Respondent Servette, Inc., is a wholesale distributor of specialty merchandise stocked by retail food chains in Los Angeles, California. In 1960, during a strike which Local 848 of the Wholesale Delivery Drivers and Salesmen's Union was conducting against Servette, the Local's representatives sought to support the strike by asking managers of supermarkets of the food chains to discontinue handling merchandise supplied by Servette. In most instances the representatives warned that handbills asking the public not to buy named items distributed by Servette would be passed out in front of stores which refused to cooperate, and in a few cases handbills were in fact passed out. A complaint was issued on charges by Servette that this conduct violated subsections (i) and (ii) of § 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, which, in relevant part, provide that it is an unfair labor practice for a union
'(i) * * * to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person * * * to engage in * * * a refusal in the course of his employment to * * * handle * * * commodities or to perform any services; or'
'(ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person * * * where in either case an object thereof is-
'(B) forcing or requiring any person to cease * * * dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person * * *.
'Provided further, That for the purposes of this paragraph (4) only, nothing contained in such paragraph shall be construed to prohibit publicity, other than picketing, for the purpose of truthfully advising the public * * * that a product or products are produced by an employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute and are distributed by another employer * * *.'
The National Labor Relations Board dismissed the complaint. The Board adopted the finding of the Trial Examiner that 'the managers of McDaniels Markets were authorized to decide as they best could whether to continue doing business with Servette in the face of threatened or actual handbilling. This, a policy decision, was one for them to make. The evidence is persuasive that the same authority was vested in the managers of Kory.' 133 N.L.R.B. 1506. The Board held that on these facts the Local's efforts to enlist the cooperation of the supermarket managers did not constitute inducement of an 'individual' within the meaning of that term in subsection (i); the Board held further that the handbilling, even if constituting conduct which 'threaten(s), coerce(s), or restrain(s) any person' under subsection (ii), was protected by the quoted proviso to amended § 8(b)(4). 133 N.L.R.B. 1501. The Court of Appeals set aside the Board's order, holding that the term 'individual' in subsection (i) was to be read literally, thus including the supermarket managers, and that the distributed products were not 'produced' by Servette within the meaning of the proviso, thus rendering its protection unavailable. 310 F.2d 659. We granted certiorari, 374 U.S. 805, 83 S.Ct. 1697, 10 L.Ed.2d 1030. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals correctly read the term 'individual' in subsection (i) as including the supermarket managers, but it erred in holding that the Local's attempts to enlist the aid of the managers constituted inducement of the managers in violation of the subsection. The 1959 statute amended § 8(b) (4)(A) of the National Labor Relations Act, which made it unlawful to induce or encourage 'the employees of any employer' to strike or engage in a 'concerted' refusal to work. We defined the central thrust of that statute to be to forbid 'a union to induce employees to strike against or to refuse to handle goods for their employer when an object is to force him or another person to cease doing business with some third party.' Local 1976, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, A.F.L. v. Labor Board, 357 U.S. 93, 98, 78 S.Ct. 1011, 1015, 2 L.Ed.2d 1186. In the instant case, however, the Local, in asking the managers not to handle Servette items, was not attempting to induce or encourage them to cease performing their managerial duties in order to force their employers to cease doing business with Servette. Rather, the managers were asked to make a managerial decision which the Board found was within their authority to make. Such an appeal would not have been a violation of § 8(b)(4)(A) before 1959, and we think that the legislative history of the 1959 amendments makes it clear that the amendments were not meant to render such an appeal an unfair labor practice.