Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/102204/packard-co-vs-labor-board
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 9', '§ 10', '§ 2', '§ 10', '§ 2', '§ 152', '§ 2', '§ 1', '§ 151', '§ 1101', '§ 1252', '§ 1253', '§ 1301', '§ 51']

Packard Co Vs Labor Board - Citation 102204 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Packard Co. Vs. Labor Board - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/102204
Case Number 330 U.S. 485
Appellant Packard Co.
packard co. v. labor board - 330 u.s. 485 (1969) u.s. supreme court packard co. v. labor board, 330 u.s. 485 (1947) packard motor car co. v. national labor relations board no. 658 argued january 9, 1947 decided larch 10, 1947 330 u.s. 485 certiorari to the circuit court of appeals for the sixth circuit syllabus 1. foremen and other supervisory employees are entitled as a class to the rights of self-organization, collective bargaining, and other concerted activities assured to employees generally by the national labor relations act. pp. 330 u. s. 488 -490. (a) they are "employees" within the meaning of § 2(3). p. 330 u. s. 488 . (b) they are not excluded from the term "employees" by § 2(2).....
Packard Co. v. Labor Board - 330 U.S. 485 (1969)
U.S. Supreme Court Packard Co. v. Labor Board, 330 U.S. 485 (1947)
1. Foremen and other supervisory employees are entitled as a class to the rights of self-organization, collective bargaining, and other concerted activities assured to employees generally by the National Labor Relations Act. Pp. 330 U. S. 488 -490.
(a) They are "employees" within the meaning of § 2(3). P. 330 U. S. 488 .
(b) They are not excluded from the term "employees" by § 2(2) defining the term "employer." Pp. 330 U. S. 488 -490.
2. When a union of supervisory employees has been duly certified by the National Labor Relations Board as a bargaining representative, the Act requires the employer to bargain with it. P. 330 U. S. 490 .
3. Where, as in this case, a determination of the National Labor Relations Board under § 9(b) that a certain union is an appropriate bargaining representative does not exceed the Board's authority, is supported by substantial evidence, and is not so arbitrary or unreasonable as to be illegal, it cannot be set aside by a court in an enforcement proceeding under § 10(e). Pp. 330 U. S. 491 -492.
4. Arguments as to the wisdom of permitting foremen to organize should be addressed to Congress, not to the courts. Pp. 330 U. S. 490 , 330 U. S. 493 .
The Circuit Court of Appeals decreed enforcement of an order of the National Labor Relations Board requiring an employer to bargain with a union of foremen. 157 F.2d 80. This Court granted certiorari. 329 U.S. 707. Affirmed., p. 330 U. S. 493 .
The question presented by this case is whether foremen are entitled as a class to the rights of self-organization, collective bargaining, and other concerted activities as assured to employees generally by the National Labor Relations Act. The case grows out of conditions of the automotive industry, and, so far as they are important to the legal issues here, the facts are simple.
and special assignment men employed by the Company at its plants in Detroit, Michigan, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of section 9(b) of the Act, [ Footnote 1 ]"
The privileges and benefits of the Act are conferred upon employees, and § 2(3) of the Act, so far as relevant, provides "The term "employee" shall include any employee. . . ." 49 Stat. 450. The point that these foremen are employees both in the most technical sense at common law as well as in common acceptance of the term is too obvious to be labored. The Company, however, turns to the Act's definition of employer, which it contends reads foremen out of the employee class and into the class of employers. Section 2(2) reads: "The term employer' includes any person acting in the interest of an employer, directly or indirectly. . . ." 49 Stat. 450. The context of the Act, we think, leaves no room for a construction of this section to deny the organizational privilege to employees because they act in the interest of an employer. Every employee, from the very fact of employment in the master's business, is required to act in his interest. He
Even those who act for the employer in some matters, including the service of standing between management and manual labor, still have interests of their own as employees. Though the foreman is the faithful representative of the employer in maintaining a production schedule, his interest properly may be adverse to that of the employer when it comes to fixing his own wages, hours, seniority rights, or working conditions. He does not lose his right to serve himself in these respects because he
Moreover, the company concedes that foremen have a right to organize. What it denies is that the statute compels it to recognize the union. In other words, it wants to be free to fight the foremen's union in the way that companies fought other unions before the Labor Act. But there is nothing in the Act which indicates that Congress intended to deny its benefits to foremen as employees, if they choose to believe that their interests as employees would be better served by organization than by individual competition. [ Footnote 2 ] NLRB v. Skinner & Kennedy Stationery Co., 113 F.2d 667; see NLRB v. Armour & Co., 154 F.2d 570, 574.
49 Stat. 453. Our power of review also is circumscribed by the provision that findings of the Board as to the facts, if supported by evidence, shall be conclusive. § 10(e), 49 Stat. 454. So we have power only to determine whether there is substantial evidence to support the Board, or its order oversteps the law. NLRB v. Link-Belt Co., 311 U. S. 584 ; Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 146 .
There is clearly substantial evidence in support of the determination that foremen are an appropriate unit by themselves, and there is equal evidence that, while the foremen included in this unit have different degrees of responsibility and work at different levels of authority, they have such a common relationship to the enterprise and to other levels of workmen that inclusion of all such grades of foremen in a single unit is appropriate. Hence, the order, insofar as it depends on facts, is beyond our power of review. The issue as to what unit is appropriate for bargaining is one for which no absolute rule of law is laid down by statute, and none should be by decision. It involves, of necessity, a large measure of informed discretion, and the decision of the Board, if not final, is rarely to be disturbed. While we do not say that a determination of a unit of representation cannot be so unreasonable and arbitrary as to exceed the Board's power, we are clear that
Counsel also would persuade us to make a contrary interpretation by citing a long record of inaction, vacillation, and division of the National Labor Relations Board in applying this Act to foremen. If we were obliged to depend upon administrative interpretation for light in finding the meaning of the statute, the inconsistency of the Board's decisions would leave us in the dark. [ Footnote 3 ] But there are difficult questions of policy involved in these cases which, together with changes in Board membership, account for the contradictory views that characterize their history in the Board. Whatever special questions there are in determining the appropriate bargaining unit for
First. Over thirty years ago Mr. Justice Brandeis, while still a private citizen, saw the need for narrowing the gap between management and labor, for allowing labor greater participation in policy decisions, for developing an industrial system in which cooperation, rather than coercion, was the dominant characteristic. [ Footnote 2/1 ] In his view, these were
I do not believe this is an exaggerated statement of the basic policy questions which underlie the present decision. For, if foremen are "employees" within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, so are vice-presidents, managers, assistant managers, superintendents, assistant superintendents -- indeed, all who are on the payroll of the company, including the president; all who are commonly referred to as the management, with the exception of the directors. If a union of vice-presidents applied for recognition as a collective bargaining agency, I do not see how we could deny it and yet allow the present application. But once vice-presidents, managers, superintendents, foremen all are unionized, management and labor will become more of a solid phalanx than separate factions in warring camps. Indeed, the thought of some
labor leaders that, if those in the hierarchy above the workers are unionized, they will be more sympathetic with the claims of those below them, is a manifestation of the same idea. [ Footnote 2/2 ]
Second. "Employee" is defined to include "any" employee. § 2(3), 49 Stat. 449, 450, 29 U.S.C. § 152. If we stop there, foremen are included, as are all employees, from the president on down. But we are not warranted in stopping there. The term "employee" must be considered in the context of the Act. Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111 , 322 U. S. 124 ; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177 , 313 U. S. 191 . When it is so considered, it does not appear to be used in an all-embracing sense. Rather, it is used in opposition to the term "employer." An "employer" is defined to include "any person acting in the interest of an employer." § 2(2). The term "employer" thus includes some employees. And I find no evidence that one personnel group may be both employers and employees within the meaning of the Act. Rather, the Act, on its face, seems to classify the operating group of industry into two classes; what is included in one group is excluded from the other.
It is not an answer to say that the two statutory groups are not exclusive, because every "employee" while on duty -- whether driving a truck or stoking a furnace or
operating a lathe -- is "acting in the interest" of his employer, and is then an "employer" in the statutory sense. The Act was not declaring a policy of vicarious responsibility of industry. It was dealing solely with labor relations. It put in the employer category all those who acted for management not only in formulating, but also in executing, its labor policies. [ Footnote 2/3 ]
Foremost among the latter were foremen. Trade union history shows that foremen were the arms and legs of management in executing labor policies. In industrial conflicts they were allied with management. Management indeed commonly acted through them in the unfair labor practices which the Act condemns. [ Footnote 2/4 ] When we upheld the imposition of the sanctions of the Act against management, we frequently relied on the acts of foremen through whom management expressed its hostility to trade unionism. [ Footnote 2/5 ]
Third. The evil at which the Act was aimed was the failure or refusal of industry to recognize the right of workingmen to bargain collectively. In § 1 of the Act, Congress noted that such an attitude on the part of industry led "to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest," so as to burden or obstruct interstate commerce. We know from the history of that decade that the frustrated efforts of workingmen, of laborers, to organize led to strikes, strife, and unrest. But we are pointed to no instances where foremen were striking, nor
are we advised that managers, superintendents, or vice-presidents were doing so. [ Footnote 2/6 ]
If foremen were to be included as employees under the Act, special problems would be raised -- important problems relating to the unit in which the foremen might be represented. Foremen are also under the Act as employers. That dual status creates serious problems. An act of a foreman, if attributed to the management, constitutes an unfair labor practice; the same act may be part of the foreman's activity as an employee. In that event, the employer can only interfere at his peril. [ Footnote 2/7 ] The complications
of dealing with the problems of supervisory employees strongly suggest that, if Congress had planned to include them in its project, it would have made some special provision for them. But we find no trace of a suggestion that, when Congress came to consider the units appropriate for collective bargaining, [ Footnote 2/8 ] it was aware that groups of employees might have conflicting loyalties. Yet that would have been one of the most important and conspicuous problems if foremen were to be included. The failure of Congress to formulate a policy respecting the peculiar and special problems of foremen suggests an absence of purpose to bring them under the Act. And the notion is hard to resist that the very absence of a declaration by Congress of its policy respecting foremen is the reason the Board has been so much at large in the treatment of the problem under the Act. See the cases collected in note 3 of the opinion of the Court
Fourth. When we turn from the Act to the legislative history, we find no trace of Congressional concern with the problems of supervisory personnel. The reports and debates are barren of any reference to them, though they are replete with references to the function of the legislation in protecting the interests of "laborers" and "workers." [ Footnote 2/9 ]
Fifth. When we turn to other related legislation, we find that, when Congress desired to include managerial officials or supervisory personnel in the category of employees, it did so expressly. The Railway Labor Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 577, 45 U.S.C. § 151, defines "employee" to include "subordinate official." The Merchant Marine Act of 1936, 52 Stat. 953, 46 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq., which deals with maritime labor relations as a supplement to the National Labor Relations Act ( see 46 U.S.C. § 1252) defines "employee" to include "subordinate official." 46 U.S.C. § 1253(c). And the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 620, 647, 42 U.S.C. § 1301, includes an officer of a corporation in the term employee. [ Footnote 2/10 ] The failure of Congress to do the same when it wrote the National Labor Relations Act has some significance, especially where the legislative history is utterly devoid of any indication that Congress was concerned with the collective bargaining problems of supervisory employees.
Sixth. The truth of the matter is, I think, that, when Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, it was legislating against the activities of foremen, not on their behalf. Congress was intent on protecting the right of free association -- the right to bargain collectively by the great mass of workers, not by those who were in authority over them and enforcing oppressive industrial policies. Foremen were instrumentalities of those industrial policies. They blocked the wage earners' path to fair collective bargaining. To say twelve years later that foremen were treated as the victims of that anti-labor policy seems to me a distortion of history.
If we were to decide this case on the basis of policy, much could be said to support the majority view. [ Footnote 2/11 ] But I am convinced that Congress never faced those policy issues when it enacted this legislation. I am sure that those problems were not in the consciousness of Congress. A decision of these policy matters cuts deep into our industrial life. It has profound implications throughout our economy. It involves a fundamental change in much of the thinking of the nation on our industrial problems. The question is so important that I cannot believe Congress legislated unwittingly on it. Since what Congress wrote is consistent with a restriction of the Act to workingmen and laborers, I would leave its extension over supervisory employees to Congress.
What I have said does not mean that foremen have no right to organize for collective bargaining. The general law recognizes their right to do so. See American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Council, 257 U. S. 184 , 257 U. S. 209 ; Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railway & Steamship Clerks, 281 U. S. 548 , 281 U. S. 570 . And
some States have placed administrative machinery and sanctions behind that right. [ Footnote 2/12 ] But as I read the federal Act, Congress has not yet done so.
See cases collected in Daykin, op. cit. supra, note 3, pp. 298-299.
International Association of Machinists v. Labor Board, 311 U. S. 72 , 311 U. S. 79 -80; H. J. Heinz Co. v. Labor Board, 311 U. S. 514 , 311 U. S. 520 -521.
It is true that, for many years, some unions included supervisory employees, Beatrice and Sydney Webb, Industrial Democracy (1902) p. 546, fn. 2; Union Membership and Collective Bargaining by Foremen, U.S. Department of Labor Bull. No. 7 5 (1943); Report of Panel of War Labor Board in Disputes Involving Supervisors (1945) IX; Twentieth Century Fund, op. cit. supra, note 3, pp. 67, 216; Northrup, Unionization of Foremen, 21 Harv.Bus.Rev. 496. But organization of foremen on a broad scale is a development of the last few years. Daykin, op. cit. supra, note 3, p. 314; Rosenfarb, Foremen on the March, 7 Fed.Bar.J. 168; Note, 59 Harv.L.Rev. 606, 607; Comment, 55 Yale L.J. 754, 756; Foremen's Unions, IX Advanced Management Quarterly J. 110.
Cf. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Labor Board, 146 F.2d 833; Comment, 55 Yale L.J. 754, 767-774; Rosenfarb, op. cit. supra, note 6.
Cf. Federal Employers Liability Act, 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U.S.C. § 51, under which the term "any employee of a carrier" has been applied to foremen. Owens v. Union Pac. R. Co., 319 U. S. 715 ; Ellis v. Union Pac. R. Co., 329 U. S. 649 .
Daykin, op. cit. supra, note 3, p. 313; Rosenfarb, op. cit. supra, note 6; Gartenbaus, The Foreman goes Union, 113 New Republic 563: Comment 55 Yale L.J. 754; Hearings, House Comm'n on Military Affairs on Bills relating to the Full Utilization of Manpower, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 299; Northrup, The Foreman's Association of America, 23 Harv.Bus.Rev. 187; cf. American Management Association, Relation Between Management and Foremen in American Industry (1944); id., The Foreman in Labor Relations (1944); id., Should Management be Unionized? (1945).