NLRB v. LOCAL 254, BUILDING SERVICE EMPLOYEES INT. U., 6626.

• Decision Date: 10 April 1967
• Docket Number: No. 6626.,6626.
• Citation: 376 F.2d 131
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. LOCAL 254, BUILDING SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, AFL-CIO, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

376 F.2d 131 (1967)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. LOCAL 254, BUILDING SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, AFL-CIO, Respondent.

No. 6626.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

April 10, 1967.

Elliott C. Lichtman, Washington, D. C., with whom Arnold Ordman, Gen. Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Associate Gen. Counsel, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, and Paul Elkind, Atty., Washington, D. C., were on petition for adjudication in civil contempt, for petitioner.

Harold B. Roitman, Boston, Mass., for respondent.

Before ALDRICH, Chief Judge, McENTEE, and COFFIN, Circuit Judges.

ALDRICH, Chief Judge.

This is a petition to hold a union in civil contempt for violations of a Labor Board order which we enforced following our opinion in NLRB v. Local 254, Building Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, 1 Cir., 1966, 359 F.2d 289. Before stating our findings, we will recite the basis for that order. Local 254, the union, represents employees of contract cleaners, who are persons engaged in furnishing building cleaning and janitorial services, after hours, to industrial and other concerns. One Kletjian, a contract cleaner doing business as University Cleaning Company, at one time had a collective bargaining agreement with the union, but upon his employees disassociating themselves therefrom the contract was not renewed. The Board found that (in some undetermined respect) the union and University had an existing labor dispute. Concededly, some of University's employees do not receive all the benefits that the union has obtained from some other cleaners.

In March and April, 1963, the union apprised the United Airlines' Boston office, which employed University, that University was nonunion, was undermining wage rates, and was destroying the union's "public image." When United did nothing, the union threatened to picket, and did. The two pickets carried signs saying, "The contract cleaners employed here are not members of Local 254, AFL-CIO." They engaged in no physical obstruction, or even in conversation. The picketing occurred during United's business hours, and never while employees of University were on the premises. After two weeks it stopped. Essentially the same pattern was followed at the place of business of an A & P grocery store in Boston, another of University's customers.

In resisting the Board's finding that this was a violation of the act the union phrased as its principal point on review, "Whether picketing which is limited to informing the public that cleaners employed at a location are nonunion is in violation of Section 8(b) (4) (ii) B of the Act." It argued to us that the "picketing activities * * * were limited to informational acts," and that the union "was following the specific product, University cleaning service, to the appropriate locations * * * where University operated and where the public could be alerted to the facts." For this it cited NLRB v. Fruit and Vegetable Packers (Tree Fruits), 1964, 377 U.S. 58, 84 S.Ct. 1063, 12 L.Ed.2d 129. We held the reliance misplaced, and agreed that the Board's finding of forbidden conduct directed towards University's customers was warranted. The order that we enforced forbade, "threatening, coercing or restraining United Airlines, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., or any other person similarly engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where an object thereof is to force or require them to cease doing business with Herbert Kletjian d/b/a University Cleaning Co."

The present petition alleges that beginning in August 1966 the union had engaged in essentially the same conduct directed towards two other customers of University, Craftsman Life Insurance Co. in Boston, and and Lewis Shepard Products Co. in Watertown, both of which are in interstate commerce. The union admitted certain conduct, but asserted what it claimed to be distinguishing dissimilarities. The asserted dissimilarities, and our findings with respect to them based upon evidence presented in open court, are as follows:

(1) The union did not notify Craftsman or Lewis Shepard in advance that University was nonunion, or that it intended to picket, and had no conversations with them at any time. We find this to be true, but immaterial. Picketing may still be threatening even though it is carried on without notice, or in silence. The party whose place of business is picketed does not need to be told orally what it can read on the picket signs or reasonably infer therefrom.

(2) The union did not picket at all. This contention we reject entirely. There is some small conflict in the testimony as to what the sign carriers actually did, whether or not they were "patrolling," but it is agreed that they stood and sometimes walked in front of the entrances of Craftsman and Lewis Shepard, carrying signs and handing out leaflets. This unquestionably was picketing. NLRB v. Local 182, Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 2 Cir., 1963, 314 F.2d 53.

(3) Respondent's principal contention is that its conduct was not directed against Craftsman and Lewis Shepard, but was intended to inform potential customers of University that it was nonunion. In reply to the natural query why, if that was the objective, the union chose to picket secondary plants and not University itself, union officials said they thought it likely that potential customers of University might visit these secondaries to check University's work.

We find this contention a transparent afterthought. Although University did sometimes furnish the names of current customers to potential customers, it suggested no inspection, and there was no evidence that any inspection was ever made at Craftsman, Lewis Shepard, or anywhere else.¹ The pickets appeared during the business hours of the secondaries, not when University employees were working. That a union would detail two men to spend full days at commercial establishments in order to contact a possible person who might come there to follow up work references strains credulity.

We might add that we think it far more likely, if the union was thinking of prospective customers of University at all, that it thought of them in in terrorem terms, viz., that it was informing them that if they employed University they, too, could expect to be the object of secondary picketing. Since such future picketing would itself be forbidden by our order, obviously this could not be a protected informational activity.

The union's suggestion that its signs themselves indicated that there was no dispute with the picketed secondaries must also be rejected. The signs (and the leaflets that were handed out) read as follows:

"Unfair

University Cleaning Company is an unfair cleaner.

University Cleaning Company does not meet the union standards.

Lewis Shepard Products Inc. Watertown, American Electroplating Co., Harding Gross Inc., Seal-Rite of Cambridge and Craftsman Insurance, Boston are using the services of this unfair cleaner.

This statement is directed to customers and the public only. It is not a request to employees to refuse to pick up, deliver, or transport or refuse to perform any services.

S.E.I.U. Local 254 AFL-CIO"

We do not read the sentence, "This statement is directed to customers and the public only." as an assertion that it is directed to customers of University. Coming as it does immediately after the listing of the concern whose premises are being picketed, we read it, rather, as directed to the customers of that concern, just as, admittedly, the sentence following quite...