National Labor Rel. Bd. v. TRUCK DRIVERS & HELPERS, ETC.

• Decision Date: 17 January 1956
• Docket Number: No. 15651.,15651.
• Citation: 228 F.2d 791
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. TRUCK DRIVERS & HELPERS LOCAL UNION NO. 728, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELPERS OF AMERICA, A.F.L. and R. C. Cook, its Business Agent, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

228 F.2d 791 (1956)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. TRUCK DRIVERS & HELPERS LOCAL UNION NO. 728, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELPERS OF AMERICA, A.F.L. and R. C. Cook, its Business Agent, Respondents.

No. 15651.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

January 17, 1956.

Irving M. Herman, Atty., N. L. R. B., Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C., Theophil C. Kammholz, General Counsel, David P. Findling, Associate General Counsel, Frederick U. Reel, Attorneys, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Fred W. Elarbee, Jr., Edwin M. Pearce, Jr., Atlanta, Ga., Poole, Pearce & Hall, Atlanta, Ga., for respondents.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and BORAH and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

BORAH, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board seeks enforcement of its order¹ to cease and desist from certain unfair labor practices. The Board found that respondents had violated Section 8(b) (4) (A) and (B) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.,² by inducing and encouraging the employees of Ford Motor Co. and Motor Convoy, Inc., with neither of whom the respondents had a dispute, to engage in a strike or concerted refusal to perform services for their respective employers, with the objects thereof being (1) to force Ford to cease doing business with National Trucking Co., and (2) to force National to bargain with respondent Union although said Union had not been certified as the bargaining representative of National's employees.

The Board's order was bottomed upon two separate, but closely related charges filed by National which the Board, on its own motion, consolidated for decision and order. The first charge, filed against the Union and its business agent, related to picketing by the Union on April 16, 1954, and as to this charge, the trial examiner found that respondents had not engaged in unfair labor practices. The second charge which was filed against the Union alone, related to Union picketing on and after July 9, 1954, and to a work stoppage by the respondent's members who were employed by Motor Convoy, Inc. In this proceeding, a hearing by the trial examiner was waived, and the case was submitted to the Board upon the charge, complaint, answer, notices, and a stipulation of the parties.

The basic facts, as found by the Board on report of its trial examiner in respect to the first charge, are not seriously in dispute. We summarize them as follows: National Trucking Co.'s only operation was to load and haul away vehicles assembled at the Ford Motor Co. plant in Hapeville, Georgia. National's terminal and loading yard was directly across South Street from the large, fenced area occupied by the Ford assembly plant. There was no entrance to the Ford plant on South Street — a side and dead-end street — but National's sole access to the plant for pickup of the vehicles was through a gate on Central Avenue at a point several blocks distant from the intersection of South Street and Central Avenue. This entrance gate was reserved by Ford exclusively for National's use. It was thirty-five feet removed from Ford's employee entrance gate which was used by Ford's workers at all hours of the day. To obtain the Ford cars for transportation, the procedure which National customarily followed was to send three or four drivers over to Ford's plant to inspect and pick up new automobiles and then drive them back to National's terminal on South Street approximately one-half mile away. These three or four employees were driven to the pickup gate in a truck owned by National, the driver of the truck waiting at the gate until the new cars were inspected by National's employees, whereupon they were driven back to National's terminal followed by the driver of the truck who then repeated the operation described. These particular employees made approximately forty such trips daily.

Early in 1954, respondent Union requested that National recognize it as the bargaining representative of National's employees. This request was never agreed to and after further attempts to gain recognition failed, the Union began picketing National's South Street terminal. On April 16, 1954, four days after the picketing began, Joseph A. Vaske, the Union's representative in charge of picketing, went to the Ford plant and informed Robert C. Chinn, Ford's industrial relations manager, and one Young, the president of the labor organization representing the Ford employees, that respondent Union was planning to picket National's vehicle each time it arrived at National's entrance gate on its periodic trips to pick up new Fords, but that such picketing was "not to be intimated in any way against Ford." Chinn objected on the ground that such picketing would interfere with the work of Ford employees. He then asked Vaske: "Well, as a matter of fact, are you wanting to put your pickets there for the purpose of letting our Ford employees know you are on strike?" to which Vaske made no response, but simply "smiled". Within an hour or two after this meeting, National's vehicle arrived at the Ford plant, discharged the pickup men, stopped about sixty feet from National's pickup gate, or ninety feet from the Ford employee gate, and Vaske then commenced to picket it with a sign which read: "Employees of National Trucking Company, Members of Local No. 728, A. F. L. on Strike." About twenty minutes thereafter two local policemen put an end to the picketing and later on the same day a Georgia state court issued an order enjoining the picketing at places other than at National's terminal. It is conceded that none of Ford's employees actually engaged in a strike or work stoppage as a result of the picketing.

The stipulated facts relating to the picketing on and after July 9, 1954, which was condemned in the second charge and complaint, are these: On July 9 and 10, after the state court injunction was dissolved, the Union again picketed the Ford gate used by National employees at times when the latter were there to pick up new cars. On July 10, National contracted with Air Travelers, Inc., for the latter to perform the car pickup operations between the Ford plant and the National terminal. In its answer to the complaint respondent Union alleged that when the Union was informed of this contract it "began, in an effort to salvage its previous organizing activities, to organize the employees of Air Travelers, Inc., who were then performing duties which employees of National Trucking Company had previously been doing. Local Union No. 728 had requested to represent these employees and the taking away of this work adversely affected the interest not only of Local Union No. 728, but of the striking employees who were attempting by the means of a peaceful strike to induce National Trucking Company to recognize Local Union No. 728 as their collective bargaining agent." Air Travelers assigned three of its ten employees to perform pickups under the contract and since July 19 the Union has picketed Air Travelers' terminal and the Ford's gate reserved for National's use whenever Air Travelers' employees arrive there to pick up the new cars, with signs reading: "Truck Drivers and Helpers Local Union 728, Picketing Air Travelers, Inc. for Purposes of Organization. We invite you to join our Local Union followed by full name of Union." It was further stipulated that the pickets were stationed at the National gate between the hours of 7:30 a. m. and 5:30 p. m., but that the sign was aloft only when the Air Travelers' pickup men were there periodically throughout the day, between the hours of 10:30 a. m. and 6:30 p. m., and that Ford's 1400 employees normally work between the hours of 7:30 a. m. and 4:30 p. m.

With reference to the work stoppage at Motor Convoy, Inc. which was alleged in the second complaint, it was stipulated: That Motor Convoy was engaged in the same work as National, and picked up and transported seventy percent of Ford's new cars. That respondent Union had a collective bargaining contract with Motor Convoy, and although there was no labor dispute with Motor Convoy, on July 26, 1954, the Union shop stewards submitted the following notice signed by its employees:

"We the undersigned do hereby issue notice to Motor Convoy that due to the Strike at National Trucking Co. we refuse to operate until it is settled. This is due to the fact that we feel it unsafe because of our trucks being run off the road and one being blown up. We are

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