Laborers Union Local No. 324 v. National Labor Relations Board

A divided National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) held in this ease that a union violated Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 158 (b)(1)(A), when it passed an internal rule barring distribution of materials during the operating hours of the union’s hiring-halls, and when it threatened to have a dissident union member arrested if he violated the rule. Laborers Union Local 324 (Associated General Contractors of California, Inc./Lawson Mechanical Contractors), 318 NLRB 589 , 1995 WL 511372 (1995). The NLRB majority reasoned that maintenance of the rule, although valid on its face, and never enforced, interfered with the dissident member’s rights to express critical opinions about the union, in violation of his Section 7 rights, 29 U.S.C. § 157 , because the union’s subjective motive in adopting the rule was to curtail the dissident’s anti-union activities. The dissenting NLRB members disagreed with the majority view that a rule which was neutral on its face, was in effect only at a limited place and during certain hours, and did not restrict any union member’s ability to distribute literature at union meetings or outside the hiring hall, could…