TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT - National Labor Relations Board

Operations in Fiscal Year 1961 3
and secondary boycotts Additionally, the Board issued landmaik
decisions in cases in other significant areas
One outstanding case of international interest arose out of a maritime
controversy over the campaign by American sea unions to
organize crews of domestically owned, foreign registry ships The
Board decided that the National Labor Relations Act applies to American-owned
ships flying foreign flags manned by nonresident, alien
crews, operating iegularly from U S harbors in this decision the
Board majority relied upon a Supreme Court decision which set forth
guidelines in determining the application of domestic statutes with
general jurisdictional provisions to shipping operations having foreign
aspects
A noteworthy fiscal 1961 decision was issued in the United Auto
Workers-Kohler Co case This was one of the longest and most
extensively litigated cases in the history of the Board Charges of
unfair labor practices were filed by the union against the company
following a strike by Local 833 of the UAW thatbegan Apt il 5, 1954
The written record in this case, compiled in hearings conducted at
intervals over 4 years, formed a stack of documents 16 feet high The
transcript consisted of more than 20,000 pages. There were 1,900
exhibits
In its decision, the Board directed the Kohler Co to bargain collectively
with Local 833 The Board held that Kohler had failed to
bargain in good faith with the UAW by a series of unfair labor
practices after a 54-day shutdown of the company plant
In this same decision the Board found that 77 employees had been
legally discharged for unlawful activities on the picket lines and at
the homes of nonstriking employees
In a major fiscal 1961 decision, the Board unanimously declmed to
nal row the scope of the 1959 Landrum-Griffin amendments' ban on
secondary boycotts The Board held that secondary employers affected
by boycott picketing of multemployer construction sites are
"in commerce" within the meaning of the 1959 amendments
The Board made clear that it would not construe the 1959 amendments
in a manner that would allow jurisdictional exclusions to legalize
secondary boycotts against smaller concerns Instead, it held it.
will decide future secondary boycott cases on a broad interpretation of
the new statutory language of "industry affecting commerce" and
"in commerce" to "fulfill the manifest congressional purpose to give
the widest coverage to secondary boycott provisions"
Congress plainly, the Board said, intended to tighten its prohibition
of boycott efforts directed against any employer not directly
involved in a labor dispute to induce him to cease doing business with
the employer in the primary labor dispute
616401-62-2