United Mine Workers of America v. Arkansas Oak Flooring Company/Opinion of the Court

The question before us is whether, in the case of an employer subject to the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., a state court may enjoin peaceful picketing of the employer's premises, undertaken by its employees and their union for the purpose of obtaining recognition of that union as the employees' bargaining representative, when the union holds cards authorizing such representation concededly signed by a majority of the employees eligible to be represented, but has filed none of the data or affidavits described in § 9(f), (g) and (h) of that Act, as amended. For the reasons hereafter stated, our answer is in the negative.

In 1953, the respondent, Arkansas Oak Flooring Company, a Delaware corporation with its main office in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, owned and operated a sawmill and flooring plant in Alexandria, Louisiana. The company was there engaged in interstate commerce and subject to the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. At the same time, District 50, United Mine Workers of America, here called the 'union,' was an unincorporated labor organization which undertook to organize the company's eligible employees at its Alexandria plant. The union, however, did not file with the Secretary of Labor any of the financial or organizational data described in § 9(f) and (g) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, nor, with the National Labor Relations Board, any of the non-Communist affidavits described in § 9(h) of that Act. It contended that the company, nevertheless, should recognize it as the collective-bargaining representative of the Alenandria plant employees because it was authorized by more than a majority of such employees to represent them.

Although for four years there had been no labor organization representing the plant employees, this union, by February 24, 1954, held applications for membership from 174 of the 225 eligible employees. Such applicants had elected officers and stewards and had authorized the union organizer to request the company to recognize the union as their collective-bargaining representative. On February 24, the organizer, accordingly, presented that request to the assistant superintendent of the plant. The latter, in the absence of any higher officer of the company, replied that the union was not recognized either by the National Labor Relations Board or by him, and that, if negotiations were desired, the union organizer should call the company's office at Pine Bluff.

On March 1, the petitioning employees struck for recognition of the union and set up a peaceful picket line of three employees. Two were placed in front of the plant and one at the side. They carried signs stating 'This Plant is on Strike' or 'We want Recognition, District 50 UMWA.'

On March 2, respondent sought a restraining order and injunction in the Ninth Judicial District for the Parish of Rapides, Louisiana. That court promptly issued an order restraining the above-described picketing by 11 named employees, the union and its organizer. The order was obeyed but the strike continued. On March 12 and 15, evidence was introduced, including, by that date, 179 applications for membership in the union, each of which authorized the union to represent the signer in negotiations and in the making of agreements as to wages, hours and conditions of work. The parties to the proceeding stipulated that each of those applications was signed by an employee of respondent. In the face of that record, the court nevertheless converted its restraining order into a temporary injunction and the defendants, who are the petitioners herein, appealed to the Supreme Court of Louisiana. While that appeal was pending, the trial court, on the same record, made its injunction permanent. Petitioners appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Louisiana and the two appeals were consolidated. There the permanent injunction was sustained, one judge concurring specially and another dissenting, in part, on an issue not material here. 227 La. 1109, 81 So.2d 413.

The State Supreme Court's ground for sustaining the injunction was that the union, which sought to be recognized, had failed to file with the Secretary of Labor the financial and other data required by § 9(f) and (g), and had failed to file with the Labor Board the non-Communist affidavits required by § 9(h). The court held that the union, by failing to comply with § 9(f), (g) and (h), had precluded its certification by the Board, and that, accordingly, neither the employees nor the union had a right to picket the plant to induce the company to recognize the noncomplying union. The court, agreeing with respondent's theory, took the position that such recognition would be illgal and that picketing to secure it, therefore, was subject to restraint by a state court. Rehearing was denied.

Because of the significance of that decision in relation to the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, we granted certiorari and invited the Solicitor General to file a brief setting forth the views of the National Labor Relations Board. 350 U.S. 860, 76 S.Ct. 102. Such a brief was filed favoring a reversal.

There is no doubt that, if the union had filed the data and affidavits required by § 9(f), (g) and (h), the complaint, under the circumstances of this case, would have had to be dismissed by the state court for lack of jurisdiction, and that, if an injunction were sought through the National Labor Relations Board, the request would have had to be denied on the merits. Under those circumstances, the Board would have had jurisdiction of the issue to the exclusion of the state court. Garner v. Teamsters, etc., Union, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228, and see Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480, 99 L.Ed. 546. In the absence of any bona fide dispute as to the existence of the required majority of eligible employees, the employer's denial of recognition of the union would have violated § 8(a)(5) of the Act.

The issue before us thus turns upon the effect of the union's choice not to file the information and affidavits described in § 9(f), (g) and (h). The state court misconceived that effect. The union's failure to file was not a confession of guilt of anything. It was merely a choice not to make public certain information. The Act prescribes no fine or penalty, in the ordinary sense, for failure to file the specified data and affidavits. The Act does not even direct that they be filed. The nearest to such a direction in the Act is the statement, in § 9(g), that it shall be 'the obligation' of all labor organizations to file annual reports 'bringing up to date the information required to be supplied in the initial filing by subsection (f)(A) of this section, and to file with the Secretary of Labor and furnish to its members annually financial reports in the form and manner prescribed in subsection (f) (B).' However, neither subsection (f)(A) nor (f)(B) of § 9 requires any initial filing to be made. Each merely describes what is required to be filed in the event that a labor organization elects to seek the advantages offered by subsection (f).

Congress seeks to induce labor organizations to file the described data and affidavits by making various benefits of the Act strictly contingent upon such filing. See New Jersey Carpet Mills, Inc., 92 N.L.R.B. 604, 610. In particular, Congress makes the services of the Labor Board available to labor organizations only upon their filing of the specified data and affidavits. By its noncompliance with § 9(f), (g) and (h), a union does not exempt itself from other applicable provisions of the Act.

What, then, is the precise status of a labor organization that elects not to file some or all of the data or affidavits in question? It is significant that the effect of noncompliance is the same whether one or more of the filings are omitted. Accordingly, it simplifies the issue to assume a situation where a union has filed the non-Communist affidavits specified in § 9(h), but has chosen not to disclose the information called for by § 9(f)(A)(2) and (3) as to the salaries of its officers, or the manner in which they have been elected. There is no provision stating that, under those circumstances, the union may not represent an appropriate unit of employees if a majority of those employees give it authority so to do. Likewise, there is no statement precluding their employer from voluntarily recognizing such a noncomplying union as their bargaining representative. Section 8(a)(5) declares it to be an unfair labor practice for an employer 'to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 9(a).' (Emphasis supplied.) Section 9(a), which deals expressly with employee representation, says nothing as to how the employees' representative shall be chosen. See Lebanon Steel Foundry v. National Labor Relations Board, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 100, 103, 130 F.2d 404, 407. It does not make it a condition that the representative shall have complied with § 9(f), (g) or (h), or shall be certified by the Board, or even by eligible for such certification.

Likewise, § 7, which deals with the employees' rights to self-organization and representation, makes no reference to any need that the employees' chosen representative must have complied with § 9(f), (g) or (h). Section 7 provides-

'Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8(a)(3).' 61 Stat. 140, 29 U.S.C. § 157, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157.

Subsections (f), (g) and (h) of § 9 merely describe advantages that may be gained by compliance with their conditions. The very specificity of the advantages to be gained and the express provision for the loss of these advantages imply that no consequences other than those so listed shall result from noncompliance.

The noncompliance of the union with § 9(f), (g) and (h) in the instant case precludes any right of the union to seek certification of its status by the Labor Board. Such elimination of the Board does not, however, eliminate the applicability of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, and does not settle the issue as to the right of the state court to enjoin the employees and their union from peacefully picketing the employer's plant for the purpose of securing recognition.

The industrial relations between the company and its employees nonetheless affect interstate commerce and come within the field occupied by the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. The Labor Board is but an agency through which Congress had authorized certain industrial relations to be supervised and enforced. The Act goes further. The instant employer, employees and union are controlled by its applicable provisions and all courts, state as well as federal, are bound by them.

Section 7 recognizes the right of the instant employees' to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing' and leaves open the manner of choosing such representatives when certification does not apply. The employees have exercised that right through the action of substantially more than a majority of them authorizing the instant union to represent them.

Section 9(a) provides that representatives 'designated or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment: * *  * .' That fits this situation precisely. It does not require the designated labor organization to disclose the salaries of its officers, or even to file non-Communist affidavits.

Under those sections and by virtue of the conceded majority designation of the union, the employer is obligated to recognize the designated union. Upon the employer's refusal to do so, the union, because of its noncompliance with s 9(f), (g) and (h), cannot resort to the Labor Board. It can, however, take other lawful action such as that engaged in here.

The company can, if it so wishes, lawfully recognize the union as the employees' representative. That being so, there is no reason why the employees, and their union under their authorization, may not, under § 13, strike, and, under § 7, peacefully picket the premises of their employer to induce it thus to recognize their chosen representative. See West Tex. Utilities Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 87 U.S.App.D.C. 179, 185, 184 F.2d 233, 239, and the other cases cited in note 6, supra.

Such being the case, the state court is governed by the federal law which has been applied to industrial relations, like these, affecting interstate commerce and the state court erred in enjoining the peaceful picketing here practiced. A 'State may not prohibit the exercise of rights which the federal Acts protect.' Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U.S. 468, 474, 75 S.Ct. 480, 484, 99 L.Ed. 546, and see Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U.S. 485, 494, 74 S.Ct. 161, 167, 168, 98 L.Ed. 228.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, accordingly, is reversed and the case is remanded to it for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice HARLAN took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER (dissenting).