RADIO & TELEVISION BROADCAST TECHNICIANS LOCAL UNION 1264, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, AFL-CIO, et al. v. BROADCAST SERVICE OF MOBILE, INC.
No. 61.
Argued March 2-3, 1965.
Decided March 15, 1965.
J. R. Goldthwaite, Jr., argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioners.
Willis C. Darby, Jr., argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was George E. Stone, Jr.
Solicitor General Cox, Arnold Ordman, Dominick L. Manoli and Norton J. Come filed a brief for the United States, as amicus curiae, urging reversal.
Per Curiam.
The union, Radio and Television Broadcast Technicians, challenged the Alabama Circuit Court's jurisdiction over a suit by Broadcast Service of Mobile, the corporate name of Radio Station WSIM, to restrain peaceful picketing by the union and its solicitation of advertisers aimed at persuading them to cease doing business with the station. It contended that although the annual gross receipts of WSIM are below the National Labor Relations Board’s jurisdictional minimum of $100,000 per year for radio stations, WSIM is an integral part of a group of radio stations owned and operated by Charles W. Holt and the Holt Broadcasting Service and that the annual receipts of the common enterprise are in excess of $100,000, which is determinative under the Board’s standards. Stating that every court has judicial power to determine its jurisdiction and that the union failed to allege "that the appellant’s [WSIM’s] gross business exceeded $100,000 per annum,” the Alabama Supreme Court held that the state courts had jurisdiction over WSIM’s complaint. We granted certiorari. 379 U. S. 812. The judgment below must be reversed.
Although a state court may assume jurisdiction over labor disputes over which the National Labor Relations Board has, but declines to assert, jurisdiction, 29 U. S. C. §§ 164 (c)(1) and (2) (1958 ed., Supp. V), there must be a proper determination of whether the case is actually one of those which the Board will decline to hear. Hattiesburg Building Trades Council v. Broome, 377 U. S. 126. The Board will assert jurisdiction over an employer operating a radio station if his gross receipts equal or exceed $100,000 per year, Raritan Valley Broadcasting Co., 122 N. L. R. B. 90, and in determining the relevant employer, the Board considers several nominally separate business entities to be a single employer where they comprise an integrated enterprise, N. L. R. B. twenty-first Ann. Rep. 14-15 (1956). The controlling criteria, set out and elaborated in Board decisions, are interrelation of operations, common management, centralized control of labor relations and common ownership. Sakrete of Northern California, Inc., 137 N. L. R. B. 1220, aff’d 332 F. 2d 902 (C. A. 9th Cir.), cert. denied, 379 U. S. 961; Family Laundry, Inc., 121 N. L. R. B. 1619; Canton, Carp’s, Inc., 125 N. L. R. B. 483; V. I. P. Radio, Inc., 128 N. L. R. B. 113; Perfect T. V., Inc., 134 N. L. R. B. 575; Overton Markets, Inc., 142 N. L. R. B. 615. The record made below is more than adequate to show that all of these factors are present in regard to the Holt enterprise and that this is not a case which the Board has announced it would decline to hear. Since the conduct set out in the complaint is regulated by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U. S. C. § 141 et seq. (1958 ed.), “due regard for the federal enactment requires that state jurisdiction must yield.” San Diego Building Trades v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 244; Construction & General Laborers’ Union v. Curry, 371 U. S. 542.
Reversed.
The United States, as amicus curiae, confirms the view that the Board’s standards for determining a single employer enterprise were fully satisfied by the structure and operation of the Holt stations.
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.