The question before us is whether, in the case of an employer subject to the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., a state court may enjoin peaceful picketing of the employer's premises, undertaken by its employees and their union for the purpose of obtaining recognition of that union as the employees' bargaining representative, when the union holds cards authorizing such representation concededly signed by a majority of the employees eligible to be represented, but has filed none of the data or affidavits described in § 9(f), (g) and (h) of that Act, as amended. For the reasons hereafter stated, our answer is in the negative.
In 1953, the respondent, Arkansas Oak Flooring Company, a Delaware corporation with its main office in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, owned and operated a sawmill and flooring plant in Alexandria, Louisiana. The company was there engaged in interstate commerce and subject to the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. At the same time, District 50, United Mine Workers of America, here called the 'union,' was an unincorporated labor organization which undertook to organize the company's eligible employees at its Alexandria plant. The union, however, did not file with the Secretary of Labor any of the financial or organizational data described in § 9(f) and (g) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, nor, with the National Labor Relations Board, any of the non-Communist affidavits described in § 9(h) of that Act. It contended that the company, nevertheless, should recognize it as the collective-bargaining representative of the Alenandria plant employees because it was authorized by more than a majority of such employees to represent them.
Although for four years there had been no labor organization representing the plant employees, this union, by February 24, 1954, held applications for membership from 174 of the 225 eligible employees. Such applicants had elected officers and stewards and had authorized the union organizer to request the company to recognize the union as their collective-bargaining representative. On February 24, the organizer, accordingly, presented that request to the assistant superintendent of the plant. The latter, in the absence of any higher officer of the company, replied that the union was not recognized either by the National Labor Relations Board or by him, and that, if negotiations were desired, the union organizer should call the company's office at Pine Bluff.
On March 1, the petitioning employees struck for recognition of the union and set up a peaceful picket line of three employees. Two were placed in front of the plant and one at the side. They carried signs stating 'This Plant is on Strike' or 'We want Recognition, District 50 UMWA.'
On March 2, respondent sought a restraining order and injunction in the Ninth Judicial District for the Parish of Rapides, Louisiana. That court promptly issued an order restraining the above-described picketing by 11 named employees, the union and its organizer. The order was obeyed but the strike continued. On March 12 and 15, evidence was introduced, including, by that date, 179 applications for membership in the union, each of which authorized the union to represent the signer in negotiations and in the making of agreements as to wages, hours and conditions of work. The parties to the proceeding stipulated that each of those applications was signed by an employee of respondent. In the face of that record, the court nevertheless converted its restraining order into a temporary injunction and the defendants, who are the petitioners herein, appealed to the Supreme Court of Louisiana. While that appeal was pending, the trial court, on the same record, made its injunction permanent. Petitioners appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Louisiana and the two appeals were consolidated. There the permanent injunction was sustained, one judge concurring specially and another dissenting, in part, on an issue not material here. 227 La. 1109, 81 So.2d 413.