The Norris-LaGuardia Act deprives a Federal District Court of
jurisdiction to enjoin a union of American seamen from peacefully
picketing a foreign ship operated entirely by a foreign crew under
foreign articles while temporarily in an American port, in protest
against loss of livelihood by American seamen "to foreign flagships
with substandard wages or substandard conditions," and in order to
prevent the foreign ship from unloading its foreign cargo in the
American port.
Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo,
353 U. S. 138,
distinguished. Pp.
362 U. S.
365-372.
(a) Such a controversy is a "labor dispute" within the meaning
of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. P.
362 U. S.
370.
(b) A different conclusion is not required by the fact that the
picketing interfered with foreign commerce or the internal economy
of a vessel registered under the flag of a friendly foreign power
and prevented such vessel from unloading its cargo at an American
port. Pp.
362 U. S.
371-372.
265 F.2d 780 reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The respondents, who are the owner, time charterer, and master
of the Liberian registered vessel, S.S.
Nikolos, brought
this action in a United States District Court against the
petitioner union and its members praying for
Page 362 U. S. 366
temporary and permanent injunctions to restrain, and for damages
allegedly suffered from, the union's peaceful picketing of the ship
in American waters and its threats to picket shore consignees of
the ship's cargo should they accept delivery. The union's sole
contention was that the District Court was without jurisdiction to
restrain the picketing because of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which
states in § 1:
"That no court of the United States, as herein defined, shall
have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or temporary or
permanent injunction in a case involving or growing out of a labor
dispute, except in a strict conformity with the provisions of this
Act; nor shall any such restraining order or temporary or permanent
injunction be issued contrary to the public policy declared in this
Act. [
Footnote 1]"
Section 4 of that same law specifically denies jurisdiction to
District Courts to issue any restraining order or temporary or
permanent injunction to prohibit unions from:
"(e) Giving publicity to the existence of, or the facts involved
in, any labor dispute, whether by advertising, speaking,
patrolling, or by any other method not involving fraud or violence.
. . . [
Footnote 2]"
Notwithstanding these provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and
despite an express finding that the union and its members had not
been guilty of fraud, and had not threatened or committed any acts
of physical violence to any person or any property, the District
Court issued a
Page 362 U. S. 367
temporary injunction to restrain the picketing. [
Footnote 3] The injunction prohibited
picketing by the petitioner union of
"the S.S.
Nikolos or any other vessel registered under
a foreign flag and manned by an alien crew and owned, operated or
chartered by"
respondents in the Puget Sound area. This action of the court
was based on its conclusions that (a) the case did not involve or
grow out of any labor dispute within the meaning of the
Norris-LaGuardia Act, and (b), even if there were a labor dispute
within the meaning of that Act, the court had jurisdiction to
restrain the picketing because it interfered in the internal
economy of a vessel registered under the flag of a friendly foreign
power, and amounted to an "unlawful interference with foreign
commerce." [
Footnote 4] The
court's conclusion rested on the following facts, about which there
was no substantial dispute.
The petitioner and other national labor organizations act as
bargaining representatives for most of the unlicensed personnel of
vessels that fly the American flag on the Pacific Coast. Petitioner
alone, pursuant to National Labor Relations Board certification,
represents employees of the stewards' department on a large
majority of those vessels. The S.S.
Nikolos is owned by a
Liberian corporation, was time-chartered for this trip by another
Liberian corporation, and all members of its crew were aliens
working under employment contracts made outside this country. There
was no labor dispute between the ship's employees and the ship. The
Nikolos picked up a cargo of salt in Mexico and carried it
to the harbor of the port of Tacoma, Washington, for delivery to an
American consignee there. After the ship entered the Tacoma harbor,
it was met by the union's boat, which began to circle around the
Nikolos displaying signs marked
Page 362 U. S. 368
"PICKET BOAT." Later, an additional sign was put on the boat
reading: "AFL-CIO seamen protest loss of their livelihood to
foreign flagships with substandard wages or substandard
conditions." The union threatened to extend its picketing to the
consignee of the salt should an attempt be made to berth and unload
that cargo. Although the picketing was peaceful and there was no
fraud, the result was that the ship could not deliver its
cargo.
On appeal from the temporary injunction to the Court of Appeals,
the petitioner argued that the injunction granted by the District
Court was beyond the jurisdiction of that court because of the
provisions of § 4 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act previously set out,
[
Footnote 5] but the Court of
Appeals rejected that contention and upheld that injunction.
[
Footnote 6] That court's view
was based almost entirely upon our holding in
Benz v. Compania
Naviera Hidalgo, 353 U. S. 138.
Certiorari was granted to consider the question of the
applicability of the Norris-LaGuardia Act here, 361 U.S. 893, and
in
Order of Railroad Telegraphers
Page 362 U. S. 369
v. Chicago & North Western R. Co., 361 U.S. 809. We
think neither the holding nor the opinion in the
Benz case
supports the narrow construction the Court of Appeals gave the
Norris-LaGuardia Act in this case.
The
Benz case was decided by a United States District
Court sitting as a state court to enforce state law under its
diversity jurisdiction. The question in the
Benz case was
whether the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 governed the
internal labor relations of a foreign ship and its foreign workers
under contracts made abroad while that ship happened temporarily to
be in American waters. The
Benz case decided that the
Labor Management Relations Act had no such scope or coverage, and
that it accordingly did not preempt the labor relations filed so as
to bar an action for damages for unlawful picketing under Oregon
law. Nothing was said or intimated in
Benz that would
justify an inference that, because a United States District Court
has power to award damages in state case growing out of labor
disputes, it also has power to issue injunctions in like
situations. That question -- of United States courts' jurisdiction
to issue injunctions in cases like this -- is to be controlled by
the Norris-LaGuardia Act.
That Act's language is broad. The language is broad because
Congress was intent upon taking the federal courts out of the labor
injunction business except in the very limited circumstances left
open for federal jurisdiction under the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The
history and background that led Congress to take this view have
been adverted to in a number of prior opinions of this Court in
which we refused to give the Act narrow interpretations that would
have restored many labor dispute controversies to the courts.
[
Footnote 7]
Page 362 U. S. 370
It is difficult to see how this controversy could be thought to
spring from anything except one "concerning terms or conditions of
employment," and hence a labor dispute within the meaning of the
Norris-LaGuardia Act. [
Footnote
8] The protest stated by the pickets concerned "substandard
wages or substandard conditions." The controversy does involve, as
the Act requires, "persons who are engaged in the same industry,
trade, craft, or occupation." [
Footnote 9] And it is immaterial under the Act that the
unions and the ship and the consignees did not "stand in the
proximate relation of employer and employee." [
Footnote 10] This case clearly does grow out of
a labor dispute within the meaning of the Norris-LaGuardia Act.
Page 362 U. S. 371
The District Court held, however, that, even if this case
involved a labor dispute under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the court
had jurisdiction to issue the injunction because the picketing was
an "unlawful interference with foreign commerce," and interfered
"in the internal economy of a vessel registered under the flag of a
friendly foreign power" and prevented "such a vessel from lawfully
loading or discharging cargo at ports of the United States."
[
Footnote 11] The Court of
Appeals adopted this position, but cited no authority for its
statement that the picketing was "unlawful," nor have the
respondents in this Court pointed to any statute or persuasive
authority proving that petitioner's conduct was unlawful.
Compare § 20 of the Clayton Act, 29 U.S.C. § 52. And even
if unlawful, it would not follow that the federal court would have
jurisdiction to enjoin the particular conduct which § 4 of the
Norris-LaGuardia Act declared shall not be enjoined. Nor does the
language of the Norris-LaGuardia Act leave room to hold that
jurisdiction it denies a District Court to issue a particular type
of restraining order can be restored to it by a finding that the
nonenjoinable conduct may "interfere in the internal economy of a
vessel registered under the flag of a friendly foreign power."
[
Footnote 12]
Page 362 U. S. 372
Congress passed the Norris-LaGuardia Act to curtail and regulate
the jurisdiction of courts, not, as it passed the Taft-Hartley Act,
to regulate the conduct of people engaged in labor disputes. As we
pointed out in the
Benz case, a ship that voluntarily
enters the territorial limits of this country subjects itself to
our laws and jurisdiction as they exist. [
Footnote 13] The fact that a foreign ship enters a
United States court as a plaintiff cannot enlarge the jurisdiction
of that court. There is not presented to us here, and we do not
decide, whether the picketing of petitioner was tortious under
state or federal law. All we decide is that the Norris-LaGuardia
Act deprives the United States court of jurisdiction to issue the
injunction it did under the circumstances shown.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case
is remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the
petition for injunction.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER, believing that the controversy in this
case does not constitute a lawful "labor dispute" within the
meaning of the Norris-LaGuardia Act,
see his dissenting
opinion in
Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Chicago &
North Western R. Co., ante, p.
362 U. S. 362,
dissents.
[
Footnote 1]
47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C. § 101.
[
Footnote 2]
47 Stat. 70, 71; 29 U.S.C. § 104. Even in the limited
jurisdiction the Norris-LaGuardia Act leaves to federal courts in
labor controversies, other sections of the Act narrowly
circumscribe the cases where, the parties against whom, and the
circumstances in which, injunctions may issue. If, however,
issuance of a specific injunction is prohibited by one section,
such as § 4, compliance with the requirements of another section,
such as § 7, does not justify the injunction.
[
Footnote 3]
Panama Steamship Co. v. Marine Cooks & Stewards,
AFL, 1959 A.M.C. 340.
[
Footnote 4]
1959 A.M.C. 340, 350.
[
Footnote 5]
In the District Court, respondents rested their claim for
jurisdiction on 28 U.S.C. § 1331, which provides:
"The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all
civil actions wherein the matter in controversy . . . arises under
the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States."
Between the time the District Court's injunction was appealed
and the time the Court of Appeals decided the appeal, this Court
decided
Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co.,
358 U. S. 354.
That case decided that § 1331 does "not extend, and could not
reasonably be interpreted to extend, to cases of admiralty and
maritime jurisdiction."
Id. at
358 U. S. 378.
In the Court of Appeals, the petitioner here broadened its
challenge to the jurisdiction of the District Court in this case by
invoking the interpretation of § 1331 declared in the
Romero case. The view we take of the challenge to the
court's jurisdiction under the Norris-LaGuardia Act makes it
unnecessary for us to determine the entirely separate question
raised under the
Romero case.
[
Footnote 6]
Marine Cooks & Stewards, AFL v. Panama Steamship
Co., 265 F.2d 780 (C.A. 9th Cir. 1959).
[
Footnote 7]
See, e.g., United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U.
S. 219;
Milk Wagon Drivers' Union v. Lake Valley
Farm Products, 311 U. S. 91;
New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U.
S. 552;
Lauf v. E. G. Shinner & Co.,
303 U. S. 323.
And see Allen Bradley Co. v. Local Union No. 3, I.B.E.W.,
325 U. S. 797,
325 U. S.
805.
"The underlying aim of the Norris-LaGuardia Act was to restore
the broad purpose which Congress thought it had formulated in the
Clayton Act, but which was frustrated, so Congress believed, by
unduly restrictive judicial construction."
United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U.
S. 219,
312 U. S.
235-236.
This congressional purpose, as is well known, was prompted by a
desire to protect the rights of laboring men to organize and
bargain collectively and to withdraw federal courts from a type of
controversy for which many believed they were ill suited and from
participation in which, it was feared, judicial prestige might
suffer.
See Frankfurter and Greene, The Labor Injunction
(1930) at 200; Gregory, Labor and the Law (1958) at 184-199.
[
Footnote 8]
Section 13 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 113(c),
defines a labor dispute, for purposes of that Act, as follows:
"The term 'labor dispute' includes any controversy concerning
terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or
representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining,
changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment,
regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the
proximate relation of employer and employee."
(Emphasis supplied.)
[
Footnote 9]
47 Stat. 70, 73; 29 U.S.C. § 113(a).
[
Footnote 10]
See note 8
supra.
[
Footnote 11]
1959 A.M.C. 340, 350.
[
Footnote 12]
Unlike the situation in the
Benz case, in which
American unions to which the foreign seamen did not belong picketed
the foreign ship in sympathy with the strike of the foreign seamen
aboard, the union members here were not interested in the internal
economy of the ship, but rather were interested in preserving job
opportunities for themselves in this country. They were picketing
on their own behalf, not on behalf of the foreign employees as in
Benz. Though the employer here was foreign, the dispute
was domestic. For a thoughtful discussion of the impact of foreign
employment upon American labor standards,
see Afran Transport
Co. v. National Maritime Union, 169 F.
Supp. 416, 1959 A.M.C. 326 (holding that the Norris-LaGuardia
Act withdrew from Federal District Courts jurisdiction to issue
labor injunctions in a labor dispute strikingly like the one here
involved).
But see Fianza Cia. Nav. S.A. v.
Benz, 178 F.
Supp. 243, 1959 A.M.C. 1758, 37 C.C.H. Lab.Cas. � 65,495.
[
Footnote 13]
Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, 353 U.
S. 138,
353 U. S. 142.
See generally Comment, The Effect of United States Labor
Legislation on the Flag of Convenience Fleet: Regulation of
Shipboard Labor Relations and Remedies Against Shoreside Picketing,
69 Yale L.J. 498, 516-525, esp. 523-525.
Here, respondents do not even claim that foreign ships seeking
injunctions can obtain them without complying with the requirement
of § 7 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act that the court hold a hearing
and make specified findings.