Lexplug logoLexplug

National Labor Relations Board v. International Longshoremen's Ass'n

Supreme Court of the United States
447 U.S. 490, 65 L. Ed. 2d 289, 1980 U.S. LEXIS 41 (1980)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

To determine whether a collective bargaining agreement constitutes a lawful work preservation agreement under the National Labor Relations Act, the analysis must focus on the work of the bargaining unit employees. The inquiry must assess the historical and functional relationship between the employees' traditional work and the work claimed in the agreement in the face of technological change, rather than focusing on the work being performed by other employees after the innovation.


Facts:

  • Historically, longshoremen, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), loaded and unloaded loose, 'break-bulk' cargo piece by piece between trucks and ships at the pier.
  • The shipping industry widely adopted containerization, a technological innovation where large containers are packed ('stuffed') with cargo off-pier and loaded onto ships as a single unit, drastically reducing the need for piece-by-piece cargo handling by longshoremen.
  • In response to this job displacement, the ILA and shipping employer associations negotiated 'Rules on Containers' as part of their collective bargaining agreement.
  • The Rules required that containers owned or leased by the shipping companies, if carrying consolidated cargo or being stuffed/stripped by someone other than the cargo owner's own employees within a 50-mile radius of the port, must be handled by ILA members at the pier.
  • This often resulted in ILA members re-stuffing and re-stripping containers that had already been handled by non-ILA employees (such as truckers and consolidators) at off-pier facilities.
  • Shipping companies whose containers were handled in violation of the Rules were required to pay liquidated damages.
  • Consequently, shipping companies fined under the Rules began refusing to supply containers to off-pier consolidators, like Dolphin Forwarding, and truckers, like Houff Transport, who used non-ILA labor for stuffing and stripping within the 50-mile zone.

Procedural Posture:

  • Trucking companies (Houff Transport, Associated Transport) and freight consolidators (Dolphin Forwarding) filed unfair labor practice charges against the ILA and shipping associations with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
  • The charges alleged that the 'Rules on Containers' constituted an unlawful 'hot cargo' agreement under § 8(e) of the NLRA and that enforcement actions were an illegal secondary boycott under § 8(b)(4)(B).
  • The NLRB, acting as the trial-level adjudicator, consolidated the cases and held that the Rules were an illegal work acquisition agreement, not a lawful work preservation agreement.
  • The NLRB issued orders finding the ILA and its employer partners had committed unfair labor practices.
  • The ILA and the Council of North Atlantic Shipping Associations (CONASA) appealed the NLRB's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the NLRB cross-applied for enforcement of its orders.
  • A divided panel of the Court of Appeals, acting as the intermediate appellate court, granted the petition for review, vacated the NLRB's orders, and remanded the case, holding that the Board had applied an incorrect legal standard.
  • The NLRB then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which was granted.

Locked

Premium Content

Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief

You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture

Issue:

Did the National Labor Relations Board err as a matter of law by defining the 'work in controversy' as the off-pier stuffing and stripping of containers performed by truckers and consolidators, rather than focusing on the traditional work of the longshoremen that the containerization technology displaced?


Opinions:

Majority - Justice Marshall

Yes, the National Labor Relations Board erred as a matter of law by defining the work in controversy too narrowly. A valid work preservation analysis must focus on the work of the bargaining unit employees and how an agreement seeks to preserve that work amid technological change, not on the work being performed by different employees after the innovation. The Board's approach, which defined the disputed work as 'the off-pier stuffing and stripping of containers,' foreclosed by definition any possibility that the agreement could be for work preservation, as longshoremen had never performed work 'off-pier.' The proper inquiry requires evaluating the historical and functional relationship between the traditional on-pier handling of break-bulk cargo and the container work that the Rules claim for ILA members. The case is remanded for the Board to apply this correct legal standard.


Dissenting - Chief Justice Burger

No, the National Labor Relations Board correctly defined the work in controversy and its decision should be upheld. A container functions as part of a truck trailer when on land, and the work the ILA's Rules seek to control is the loading and unloading of this land-based transportation away from the pier. This is work that has historically and traditionally been performed by teamsters and truckers, not longshoremen. The Rules are therefore not a lawful effort to preserve the longshoremen's traditional work of loading ships, but an unlawful 'work acquisition' effort to take work from others. This amounts to a prohibited secondary objective and an invidious form of 'featherbedding' that blocks technological progress.



Analysis:

This decision significantly clarifies the 'work preservation' doctrine under the NLRA, particularly in cases of technological displacement. By rejecting the NLRB's narrow, location-based definition of 'work,' the Court established that the analysis must be broader and more functional. The ruling empowers unions to negotiate agreements that 'follow the work' when technology alters or relocates traditional job tasks, so long as the new work is functionally and historically related to the bargaining unit's old duties. This precedent makes it more difficult to label such adaptive agreements as illegal secondary boycotts and reinforces collective bargaining as the preferred method for resolving disputes over automation and its effects on the workforce.

G

Gunnerbot

AI-powered case assistant

Loaded: National Labor Relations Board v. International Longshoremen's Ass'n (1980)

Try: "What was the holding?" or "Explain the dissent"