Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/308/241/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-10-18 13:12:33
Document Index: 6937257

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 10', '§ 7', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 10']

In a case duly instituted and heard, the National Labor Relations Board issued an order [Footnote 1] pursuant to the provisions of § 10(c) [Footnote 2] of the National Labor Relations Act, requiring the respondent, Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company: (1) to cease and desist from (a) dominating or otherwise interfering with the administration of the Employees' Representative Committee, a labor organization, [Footnote 3] or the formation or administration of any other labor organization of its employees; (b) from chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 243
interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of the right guaranteed them by § 7 [Footnote 4] of the Act. The order further required the company (2) to take affirmative action, namely: (a) to withdraw all recognition from the Committee as the representative of any of its employees for the purpose of dealing with the company concerning labor conditions and wages, and completely to disestablish the Committee as such representative; (b) to post copies of the order throughout the plant; (c) to maintain said notices for thirty days, and (d) to notify the Board's Regional Director of the steps taken to comply with the order.
The Company petitioned the Circuit Court of Appeals for review. The Board answered praying that the court dismiss the company's petition and decree enforcement. The court held that the Board had jurisdiction of the cause, but that its holding that the company had dominated and interfered with the formation and administration of the Committee was without support in the evidence. The court decreed that §§ 1(a) and (b) and §§ 2(b), (c), and (d) of the Board's order should be enforced, but that § 2(a), which required the withdrawal of recognition of the Committee and its disestablishment as a representative of the employees, should be stricken from chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 244
the order. We granted certiorari, 307 U.S. 617, because of asserted conflict with decisions of this court. [Footnote 7]
The Board's findings were to the following effect: in 1927, in cooperation with its employees, the respondent put into effect a plan of employee representation known as "Representation of Employes." The preamble of the plan stated that its purpose was to give employees a voice in respect of the conditions of their labor, and to provide a procedure for the prevention and adjustment of future differences. Under the plan, the employees were to elect representatives, each of whom was paid $100 per year for services as such. No one holding a supervisory position was eligible to serve as a representative or to vote for a representative. Administration of the plan was vested in certain joint committees, each of which consisted chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 245
of five elected representatives and not more than five representatives chosen from amongst the employees by the management. There was provision for a Management's Representative, whose function was "to keep the management in touch with the representatives and represent the management in negotiations with their officers and committees." A provision calling for the arbitration of differences was to become operative only upon concurrence of the respondent's president.
By the 1931 revision, which was not materially altered until 1937, a General Joint Committee was set up in lieu of several joint committees theretofore constituted, and two representatives were to be elected by the employees in each department, while the respondent was to appoint an equal number of management representatives, a majority of each class of representatives constituting a quorum. The annual remuneration to be paid elected representatives by the company was reduced to $60.00. The secretary of the General Joint Committee was paid $5.00 monthly by the company. An Executive Committee was also established, constituted of five elected employee representatives and five representatives of management. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 246
The two principal changes made were the elimination of payment of compensation by the respondent to elected representatives of the employees and the substitution of an Employes' Representative Committee, composed solely of employee representatives elected by employees, for the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 247
former General Joint Committee and the Joint Executive Committee. The revised plan provides that action of the Employes' Representative Committee "shall be final and become effective upon agreement by the company," and further, that any article of the plan may be amended by a vote of two-thirds of the entire membership of the committee, and
The principal contention of the respondent is that the Board ignored uncontradicted facts and refused to make findings respecting them. The Board replies that it did not ignore these facts, but omitted to find them because they were immaterial to the pivotal issues in the case. It chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 248
is uncontradicted that labor disputes have repeatedly been settled under the plan; that, since 1927, no labor dispute has caused cessation of activities at the respondent's plant; that overwhelming majorities of the employees have participated in the election of representatives; that the company has never objected to its employees' joining labor unions; that no discrimination has been practiced against them because of their membership in outside unions, and that neither officials nor superior employees not eligible to vote in the election of employees' representatives, have interfered, or attempted to interfere, or use any influence, in connection with the election of representatives.
The Board urges that, notwithstanding the facts on which the respondent relies, the structure of the Committee, under the 1937 plan, renders the organization incompetent to meet the requirements of the National Labor Relations Act, and further that, if its fundamental chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 249
law were free from defect, the history of its organization and administration would require that it be disestablished as the bargaining agency of the employees.
The Board has concluded that the provisions embodied in the final revision, whereby action of the Committee requires, for its effectiveness, the agreement of the company, and whereby amendment of the plan can become effective only if the company fails to signify its disapproval within fifteen days of adoption, still give the respondent such power of control that the plan is in the teeth of the expressed policy and the specific prohibitions of the Act. The respondent argues that these provisions affect only the company, and not the employees; that, in collective bargaining, there is always reserved to the employer the right to qualify or to reject the propositions advanced by the employees. Whatever may be said of the first mentioned provision, this explanation will not hold for the second. The plan may not be amended if the company disapproves the amendment. Such control of the form and structure of an employee organization deprives the employees of the complete freedom of action guaranteed to them by the Act, and justifies an order such as was here entered. The court below, in its opinion, states it was advised, in a brief after the hearing in that court, that the plan had been amended by striking out the provisions in question. It concludes, therefore, that their previous existence is immaterial. The statute expressly deprives the reviewing court of power to consider chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 250
facts thus brought to its attention. The case must be heard on the record as certified by the Board. The appropriate procedure to add facts to the record as certified is prescribed in § 10(e) of the Act.
As pointed out in Labor Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, 303 U. S. 261, disestablishment of a bargaining unit previously dominated by the employer may be the only effective way of wiping the slate clean and affording the employees an opportunity to start afresh in organizing for the adjustment of their relations with the employer. Compare Labor Board v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U. S. 240, 306 U. S. 262. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 308 U. S. 251