1 - National Labor Relations Board

106 Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board
section 8(b) (4) 91 since it did not have the effect of cutting off
deliveries or inducing employees to cease work. The union thereafter
extended its handbilling to the other stores of shopping
center tenants at locations away from the shopping center. In
holding that handbills at the stores of the secondary employers
other than the one at which the services of the primary employer
were utilized to be within the protection of the publicity proviso,
the Board noted that " [n]either the Act nor the legislative
history indicate the existence of a geographic limitation on the
publicity proviso." It found that utilization of mass media for
publicity was clearly contemplated by Congress in enacting the
proviso, and concluded that "to restrict the locus of permissible
handbilling, while protecting appeals to all prospective consumers
who listen to radios or read newspapers would be patently inconsistent."
The criteria for determining whether an employer doing work
which would otherwise be done by the striking employees of
the primary employer is a neutral protected from union pressures
or an ally of the primary employer who may be treated in like
manner with the primary, was clarified by the Board in the
General Drivers case. 92 There the Board rejected the view that
under the Royal Typewriter case 93 an employer who unknowingly
performs struck work, even though it is performed pursuant to
arrangements with the primary employer, is entitled to protection
as a neutral. The Board pointed out that it is the nature of
the work performed by the employer furnishing services to the
primary and the relation of that work to the primary's work,
rather than his awareness of its nature as struck work, which is
critical in determining whether that employer is a neutral or
an ally of the primary employer. It viewed Royal Typewriter
as imposing on the employer the burden of determining whether
or not he is engaged in neutral or ally type work. Finding under
the circumstances that the employer, in contracting to complete
construction site grading work left unfinished by the strike, had
" The language of the "publicity" proviso states: "Provided further, That for the purposes
of this paragraph (4) only, nothing contained in such paragraph shall be construed to prohibit
publicity, other than picketing, for the purpose of truthfully advising the public,
including consumers and members of a labor organization, that a product or products are
produced by an employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute and
are distributed by another employer, as long as such publicity does not have an effect of
inducing any individual employed by any person other than the primary employer in the
course of his employment to refuse to pick up, deliver, or transport any goods, or not to
perform any services, at the establishment of the employer engaged in such distribution."
w General Drsvers & Dairy Employees Loc. 563 (Fox Valley Material Suppliers Assn.), 176
NLRB No. 51.
° N.L.R.B. v. Business Machine & Office Appliance Mechanics, Local 459, IDE (Royal
Typewriter Co.), 228 F.2d 553, 559 (C.A. 2), cert. denied 351 U.S. 962.