Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 174

This case requires us to decide the breadth of the term “labor dispute” as defined by the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. The union in this case threatened to picket a railroad unless the railroad agreed to subcontract work only to subcontractors who employ the union’s members. We must decide whether the union and the railroad were engaged in a labor dispute. The district court decided that this dispute was not a labor dispute and enjoined the union from picketing. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.. § 1292(a)(1), and we reverse.

I

Plaintiff-appellee Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (“Burlington Northern”) is an interstate rail common carrier that operates an intermo-dal hub in Seattle, Washington. The present dispute arose when Burlington Northern terminated a subcontracting agreement with Eagle Systems, Inc. (“Eagle”) for loading and unloading services at the Seattle hub and transferred the work to another subcontractor, Parsec, Inc. (“Parsec”). As a consequence, 53 Eagle employees lost their jobs:

Defendant-appellant International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 174 (“Local 174”) represents the Eagle employees who lost their jobs when…