention of 'wrongful interference' with respondents' businesses, that term obviously refers to third parties' efforts to induce employees to cease performing services essential to the conduct of their employer's business, third-party participation being critical to picketing being categorized as 'wrongful interference.' Pp. 230-231.

(c) Petitioners' contention that the record fails to support the conclusion that there was a substantial question whether the picketing constituted 'wrongful interference,' is without merit, since the question whether evidence is sufficient to make out a cause of action created by state law and tried in the state courts is a matter for decision by those courts. Pp. 231-232.

291 Ala. 201, 279 So.2d 467, affirmed.

Howard Schulman, New York City, for petitioners.

Frank McRight, Mobile, Ala., for respondent Mobile Steamship Association, Inc.

Alex F. Lankford, III, Mobile, Ala., for respondent Robert E. Malone.

Mr. Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioners are the six maritime unions which appeared before this Court as respondents in Windward Shipping (London) Ltd. v. American Radio Assn., AFL-CIO, 415 U.S. 104, 94 S.Ct. 959, 39 L.Ed.2d 195 (1974). We granted their petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama, 415 U.S. 947, 94 S.Ct. 1468, 39 L.Ed.2d 562, in order to review their contentions that this case was distinguishable from Windward on the pre-emption issue, and that the temporary injunction upheld by that court had infringed rights guaranteed to them under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.¹

As in Windward, this case arises from picketing designated to publicize the adverse impact on American seamen of the operations of foreign-flag carriers which employ foreign crewmen at wages substantially below those paid to American seamen. As in Windward, the picketing occurred during 1971, but in this case it took place in Mobile, Ala., and was directed against the Aqua Glory, a ship of Liberian registry. The pickets displayed the same signs and distributed the same literature as they did in Windward,² and they were subject to the same instructions.

The picketing in each case also had similar results. In Windward, we observed: 'The picketing, although neither obstructive nor violent, was not without effect. Longshoremen and other port workers refused to cross the picket lines to load and unload petitioners' vessels.' 415 U.S., at 108, 94 S.Ct., at 962. Here, the Supreme Court of Alabama, in affirming a temporary injunction issued by the Alabama Circuit Court, said of petitioners' activities in Mobile:

'Posting the pickets, as was done on the dock adjacent to the Aqua Glory, brought about an immediate refusal by the stevedore workers of the locals of International Longshoremen's Association to cross the picket line of the appellant unions. About eighty percent of the cargo ships that enter the Port of Mobile, said under a foreign-flag and are manned by alien crews.'³

I

It is apparent from the facts already stated that the Houston picketing in Windward and the Mobile picketing here were for all practical purposes identical. Petitioners refer to Windward as 'involving the union petitioners in the identical national picketing dispute as part of the Committee's program . . ..' Brief for Petitioners 7 n. 1. But petitioners contend that since the state-court plaintiffs in this case are not the foreign owners of a picketed ship, as they were in Windward, but are instead stevedoring companies which seek to service the ship⁴ and a shipper who wishes to have his crops loaded on it, the question of preemption of state-court jurisdiction by the National Labor Relations Act should be answered differently than it was in Windward.⁵ Petitioners reason that respondents could have charged them with an unfair labor practice under the secondary boycott provision of the National Labor Relations Act, § 8(b)(4), 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(4), and that since petitioners' activities were arguably prohibited under that section, the respondents' exclusive remedy was to seek relief from the National Labor Relations Board. Cf. San Diego Building Trades Council, Millmen's Union, Local 2020 v. Garmon 359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959).

Petitioners' position in this respect contrasts markedly with their posture in the Windward litigation. There petitioners, as respondents in this Court, urged that 'peaceful and truthful primary picketing, non obstructive and without trespass upon private property, by American workers protesting substandard wages and benefits paid,' are activities 'actually protected by the Act.' Brief for Respondents in No. 72-1061, O.T.1973, p. 15. They also urged that 'the American seamen's activities at bar constitutes [sic] typical lawful primary picketing, sanctioned and protected by the Act, Garner [v. Teamsters Union, 346 U.S. 485 [74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228 (1953), and Longshoremen v. Ariadne Co., 397 U.S. 195, 202 90 S.Ct. 872, 25 L.Ed.2d 218 (1970).' Brief for Respondents in No. 72-1061, O.T.1973, p. 16. Petitioners apparently urged the same arguments in the Texas Court of Civil Appeals, whose judgment we reviewed in Windward, because that court stated:

'[A]ppellees' picketing carefully remained within the guidelines for permissible picketing on the premises of a secondary employer promulgated in Sailor's Union of the Pacific, 92 N.L.R.B. 547 and adopted in Local 761, Inter. Union of Elec., Radio and Mach. Wkrs. v. NLRB, 366 U.S. 667, 81 S.Ct. 1285, 6 L.Ed.2d 592 (1961)'⁶

Petitioners, having failed to persuade this Court in Windward that their Houston picketing was protected under § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 157, now contend that their Mobile picketing was at least arguably a secondary boycott prohibited by § 8(b)(4)(B) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(4)(B). They would have us hold not only that there is an independent controversy between petitioner unions, representing American seamen, and the contracting stevedores represented by respondent, but also that this independent dispute is subject to the jurisdiction of the Board.

Acceptance of petitioners' argument would result in a rule whereby a state court had jurisdiction over a complaint for injunction filed by a foreign-ship owner claiming that picketing activities of a union were interfering with his business relationships with a contract stevedore, but the same court would have no jurisdiction where the contract stevedore sought an injunction on precisely the same grounds. The anomaly of such a result is reason enough to question it, but we believe that there is a more fundamental flaw in petitioners' claim.

Even if there is a dispute between petitioners and respondents which...