Merchants Home Delivery Service, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board

This is a petition for review and cross-petition for enforcement of an order of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Merchants Home Delivery Service (Merchants) is a California-based contract carrier with operations in twenty-two states, engaged primarily in the delivery of household appliances and furniture from department and furniture stores to the homes of the stores’ customers. We are concerned here with its activities in making deliveries for J. C. Penney Co., Inc. (Penney) in the St. Louis, Missouri area. The NLRB found that Merchants violated §§ 8(a)(1) & (5) of the NLRA 29 U.S.C. §§ 158 (a)(1) & (5), in refusing to bargain with the union purporting to represent the truck drivers who handle the Penney deliveries for Merchants. The Board’s conclusion was based on three underlying findings: (1) the truck owner-operators engaged by Merchants to perform the Penney deliveries are employees of Merchants, not independent contractors; (2) Merchants is a successor corporation to Compton Service Co. (Compton) and Am-Del-Co, Inc. (ADC), which had previously handled Penney’s deliveries; and (3) the union which represented Compton’s and ADC’s drivers continued to enjoy majority…