A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled against a carpenter's union accused of violating labor laws in picketing a Suwanee company and its employers.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said a lower court was correct in 2009 in awarding damages of $1.7 million to Fidelity Interior LLC, a contractor, and that court was correct when it allowed jurors to consider unlawful picketing at one site to be equal to unlawful picketing at another.
Calls to attorneys for both parties were not immediately returned.
At issue was an alleged effort by Southeastern Carpenters Regional Council to pressure Atlanta companies to raise employee pay and benefits for nonunion interior systems contractors.
The union focused on Fidelity because it considered the company a substandard contractor that "picked up too much potential union work downtown," according to the ruling.
Beginning in 2004, the union launched a series of pickets against Fidelity and entities or third parties that hired the company, including CNN Center, Colony Square and Emory Crawford Long Hospital (now Emory Midtown).
"At least 130 picketers confronted patients and visitors of the hospital and shouted ‘Rat!' and ‘Stop the Rats!' at those who crossed the picket line," the ruling said.
Fidelity said it lost more than $31,000 from eight jobs because of the picketing and claimed potential future profits were nixed because the union coerced potential employers from hiring them.
The jury in the lower court case found that the union had conducted a secondary boycott of Fidelity. Secondary boycotts are considered unfair labor practices because they seek to influence neutral or third parties.
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