In Re of Sailors' Union of The Pac. , 92 N.L.R.B. 547; 1950 NLRB LEXIS 127; 27 L.R.R.M. 1108; 92 NLRB No. 93

In Re of Sailors' Union of The Pac. , 92 N.L.R.B. 547; 1950 NLRB LEXIS 127; 27 L.R.R.M. 1108; 92 NLRB No. 93

Opinion

 [**1] 

 DECISION AND ORDER

 [*547]  On May 26, 1950, Trial Examiner Arthur Leff issued his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the Respondent had not engaged in the unfair labor practices alleged in the complaint and recommending that the complaint be dismissed in its entirety, as set forth in the copy of the Intermediate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the General Counsel and Moore Dry Dock Company, the charging party, filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and supporting briefs.

The Board has reviewed the rulings made by the Trial Examiner at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The rulings are hereby affirmed. ¹ The Board has considered the Intermediate Report, the exceptions and briefs, and the entire record in the case, and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the Trial Examiner with the following clarification.

 [**2]  

Section 8 (b) (4) (A) is aimed at secondary boycotts and secondary strike activities. It was not intended to proscribe primary action by  [*548]  a union having a legitimate labor dispute with an employer. ² Picketing at the premises of a primary employer is traditionally recognized as primary action even though it is "necessarily designed to induce and encourage third persons to cease doing business with the picketed employer." ³ As we said in 1949,

[Section 8 (b) (4) (A)] . . . was intended only to out-law certain secondary boycotts, whereby unions sought to enlarge the economic battleground beyond the premises of the primary Employer. When picketing is wholly at the premises of the employer with whom the union is engaged in a labor dispute, it cannot be called "secondary" even though, as is virtually always the case, an object of the picketing is to dissuade all persons from entering such premises for business reasons. . . . It follows . . . that the picketing of Bucyrus premises, which was primary because in support of a labor dispute with Bucyrus, did not lose its character and become "secondary" at the so-called Ryan gate because Ryan employees [employees of the [**3]  secondary employer] were the only persons regularly entering Bucyrus premises at that gate. ⁴

Hence, if Samsoc, the owner of the S. S. Phopho, had had a dock of its own in California to which the Phopho had been tied up while undergoing conversion by Moore Dry Dock employees, picketing by the Respondent at the dock site would unquestionably have constituted primary action, even though the Respondent might have expected that the picketing would be more effective in persuading Moore employees not to work on the ship than to persuade the seamen aboard the Phopho to quit that vessel. The difficulty in the present case arises therefore, not because of any difference in picketing objectives, ⁵ but from the fact that the Phopho was not tied up at its own  [*549]  dock, ⁶ but at that of Moore, while the picketing was going on in front of the Moore premises.

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