1 - National Labor Relations Board

Unfair Labor Practices 103
was a neutral powerless to resolve the underlying dispute. It
pointed out that the decision to invoke the regulation was not
a unilateral one but rather one in which the employer association
representing the steamship lines and their agents had participated.
The employers were, in fact, the direct beneficiaries of the
action taken by the port authority, as it eliminated the cost to
the employer of the clerk crews otherwise maintained and reduced
to a predictable minimum the costs to the employers after
expiration of the free-time period for claiming the cargo. Under
these circumstances the Board dismissed the complaint, concluding
that the union "had a lawful work preservation object in
attempting to retain for its members clerical work theretofore
performed by them and of which they were summarily deprived
by their employer, acting in concert with the port authority and
others."
2. Permissible Primary Activity
The recurrent problem of determining what union activity
within the ambit of clauses (i) or (ii) of section 8(b) (4) is
nonetheless permissible because it is primary activity not motivated
by a prohibited object, was faced by the Board in several
contexts. The circumstances which satisfy the requirement of
the presence of the "primary employer" at a common situs to
render picketing there legitimate activity were further defined
by the Board in the Auburndale Freezer case. 83 The picketing by
employees of the primary employer at the site of an independently
owned and operated freezer warehouse where the primary employer
delivered his product for storage until picked up by
commercial carriers was found in that case to be legitimate
picketing in conformance with the Moore Dry Dock standards,
even though no products were being delivered at the time of the
picketing due to the strike. Although the freezer warehouse served
many other employers, the Board found the primary employer
constantly present there in view of his long use of the warehouse,
his long-term reservation of a large storage capacity, and
the fact that his products were then stored at the warehouse,
were regularly brought to the warehouse by his employees, and
were shipped by the warehouse only in accordance with instructions
from him."
"United Steelworkers of America, Loc. 6991 (Auburndale Freezer Corp.), 177 NLRB No 108.
84 Members Fanning, Jenkins, and Zagoria for the majority Chairman McCulloch and
Member Brown, dissenting, would not base a finding of the "presence" of the primary
employer at a situs upon the simple presence of that primary employer's product, pursuant
to an established business relationship, on the separate premises of a neutral employer independently
engaged in another business.
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