A recent decision by the California Court of Appeal has basically banned unions from picketing on business property within California. In its opinion the court invalidated two California laws designed to protect union demonstrations on business property.  The reviewing court ordered the trial court to grant an injunction restraining the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (“the Union”) from picketing in front of a Sacramento warehouse store owned by Ralphs Grocery Co. (“Ralphs”). Ralphs Grocery Co. v. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 8, No. C060413 (Cal. Ct. App. July 19, 2010).

Facts: The dispute arose when several members of the Union picketed in front of Food Co., a subsidiary of Ralphs, for being a nonunion store. Ralphs sued for trespass and sought to enjoin the unauthorized picketing after an unsuccessful attempt to require the Union to follow Food Co.’s rules for speech on the property. The rules prohibited, in part, the distribution of literature, physical contact with any person, display of signs larger than two feet by three feet, and speech within 20 feet of the store entrance. Ralphs alleged that the Union didn’t follow the rules ; specifically, that the Union  was handing out flyers and enlisting supporters within five feet of the entrance.

In bringing suit, Ralphs challenged the constitutionality of California’s Moscone Act, which deprived state courts of jurisdiction to issue injunctions against “peaceful picketing or patrolling” involving any labor dispute. Ralph’s lawsuit also challenged California’s Labor Code section 1131.8, which imposed severe restrictions on a property owner’s right to obtain injunctive relief against union activities. The trial court ruled that the Moscone Act was unconstitutional because it constituted content based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment and Equal Protection Clause. The trial court, however, upheld the constitutionality of California’s Labor Code section 1138.1 in light of a prior appellate decision which held that Labor Code section 1138.1 did not violate federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection. Applying Labor Code section 1138.1, the trial court denied Ralphs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Ralphs appealed.

Decision: Three questions of law were at issue on appeal:

1) Is the entrance area of Food Co., where the picketing was taking place, a public or private forum? If public, the California Constitution required that any time, place, and manner restrictions on free speech be reasonable. The court found that Food Co.’s entrance area was not a public forum, so the company was free to restrict the type of speech allowed at its entrance.

2) Is California’s Moscone Act, which limited the ability of courts to issue injunctions in labor relations cases, constitutional? The constitutionality of the Moscone Act was at issue because the Act’s selective restriction was based on the content of the speech. The court held that the Moscone Act was unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it afforded preferential treatment to speech concerning labor disputes over speech about other issues.

3) Is the requirement of California’s Labor Code section 1138.1 that factual showings be made before a court is able to grant an injunction in a labor dispute constitutional (i.e., that unlawful acts have been threatened and will be committed and that substantial and irreparable injury to the property would result)? The court found that this Labor Code section was unconstitutional for the same reasons as that of the Moscone Act.

Stay Tuned: Although the decision may be subject to further appeal, this case provides important guidance for employers dealing with the issue of regulating union activity on business property. The court’s ruling is seen as a major victory for California retailers who have endured loss of business and damage to their image resulting from union picketing on their properties. A wide spectrum of businesses ranging from hospitals to retail chain stores are expected to be impacted by this decision. Employers need to have a firm grasp of what constitutes public and private forums under California law and be able to determine the types of content neutral restrictions that are enforceable on their premises.

The Wall Street Journal writes that the U.S. economy slowed in the second quarter of this year and the government said the recession was deeper than earlier believed, adding to concerns over the recovery’s strength.  The Commerce Department Friday said U.S. gross domestic product, or the value of all goods and services produced, rose at an annualized seasonally adjusted rate of 2.4% in April to June. In its first estimate of the economy’s benchmark indicator, the government report showed growth was lifted by business investments and exports. Consumer spending, a key growth engine for the U.S. economy, made a smaller contribution to growth.

Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires were expecting GDP to rise by 2.5% in the second quarter. In the first quarter, the economy grew by 3.7%, revised up from an originally reported 2.7% increase. But growth estimates all the way back to the start of 2007 were revised lower.

After suffering its worst downturn since the 1930s, the U.S. economy began taking small steps forward about a year ago, helped by the Federal Reserve’s slashing of lending rates and the government tax cuts. But recent data have raised questions about the recovery’s durability. The job market remains weak, with almost one in 10 Americans unemployed, and growth in consumer spending and manufacturing appears to be slowing down.  The government revision of data over the past three years showed that the economy’s exit from its deep slump was weaker than previously estimated. In the final quarter of 2009, for example, GDP rose at an annualized rate of 5.0% as consumer spending didn’t grow as much as previously thought. The earlier estimate was that GDP increased by 5.6%.

In the most recent quarter available, consumer spending rose by a moderate annualized rate of 1.6% in April to June. Spending by Americans, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, rose by 1.9% in the first three months of the year.  Meantime, business spending on equipment and software continued to surge, increasing by 21.9% in the second quarter, compared with a 20.4% rise in the first three months. The figures highlight the contrast in the economy between high company profits and a persistently feeble jobs market keeping consumers at bay.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who last week said the economy’s outlook was “unusually uncertain”, has stressed the strength of the recovery will depend on whether consumers spend and companies invest enough to make up for fading support from the government. With unemployment still at 9.5% and Americans worried that taxes will need to rise to cut a huge budget deficit, that remains in doubt. When they meet Aug. 10, Fed officials are widely expected to repeat they see interest rates staying close to zero for a while and are likely to at least discuss ways in which they could support the economy further. A Fed official Thursday warned that deflation is a growing risk for the economy.

Economic growth in the U.S. during the second quarter slowed to 2.4%, indicating that the recovery has been weaker than previously expected. David Wessel, Dennis Berman and Evan Newmark discuss. Also, Dennis Berman tells the story about one of the leaders at Tiananmen Square who is now one of the top candidates to manage Berkshire Hathaway’s investment portfolio.

In a sign of the economy’s weakness, Friday’s report showed price increases continued to move down in the second quarter from already low levels.

The underlying inflation rate — which excludes volatile moves in food and energy prices and is closely watched by the Fed — increased by 1.1% in the April-to-June period from the previous quarter. That was the lowest reading of the core personal consumption expenditure index since the first three months of 2009 and came after a 1.2% rise in the first quarter of this year.

Other inflation gauges within the government’s report were also muted. The overall price index for personal consumption expenditures rose by only 0.1% in the second quarter, slowing sharply from a 2.1% gain in the first quarter. Gross domestic purchase prices rose just 0.1%, after a 2.1% increase in the first quarter. The chain-weighted GDP price index increased by 1.8%, compared to 1.0% in the first three months.

For all of 2009, the government said the U.S. economy contracted by 2.6%, compared to the previously estimated 2.4% decline. In the whole of 2008, GDP was flat, instead of rising 0.4% as previously estimated. In 2007, the world’s largest economy expanded by 2.1%, down from an originally reported 1.9% increase.

In this post by Sarah Needleman of the Wall Street Journal, she points out a new tax credit that may be available to small business owners who pay for health insurance for their employees:

Uncle Sam wants small-business owners to take notice of a new health-care tax credit — one of the first provisions of the recently enacted health-reform law to go into effect.

Last week, the Internal Revenue Service announced that it’s sending postcards to more than four million small businesses urging them to check if they qualify for the tax break. It’s being offered in two phases, with the first worth up to 35% of qualifying businesses’ premium health-care costs for tax years 2010 through 2013. The rate increases to 50% in 2014. The maximum length of potential coverage for qualifying employers is six taxable years: four years under the first phase and two years under the second.

In general, to be eligible for the tax credit, businesses must cover at least 50% of the cost of health-care coverage for some of their workers, employ fewer than the equivalent of 25 full-time workers and pay average annual wages below $50,000. The IRS says the tax break is designed to encourage smaller businesses – which are not mandated by 2014 to provide health care, unlike companies with more than 50 employees – to offer health coverage to their low- and moderate-income workers.

Tammy Rostov, owner of Rostov’s Coffee & Tea in Richmond, Va., says she received the IRS’s postcard and expects her small retail business to be eligible for the credit. She offers health coverage to her five full-time employees and pays 100% of the premium, an amount that she says has increased by more than 200% over the past six years. She describes the tax credit as a welcome relief. “It’s a step in the right direction,” she says.

But other qualifying business owners are less enthusiastic, arguing that the tax break won’t make a significant impact on their bottom lines.

Pascal Helou, owner of Globotron LLC, a technology-consulting company in New York, says affording health insurance for his three employees is a non-issue given that he’s struggling these days just to stay in business. Since 2007, he says sales have declined 30% every year and his firm now has four clients, down from 15.

“For my business, this type of tax credit will not make a difference,” says Mr. Helou, adding that he has yet to receive the IRS’s postcard about it. “The real issue is the amount of business we’re getting. Nobody’s willing to spend money” on technology-consulting services.

Meanwhile, there are also some entrepreneurs who don’t believe the government should provide financial incentives for small businesses to offer health coverage to workers in the first place.

Jim Fab, owner of Fab Electric Inc., an electrical contractor business in Gaithersburg, Md., falls into this camp. Providing health insurance and other benefits to his 18 employees, he says, is “hopefully what separates me from the electrical contractor that doesn’t.”

Some small businesses appear to be left without any government aide under the new piece of health-reform legislation. These include organizations with between 25 and 50 employees and ones with less than 25 employees but payrolls that average $50,000 or more.

Tracy Betts, says her Springfield, Va., Web-design business, Balance Technology Group Inc., doesn’t qualify for the credit. While she employs the equivalent of eight full-time workers, their salaries’ average $71,000. “For me, it’s all about the programmers, and I can’t hire anyone for less than $90,000 (in annual pay),” she says.

Ms. Betts says a year and half ago she told her staff she could only afford to offer them either health-care coverage or a retirement-savings plan with a matching contribution from the company. All but one chose the latter benefit, she says.

This Smart Money article by Diana Ransom posted at the Wall Street Journal web page discusses several future growth industries.

Much has been said about the Obama administration pushing through new regulations on everything from health-care companies to banks — not to mention the impact these changes will have on the overall economy. But less attention has been paid to the way the new regulations will play out for entrepreneurs: Will stepped-up regulation stifle or stimulate growth? SmartMoney spoke with business owners, venture capitalists and analysts for a snapshot of six industries poised for growth.

Telecommunications

Even though shares of telecom giant Verizon Communications and its Finnish counterpart Nokia fell last week after reporting lackluster first-quarter results, there may be wind in their sails yet, says Drew Clark, director of strategy for IBM’s Venture Capital Group in San Mateo, Calif. One boost may come from the president’s National Broadband Plan, a program that aims to increase access to mobile broadband and support a nationwide public safety wireless broadband network. These firms, along with others, will likely benefit, says Clark. Per the Obama administration’s 2009 stimulus package, the government plans to spend $7.2 billion on the nation’s broadband projects.

Hosted Services

Perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of the president’s broadband agenda are the small companies that will have better access to faster web channels. FlexiSphere, a Hawthorne, N.Y., firm, offers financial services firms so-called cloud computing — technology that allows firms to share the server of a larger company via the Internet. As the nation’s infrastructure improves, so will access to the company’s products and services, says Tom Saleh, the company’s founder and CEO. “Cloud computing is all about better, faster, cheaper,” he says, adding that this is just a first step. “Cloud computing is doing for computing what the Internet did for communications,” Saleh says.

Information Technology

So far, the government hasn’t suggested the need to further regulate the information technology field, giving these firms a distinct advantage. That’s because the uncertainty surrounding regulatory reforms can both stymie a small company’s ability to make decisions and trigger a pullback in investment. In the first quarter of 2010, the IT industry raised $1.5 billion for 192 deals — the most of any other industry tracked by Dow Jones VentureSource, a research firm owned by News Corp., which also publishes SmartMoney.com and The Wall Street Journal.

Further, there’s a lot of pent-up demand for technology, says Karl Mills, the president and chief investment officer for Jurika Mills & Keifer, an independent investment advisory firm in Oakland, Calif. “Old inventory of technology gets written off quick when it becomes obsolete. However, during the downturn, many consumers and businesses put off buying new equipment,” he says. Plus, many of the larger companies in this arena, which often scoop up their smaller brethren, are well capitalized. “Microsoft could write a check and bail out Greece,” Mills says.

Media, Content Production

With that enhanced infrastructure, other beneficiaries include media companies and other content providers, which have struggled in recent years thanks to a precipitous drop in advertising revenues, says Sal Tirabassi, a partner at M/C Venture Partners in Boston. Between downloading movies and watching TV online at home or on a web-enabled mobile device, consumers’ appetites for content will likely expand, as will advertising opportunities. “Advertisers are increasing their budgets slightly again,” he says. “There will be a bit of a rebound there.”

Health Care

Thanks to federal and state stimulus dollars, the health-care infrastructure in the U.S. is about to get a triple bypass. Not only does the government plan to plow $20 billion into computerizing health records, the angel investment community has taken an interest in the sector. In 2009, health-care services, medical devices and equipment attracted 17% of total angel investment dollars, or nearly $3 billion, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. “We’re seeing a lot of companies come through here with technology solutions for innovating medical records,” says Michelle Murcia, the chief financial officer of TechColumbus, a business incubator and venture firm in Columbus, Ohio. “Health care IT is a huge growth area.”

Clean Energy

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that global energy consumption will jump 33% between 2010 and 2030. This added demand, combined with a mix of venture-capital investment and $43 billion in federal stimulus spending bodes well for businesses that make everything from solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids and batteries, says Clark from IBM.

In addition, the government recently sweetened the tax incentives and subsidies for homeowners and businesses to install solar and other forms of energy-saving equipment. “Despite the fact that we’ve been in one of the worst recessions in decades, business in the industry has grown,” says David Kaltsas, president of SunWize Technologies’ systems group, a solar-panel installation and sales firm in Kingston, N.Y., which recently launched an installation franchise program. “Last year was tough, but we’ve since grown double-digits in our direct-installation business.”

Justin Scheck of the Wall St. Journal writes that “for years, Dell Inc. has relied on sales to small businesses for a big chunk of its revenue. It sells more personal computers to small companies than any tech supplier. Now, it is offering more credit to spur small business purchases.”

He goes on to note that “The financing strategy is showing promise. Its small-and-medium-business division posted a 10% gain in revenue in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter ended Jan. 29 from the same period last year, versus an 11% gain for the company as a whole. Operating-profit rose 17% from the same quarter last year to $282 million, surpassing the $281 million in operating profit from Dell’s large-business unit, which posted an 8.4% rise from last year.”

You can read the entire article here, and check out Dell’s page to see if anything interests you! A market snapshot on Dell here.