National Labor Relations Board v. COLUMBIAN E. & S. CO.

• Decision Date: 28 April 1938
• Docket Number: No. 6324.,6324.
• Citation: 96 F.2d 948
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. COLUMBIAN ENAMELING & STAMPING CO., Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

96 F.2d 948 (1938)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v.COLUMBIAN ENAMELING & STAMPING CO., Inc.

No. 6324.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

April 28, 1938.

Charles Fahy, Gen. Counsel, National Labor Relations Board, Robert B. Watts, Associate Gen. Counsel, Thomas I. Emerson, Laurence A. Knapp, and Owsley Vose, all of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Earl F. Reed, of Pittsburgh, Pa., Otto A. Jaburek, of Chicago, Ill., and C. M. Thorp, Jr., John E. Laughlin, Jr., Charles C. Hewitt, and Thorp, Bostwick, Reed & Armstrong, all of Pittsburgh, Pa., for respondent.

Paul R. Shafer, of Terre Haute, Ind., for interveners.

Before EVANS, SPARKS, and TREANOR, Circuit Judges.

EVANS, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner seeks the enforcement of an order of the National Labor Relations Board directing the respondent company to reinstate employees, who had theretofore gone on a strike and had been replaced by other employees.The order¹ of the Board was predicated on a finding that the company had been guilty of unfair labor practices; namely, refusal to bargain with the union which represented a majority of its employees.

The employees who had been hired to replace the strikers have intervened and appear separately.

The conflict between the company and the union has been protracted and bitter.It covers several issues.We find it necessary to state the facts somewhat in detail to give a thorough understanding of the case.

The Facts: The Columbian Enameling and Stamping Company, an Indiana corporation, located at Terre Haute, Indiana, manufactures and sells enamelware.It employed about 600 persons, 500 of whom were production and maintenance employees who were eligible to membership in the Enameling and Stamping Mill Employees Union, No. 19694.About 485 of the 500 eligible employees belonged to the union.The strike began March 22, 1935; the National Labor Relations Act became effective, July 5, 1935; and the specific day on which the company is alleged to have refused to bargain is July 23, 1935.The labor agreement between respondent and its employees ran for a year and expired July 14, 1935.Because of the importance of the chronological presentation of the successive steps in this conflict, we set them forth in detail.²

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The issues of law are:

(1) The constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act,29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.³

(2) Whether there is evidence to support the Board's finding of unfair labor practices, and if so whether interstate commerce, if found to exist, is thereby burdened.

(3) Whether the Board's order is valid.If so, whether it can be enforced to the detriment of the intervenors, present employees.

                  CONTENTIONS AND COUNTER-CONTENTIONS
                         Respondent's Contentions.                               Petitioner's Contentions
                  1) The act is unconstitutional.                     1) The act has been held constitutional (National
                                                                         Labor Relations Bd. v. Jones &amp
                                                                         Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct
                                                                         615, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352, and
                                                                         other cases.)
                  2) Interstate commerce is not involved because      2) Majority of raw material used in the manufacture
                     both raw materials and finished                     comes from 20 states; and 85%
                     products remain at rest in the Company's            of manufactured product is shipped to 47
                     place for several months before and after           states; three interstate railroads and
                     interstate shipment and therefore the continuity    eight interstate truckers are used
                     in interstate commerce shipment is broken  

         Respondent's Contentions.                              Petitioner's Contentions.
                  3) Further conferences would have been useless      3) Union was demanding other things than
                     because all that union was demanding                closed shop, such as 2 hour pay when machinery
                     was a closed shop, and company would                broke down. Union was asking
                     not so operate.                                     for the conferences, which was indicative
                                                                         of fact that they were in conciliatory mood.
                  4) The act was passed after the strike and          4) The act is applicable, and need not be
                     therefore is inapplicable; furthermore,             retroactively construed to be here applicable
                     the strike was an illegal one because there         because the refusal to meet and confer
                     was an arbitration agreement, and being             occurred on July 22 and thereafter,
                     an illegal strike or strike in violation of         after the passage of the act, and the company
                     wage and employment agreement, the relationship     had refused to arbitrate, and the
                     of employer and employee had                        arbitration agreement only provided that
                     been terminated. The arbitration contract           there should be no strike while a matter
                     provided that there should be no                    was pending before the Committee of Arbitration.
                     strikes.                                            A strike does not terminate
                                                                         the employer-employee relationship (Citing
                                                                         the Michaelson Case, Michaelson v.
                                                                         U. S. ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R.
                                                                         Co., 7 Cir., 291 F. 940). The National
                                                                         Labor Act has been held applicable in
                                                                         two cases where the strike occurred prior
                                                                         to its passage. Jeffery-DeWitt Insulator
                                                                         Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 4
                                                                         Cir., 91 F.2d 134, 139, 112 A.L.R. 948,
                                                                         cer. denied, Oct. 18, 58 S.Ct. 55, 82 L.
                                                                         Ed. ___; Carlisle Lumber Co. Case, National
                                                                         Labor Rel. Board v. Carlisle Lumber
                                                                         Co., 9 Cir., 94 F.2d 138, now pending
                                                                         on application for certiorari in Supreme
                                                                         Court, filed Mar. 30.
                

Subsequent to the argument of this casethe Supreme Court announced decisions in the following cases⁴ which have narrowed the issues through the final determination of what previously were controverted legal questions.

It may be and is assumed for the purposes of this case that the National Labor Relations Act is an authorized exercise of power by Congress and is valid, and that one out on strike does not thereby ordinarily interrupt the employer-employee relation previously existing.In other words, the status of the employee, as such, is not broken by the strike.(Some of the authorities so holding, including those of this court, are collected in the margin.⁵)

We accept without discussion, as it seems clear under the recent decisions of the Supreme Court, petitioner's view that respondent is engaged in interstate commerce.⁶

It may also be assumed that ordinarily the status of employer-employee exists although the strike occurred before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act and continued after its passage.

These conclusions, however, do not meet or solve our question.We have a case where the parties(the employer and employees) bound themselves by a written agreement on the subject:

"In any case in which a satisfactory settlement of a dispute arising under this contract cannot be reached, such dispute shall be referred to a committee of arbitration composed of two persons selected by the Management, two persons selected by the Union, and fifth person to be selected by these four, who shall reach a decision which shall be final and binding upon both parties to this contract.There shall be no stoppage of work by either party to this contract, pending decision by the Committee of Arbitration."

It is in view of this agreement of the parties that our question arises.

What is the status of a group of employees who in the face of such a definite agreement left their employment?Is the doctrine of estoppel not applicable to parties to such an agreement?Is the maxim of equity that one who comes into a court of equity must come with clean hands, not applicable?

No foundation more secure and reassuring or more protective of the rights of both labor and capital can be found than that reasonable contracts, not violative of public policy, should be respected by the parties who pledged their words and their integrity to abide by their terms.We grope only in darkness and trek further into the wilderness of confusion and lost landmarks if we lose sight of this beacon light.Progress lies only in respect for one's agreement.Respect for and support of the cause of labor follows labor's respect for its contract.The same Bill of Rights which through one section gives just protection to labor, through another section protects the just rights of others.Overriding one will result in the overthrow of the entire Bill of Rights.

In applying these observations to the instant case it is important to keep in mind the limitations which we have imposed.Only reasonable agreements are specified.Not violative of any rule of statute or public policy is another necessity.These are all important limitations to be observed...