International Ass'n of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Ironworkers, AFL-CIO, Local Union 710 v. Howard L. Byrd Bldg. Service, Inc.

• Decision Date: 22 October 1973
• Docket Number: LOCAL,No. 47195,AFL-CI,47195
• Parties: 84 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2714, 72 Lab.Cas. P 53,182 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BRIDGE, STRUCTURAL AND ORNAMENTAL IRONWORKERS,UNION 710, Defendant-Appellant, v. HOWARD L. BYRD BUILDING SERVICE, INC. and Regional Contractors, Inc., Complainants-Appellees.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 301

284 So.2d 301

84 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2714, 72 Lab.Cas. P 53,182

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BRIDGE, STRUCTURAL AND ORNAMENTAL IRONWORKERS, AFL-CIO, LOCAL UNION 710, Defendant-Appellant, v. HOWARD L. BYRD BUILDING SERVICE, INC. and Regional

Contractors, Inc., Complainants-Appellees.

No. 47195.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Oct. 22, 1973.

Sykes, Lindsey & Caranna, Ltd., Gulfport, for defendant-appellant.

Campbell, DeLong, Keady, Robertson & Hagwood, Greenville, for complainants-appellees.

PATTERSON, Justice:

The International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Ironworkers, AFL-CIO, Local Union 710 (hereinafter Union) appeals from a decree of the Chancery Court of Washington County which made permanent an injunction prohibiting Union from picketing the job site where Howard L. Byrd Building Service, Inc. and Regional Contractors, Inc. (hereinafter Byrd and Regional) were constructing a waste water treatment facility for the city of Greenville.

On April 21, 1970, the Mississippi Water Pollution Control Commission found the city of Greenville's municipal sewage system to be discharging effluents into Lake Ferguson and the Mississippi River in violation of Section 7106-120(a), Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated (1956). The commission ordered the city to have an approved municipal waste treatment plant in operation before July 1, 1972.

In response the city entered into a contract for the construction of a waste water treatment plant with Byrd and Regional. Under its terms all work was to be completed by October 2, 1972. On February 12, 1971, after construction was under way, Byrd and Regional discharged thirteen ironworkers, six of whom were members of the union, since the major portion of the iron construction work was completed. The employees' release was in accord with the contractors' plan to reduce their labor force when this phase of the ironwork was finished.

On February 22, 1971, thereafter, Union posted a picket line at the entrance to the project site. As a result several union men, including crane operators essential to construction, did not report for work. Truck drivers from freight lines also refused to cross the picket line to deliver essential materials. The result of the picket was essentially a total work stoppage.

On February 24 Byrd and Regional, without notice to Union, upon posting a $1000 bond, obtained from the chancery court a preliminary writ of injunction prohibiting Union from picketing the project site. In obedience to the injunction the pickets were removed and working conditions returned to normal.

A final hearing was held thereafter on the injunction. It was stipulated that Byrd and Regional were engaged in interstate commerce within the meaning of Section 2 of the National Labor Relations Act of 1947 in excess of $50,000 per year and that the defendant Union was a labor organization within the act.

The evidence of Byrd and Regional was that the only purpose of the picket line by Union was to mandate the reemployment of the union ironworkers and to obtain an agreement from them to bargain with the union as representatives of their employees, it being admitted that the ironworkers had been hired without regard to union membership. The evidence of Union was that the purpose of the picket line was to reinstate their men, to obtain an agreement with Byrd and Regional for the use of union workers and to obtain for them the prevailing wage scale of $6.05 per hour as paid in Louisiana rather than the scale of $5.65 per hour in Mississippi. No dispute exists that on February 12, 1971, Byrd and Regional needed only four ironworkers for their construction work.

At the conclusion of the trial a final decree was entered making permanent the preliminary writ of injunction. This appeal is from such decree. It challenges the jurisdiction of the court as well as the court's refusal to increase the bond on Union's motion.

State jurisdiction in the field of labor relations has to a great extent been preempted by the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. The exceptions to preemption are labor controversies accompanied with violence or mass picketing requiring the states to invoke their police powers for the welfare of the public. The doctrine of federal preemption has, of course, been discussed by the United States Supreme Court. In Garner v. Teamsters, Chauffeurs & Helpers Local Union No. 776, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228 (1953), the use of a state injunction to prohibit picketing was considered. The decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denying the petitioners an injunction was affirmed. The United States Supreme Court had the following to say concerning preemption:

Congress did not merely lay down a substantive rule of law to be enforced by any tribunal competent to apply law generally to the parties. It went on to confide primary interpretation and application of its rules to a specific and specially constituted tribunal and prescribed a particular procedure for investigation, complaint and notice, and hearing and decision, including judicial relief pending a final administrative order. Congress evidently considered that centralized administration of specially designed...