Section 36 Jurisdictional Disputes

• Library: Employer-Employee Law 2008

The final section of NLRA § 8(b)(4), 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(4), is subparagraph (D), which proscribes coercion, including picketing directed against either employees or employers when the object is:

forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor organization or in another trade, craft, or class, unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work: . . . .

A jurisdictional dispute, which occurs most frequently between construction trade unions, exists when two groups of employees assert conflicting claims to the same work. But some disputes that meet this definition are deemed to not violate NLRA § 8(b)(4)(D), including the following:

• Lawful economic strikes when striking employees seek to replace strike replacements, Am. Wire Weavers’ Protective Ass’n, AFL-CIO, 120 N.L.R.B. 977 (1958)

• A union’s efforts to avoid the transfer of work out of the unit or to reclaim lost jobs, Chicago Web Printing Pressmen’s Union No. 7, 209 N.L.R.B. 320 (1974); Los Angeles & Long Beach Harbor Watchmen & Guards, Int’l Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union, Local 26, 210 N.L.R.B. 574 (1974)

• Picketing that relates only to the terms and conditions under which the work is performed (unless it targets which employees perform the work), Local No. 46, Metallic Lathers Union, 316 N.L.R.B. 271 (1995)

For the NLRB to find reasonable cause to believe that NLRA § 8(b)(4)(D) has been violated, two requirements must be satisfied:

1. A party must have used proscribed means to enforce its claim to the work in dispute

2. There must be competing...