TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT - National Labor Relations Board

130 Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board
gesture to notify its State agency which does not do, nor have the
funds to carry out, any conciliation or mediation work 48
5. Prohibited Strikes and Boycotts
The act's prohibitions against strikes and boycotts are contained
in section 8(b) (4) Clause (i) of this section forbids unions to strike
or to induce or encourage strikes or work stoppages by any individual
employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting
commerce, while clause (n) makes it unlawful for a union to
threaten, coerce, or restrain any such person, in either case for any of
the purposes prosciibed in subsection (A), (B), (C), or (D)
Dui ing the past fiscal year, the Board construed for the first time
the statutory term "person engaged in commerce or in an industry
affecting commerce" in the Kinzer case 41 The Board stated here
that in deciding secondary boycott cases, it would construe this statutory
phrase broadly "in order to fulfill the manifest congressional
purpose to give the widest coverage to secondary boycott provisions"
Specifically, in this case, which involved a dispute in the building
and construction industry and a primary employer whose business
did affect commerce, the Board reversed a trial examiner who had
dismissed a complaint because the evidence failed to show that the
particular secondary employers involved were themselves engaged
in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce According to the
Board, the trial examiner's rationale would plainly thwart the congressional
intent in amending section 8(b) (4) to close various loopholes
in the Taft-Hartley ban on secondary boycotts The Board took
"administrative no4ce" of the fact that the building and construction
industry causes the flow of large quantities of goods across State
lines, and therefore found that it is an "industry affecting commerce,"
and that the particular secondary employers involved were engaged
in such an industry It was also noted that these secondary employers
were engaged in an "activity," i e, a construction job, m which a
labor dispute would burden or obstruct or tend to burden commerce
within the meaning of section 8(b) (4) as further defined by section
501 (1) of the Labor Management Relations Act because the primary
employer was engaged in commerce
During the year, the Board also had occasion to rule that a hospital
is a "person" entitled to the protection of section 8(b) (4), even though
as an "employer" it is exempt from the act as a nonprofit institution 48
• Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen d Enginemen (Phelps Dodge Corp ), 130 NLRB
1147
• Sheet Metal Workers, Local 290 (5 If Kutner d Sons), 131 NLRB No 147
46 Local 3, IBEW (Picker X-Ray Corp ), 128 NLRB 560, decided under the provisions
of sec 8(b) (4) (A) before the 1959 amendments