Wisconsin Employment Relations Bd. v. United Auto., Aircraft and Agr. Implement Workers

• Decision Date: 03 May 1955
• Parties: , 36 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2109, 28 Lab.Cas. P 69,191 WISCONSIN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent, v. UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS, etc., Appellants, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS of America, etc., et al., Appellants, v. WISCONSIN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD et al., Respondents.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 191

70 N.W.2d 191

269 Wis. 578, 36 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2109,

28 Lab.Cas. P 69,191

WISCONSIN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent, v. UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT

WORKERS, etc., Appellants,

UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT

WORKERS of America, etc., et al., Appellants, v. WISCONSIN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

May 3, 1955.

Rehearing Denied June 28, 1955.

Max Raskin, Milwaukee, David Rabinovitz, Sheboygan, Harold Cranefield, Detroit, Mich., of counsel, for appellants.

Lyman C. Conger, Edward J. Hammer and Gerard A. Desmond, Kohler, (Lucius P. Chase, Kohler, of counsel), Vernon W. Thomson, Atty. Gen., Stewart G. Honeck, Dep. Atty. Gen., Beatrice Lampert, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Wisconsin Employment Relations Board.

BROWN, Justice.

The conduct which the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board found to be a violation of sec. 111.06, Stats., as unfair labor practices, is virtually the same conduct as that which it had found to be a similar violation in Allen-Bradley Local No. 1111, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 1941, 237 Wis. 164, 295 N.W. 791. The present order and injunction are essentially the same as those issued by the Board and the court in the Allen-Bradley case. The principal attack on it then, like the attack on the present order, was made on the ground that federal labor legislation has preempted the field and the National Labor Relations Board has exclusive jurisdiction over this controversy, which grows out of and affects labor relations. The enforcement order issued by the circuit court in the Allen-Bradley case in all substantial particulars is the same as the one issued by the circuit court in the case at bar. We sustained the circuit court and the Board on such jurisdictional questions and on their exercise of the jurisdiction and we were affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Allen-Bradley Local No. 1111, United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 315 U.S. 740, 62 S.Ct. 820, 86 L.Ed. 1154.

As the facts of the present matter so closely parallel the Allen-Bradley facts there would be little cause to do more than affirm the judgment of the circuit court on the authority of Allen-Bradley except for a distinction to which appellants call attention, namely, that the Federal Labor Act has been amended since, in Allen-Bradley, the United States Supreme Court held that it did not deprive the state of jurisdiction under such circumstances. Appellants' argument is that the United States' court was then construing the National Labor Relations Act, the Wagner Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., which concerned itself only with unfair labor practices on the part of employers and thus left employes' practices to be controlled by the states; but that Act was amended in 1947 by the National Labor-Management Relations Act, the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq., which does define and discipline unfair labor practices by employes. Therefore, appellants assert, even though Allen-Bradley may have been right in its day, the present legislation, by bringing employes' labor practices within its scope, ousts state control and confers exclusive jurisdiction over them in the National Labor Relations Board.

The authoritative interpretation of federal statutes rests in the federal courts and their highest court does not agree with appellants' contention that the Taft-Hartley Act has taken from the states jurisdiction over such manifestations of labor relations as mass picketing, intimidation and obstruction of streets. In cases arising under Taft-Hartley the United States Supreme Court continues to cite Allen-Bradley to illustrate the circumstances in which the state authority may still operate. Thus, in International Union, U.A.W., A. F. of L., Local 232 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 1949, 336 U.S. 245, 69 S.Ct. 516, 93 L.Ed. 651, 654, which was first before this court and is reported in 250 Wis. 550, 27 N.W.2d 875, 28 N.W.2d 254 (the Briggs & Stratton case), the state court enjoined recurrent and unannounced work stoppages designed to put pressure on the employer. The injunction was issued while the Wagner Act was in effect but the restraint continued after that act was superseded by Taft-Hartley. The Supreme Court of the United States therefore declared that it considered the state action in relation to both Federal Acts. And it said [336 U.S. 245, 69 S.Ct. 521]:

'* * * However, as to coercive tactics in labor controversies, we have said of the National Labor Relations Act what is equally true of the Labor Management Act of 1947, that 'Congress designedly left open an area for state control' and that 'the intention of Congress to exclude states from exerting their police power must be clearly manifested.' (Citing Allen-Bradley.) We therefore turn to its legislation for evidence that Congress has clearly manifested an exclusion of the state power sought to be exercised in this case.'

So turning, the court found no such evidence and it said:

'* * * While the Federal Board is empowered to forbid a strike, when and because its purpose is one that the Federal Act made illegal, it has been given no power to forbid one because its method is illegal--even if the illegality were to consist of actual or threatened violence to persons or destruction of property. Policing of such conduct is left wholly to the states. * * *

'It seems clear to us that this case falls within the rule announced in Allen-Bradley * * *.'

More recently the court has declared the same principle, crediting it to the same source. Thus in Garner v. Teamsters, Chauffeurs and Helpers Local Union No. 776, 1953, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228, the employer sought to enjoin peaceful picketing by state action. The United States Supreme Court, distinguishing the situation from that in Allen-Bradley, said, 346 U.S. 485, 488, 74 S.Ct. 161, 164, 98 L.Ed. 228, 238:

'This is not an instance of injurious conduct which the National Labor Relations Board is without express power to prevent and which therefore either is 'governable by the state of it is entirely ungoverned.' In such cases we have declined to find an implied exclusion of state powers. International Union, U.A.W., A. F. of L., Local 232 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U.S. 245, 254, 69 S.Ct. 516, 521, 93 L.Ed. 651. Nor is this a case of mass picketing, threatening of employees, obstructing streets and highways, or picketing homes. We have held that the state still may exercise 'its historic powers over such traditionally local matters as public safety and order and the use of streets and highways.' Allen-Bradley Local, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 315 U.S. 740, 749, 62 S.Ct. 820, 825, 86 L.Ed. 1154[1164]. (Our italics.)

Still more recently, in United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Construction Corp., 1954, 347 U.S. 656, 74 S.Ct. 833, 98 L.Ed. 1025, the court repeated the language just quoted from the Garner case, again giving credit to Allen-Bradley.

And most recently, on March 28, 1955 in Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 75 S.Ct. 480, 488, in setting aside a state court's injunction against picketing and commenting on the nature of the picketing and the law applicable to it, the court said:

'* * * We do not read this as an unambiguous determination that the IAM's conduct amounted to the kind of mass picketing and overt threats of violence which under the Allen-Bradley Local case give the state court jurisdiction. * * *'

In the case before us the picketing and other union measures are of the precise kind that they were in the Allen-Bradley strike. It was held there that the state's jurisdiction to enjoin them was not impaired by the National Labor Relations...