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Parties Involved:
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
Amicus Curiae for Respondent
Chicago and Northeast Illinois District Council of Carpenters
Intervenor for Respondent
Chicago and Northeast Illinois District Council of Carpenters, Carpenter Local No. 1027
Intervenor for Respondent
Lee Lumber and Building Material Corp.
Petitioner
National Labor Relations Board
Respondent

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 14, 1997 Decided July 8, 1997 

No. 96-1362

LEE LUMBER AND BUILDING MATERIAL CORP.,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

CHICAGO AND NORTHEAST ILLINOIS DISTRICT COUNCIL

OF CARPENTERS, CARPENTER LOCAL NO. 1027,

MILL-CABINET INDUSTRIAL DIVISION AND 

CHICAGO AND NORTHEAST ILLINOIS DISTRICT COUNCIL

OF CARPENTERS,

INTERVENOR

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application

for Enforcement of an Order of the

National Labor Relations Board

James S. Frank argued the cause for petitioner, with whom 

Steven M. Post was on the briefs.

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Deborah E. Shrager, Attorney, National Labor Relations 

Board, argued the cause for respondent, with whom Linda 

Dreeben, Deputy Assistant General Counsel, Linda R. Sher,

Associate General Counsel, and Aileen A. Armstrong, Deputy 

Associate General Counsel, were on the brief. Peter D. 

Winkler, Supervisory Attorney, and David S. Habenstreit,

Attorney, entered appearances.

Collins P. Whitfield argued the cause and filed the brief for 

intervenor.

Jonathan P. Hiatt, James B. Coppess, David M. Silberman and Laurence S. Gold filed the brief for amicus curiae 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial 

Organizations.

Before: SILBERMAN, GINSBURG and SENTELLE, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.

Opinion filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE concurring in part 

and concurring in the judgment.

PER CURIAM: Lee Lumber and Building Material Corporation ("Lee" or "Company") petitions from a decision of the 

National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB" or "Board") holding that it had engaged in various unlawful practices and 

ordering it to bargain with Carpenter Local No. 1207 ("Union"). Agreeing with two of Lee's principal contentions, we 

remand the case to the Board for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

The Poll and the Filing of the Petition

Petitioner runs a mill shop in Chicago. In October 1988 

the NLRB certified the Union as the exclusive bargaining 

representative of the previously unrepresented mill shop employees. The unit contained approximately 14 employees. 

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The Company and the Union entered into a collective bargaining agreement that expired in May 1990.

In February 1990 the Union informed the Company that it 

wished to begin negotiating for a renewal contract. The 

parties informally agreed to a schedule for negotiations. 

Around this time a number of employees became concerned 

that the Union would push to substitute the Union's pension 

plan for the Company's profit-sharing plan. In the wake of 

this concern, the employees conducted a straw poll to see if a 

majority still wished to be represented by the Union. The 

poll indicated that a majority still did.

Sometime after the poll, a number of employees asked 

Randy Baumgarten, a part owner and Secretary-Treasurer of 

Lee Lumber, about the profit-sharing plan. Baumgarten 

held a meeting at which he answered questions about the 

profit-sharing plan and the Union pension plan. Baumgarten 

reminded the employees that in negotiations the Union had 

sought to replace the profit-sharing program with a Union 

pension plan, and said that the Union might do so again in the 

upcoming negotiations.

Shortly after this meeting, two employees prepared and 

began circulating a petition seeking another certification election. Twelve of the fourteen employees signed the petition. 

The Company allowed these employees to take paid time off 

from work to take the petition to the Board's regional office. 

The general rule at the Company was that employees did not 

get paid for time spent away from work on personal business.

The Initial Refusal to Negotiate

On March 26, one week after the employees' petition was 

filed with the Board, the Union sent the Company a letter 

requesting that the parties meet on April 11 to begin negotiations for the new collective bargaining agreement. On March 

29 the Union filed a charge seeking to "block" a decertification election, alleging that Lee Lumber had sponsored or 

assisted in the filing of the March 20 petition.

On April 11, when Union negotiators appeared at the 

Company, Baumgarten handed them the following statement:

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Due to the petition signed by a majority of the employees 

in the bargaining unit it is appropriate to defer the onset 

of negotiations until your local is shown to still represent 

the men after the election. We therefore decline your 

invitation to bargain at this time.

On May 3 the Union filed a second charge with the Board 

alleging that Lee had refused to bargain with the Union.

On April 30 the Union wrote a letter to Baumgarten 

suggesting that they negotiate. Baumgarten did not respond 

until May 8, when he wrote back agreeing to meet with the 

Union. They did so on May 23 and four subsequent dates 

through June. By the end of these sessions the parties had 

almost reached agreement on a new contract.

In early July an employee handed Baumgarten a document 

signed by a majority of the employees. The document declared that the employees would not continue to be represented by any union, and that the group "hereby decertified [the 

Union]." Upon receiving this document the Company broke 

off all contact with the Union.

The Alleged Refusal to Provide Information

The Union's March 26 letter requested copies of "the 

current insurance policy." When the parties met on May 23, 

the Union repeated this request, and also asked for information regarding various aspects of the Company's profitsharing plan. At the May 23 meeting the Company gave the 

Union a 71-page booklet about the health insurance plan, but 

did not produce the policy itself. The profit-sharing plan was 

discussed extensively at the May 23 meeting, and the Company never asked for that information again. The Company 

never, however, presented the Union with the precise information it requested.

Procedural Background

An ALJ ruled that Lee violated § 8(a)(1) of the National 

Labor Relations Act ("Act") by providing assistance to the 

employees who took the decertification petition to the Board. 

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The ALJ further found that the Company's initial refusal to 

meet with the Union, failure to provide the Union with the 

information it requested, and subsequent withdrawal of recognition of the Union violated § 8(a)(1) and § 8(a)(5).

The Board adopted these findings in February 1992. As a 

remedy, the Board adopted the ALJ's order that the Company, inter alia, recognize and bargain with the Union. The 

Company filed a petition for review in this court. The Board 

moved to dismiss the petition without prejudice so that it 

could reconsider its position in light of our intervening decisions in Sullivan Indus. v. NLRB, 957 F.2d 890 (D.C. Cir. 

1992), and Williams Enters., Inc. v. NLRB, 956 F.2d 1226 

(D.C. Cir. 1992). We granted the Board's motion.

In 1995 the Board heard argument on the question, and in 

1996, four years after its decision to reconsider the matter, 

the Board issued its Supplemental Decision and Order ("Supplemental Decision"). In the Supplemental Decision the 

Board reaffirmed the findings and rulings of the previous 

order. In doing so the Board announced that in cases 

involving a § 8(a)(5) refusal to recognize and bargain with an 

incumbent union and a subsequent loss of majority support 

for the union, the Board would apply a "rebuttable presumption" of a causal relationship between the two. The presumption can be "rebutted only by an employer's showing that 

employee disaffection arose after the employer resumed its 

recognition of the union and bargained for a reasonable 

period of time without committing any additional unfair labor 

practices that would detrimentally affect the bargaining." 

Supplemental Decision at 4. The Board determined that in 

this case a reasonable time had not passed. Lee's July 

withdrawal of recognition from the Union was therefore 

unlawful. The Board also reaffirmed its finding that an 

affirmative bargaining order was the appropriate remedy.

The Company raises numerous challenges in a petition for 

review. The Board has filed a cross-petition for enforcement 

of its Order. The Union, as intervenor, and the AFL-CIO, as 

amicus, have each filed a brief in support of the Board.

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ANALYSIS

Three of the Company's challenges merit extended discussion. We reject all of the remaining challenges that we do 

not discuss.

1. The Presumption of a Taint

A union enjoys an irrebuttable presumption of majority 

support while a collective bargaining agreement is in effect. 

Auciello Iron Works, Inc. v. NLRB, 116 S. Ct. 1754, 1758 

(1996); Belcon, Inc., 257 N.L.R.B. 1341, 1346-47 (1981). After the contract expires, the presumption becomes rebuttable. 

Auciello, 116 S. Ct. at 1758; Guerdon Indus., Inc., 218 

N.L.R.B. 658, 659 (1975). An employer at that point may 

rebut the presumption and withdraw recognition from the 

union if it can show either "(1) the union did not in fact enjoy 

majority support, or (2) the employer had a good-faith doubt, 

founded on a sufficient objective basis, of the union's majority 

support." Auciello, 116 S. Ct. at 1758 (internal quotations 

omitted).

This rule, however, assumes that the employer did not 

commit any unfair labor practice. When the employer has 

committed an unfair labor practice the Board considers 

whether the unfair labor practice "tended to (1) have a 

detrimental or lasting effect upon employees; (2) cause employee dissatisfaction with the union; or (3) disrupt employee 

morale, deter their organization activities, and discourage 

their membership in the union." Williams Enters., Inc. v. 

NLRB, 956 F.2d 1226, 1236 (D.C. Cir. 1992). 

In Sullivan Indus. v. NLRB, 957 F.2d 890, 899 (D.C. Cir. 

1992), we questioned whether the NLRB had a per se rule 

that an unlawful refusal to bargain taints the employer's 

subsequent repudiation of the union; after reviewing the 

Board's prior decisions, we concluded that the Board had not 

in fact adopted such a rule, "let alone justified and explained" 

it. 957 F.2d at 902. Now the Board explicitly has adopted 

not a per se rule but a rebuttable presumption that there is a 

causal nexus between an employer's unlawful refusal to bargain and its subsequent repudiation of the union. In the 

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decision under review, the Board first reaffirmed the general 

rule that in a case involving an unfair labor practice other 

than a refusal to bargain the union must show specific proof 

of a causal relationship between the unfair labor practice and 

the subsequent repudiation of the union; in cases involving an 

unlawful refusal to recognize and bargain, however, the Board 

held that "the causal relationship between unlawful act and 

subsequent loss of majority support may be presumed," Supplemental Decision at 3, regardless of whether the employees 

were aware of the employer's unlawful behavior. Therefore 

the Board would not hear evidence about what the employees 

knew or about "the actual impact of such refusals to bargain 

on the employees' morale, organizational activities, and union 

membership." Id. at 3 n.23. The presumption can be rebutted "only by an employer's showing that employee disaffection arose after the employer resumed its recognition of the 

union and bargained for a reasonable period of time without 

committing any additional unfair labor practices that would 

detrimentally affect the bargaining." Id. at 4.

Lee contends that the Board's new presumption is irrational because it contradicts the Board's own long-standing general rule that there must be evidence demonstrating a "causal 

nexus" between an unremedied unfair labor practice and the 

Union's loss of majority support. The Company also argues 

that the presumption is inconsistent with the Act because it 

undermines the employees' statutory rights "to bargain collectively through the representatives of their own choosing," 

29 U.S.C. § 157, or to refrain from doing so.

The Board has "primary responsibility for developing and 

applying national labor policy." NLRB v. Curtin Matheson 

Scientific, Inc., 494 U.S. 775, 786 (1990). Accordingly, we 

give "considerable deference" to a presumption adopted by 

the Board as long as that presumption is rational and consistent with the Act, regardless whether the Board's rule departs from its prior policy and whether we think a different 

rule would be preferable. Id. at 786-88; see also Auciello,

116 S. Ct. at 1759 (quoting Curtin Matheson). A presumption is rational "if there is a sound and rational connection 

between the proved and inferred facts." Chemical Mfrs. 

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Ass'n v. DOT, 105 F.3d 702, 705 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (citing 

NLRB v. Baptist Hosp., Inc., 442 U.S. 773, 787 (1979)).

We are persuaded that the presumption the Board has 

adopted in this case is both rational and consistent with the 

Act. First, the Board has provided a rational justification for 

the presumption. The Board has in the past been particularly concerned with the potentially harmful effects of a refusal 

to bargain with or recognize a Union, see, e.g., Karp Metal 

Prods. Co., Inc., 51 N.L.R.B. 621, 624 (1943). In Sullivan we 

agreed that a refusal to recognize or bargain is "a particularly 

egregious kind of § 8(a)(5) violation." 957 F.2d at 900. As 

the Board explained in this case, it is rational to presume a 

link between a prior unlawful refusal to bargain and a subsequent employee repudiation of the union because

[l]engthy delays in bargaining deprive the union of the 

ability to demonstrate to employees the tangible benefits 

to be derived from union representation. Such delays 

consequently tend to undermine employees' confidence in 

the union by suggesting that any such benefits will be a 

long time coming, if indeed they ever arrive. Thus, 

delays in bargaining caused by an employer's unlawful 

refusal to recognize and bargain with an incumbent union 

foreseeably result in loss of employee support for the 

union, whether or not the employees know about the 

delay.

Supplemental Decision at 3. It was also rational for the 

Board to conclude that requiring an employer to bargain with 

the union for a reasonable time in order to cure the taint of 

its unlawful refusal to bargain "removes from the employer 

the temptation to avoid its bargaining duties in the hopes that 

delay will undermine employee support for the union." Id. at 

5. Furthermore, the presumption is not irrational, as the 

petitioners contend, simply because it creates an exception to 

the Board's general rule that there must be evidence of a 

causal nexus. See Curtin Matheson, 494 U.S. at 787. Nor 

did the Board here make an explicit policy decision to presume something counterfactual. Compare id. at 816-17 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

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The presumption is also consistent with the Act. The 

Company contends that the presumption undermines employees' statutory right to choose whether they want union representation because it forces the employer to bargain with the 

union for a reasonable time even when that union no longer 

enjoys majority support. It is important to keep in mind, 

however, that the presumption comes into play only when the 

employer's failure to recognize and bargain with a duly 

elected union precedes the union's loss of majority support. 

Thus, the Board's presumption actually supports employee 

free choice because it prevents an employer from "pointing to 

an intervening loss of employee support for the union when 

such loss of support is a foreseeable consequence of the 

employee's unfair labor practice." Fall River Dyeing &

Finishing Corp. v. NLRB, 428 U.S. 27, 51 n.18 (1987). And 

the Board permitsor at least purports to permit (see infra

pp. 8-10)an employer to rebut the presumption by bargaining for a reasonable time and thereby countering the ill 

effects of the employer's failure to do so.

2. The Application of the Presumption to this Case

In addition to its facial challenge to the Board's presumption, petitioner also challenges the Board's application of that 

presumption to the facts of this case. The Board's presumption "can be rebutted only by an employer's showing that 

employee disaffection arose after the employer resumed its 

recognition of the union and bargained for a reasonable 

period of time." Supplemental Decision at 4. In this case 

the Board determined that Lee had not resumed bargaining 

for a reasonable period of time before it withdrew recognition 

from the Union in July. Petitioner contends that this determination was arbitrary. 

We agree. While it is clear that the Board is to be given a 

great deal of deference in developing the rules that it will 

apply to particular situations, it is equally clear that the 

Board, like every other administrative agency, must provide a 

logical explanation for what it has done. Motor Vehicle Mfrs. 

Ass'n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 

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(1983). In this case the Board failed to satisfy this basic 

obligation. 

The Board outlined the factors it would use in determining 

whether parties had bargained for a reasonable period of 

time. It explained that the determination did "not depend on 

either the passage of time or on the number of meetings 

between the parties, but instead on what transpired and what 

was accomplished during the meetings. The Board considers 

the degree of progress made in negotiations, whether or not 

the parties were at impasse, and whether the parties were 

negotiating for an initial contract." Supplemental Decision at 

5. 

Immediately after listing what it would and would not 

consider in making "reasonable period of time" determinations, the Board proceeded to make that determination in this 

case. The logical thing for the Board to have done at this 

point would be to apply the factors that it had just said were 

dispositive. The Board, however, did not do this. Rather 

than look to "the degree of progress made in negotiation, 

whether or not the parties were at impasse, and whether the 

parties were negotiating for an initial contract," the Board all 

but ignored these factors and looked primarily at the number 

of negotiating sessions the parties had held and the length of 

time that had passed between when the Company agreed to 

meet with the Union and when it broke off negotiations. 

These, however, were the very factors that the Board had 

just explained it would not use in making this determination. 

Moreover, the Board acknowledged that the Company and 

Union had virtually reached complete agreement when the 

employees submitted their letter to decertify the Union, but 

the Board ignored that progress in its calculus of reasonable 

time. Instead, it overruled without explanation its prior 

cases, see Tajon, Inc., 269 N.L.R.B. 327 (1984); Brennan's 

Cadillac, 231 N.L.R.B. 225 (1977), which had held that progress in reaching agreement and absence of impasse are 

factors indicating that a reasonable time for bargaining has 

elapsed. But overruling those cases is inconsistent with the 

Board's emphasis on what is accomplished at the meeting.

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There is a clear and fundamental inconsistency between the 

standard the Board announced for determining whether a 

"reasonable period of time" has elapsed and the Board's 

application of that standard in this case. The Board's failure 

to explain this inconsistency is arbitrary. See State Farm,

463 U.S. at 43. We remand the question to the Board for 

correction of this flaw. On remand the Board may also wish 

to provide a fuller explanation of its "reasonable period of 

time" standard. As it stands now, it is not entirely clear how 

any of the three factors cut.

3. The Imposition of a Bargaining Order

As a remedy, the Board issued an affirmative bargaining 

order. An affirmative bargaining order requires the company to bargain with the union. It also imposes a "decertification bar" on employees. The union that is the subject of the 

bargaining order will continue as the employees' representative, regardless of the employees' wishes, until a "reasonable 

time" has passed. Williams, 956 F.2d at 1237. The Board 

imposed the affirmative bargaining order with no discussion 

of the facts of this case. It merely cited to two recent Board 

opinions in which the Board announced that an affirmative 

bargaining order is always appropriate in cases involving 

unlawful refusals to recognize and bargain with an incumbent 

union. Caterair Int'l, 322 N.L.R.B. No. 11 (1996); Williams 

Enters., Inc., 312 N.L.R.B. 937, 940-42 (1993). Lee contends 

that the Board's use of an affirmative bargaining order in this 

case was unlawful. The Board notes that its power to craft 

remedies is "a broad discretionary one, subject to limited 

judicial review." Fireboard Paper Prods. Corp. v. NLRB,

379 U.S. 203, 216 (1964). It argues that we should uphold its 

decision to impose an affirmative bargaining order in this 

case. 

Because affirmative bargaining orders interfere with the 

employee "free choice" that is a "core principle" of the Act, 

we have long viewed them with suspicion. Skyline Distribs. 

v. NLRB, 99 F.3d 403, 411 (D.C. Cir. 1996). In NLRB v. 

Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575 (1969), the Court considered 

the question whether a bargaining order was an appropriate 

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remedy to counter employer unfair labor practices directed at 

a non-incumbent union. The Gissel Court determined that 

there were two categories of cases in which a bargaining 

order is appropriate. The first such category consists of 

those cases in which the employers' unfair labor practices are 

so "outrageous" and "pervasive" that "their coercive effects 

cannot be eliminated by the application of traditional remedies." Id. at 613-14 (internal quotations omitted). The second such category consists of "less extraordinary" cases in 

which the Board had undergone a detailed balancing resulting 

in the conclusion that "the possibility of erasing the effects of 

past practices and of ensuring a fair election ... by the use of 

traditional remedies ... is slight and that employee sentiment once expressed through cards would, on balance, be 

better protected by a bargaining order." Id. at 614-15.

Gissel, of course, involved a non-incumbent union and as 

such is not directly implicated here. This court, however, has 

required the Board to make detailed findings as to why a 

bargaining order is appropriate not only in cases involving 

non-incumbent unions, but also in cases involving incumbent 

unions. See, e.g., Exxel/Atmos, Inc. v. NLRB, 28 F.3d 1243, 

1249 (D.C. Cir. 1994); Caterair Int'l v. NLRB, 22 F.3d 1114, 

1122-23 (D.C. Cir. 1994); Sullivan Indus., 957 F.2d at 903;

Peoples Gas Sys., Inc. v. NLRB, 629 F.2d 35, 46 (D.C. Cir. 

1980). But see NLRB v. Williams Enters., Inc., 50 F.3d 

1280, 1289 (4th Cir. 1995) (relying on incumbent/nonincumbent distinction in upholding Board's issuance of affirmative bargaining order without specific factual findings in 

case involving incumbent union).

In numerous cases, we have reminded the Board that a 

bargaining order is an "extraordinary remedy" that may not 

be imposed in run-of-the-mill cases. We have repeatedly held 

that if the Board wishes to impose an affirmative bargaining 

order, it must explain why that remedy is appropriate given 

the facts of that particular case. Caterair Int'l, 22 F.3d at 

1123 ("Five times in the past fourteen years this court has 

remanded such orders to the Board with a request for 

explanation as to why, in the particular circumstances, the 

extra protection against decertification was necessary." (emUSCA Case #96-1362 Document #283221 Filed: 07/08/1997 Page 12 of 19
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phasis added)); Williams, 956 F.2d at 1237 ("The requirement that a bargaining order be accompanied by a reasoned 

explanation applies not only in election cases ... but also in 

cases like Peoples Gas where an employer withdraws recognition from an incumbent union. Under Peoples Gas, a bargaining order does not automatically flow from an unlawful 

withdrawal of union recognition. If the employer's violation 

is serious enough, a bargaining order might be appropriate 

despite concerns that the employees may not desire union 

representation ... But if the employer's violation is less 

serious, we would be inclined to give more weight to the 

employees' right to decide whether they want union representation and which union they want to represent them." (citations omitted)); Peoples Gas, 629 F.2d at 46 ("[W]hen ... a 

Company refuses to bargain with an incumbent Union, asserting a good faith doubt of Union majority support ..., before 

we will enforce a bargaining order, we must be able to 

determine from the Board's opinion (1) that it gave due 

consideration to the employees' section 7 rights ... (2) why it 

concluded that other purposes must override the rights of the 

employees to choose their bargaining representatives and (3) 

why other remedies, less destructive to employees' rights, are 

not adequate.").

Case law in our circuit is as clear as it could be on this 

question. The Board, however, continues to ignore us. We 

continue to reverse. See James J. Brudney, A Famous 

Victory: Collective Bargaining Protections and the Statutory 

Aging Process, 74 N.C. L. REV. 939 (1996) (discussing numerous examples of ongoing disagreements between the Board 

and federal appellate courts over interpretation of the Act).

In this case the Board did not make the particularized 

findings that our case law requires. The Board claims that 

the general explanations it offered in Caterair Int'l, 322 

N.L.R.B. No. 11 (1996), and Williams Enters., 312 N.L.R.B. 

at 940-42, are sufficient. The Board's claim is disingenuous. 

Our case law is clear that the Board must explain why a 

bargaining order is required given the facts of the particular 

case. The Board has not done this. We therefore grant 

Lee's petition on this point and remand the case with instrucUSCA Case #96-1362 Document #283221 Filed: 07/08/1997 Page 13 of 19
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tions to either vacate the order or explain why an affirmative 

bargaining order is necessary given the facts of this case. 

Without deciding the issue, we express serious doubt as to 

how the Board possibly could make a determination that a 

bargaining order was appropriate on the facts of this case. 

This entire incident arose seven years ago, the unfair labor 

practices in question were relatively slight, and the employees 

twice indicated that they were unhappy with the Union. This 

would seem to us to be a classic case where use of a 

bargaining order would force a union on unwilling employees. 

We leave it to the Board to consider this question on remand.

CONCLUSION

Petitioner Lee Lumber has raised numerous challenges to 

the Board's handling of its case. We affirm the Board in all 

respects save for (1) its application of its "reasonable period 

of time" test to the facts of this case, and (2) its issuance of an 

affirmative bargaining order. On these issues we remand to 

the Board for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

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SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge, concurring: I remain of the 

opinion that this Circuit's line of cases on the Board's issuance of bargaining orders when an employer fails to bargain 

with an incumbent union is erroneous. Although several 

cases, including this one, recognize the difference between a 

Gissel situation and refusal to bargain with an incumbent 

union, our jurisprudence has been infected by the original 

case in this line, Peoples Gas, which did not. See Peoples Gas 

Sys., Inc. v. NLRB, 629 F.2d 35, 47 (D.C. Cir. 1980). A 

bargaining order is not an extraordinary remedy in an 8(a)(5) 

case for the reasons that I have discussed in prior opinions, 

one of which was relied upon by the Fourth Circuit in 

accepting the Board's approach. See NLRB v. Williams 

Enterprises, 50 F.3d 1280, 1290 (4th Cir. 1995); Exxel/Atmos, 

Inc. v. NLRB, 37 F.3d 1538, 1539-40 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (per 

curiam) (Silberman, J., dissenting); Sullivan Indus. v. 

NLRB, 957 F.2d 890, 906-10 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (Silberman, J., 

concurring in part, dissenting in part).

Be that as it may, I agree with my colleagues that the 

Board cannot so easily dodge the particularized finding requirement that we have imposedalbeit improperlyon the 

Board before it issues a bargaining order. The Board's 

"presumption" that a bargaining order is appropriate whenever an employer's illegal refusal to bargain antedates a manifestation of employee dissatisfaction with the union does not 

seem to me to be an abuse of its extensive remedial discretionbut of course I thought the same when the Board 

routinely issued such orders without explicitly basing them on 

a "presumption." Since our opinions, however, clearly require the Board to balance what we have described as the 

interests of the employees in a secret ballot election with a 

union and the Board's interest in remedying an unfair labor 

practice in light of the particular facts in every such case, the 

Board's "presumption" is simply a way to tell this Circuit to 

go fly a kite. I would have thought it more appropriate to 

have sought certiorari in one of the earlier cases. See, e.g., 

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Exxel/Atmos, Inc. v. NLRB, 28 F.3d 1243 (D.C. Cir.), petition 

for reh'g denied, 37 F.3d 1538 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (per curiam).

Even I, however, one of only two judges on this Circuit who 

have manifested toleration of the Board's policy, see Exxel, 37 

F.3d at 1538, am dubious about a bargaining order in this 

case because it comes seven years after the crucial events and 

therefore seems quite stale. The delay, moreover, appears to 

be entirely the responsibility of the Board itself.

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SENTELLE, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment: I agree with much of what the court 

has to say, and I especially agree with the disposition of the 

bargaining order issue. I disagree only with the portion of 

the decision which upholds the Board's rule that an employer's refusal to bargain, even one so slight and void of malicious intent as the one the Board strains to find in the 

present case, is presumed to taint any subsequent loss of 

majority support by the union absent the highly unlikely 

"showing that employee disaffection arose after the employer 

resumed its recognition of the union and bargained for a 

reasonable period of time without committing any additional 

unfair labor practices that would detrimentally affect the 

bargaining." Supplemental Decision at 4.

I say "highly unlikely" because if the Board found a taint 

on the facts before it in this case, it would find one always. 

As Justice Scalia expressed in his dissent in NLRB v. Curtin 

Matheson Scientific, Inc., 494 U.S. 775, 812 (1990) (Scalia, J., 

dissenting), an "underlying question" cannot be "altered by 

characterizing factual probabilities as presumptions." In the 

same case, Chief Justice Rehnquist, concurring, decried the 

Board's refusal to allow an "employer to resort to ... commonsense assumptions," in defending a good faith doubt 

about the continuance of majority support. Id. at 797 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring). Also in that case, Justice Blackmun 

dissenting insisted that even in considering an agency's use or 

nonuse of a presumption, a "reviewing court ... must ask 

whether the agency's decision is the product of an adequate 

deliberative process and is consonant with other agency pronouncements in analogous areas." Id. at 800 (Blackmun, J., 

dissenting).

In the present case, the Board's use of the presumption 

that employees' otherwise free choice is all but irrefutably 

tainted when an employer has even slightly refused to bargain does not meet the standards any of these separate 

Justices would apply to determine if the Board has "give[n] 

objectively reasonable probative effect to the reality" of the 

facts before it. Id. at 808 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

As the court today notes in discussing the imposition of the 

bargaining order, "employee 'free choice' ... is a core princiUSCA Case #96-1362 Document #283221 Filed: 07/08/1997 Page 17 of 19
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ple of the [National Labor Relations] Act." Maj. Op. at 11 

(citing Skyline Distribs. v. NLRB, 99 F.3d 403, 411 (D.C. Cir. 

1996)). However, in cases like the present one, the Board, in 

the face of that core principle, presumes that the employees 

are incapable of exercising their core right because they 

might have been deceived as to the union's strength by the 

employers' apparent willingness to challenge the union. If 

that is the case, and a union is worth having, then why 

couldn't the unions so inform the employees out of it? To 

presume that employees are such fools and sheep that they 

have lost all power of free choice based on the acts of their 

employer, bespeaks the same sort of elitist Big Brotherism 

that underlies the imposition of the invalid bargaining order 

in this case. Consider anew the facts before us. In 1990, 

85.7 percent of the employees of the bargaining unit signed a 

petition asking for a chance to exercise their free choice. 

Seven years later, those employees still have not had the 

election they sought because the Board presumes that the 

employers' refusal for a few days to bargain with the Union 

thoroughly fooled those poor deluded employees to such a 

point that neither the Union nor anyone else could possibly 

educate them of the truth known only to their Big Brother, 

the Labor Board.

Consider for a moment a hypothetical world in which the 

supporters of a congressional candidate engage in illegal 

expenditures the day before an election. Their candidate 

ousts the incumbent by a few votes. Conceivably some 

hypothetical federal commission might, acting by delegation 

of Congress, someday have the power to set aside such an 

election. It is inconceivable that the people of the United 

States would tolerate empowering that commission to at the 

same time impose upon them the continuing services of the 

incumbent congressman for the next three and one-half congressional terms without a further election because of the 

presumed "taint" arising from the illegal expenditures. And 

yet, the Board feels perfectly righteous in so disenfranchising 

the employees in this case for the simple reason that they are 

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employees. That is, the Board apparently has reasoned that 

the working class is composed of individuals not competent to 

determine their own best interest or even to know their own 

minds. I cannot in good conscience nor in obedience to my 

understanding of the role of a reviewing court support such 

administrative arrogance.

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