## Facts

- Storer Communications, Inc. owned Cleveland television station WJKW-TV (Channel 8) and had a collective-bargaining agreement with NABET covering Channel 8 employees, set to expire March 31, 1983.
- During negotiations, Storer presented a proposal calling for a 2% annual wage reduction for each of three contract years.
- Negotiations continued after expiration, but the union began a strike on May 3, 1983.
- Beginning March 31, 1983, the union targeted Channel 8 advertisers, urging them to withdraw advertising to pressure Storer.
- The union sent letters and made phone calls to advertisers; an early letter stated the union would encourage a consumer boycott of advertisers that continued to advertise only as a last resort.
- Union representatives also visited advertisers to urge them to stop advertising and to advise them that handbilling would occur.
- When letters and calls did not achieve the union’s goal, union members handbilled at advertisers’ premises by standing outside entrances and distributing leaflets to customers.
- The handbilling involved no blocking of entrances, no forcing vehicles to stop, and no signs, chanting, shouting, or patrolling in picket-line fashion.
- Storer sued the union alleging the advertiser campaign was an unlawful secondary boycott under NLRA § 8(b)(4) and sought damages under LMRA § 303; the district court granted summary judgment to the union.

## Issues

1. Whether peaceful handbilling at neutral advertisers’ premises, urging consumers to boycott advertisers that continued to deal with Channel 8, constituted “threaten[ing], coerc[ing], or restrain[ing]” a secondary employer under NLRA § 8(b)(4).
2. Whether related letters, phone calls, and visits to advertisers urging them to cease advertising and warning of planned handbilling constituted unlawful secondary coercion under NLRA § 8(b)(4), supporting damages under LMRA § 303.
3. Whether any genuine issue of material fact precluded summary judgment for the union.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the union.
- The court held the union’s conduct was “handbilling without picketing” and was not “coercive” or “restraining” within the meaning of NLRA § 8(b)(4).
- The court further held the letters, calls, and visits to advertisers, in the circumstances shown, were persuasive advocacy associated with the handbilling and did not amount to unlawful threats or coercion.
- Because there was no NLRA § 8(b)(4) violation, Storer’s LMRA § 303 damages claim failed as a matter of law.
- The court found no material factual dispute under the controlling legal standard.

## Legal Principles

- NLRA § 8(b)(4) prohibits union conduct that “threaten[s], coerce[s], or restrain[s]” a neutral employer with an object of forcing it to cease doing business with another.
- Peaceful, nonobstructive “handbilling without picketing” at a neutral business, urging a consumer boycott, is not “coercion” or “restraint” under § 8(b)(4).
- Associated nonthreatening communications to the neutral employer (letters, phone calls, and visits) urging cessation of business with the primary employer and advising of planned handbilling are not, without additional coercive elements, prohibited by § 8(b)(4).
- Statutory interpretation of § 8(b)(4) should avoid construing the provision to reach peaceful consumer-directed leafletting that would raise serious First Amendment concerns.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that a union’s peaceful, nonpicketing handbilling at advertisers and related advocacy urging advertisers and consumers to exert economic pressure on the primary employer did not constitute secondary “threats, coercion, or restraint” under NLRA § 8(b)(4), so summary judgment for the union and dismissal of the LMRA § 303 damages claim were proper.


Storer Commc’ns, Inc. v. Nat’l Ass’n of Broad. Emps. & Technicians, AFL-CIO, 854 F.2d 144 (6th Cir. 1988)