U.S. Supreme Court N.L.R.B. v. JONES & LAUGHLIN STEEL CORP., 301 U.S. 1 (1937)

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lective bargaining. There follows a declaration that it is the policy of the United States to eliminate these causes of obstruction to the free flow of commerce. [Footnote 2] The act

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rendered immune because they grow out of labor disputes. See Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Railway & S.S. Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 570, 50 S.Ct. 427, 433, 434; Schechter Corporation v. United States, supra, , at pages 544, 545, 55 S.Ct. 837, 849, 97 A.L.R. 947; Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 57 S.Ct. 592, decided March 29, 1937. It is the effect upon commerce, not the source of the injury, which is the criterion. Second Employers' Liability Cases (Mondou v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co.), 223 U.S. 1, 51, 32 S.Ct. 169, 38 L.R.A.(N.S.) 44. Whether or not particular action does affect commerce in such a close and intimate fashion as to be subject to federal control, and hence to lie within the authority conferred upon the Board, is left by the statute to be determined as individual cases arise. We are thus to inquire whether in the instant case the constitutional boundary has been passed.

Second. The Unfair Labor Practices in Question.-The unfair labor practices found by the Board are those defined in section 8, subdivisions ( 1) and (3). These provide: 'Sec. 8. It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer- '(1) To interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7 (section 157 of this title). ... '(3) By discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.' [Footnote 4]

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iron ore, coal and limestone along well-defined paths to the steel mills, thence through them, and thence in the form of steel products into the consuming centers of the country-a definite and well-understood course of business.' It is urged that these activities constitute a 'stream' or 'flow' of commerce, of which the Aliquippa manufacturing plant is the focal point, and that industrial strife at that point would cripple the entire movement. Reference is made to our decision sustaining the Packers and Stockyards Act. [Footnote 5] Stafford v. Wallace, , 42 S.Ct. 397, 23 A.L.R. 229. The Court found that the stockyards were but a 'throat' through which the current of commerce flowed and the transactions which there occurred could not be separated from that movement. Hence the sales at the stockyards were not regarded as merely local transactions, for, while they created 'a local change of title,' they did not 'stop the flow,' but merely changed the private interests in the subject of the current. Distinguishing the cases which upheld the power of the state to impose a nondiscriminatory tax upon property which the owner intended to transport to another state, but which was not in actual transit and was held within the state subject to the disposition of the owner, the Court remarked: 'The question, it should be observed, is not with respect to the extent of the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but whether a particular exercise of state power in view of its nature and operation must be deemed to be in conflict with this paramount authority.' Id., 258 U.S. 495, at page 526, 42 S.Ct. 397, 405, 23 A.L.R. 229. See Minnesota v. Blasius, 290 U.S. 1, 8, 54 S.Ct. 34, 36. Applying the doctrine of Stafford v. Wallace, supra, the Court sustained the Grain Futures Act of 19226 with respect to transactions on the Chicago Board of Trade, although these transactions were 'not in and of themselves interstate commerce.' Congress had found

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These questions have frequently engaged the attention of Congress and have been the subject of many inquiries. [Footnote 8] The steel industry is one of the great basic industries of the United States, with ramifying activities affecting interstate commerce at every point. The Government aptly refers to the steel strike of 1919-1920 with its far-reaching consequences. [Footnote 9] The fact that there appears to have been no major disturbance in that industry in the more recent period did not dispose of the possibilities of future and like dangers to interstate commerce which Congress was entitled to foresee and to exercise its protective power to forestall. It is not necessary again to detail the facts as to respondent's enterprise. Instead of being beyond the pale, we think that it presents in a most striking way the close and intimate relation which a manufacturing industry may have to interstate commerce and we have no doubt that Congress had constitutional authority to safeguard the right of respondent's employees to self- organization and freedom in the choice of representatives for collective bargaining.

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tion against the company's entering into any contract concerning rules, rates of pay and working conditions except with a chosen representative was 'designed only to prevent collective bargaining with any one purporting to represent employees' other than the representative they had selected. It was taken 'to prohibit the negotiation of labor contracts, generally applicable to employees' in the described unit with any other representative than the one so chosen, 'but not as precluding such individual contracts' as the company might 'elect to make directly with individual employees.' We think this construction also applies to section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C.A. 159(a).

The act does not compel agreements between employers and employees. It does not compel any agreement whatever. It does not prevent the employer 'from refusing to make a collective contract and hiring individuals on whatever terms' the employer 'may by unilateral action determine.' [Footnote 12] The act expressly provides in section 9(a) that any individual employee or a group of employees shall have the right at any time to present grievances to their employer. The theory of the act is that free opportunity for negotiation with accredited representatives of employees is likely to promote industrial peace and may bring about the adjustments and agreements which the act in itself does not attempt to compel. As we said in Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Railway & S.S. Clerks, supra, and repeated in Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation No. 40, the cases of Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161, 28 S.Ct. 277, 13 Ann.Cas. 764, and Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1, 35 S.Ct. 240, L.R.A.1915C, 960, are inapplicable to legislation of this character. The act does not interfere with the normal exercise of the right of the employer to select its employees or to discharge them. The employer may not, under cover of that right, intimidate or coerce its employees with respect to their

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requirements imposed for violation of the statute and are remedies appropriate to its enforcement. The contention under the Seventh Amendment is without merit.

Our conclusion is that the order of the Board was within its competency and that the act is valid as here applied. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion. It is so ordered.

Reversed and remanded. Footnotes

Footnote 1 Act of July 5, 1935, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq. (29 U.S. C.A. 151 et seq.).

Footnote 2 This section is as follows:'Section 1. The denial by employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by employers to accept the procedure of collective bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest, which have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce by (a) impairing the efficiency, safety, or operation of the instrumentalities of commerce; (b) occurring in the current of commerce; (c) materially affecting, restraining, or controlling the flow of raw materials or manufactured or processed goods from or into the channels of commerce, or the prices of such materials or goods in commerce; or (d) causing diminution of employment and wages in such volume as substantially to impair or disrupt the market for goods flowing from or into the channels of commerce.'The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries.'Experience has proved that protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively safeguards commerce from injury, impairment, or interruption, and promotes the flow of commerce by removing certain recognized sources of industrial strife and unrest, by encouraging practices fundamental to the friendly adjustment of industrial disputes arising out of differences as to wages, hours, or other working conditions, and by restoring equality of bargaining power between employers and employees.'It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.' 29 U.S. C.A. 151.

Footnote 3 See note 2.

Footnote 4 What is quoted above is followed by this proviso-not here involved-' Provided, That nothing in this Act (chapter), or in the National Industrial Recovery Act (U.S.C., Supp. VII, title 15, Secs. 701-712), as amended from time to time (sections 701 to 712 of Title 15), or in any code or agreement approved or prescribed thereunder, or in any other statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization (not established, maintained, or assisted by any action defined in this Act (chapter) as an unfair labor practice) to require as a condition of employment membership therein, if such labor organization is the representative of the employees as provided in section 9(a) (section 159(a) of this title), in the appropriate collective bargaining unit covered by such agreement when made.'

Footnote 5 42 Stat. 159 (7 U.S.C.A. 181 et seq.).

Footnote 6 42 Stat. 998 (7 U.S.C.A. 1-17).

Footnote 7 Sections 416, 422, 41 Stat. 484, 488 (49 U.S.C.A. 13, 15a); Interstate Commerce Act, 13(4), 49 U.S.C.A. 13(4).

Footnote 8 See, for example, Final Report of the Industrial Commission (1902), vol. 19, p. 844; Report of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission (1902), Sen.Doc. No. 6, 58th Cong., Spec.Sess.; Final Report of Commission on Industrial Relations (1916), Sen.Doc. No. 415, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 1; National War Labor Board, Principles and Rules of Procedure (1919), p. 4; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 287 (1921), pp. 52-64; History of the Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 283.

Footnote 9 See Investigating Strike in Steel Industries, Sen.Rep. No. 289, 66th Cong., 1st Sess.

Footnote 10 The provision is as follows: 'Sec. 9(a). 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: Provided, That any individual employee or a group of employees shall have the right at any time to present grievances to their employer.' 29 U.S.C.A. 159(a).

Footnote 11 See Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation No. 40, , 57 S.Ct. 592, 600, note 6, decided March 29, 1937.

Footnote 12 See note 11.