Harlan F. Stone

“ It is no longer open to question that the manufacturer who regularly ships his product in interstate commerce is subject to the authority conferred on the Board with respect to unfair labor practices whenever such practices on his part have led or tend to lead to labor disputes which threaten to obstruct his shipments. ”

“ The Labor Board claims jurisdiction in respect of employment at this establishment upon the theory that the material and garments move in interstate commerce; that disapproved labor practices there may lead to disputes; that these may cause a strike; that this may reduce the factory output; that because of such reduction less goods may move across the state lines; and thus there may come about interference with the free flow of commerce between the states which Congress has power to regulate. ”

“ Manufacture is transformation the fashioning of raw materials into a change of form for use. The functions of commerce are different. The buying and selling and the transportation incidental thereto constitute commerce; and the regulation of commerce in the constitutional sense embraces the regulation at least of such transportation. ”

“ Long before the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act it had been many times held by this Court that the power of Congress extends to the protection of interstate commerce from interference or injury due to activities which are wholly intrastate. [1]
Here interstate commerce was involved in the transportation of the materials to be processed across state lines to the factory of respondents and in the transportation of the finished product to points outside the state for distribution to purchasers and ultimate consumers. ”

“ National Labor Relations Board, supra. We cannot say, other things being equal, that the tendency differs in kind, quantity or effect merely because the merchandise which the manufacturer ships, instead of being his own, is that of the consignee or his customers in other states. In either case commerce is in danger of being obstructed in the same way and to the same extent. ”

“ The result would be that congress would be invested, to the exclusion of the states, with the power to regulate, not only manufacture, but also agriculture, horticulture, stock-raising, domestic fisheries, mining,-in short, every branch of human industry. ”

“ The employment of men, the fixing of their wages, hours of labor, and working conditions, the bargaining in respect of these things-whether carried on separately or collectively-each and all constitute intercourse for the purposes of production, not of trade. ”

“ Throughout the year there is normally a continuous day-by-day flow of shipments of raw materials to respondents' factory from points without the state, and of finished garments from respondents' plant to New York City and other points outside of New Jersey. During the years 1934 and 1935 respondents appear to have finished more than a thousand dozen garments each month. ”

“ The threatened consequences to interstate commerce are as immediate and as certain to flow from respondents' unfair labor practices as were those which were held to result from unfair labor practices in National Labor Relations Board v. ”

“ It may compel the adoption of safety appliances on rolling stock moving intrastate because of the relation to and effect of such appliances upon interstate traffic moving over the same railroad. Southern Ry. ”