National Labor Relations Board v. Seryette, Inc.

Background

Respondent Servette, Inc. is a wholesaler that supplies candy, liquor, holiday items, and specialty goods to supermarket chains in Los Angeles. During a 1960 strike by Local 848, union representatives asked supermarket managers to stop handling Servette products and warned that handbills urging customers not to buy those items would be passed out; handbills were distributed at some stores. Servette charged the union under two parts of a federal labor law that bar unions from inducing employees to refuse to handle goods or from threatening or coercing others to stop dealing with a supplier. The National Labor Relations Board dismissed the complaint, but a Court of Appeals reversed; the Supreme Court granted review.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether the union’s requests to supermarket managers were unlawful inducement for those managers to withhold their employment services, and whether the union’s handbills were protected publicity. The Court held the managers were being asked to make a managerial business decision within their authority, not to withhold their own employment services, so the union’s appeals did not violate the inducement clause. The Court also read the statutory proviso broadly, agreeing that a wholesaler’s distributed products are “produced” for purposes of protecting truthful publicity; warnings that handbills would be distributed were not treated as unprotected threats.

Real world impact

The decision makes clear that unions may ask managers to exercise business discretion not to handle a supplier’s goods without automatically committing an unfair labor practice, and that truthful handbills and warnings of handbilling are protected publicity. The ruling affects unions, wholesalers, supermarket managers, and customers by narrowing what conduct counts as unlawful secondary-boycott pressure.