The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today denied enforcement to an NLRB order against union protest. Sheet Metal Workers Local 15 v. NLRB (Brandon Regional Medical Center), 491 F.3d 429 (D.C. Cir. 2007). This breakthrough decision holds that unions enjoy the same First Amendment rights as other protestors, even when they protest “secondary” entities who do business with employers in a labor dispute.
The case involved a mock funeral conducted by five members of the Sheet Metal Workers outside a Tampa-area hospital. The hospital used non-union contractors on its construction of a new hospital wing. The Union saw this policy as part of a “culture of corporate greed that also affects patient care.” Its mock funeral criticized the Hospital’s patient care record. The funeral was peaceful, orderly, and non-threatening.
The NLRB nevertheless proceeded against the funeral as an unlawful secondary boycott. The NLRB convinced the 11th Circuit to affirm an interim injunction on this ground. On review of the final NLRB order, however, the D.C. Circuit held that the mock funeral enjoyed First Amendment protection as much as if it had been conducted by an anti-abortion group or environmentalist group.
Read how management-side law firms from Indiana to Baltimore are describing this decision.
The D.C. Circuit also rejected the NLRB’s rule that unions must give construction site owners advance assurance that their picketing will honor reserved gates.
UPDATE: Read the article in Slate decribing the decision.
