NLRB vs Jones and Laughlin Steel - Law - Case Study, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Law

Download NLRB vs Jones and Laughlin Steel - Law - Case Study and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Law in PDF only on Docsity! U.S. Supreme Court NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937) National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. No. 419 Argued February 10, 11, 1937 Decided April 12, 1937* 301 U.S. 1 Syllabus 1. The distinction between what is national and what is local in the activities of commerce is vital to the maintenance of our federal form of government. P. 301 U. S. 29. 2. The validity of provisions which, considered by themselves, are constitutional, held not affected by general and ambiguous declarations in the same statute. P. 301 U. S. 30. 3. An interpretation which conforms a statute to the Constitution must be preferred to another which would render it unconstitutional or of doubtful validity. P. 301 U. S. 30. 4. Acts which directly burden or obstruct interstate or foreign commerce, or its free flow, are within the reach of the congressional Page 301 U. S. 2 power, and this includes acts, having that effect, which grow out of labor disputes. P. 301 U. S. 31. 5. Employees in industry have a fundamental right to organize and select representatives of their own choosing for collective bar gaining, and discrimination or coercion upon the part of their employer to prevent the free exercise of this right is a proper subject for condemnation by competent legislative authority. P. 301 U. S. 33. 6. The congressional authority to protect interstate commerce from burdens and obstructions is not limited to transactions which can be deemed to be an essential part of a "flow" of such commerce. Pp. 301 U. S. 34-36. 7. Although activities may be intrastate in character when separately considered, if they have such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential, or appropriate, to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions, Congress has the power to exercise that control. P. 301 U. S. 37. 8. This power must be considered in the light of our dual system of government, and may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them would, in view of our complex society, effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government. The question is necessarily one of degree. P. 301 U. S. 37. 9. Whatever amounts to more or less constant practice, and threatens to obstruct or unduly to burden the freedom of interstate commerce, is within the regulatory power of Congress under the commerce clause, and it is primarily for Congress to consider and decide the fact of the danger and meet it. P. 301 U. S. 37. 10. The close and intimate effect which brings the subject within the reach of federal power may be due to activities in relation to productive industry, although the industry when separately viewed is local. P. 301 U. S. 38. 11. The relation to interstate commerce of the manufacturing enterprise involved in this case was such that a stoppage of its operations by industrial strife would have an immediate, direct and paralyzing effect upon interstate commerce. Therefore, Congress had constitutional authority, for the protection of interstate commerce, to safeguard the right of the employees in the manufacturing plant to self-organization and free choice of their representatives for collective bargaining. P. 301 U. S. 41. Page 301 U. S. 3 Judicial notice is taken of the facts that the recognition of the right of employees to self-organization and to have representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of collective bargaining is often an essential condition of industrial peace, and that refusal to confer and negotiate has been one of the most prolific causes of strife. 12. The National Labor Relations Act of July 5, 1935, empowers the National Labor Relations Board to prevent any person from engaging in unfair labor practices "affecting commerce"; its definition of "commerce" (aside from commerce within a territory or the District of Columbia) is such as to include only interstate and foreign commerce, and the term "affecting commerce" it defines as meaning "in commerce, or burdening or obstructing commerce or the free flow of commerce, or having led or tending to lead to a labor dispute burdening or obstructing commerce or the free flow of commerce." The "unfair labor practices," as defined by the Act and involved in this case, are restraint or coercion of employees in their rights to self-organization and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and discrimination against them in regard to hire or tenure of employment for the purpose of encouraging or discouraging membership in any labor organization. §§ 7 and 8. The Act (§ 9a) declares that representatives, for the purpose of collective bargaining, of the majority of the employees in an appropriate unit shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in that unit; but that any individual employee or a group of employees shall have the right at any time to present grievances to their employer. Held: