540
Building Trade Unions: Attitudes Toward Prefabrication
544.2.14
The case stemmed from carpenter's refusal to install premachined
doors on a Decatur, Illinois hospital project. The doors were
specified by the architect. The contractor, having no control over
their use, was a neutral in the dispute, and the union's objective
was to force the contractor to quit doing business with the hospital
and the hospital to quit doing business with the door manufacturer,
the NLRB ruled." (20)
544.2.15
Again the court disagreed:
It "called the test narrow, mechanical, mistaken and artificial. `The
legal effect of the board's test is to allow an employer to bind his
own hands and thereby immunize himself from union pressure
occasioned by his employees' loss of work. In one act, the
employer helps to create a labor conflict and simultaneously
washes his hands of it. The result goes far beyond the purposes of
prohibiting secondary union activity: to limit the arena of economic
conflict, to protect uninvolved, truly neutral parties from becoming
involved in labor disputes not their own." (21)
544.2.16
The NLRB has indicated in a subsequent decision, however, that it
will continue to use the right-of-control test except in those cases
where the courts specifically order it not to do so.
544.3
NATIONAL UNION POLICY
544.3.1
Union policy toward prefabrication, expressed at the national level,
is quite positive. Almost without exception, national union leaders
express cooperation with attempts to industrialize. Some trades
see increasing prefabrication as being clearly in their interest.
Hunter P. Wharton, President of the International Union of
Operating Engineers, is, enthusiastic: ". . . speaking for the
Operating Engineers Union, the expanded work opportunities for
hoisting engineers in the assembly of modules and large
prefabricated sections [is an area of promise]." (22)
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