National Labor Relations Board v. Truck Drivers Local 449 (“Buffalo Linen”)

The Linen and Credit Exchange (the exchange), a consortium of eight linen suppliers in and around Buffalo, New York, employed truck drivers from Truck Drivers Local Union No. 449 (the union) (plaintiff) under successive contracts for 13 years. The latest contract was set to expire on April 30, 1953. Sixty days before that date, the union gave notice to the exchange that it wanted to negotiate changes in its contract. The negotiations continued past April 30, 1953, until the union planned a whipsaw strike—i.e., a series of strikes against certain employers, one by one —against each of the eight exchange members. On May 26, 1953, the union began striking at Frontier Linen Supply, Inc. The remaining seven members of the exchange laid off their truck drivers the next day but notified the union that they would reinstate the truck drivers if it ended the Frontier strike. The union and the exchange continued to negotiate. A week later, they reached an agreement. The union ended the Frontier strike, and the other seven members of the exchange reinstated the truck drivers they had laid off. The union filed an unfair-labor-practice (ULP) charge against the seven exchange members with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) (defendant). The union claimed that the exchange had violated §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which prohibit employers from interfering with employees’ right to self-organization. A trial examiner found the exchange guilty of the ULP, but the NLRB overruled the trial examiner after finding that the exchange had not interfered with the right to self-organize but had merely sought to defend itself against impending strikes. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, reasoning that Congress had never approved of multi-employer bargaining, reversed.