Bakery and Pastry Drivers and Helpers Local 802 of International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Wohl, 901

• Citation: 62 S.Ct. 816,86 L.Ed. 1178,315 U.S. 769
• Decision Date: 30 March 1942
• Docket Number: No. 901,901
• Parties: BAKERY AND PASTRY DRIVERS AND HELPERS LOCAL 802 OF INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS et al. v. WOHL et al
• Court: United States Supreme Court

315 U.S. 769

62 S.Ct. 816

86 L.Ed. 1178

BAKERY AND PASTRY DRIVERS AND HELPERS LOCAL 802 OF INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS et al.

v WOHL et al.

No. 901.

Argued Jan. 13, 1942.

Decided March 30, 1942.

Messrs. Edward C. Maguire and Samuel J. Cohen, both of New York City, for petitioners.

Messrs. Arthur Steinberg and Joseph Apfel, both of New York City, for respondents.

Mr. Justice JACKSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioners are a labor union and certain of its officers. The union membership consists of truck drivers occupied in the distribution of baked goods. The respondents Wohl and Platzman are, and for some years have been peddlers of baked goods. They buy from bakeries and sell and deliver to small retailers, and keep the difference between cost and selling price, which in the case of Wohl is approximately thirty-two dollars a week, and in the case of Platzman, about thirty-five dollars a week. Out of this each must absorb credit losses and maintain a delivery truck which he owns—but has registered in the name of his wife. Both are men of family. Neither has any employee or assistant. Both work seven days a week, Wohl putting in something over thirty-three hours a week, and Platzman about sixty-five hours a week. It was found that neither has any contract with the bakeries from whom he buys, and it does not appear that either had a contract with any customer.

The conflict between the union and these peddlers grows out of certain background facts found by the trial court and summarized here. The union has for some years been engaged in obtaining collective bargaining agreements prescribing the wages, hours, and working conditions of bakery drivers. Five years before the trial there were in New York City comparatively few peddlers or so-called independent jobbers—fifty at most, consisting largely of men who had a long-established retail trade. About four years before the trial the social security and unemployment compensation laws, both of which imposed taxes on payrolls, became effective in the State of New York. Thereafter the number of peddlers of bakery products increased from year to year until at the time of hearing they numbered more than five hundred. In the eighteen months preceding the hearings, baking companies which operated routes through employed drivers had notified the union that at the expiration of their contracts they would no longer employ drivers but would permit the drivers to purchase trucks for nominal amounts, in some instances fifty dollars, and thereupon to continue to distribute their baked goods as peddlers. Within such period a hundred and fifty drivers who were members of the union and had previously worked under union contracts and conditions were discharged and required to leave the industry unless they undertook to act as peddlers.

The peddler system has serious disadvantages to the peddler himself. The court has found that he is not covered by workmen's compensation insurance, unemployment insurance, or by the social security system of the State and Nation. His truck is usually uninsured against public liability and property damage, and hence commonly carried in the name of his wife or other nominee. If injured while working, he usually becomes a public charge, and his family must be supported by charity or public relief.

The union became alarmed at the aggressive inroads of this kind of competition upon the employment and living standards of its members. The trial court found that if employers with union contracts are forced to adopt the 'peddler' system, 'the wages, hours, working conditions, six-day week, etc., attained by the union after long years of struggle will be destroyed and lost.' In the spring of 1938 the union made an effort in good faith to persuade the peddlers to become members, and those who desired were admitted to membership and were only required to abide by the same constitution, by-laws, rules and regulations as were all other members. That, however, included a requirement that no union member should work more than six days per week.

These particular peddlers were asked to join the union, and each signed an application, but neither joined. The union then determined to seek an understanding with peddlers who failed to join the union that they work only six days a week and employ an unemployed union member one day in a week. The union did not insist that the relief man be paid beyond the time that he actually worked, but asked that he be paid on the basis of the union's daily wage, which fixed a scale for part of a day if but part of a day was required for the service of the route. For some ten weeks Wohl employed a relief driver, who was paid $6.00 per day, the normal day's wage for a full day being.$9.00.

When Wohl and Platzman finally refused either to join the union or to employ a union relief man, and continued to work seven days each week, the union took the measures which led to this litigation. On the twenty-third of January, 1939, the union caused two pickets to walk in the vicinity of the bakery which sold products to Wohl and Platzman, each picket carrying a placard, one bearing the name of Wohl and the other that of Platzman, and under each name appeared the following statement: 'A bakery route driver works seven days a week. We ask employment for a union relief man for one day. Help us spread employment and maintain a union wage, hours and conditions. Bakery and Pastry Drivers and Helpers Local 802, I.B. of T. Affiliated with A.F.L.' The picketing on that day lasted less than two hours. Again, on the twenty-fifth of January, the union caused two pickets to display the same placards in the same vicinity for less than an hour; and on the same day a picket with a placard bearing the name of Wohl over the same statement, picketed for a very short time in the vicinity of another bakery from which Wohl had purchased baked products. It was also found that a member of the union followed Platzman as he was distributing his products and called on two or three of his customers, advising them that the union was seeking to persuade Platzman to work but six days per week and employ a union driver as a relief man, and stating to one that in the event he continued to purchase from Platzman a picket would be placed in the vicinity on the following day with a placard reading as set forth above. It does not appear that this threat was carried out.

The trial court found that the placards were truthful and accurate in all respects; that the picketing consisted of no more than two pickets at any one time and was done in a peaceful and orderly manner, without violence or threat thereof; that it created no disorder; that it was not proved that any customers turned away from such bakeries by reason of the picketing; and it was not established that the respondents sustained any monetary loss by reason thereof.

The trial court issued injunctions which restrained the union and its officers and agents from picketing either the places of business of manufacturing bakers who sell to the respondents or the places of business of their customers. Sup., 14 N.Y.S.2d 198. The judgment was affirmed without opinion by the Appellate Division of the First Department, two Justices thereof dissenting with opinion, 259 App.Div. 868, 19 N.Y.S.2d 811; and was affirmed without opinion by the...