Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/405/117
Timestamp: 2014-12-17 21:49:55
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NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. Robert SCRIVENER, dba AA Electric Company. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. Robert SCRIVENER, dba AA Electric Company.
405 U.S. 117 (92 S.Ct. 798, 31 L.Ed.2d 79)
Decided: Feb. 23, 1972.
Employer's discharge of employees because they gave written sworn statements to a National Labor Relations Board field examiner investigating an unfair labor practice charge filed against the employer, but who had neither filed the charge nor testified at a formal hearing on the charge, constituted a violation of § 8(a)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act. Pp. 121125.
The respondent Robert Scrivener is a small electrical contractor in Springfield, Missouri. He does business as an individual proprietor under the name of AA Electric Company. On March 18, 1968, five of Scrivener's six employees signed cards authorizing a union
to represent them in collective bargaining. The next day business agent Moore advised Mr. Scrivener of the union's majority status and asked to negotiate a contract. Scrivener examined the cards, but refused the request.
The Court of Appeals, per curiam, relying on its earlier decision in NLRB v. Ritchie Mfg. Co., 354 F.2d 90 (CA8 1965), held that § 8(a)(4) does not 'encompass discharge of employees for giving written sworn statements to Board field examiners.' In Ritchie the court had stated, 'We are reluctant to hold that § 8(a)(4) can be extended to cover preliminary preparations for giving testimony.' 354 F.2d, at 101.
In the present case, the court refused to uphold the Board's finding that the challenged discharges violated § 8(a)(1) as well as § 8(a)(4) since '(t)o do so would be to overrule Ritchie implicitly, and we are not prepared to take that action.' 435 F.2d, at 1297.
2. The Act's reference in § 8(a)(4) to an employee who 'has filed charges or given testimony,' could be read strictly and confined in its reach to formal charges and formal testimony. It can also be read more broadly. On textual analysis alone, the presence of the preceding words 'to discharge or otherwise discriminate' reveals, we think, particularly by the word 'otherwise,' an intent on the part of Congress to afford broad rather than narrow protection to the employee. This would be consistent with § 8(a)(4)'s purpose and objective hereinabove described. A similar question with respect to the word 'evidence' in §§ 11(1) and (2) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. 161(1) and (2), was considered in NLRB v. Wyman-Gordon Co., 394 U.S. 759, 768769, 89 S.Ct. 1426, 14301431, 22 L.Ed.2d 709 (1969), and was resolved by a broad and not a narrow construction.
That precedent is pertinent here.
3. This broad interpretation of § 8(a)(4) accords with the Labor Board's view entertained for more than 35 years. Section 8(a)(4) had its origin in the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195. Executive Order No. 6711, issued May 15, 1934, under that Act (10 NRA Codes of Fair Competition 949), provided, 'No employer . . . shall dismiss or demote any employee for making a complaint or giving evidence with respect to an alleged violation. . . .' The first Labor Board interpreted that phrase to protect the employee not only as to formal testimony, but also as to the giving of information relating to violations of the NIRA. New York Rapid Transit Corp., 1 N.L.R.B. Dec. 192 (1934) (affidavits); Ralph A. Freundlich, Inc., 2 N.L.R.B. Dec. 147, 148 (1935) (state court testimony). In § 8(a)(4) the word 'testimony,' rather than 'evidence,' appears. But the new language was described as 'merely a reiteration' of the Executive Order language and it was stated that the 'need for this provision is attested' by the above-cited Board decisions. Comparison of S. 2926 (73d Cong.) and S. 1958 (74th Cong.), Senate Committee Print 29, 1 Leg. Hist. of National Labor Relations Act 1319, 1355 (1949).
4. This interpretation, in our view, also squares with the practicalities of appropriate agency action. An employee who participates in a Board investigation may not be called formally to testify or may be discharged before any hearing at which he could testify. His contribution might be merely cumulative or the case may be settled or dismissed before hearing. Which employees receive statutory protection should not turn on the vagaries of the selection process or on other events that have no relation to the need for protection. It would make less than complete sense to protect the employee because he participates in the formal inception of the process (by filing a charge) or in the final, formal presentation, but not to protect his participation in the important developmental stages that fall between these two points in time. This would be unequal and inconsistent protection and is not the protection needed to preserve the integrity of the Board process in its entirety.
5. The Board's subpoena power also supports this interpretation. Section 11 of the Act, 29 U.S.C. 161, gives the Board this power for 'the purpose of all hearings and investigations.' Once an employee has been subpoenaed he should be protected from retaliatory action regardless of whether he has filed a charge or has actually testified. Judge Lumbard pertinently described it:
6. The approach to § 8(a)(4) generally has been a liberal one in order fully to effectuate the section's remedial purpose. In M & § Steel Co. v. NLRB, 353 F.2d 80 (CA5 1965), the court sustained the Board's finding, 148 N.L.R.B. 789, 792795 (1964), that § 8(a)(4) was violated by the discharge of an employee, Williams, because he gave a statement to a field examiner. In NLRB v. Dal-Tex Optical Co., 310 F.2d 58, 6061 (CA5 1962), the court sustained the Board, 131 N.L.R.B. 715, 721 (1961), in affording protection to an employee, Whitaker, who appeared but did not testify at a Board hearing. See John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. NLRB, supra, and NLRB v. Syracuse Stamping Co., 208 F.2d 77, 7980 (CA2 1953).
A final comment about the jurisdictional aspects of the case is perhaps in order. The Board found that Scrivener's operations were too small to satisfy the Board's self-imposed and published $50,000 outflow-inflow jurisdictional standard for non-retail enterprises. See Siemons Mailing Service, 122 N.L.R.B. 81, 85 (1958). It also found, however, that Scrivener's operations were sufficient to 'have an impact on and affect interstate commerce,' 177 N.L.R.B., at 504, and thus were within the Board's statutory jurisdiction, as defined by § 10(a) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. 160(a).
Local 453, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFLCIO.
We do not regard three Board cases, Albert J. Bartson, 23 N.L.R.B. 666, 673674 (1940); F.W. Poe Mfg. Co., 27 N.L.R.B. 1257, 1270 (1940); and The Kramer Co., 29 N.L.R.B. 921, 935 (1941), cited by the amicus, as indicative of a contrary Board interpretation. In each of those cases the employee had filed a charge. The Board's reference, in each opinion, to that fact and its further reference, in the last two cases, to the 'express statutory protection afforded employees' by § 8(a)(4), are expected and natural references and do not, in our view, indicate a narrow approach to the statute.
We are not persuaded that the reach of § 8(a)(3), 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(3), and the criminal penalty provided by § 12, 29 U.S.C. 162, provide the required protection that justifies a narrow reading of § 8(a)(4).