The NLRB held that the union, in picketing after all employees except supervisors left the ship, was in violations of sections 8(b)(4) (A) and (B), secondary boycott provisions of the LMRA. 8 The court of appeals, in overruling the Board's decision, reasoned that the picket line when established was legal in that it met all the criteria set down in the Moore Dry Dock case for determining whether a union violates the LMRA when it pickets on or at the premises of a secondary employer, including the only disputed criterionwhether the primary employer was engaged in normal business at the situs of the picketing. The court deemed overhauling and repairing the ship such normal business. The court then refused to conclude that the employer had the power to transform a picket line from a legal one to an illegal one merely by moving ¿his nonsupervisory employees away. T an Declaring that a factor in determining whether the secondary boycott provisions were violated is the objective of the strike, the court indicated that if the objective encompassed the primary employer only, it was legal, but if its objective was partly to influence the secondary employer or its employees, it was illegal. The court explained that the difference was in whether the effect on the secondary's employees was objective of the strike or merely an incident of it. The court stated that all the concrete evidence negatived an objective on the part of the union to force or require the secondary employer to do anything and there was no evidence that the picketing union made contact with the union representing the employees of the secondary employer. Noting that certain witnesses had testified that the union "hoped" or "bad a hope" that the employees of the secondary employer would When a secondary employer is harboring the situs of a dispute between a union and a primary employer, "the picketing of the premises of a secondary employer is primary if it meets the following conditions: (a) the picketing is strictly limited to times when the situs of dispute is located on the secondary employer's premises; (b) at the time of the picketing the primary employer is engaged in its normal business at the situs; (c) the picketing is limited to places reasonably close to the location of the situs; and (d) the picketing discloses clearly that the dispute is with the primary employer." Sailors' Union ofthe Pacific and Moore Dry Dock Co., 92 NLRB 547, 549 (1950). Kaiser v. United States (C.A. 7, Dec. 22, 1958). In re 10 This section states: "Gross income does not include the value of property acquired by gift . . ." 26 U.S.C.A. § 102(a) (1955). 11 26 U.S.C.A. § 61 (a) (1955). On April 5, 1954, in concert with fellow employees, the plaintiff had gone out on strike. He was not then a member of the union and did not apply for membership until August 19, 1954. During the strike, he received no benefits in cash, but commencing May 4, 1954, he received from the union maintenance assistance in the form of food, clothing, and payments of rent on the house which he occupied with his wife and two children. The funds from which the strike benefits were distributed were derived from the local and the international union and from contributions of other unions, organizations, and individuals. The basic condition for receiving strike assistance was the actual present need of the individual worker. By questionnaire, it was determined whether he needed food, clothing, and shelter. His personal need, his marital status, and the number of his dependents entered into the determination. After the plaintiff filed with the District Director of Internal Revenue an income tax return showing wages received in 1954, the Director, by audit, increased the adjusted gross income by adding the value of the maintenance. assistance received by the plaintiff. The plaintiff paid the tax as thus computed by the Director, to the extent that it exceeded his wages withheld, and sued for a refund. The jury in a Federal district court found that the strike benefits received by the plaintiff were gifts. Subsequently, the trial court set aside the verdict of the jury and entered a judgment for the Government dismissing the complaint. The trial court was of the view that the strike benefits were available to the plaintiff pursuant to a moral obligation of the international to its members and that it exacted continued participation in the strike by the plaintiff in return for the benefits and that, therefore, such payments did not constitute a gift but represented taxable income.12 In reversing the trial court, the court of appeals declared that the union did not owe an obligation to the plaintiff who was not a member for 41⁄2 months after the strike began and that there was testimony which the jury was entitled to believe that it was discretionary with the union whether any strike benefits were to be distributed. In response to the second point of the district court that the union exacted for the payments continued participation in the strike-the court of appeals noted that the plaintiff's strike benefits valued at about $17 per week were completely unrelated to his former earnings which netted him $166 a week and declared that if the plaintiff, while on strike, had found temporary employment elsewhere, his strike benefits would have ceased. The court of appeals stated that the same would have been true if members of his family had found employment, because the basic condition of receiving benefits was the present need of the plaintiff. 12 Kaiser v. United States, 158 F. Supp. 865 (U.S.D.C. E.D. Wis., 1958). The appellate court stated that while it held that the strike benefits received by the plaintiff under the facts of this case were not taxable income, the "question as to whether such benefits received under other circumstances might constitute taxable income is, of course, not presented on this record." The dissenting judge agreed that the plaintiff was given strike benefits only after he had shown need of food, clothing, and shelter, but stated: "However, his need was a secondary qualification to which consideration was given only after he had met the primary qualification, participation in the strike. . . . Had he ceased to meet that primary qualification, his benefits would have terminated notwithstanding the extent of his personal need or whether he was a member of the union or not. The fact that these benefits were paid to members and nonmembers alike emphasizes the real reason for payment, namely, either class must be in necessitous circumstances, but, above all, must be on strike." The dissenter concluded that the strike benefits constituted taxable income and not a gift. Recent Labor Events February 2, 1959 THE U.S. SENATE voted to continue for another year the ACTING UNDER the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, the Secretary of Labor announced the first prevailing minimum wage determination for the flour and related products industry. The rate of $1.30 an hour will apply to all Government contracts in excess of $10,000 concluded on or after March 5, 1959. A FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT in Washington ordered acquittal of Clyde Crosby, a Teamster organizer, charged with false testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. On February 17, in a similar case, a Federal district judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a jury to acquit James G. Cross, president of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers (Ind.), of a charge that he lied to the same committee (see Chron. item for Oct. 6, 1958, MLR, Dec. ⚫ 1958). (See also p. 430 of this issue.) February 4 THE Air Line Pilots Association reached an 18-month agreement with the Pan American World Airways, reportedly providing for top pay, retroactive to January 1, of $33,000 a year for jet pilots flying 85 hours a month and about $29,000 for those putting in 80 hours a month. February 6 THE NLRB ruled that an employer and a union which maintained a collective bargaining contract executed when the union did not represent a majority of employees violated the employees' statutory rights to choose their own bargaining representative or to bargain individually in the absence of a majority representative, even though the contract did not contain a union shop clause. (See also p. 420 of this issue.) The case was Bernhard-Altmann Texas Corp. and Lovell; International Ladies' Garment Workers and Same. A 62-DAY STRIKE of 4,000 tugboat workers in New York harbor ended as Local 333 of the National Maritime Union ratified a wage settlement with the Marine Towing and Transportation Employers Association representing 93 employers. The agreement, reached under a reopening clause of the 4-year contract, called for across-the-board hourly wage increases of 20 cents effective February 1 and another 10 cents a year later. February 9 SUPPLEMENTING his memorandum opinion of last December (see Chron. item for Dec. 11, 1958, MLR, Feb. 1959), Federal Judge F. Dickinson Letts signed an order directing the union to obey the monitors' "orders of recommendation," making the next Teamsters convention contingent on the monitors' recommendation with court approval, and ordering the union to take certain other actions consistent with original consent decree. A few days earlier the Federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., had dismissed a suit by two rank-and-file Teamsters to have the monitorship lifted. THE FEDERAL court of appeals in Chicago ruled that an employer did not violate the Taft-Hartley Act in suspending employees who, in defiance of a company rule and during working hours, displayed on various items of their personal property, signs bearing the date of a scheduled strike. Setting aside a NLRB order, the court said that such a display amounted to taunting the employer and was "unworthy of wholesome unionism." The case was NLRB v. Murphy Diesel Co. February 11 THE United Glass and Ceramic Workers Union and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. signed a memorandum of agreement ending a 4-month strike of 13,000 workers. The terms included wage increases of 8 to 12 cents an hour (repeated after a year) and a 25-percent increase in pension benefits (10 percent for those now retired). Unresolved issues such as work assignments and procedures for setting incentive pay, responsible for the delay in settlement, will be submitted to arbitration. (See also p. 428 of this issue.) February 13 THE NLRB RULED that local unions unlawfully refused to bargain with an employers' association and unlawfully coerced it in the selection of its bargaining representative when they refused to deal with the association's representative who was a former agent of the union. The Board stated that the locals failed to prove that it would be detrimental to their interests to deal with the union's ex-official. The case was International Ladies' Garment Workers, Northeast Department and Slate Belt Apparel Contractors' Association, Inc. 425 February 13 A WAGE INCREASE for 20,000 nonunion employees of Cannon Mills Co. in Kannapolis, N.C., went into effect, beginning a series of wage boosts for southern textile workers the first since the fall of 1956. (See also p. 428 of this issue.) February 19 A FEDERAL COURT JURY in Tacoma, Wash., found Dave Beck, former president of the Teamsters, guilty of evading payment of $240,000 in income taxes for the years 1950 to 1953. (See Chron. item for Dec. 14, 1957, MLR, Feb. 1958.) He was subsequently sentenced to a prison term of 5 years and a fine of $60,000. (See also p. 430 of this issue.) February 20 THE FEDERAL COURT OF APPEALS in Denver, Colo., upheld an NLRB decision that a newly certified union which delayed signing a collective bargaining contract until about 80 percent of employees had joined the union and signed dues-checkoff authorizations violated the Taft-Hartley Act by coercively withholding contractual benefits from the employees. The case was NLRB v. General Drivers, Chauffeurs and Helpers, Local 886, IBT. February 24 THE AFL-CIO Executive Council ended its 9-day meeting in San Juan, P.R., during which its important actions included authorization to charter a federal labor union in Puerto Rico to organize truckdrivers and warehousemen and a call to AFL-CIO affiliates to expand their organizing efforts in Puerto Rico; a statement urging substantial wage increases in this year's bargaining; adoption of a legislative program on unemployment (to be dramatized by a mass conference in Washington, scheduled for April); labor reform-emphasizing that it will withdraw its support of the Kennedy-Ervin bill if certain Taft-Hartley amendments are dropped, and amendment of the Fair Labor Standards Act to provide a 35-hour workweek, $1.25 an hour minimum wage, and coverage of additional groups of workers; and a resolution calling for labor representation on the advisory council of the Federal Reserve Board, as well as in its regional subsidiaries and the Federal Open Market Committee. (See also p. 427 of this issue.) THREE FORMER top officials of the Operating Engineers Local 3 in San Francisco, Patrick W. Clancy, Porter E. Vandewark, and Clarence Matthews, were convicted on charges of stealing close to $19,000 of union funds. Their prosecution resulted from hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, in early 1958 (see MLR, Mar. 1958, p. 301). February 25 A REPRESENTATION ELECTION by the Pan American World Airways' stock clerks resulted in the Teamsters (Ind.) winning over the Machinists, by more than two to one. Over one-third of the clerks involved are employed by the company at the Air Force guided missile center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. THE NLRB condemned as "outrageous" the conduct of two rival Electrical Workers and Communications Workers locals which paid employees to attend preelection rallies. The Board held that, regardless of whether the payments were contingent upon voting for any particular union, both unions so lowered the standards of election conduct as to necessitate a new election. The case was Teletune Corp. and International Association of Machinists AFL-CIO Executive Council. The AFL-CIO Executive Council met in San Juan, Puerto Rico, February 16 to 24. One of the major items on its agenda was the question of appropriate economic policy to speed recovery and reduce the current level of unemployment. Towards this end, the Council put forth several suggestions. In contrast to President Eisenhower's plea for wage restraint as one method of warding off inflation, the Executive Council called for higher wages to stimulate economic growth and reduce unemployment, decrying a "blind insistence on budget balancing" at the expense of full employment and full production. George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, warned that unless the economy grows by at least 5 percent annually "we are definitely headed toward an economic collapse." In addition, the federation's policymaking board also voted to seek legislation making a 35-hour workweek mandatory for an estimated 24 million workers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act to help offset the effects of automation. The Executive Council also announced that it would seek representation for labor, consumers, and small business on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board and in each of the 12 district Federal Reserve Banks. The purpose in seeking such representation, it said, was to convert the Federal Reserve into "a public system representative of American life." Earlier in the month, Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers as well as an Executive Council member, declared that one way to dramatize the unemployment problem would be to organize a march on Washington by jobless workers. Mr. Reuther's suggestion, however, was apparently not acceptable to the Council; instead, a compromise agreement was reached to hold a mass meeting in Washington in April 1959 including delegations of unemployed workers. Mr. Reuther was named chairman of a four-man committee to set up the meeting. Mr. Meany added, however, that he would preside. over the meeting himself and emphasized that "this is an unemployment conference and not a march on anyone." A decision was put off in the case of Carpenters' President Maurice A. Hutcheson, who had previously been called by the Council to answer questions on his appearances before investigating committees of the U.S. Senate. A letter from Mr. Hutcheson reportedly assured the Council that he was not involved in any misuse of union funds and that the Carpenters would abide by the AFL-CIO Ethical Practices Code. Some members of the Executive Council, however, were apparently dissatisfied with this explanation. It should be noted that the Carpenters' convention last November1 authorized the union's executive board, at its discretion, to withdraw from the AFL-CIO over longstanding disputes concerning jurisdiction policies. The problem of craft versus industrial jurisdiction-specifically, a charge before the Council by the Steelworkers and the Industrial Union Department accusing the Metal Trades Department with exceeding its jurisdiction by allegedly organizing plants in competition with the industrial unions-was also put aside. Mr. Meany said he would try to resolve differences in the separate reports filed by a two-man committee appointed to recommend a solution of this problem and report to the next Council meeting. The Executive Council considered the petition of the International Longshoremen's Association for readmission to the AFL-CIO,2 and set up a four-man committee to study the extent of the union's efforts to rid itself of gangster influence. The ILA's letter of petition cited rises in the average wage of longshoremen, establishment of welfare and pension plans, a comprehensive seniority system to eliminate favoritism, and other items as evidence of cleanup action. Captain William V. Bradley, president of the ILA, expressed confidence that upon review of the union's *Prepared in the Division of Wages and Industrial Relations, Bureau of Labor Statistics, on the basis of currently available published material. 1 See Monthly Labor Review, January 1959, p. 67. The ILA was expelled from the AFL in 1953 on charges of gangster infiltration. |