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May Department Stores Co Vs Labor Board - Citation 97729 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize May Department Stores Co. Vs. Labor Board - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/97729CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnDec-10-1945Case Number326 U.S. 376AppellantMay Department Stores Co.RespondentLabor BoardExcerpt:
may department stores co. v. labor board - 326 u.s. 376 (1945)
1. the conclusion of the national labor relations board that all nonsupervisory employees in the men's busheling rooms of a department store, though numbering only 30 to 40 of the store's 5,000 employees, constituted an appropriate unit for collective bargaining under § 9(b) of the act, since these employees had a degree of self-organization and a special trade which sufficiently..... Judgment:
1. The conclusion of the National Labor Relations Board that all nonsupervisory employees in the men's busheling rooms of a department store, though numbering only 30 to 40 of the store's 5,000 employees, constituted an appropriate unit for collective bargaining under § 9(b) of the Act, since these employees had a degree of self-organization and a special trade which sufficiently differentiated them from other employees, was amply supported by the evidence. P.
326 U. S. 380
2. In the circumstances of the election of a Joint Council as bargaining representative in this case -- the Board having directed the placing of the name of the Joint Council on the ballot, although the employees in the unit were members of a local union which the Joint Council represented -- there is no basis for the employer's objection to the certification on the ground of possible confusion of the employees. P.
326 U. S. 381
3. Under the National Labor Relations Act, it is the duty of the employer to bargain collectively only with the duly recognized or accredited representative of the employees, and disregard of this duty is a violation of § 8(1) of the Act. P.
326 U. S. 383
4. The National Labor Relations Board was justified in finding that the employer, in seeking the War Labor Board's approval of wage increases for its employees, including employees in the unit here involved, without bargaining collectively with the certified representative in respect of the wages, was guilty of an unfair labor practice in violation of § 8(1) of the Act. P.
326 U. S. 384
5. The admission in evidence and consideration by the Board of announcements made over the store's public address system and in the house organ concerning the application for War Labor Board approval of wage increases for its employees did not deny the employer's freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution. P.
will be modified so as not to apply generally to all violations of the rights of the employees in the bargaining unit here involved, but only to other interferences, in violation of § 8(1) or otherwise, with the certified agent's representation of these employees. P.
. 146 F.2d 66 modified and affirmed.
This writ of certiorari brings here for review the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals enforcing an order of the National Labor Relations Board which was entered after the Board found upon hearings that petitioner had violated Sections 8(1) and 8(5) of the National Labor Relations Act. [
] The petition for the writ presented issues
After a hearing in which the employer, the petitioner here, the May Department Stores Company, doing business as Famous-Barr Company, a St. Louis department store, took part, the Labor Relations Board, on June 16, 1943, found that all nonsupervisory employees of the Company, then 28 in number, working in the main and basement men's busheling rooms constituted an appropriate unit for collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) [
] of the Labor Relations Act.
The Company contended that a storewide unit of its five thousand employees was the most appropriate, and, at any rate, that employees in the women's alteration and the fur alteration departments should be added to the employees in the men's busheling rooms to form the unit. As there is no provision for direct review of the determination and certification of the bargaining representative, the Company, in order to secure judicial view of the finding as to the unit, awaited this proceeding, which sought a decree directing it to bargain collectively with the representative.
See Inland Empire Dist. Council v. Millis,
A few months before this proceeding, a determination that all employees of the Company, subject to stated exceptions, were the appropriate unit for collective bargaining had been sought by the CIO. The Company objected because no sufficient showing of representation was made and because it took exception to the exclusion of certain employees from the proposed unit. This petition was dismissed for failure of the CIO to make a substantial showing of membership in the suggested storewide unit. 46 N.L.R.B. 305. That prior application is not a bar to this. The Board was careful to note in this proceeding that a larger unit might be fixed as appropriate if self-organization developed. Other departments of the store had members of this and other unions as employees. This presence of union members throughout the enterprise was a matter of consideration in deciding upon the appropriate unit, but was not decisive.
Compare Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. Labor Board,
313 U. S. 156
. No labor organization claimed to represent the entire body
of employees. Therefore, the Board determined to approve this unit as appropriate so that collective bargaining might start for these employees without waiting until more employees might be organized into a larger unit.
Compare Labor Board v. Hearst Publications,
Under Section 9(b), the Board is delegated the authority to determine the unit. The judicial review afforded is not for the purpose of weighing the evidence upon which the Board acted, and perhaps to overrule the exercise of its discretion, but to "guarantee against arbitrary action by the Board." [
] The Board had before it the business of the company, the numbers of employees, the treatment of all employees as a unit by management with reference to sick leave, hospitalization, employee privileges, vacations,
Evidence was presented that a large proportion of employees in the proposed unit were members of the same union. It had testimony as to similarity and dissimilarity in tailoring and altering between the men's and women's alteration rooms. There was evidence that those who work on men's clothing, speaking generally, belong to a different union organization than those who work on women's clothes. The Board considered the interchange of workers between the two groups. We think that there was ample testimony to support the Board's conclusion that the employees of the two busheling rooms were an appropriate unit, since these employees had a degree of self-organization and a special trade which sufficiently differentiated them from other employees.
Petitioner objects to the certification because the ballot contained the name of the St. Louis Joint Council, United Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Employees, as a candidate for bargaining representative from the unit. This was the organization which was
certified. It had filed the petition for determination of the representative. The Council claimed that more than 51% of the employees in the suggested unit had designated it as their collective bargaining representative. The Board directs what names go on the ballot. Unless there is a showing of a substantial number of employees in the proposed unit who have become members of and selected the petitioner as their bargaining representative, the Board does not ordinarily order an election. [
] This is an administrative policy of the Board. In this case, on the Joint Council's petition for certification, the Board found that the Council had a majority of the employees. As a matter of fact, it was a local union which the employees had selected and joined. The Board pointed out in its finding of facts on the petition for an election that the Joint Council represented this local and similar locals in other stores.
The Company says that some employees may have been misled by the ballot into thinking that the Joint Council had a substantial number of the unit's employees as members because elections are not ordinarily called unless that situation exists. The local was represented by the Joint Council.
Cf. Labor Board v. Franks Bros. Co.,
137 F.2d 989, 992,
aff'd on other grounds, Franks Bros. Co. v. Labor Board,
. The Joint Council was chosen by a majority of the employees of the unit, and certified. In the circumstances of this election, we see no basis for the Company's objection to the certified representative on the ground of possible confusion of the employees.
Action on Wages.
The Board found that the Company interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the Act,
duly recognized or accredited representative of the employees. Disregard of this duty violates Section 8(1) of the Act. Section 9(a).
-684. Any other conclusion would infringe an essential principle of collective bargaining.
321 U. S. 338
. Employer action to bring about changes in wage scales without consultation and negotiation with the certified representative of its employees cannot, we think, logically or realistically, be distinguished from bargaining with individuals or minorities. The fact that the application to the War Labor Board was not the actual increase of wages, but a necessary preliminary, does not make unilateral action, accompanied by publication of the step taken to the employees, any the less objectionable. The application to the War Labor Board marked a unilateral determination by the Company that the employees of this unit should have the specific increase deemed due them by the Company or none at all, if the bargaining agent should object in accordance with the letter quoted above. The employer was not getting into position to negotiate with the agent. He declared the contrary, and proposed that he, as employer, would make the increase if permission were granted.
We find no basis for eliminating the announcements or the publication from consideration on the ground that they were an exercise of the right of free expression, secured by the First Amendment. They are a part of the totality of Company activities, and were properly received by the Board as evidence of the unilateral action of the employer.
Labor Board v. Virginia Electric & Power Co.,
314 U. S. 477
Breadth of Order.
Petitioner complains here of the refusal of the Court to modify paragraph 1(b) of the Board's order to the extent which petitioner explicitly asked for below in its petition for rehearing. [
] That paragraph, together with another which enjoins refusal to bargain, is
set out below. [
] Petitioner argues that the broad, blanket provisions of 1(b) are invalid even though, of course, restricted to the few employees in the effected unit. The language of the prohibition covers interferences with all the rights of these employees which are secured by section 7 of the Labor Act, while, at the most, petitioner urges, the
Board has found and the Circuit Court sustained only two unfair labor practices by petitioner, "(1) refusal to bargain and (2) the storewide salary increase." Both of these, it is asserted, are but incidents in petitioner's effort to obtain judicial review of the Board's certification. As the Board's selection of an appropriate unit to choose the employees' bargaining representative and the Board's subsequent certification of the representative chosen, section 9, is not judicially reviewable directly, petitioner takes the position that it committed the unfair labor practice of refusing to bargain with an accredited union, merely to open the way for judicial review of the certification. [
] Consequently petitioner urges the cease and desist order should be no broader than the refusal to bargain which is covered by paragraph 1(a),
with the addition of "or from any other acts in any manner interfering with the representative's efforts to negotiate." The suggested addition is taken from the
312 U. S. 438
. Thus, the breadth of paragraph 1(b) of the Board's order is sharply challenged as being beyond the power of the Board in view of the evidence and findings in this case.
The scope of injunctions which follow National Labor Relations Board determinations is important to employer and employee. While contempt proceedings can be instituted only by the Board and in the public interest, [
] the possibility of contempt penalties by the court for future Labor Act violations adds sufficient additional sanctions to make material the difference between enjoined and non-enjoined employer activities. [
] The decision
case emphasized this issue. [
] The paragraph under attack in that case was substantially like the paragraph here attacked.
The test of the proper scope of a cease and desist order is whether the Board might have reasonably concluded from the evidence that such an order was necessary to prevent the employer before it "from engaging in any unfair labor practice . . . affecting commerce." Section 10(a). [
] Equity has long been accustomed in other fields to reach conclusions as to the scope of orders which are necessary
to prevent interferences with the rights of those who seek the courts' protection. [
] Injunctions in broad terms are granted even in acts of the widest content, when the court deems them essential to accomplish the purposes of the act. [
] We think that the Board has the same power to
That power of the Board is subject to review under Section 10. While the Board has been delegated initially the exclusive authority to prevent unfair labor practices, [
] courts, which are called upon to enforce such orders by their own decrees, may examine its scope to see whether on the evidence they go so beyond the authority of the Board as to require modification as a matter of law before enforcement. Section 10(a) and (e). The
. We think that, in the circumstances of this proceeding, although there is a violation of Section 8(1) as well as 8(5), the violation of 8(1) is so intertwined with the refusal to bargain with a unit asserted to be certified improperly that without a clear determination by the Board of an attitude of opposition to the purposes of the Act to protect the rights of employees generally, the decree need not enjoin Company actions which are not determined by the Board to be so motivated.
under the Act of the rights of the employees in Departments 280 and 281, but will apply to other interferences, in violation of Section 8(1) or otherwise, with the Council's representation of these employees. There should be added to paragraph 1(a) of the decree,
the following clause,
Opinion of the C.C.A.,
Labor Board v. May Dept. Stores Co.,
146 F.2d 66; determination of National Labor Relations Board, 53 N.L.R.B. 1366.
In re Houston Shipbuilding Corp.,
41 N.L.R.B. 638;
In re American Manufacturing Co.,
41 N.L.R.B. 995.
Section 10(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 454, precludes the consideration by the Circuit Court of any objection not raised before the Board unless such failure is excusable because of "extraordinary circumstances." This Court therefore is authorized,
to appraise the record to determine the power of the Circuit Court to review paragraph 1(b) of the Board's order.
310 U. S. 341
In this proceeding, the paragraph first appeared in the intermediate report of the Board's examiner. The petitioner excepted specifically to paragraph 1(b) of the proposed order as "not supported or justified by the record." This was the only objection made to the paragraph in question in the record of the proceedings before the Board. The examiner's recommendation was adopted by the Board in its order. Unless this objection was sufficiently specific to apprise the Board of the question now presented, the Circuit Court had no power to consider it.
case, we declined to consider an issue as to the power of the Board to grant a back pay order which was construed as barring the deduction of unemployment compensation from the award, although the question was raised by answer and decided by the Circuit Court of Appeals,
Labor Board v. Marshall Field & Co.,
129 F.2d 169. Our reason for refusing review was that the only objection to the Board's power was error by the examiner "in making each and every recommendation." The remedy recommended by the examiner was the usual back pay less earnings without any word in the report as to the unemployment compensation. This was too general to apprise the Board of an intention to bring up the question of the deductibility of the compensation and of the necessity for findings.
Although it falls short of desirable specificity, we think the objection was sufficient in the present case. No further findings are needed. The paragraph in issue is a standard form of order frequently used by the Board; the same question with respect to an almost identical order was considered by this Court in
, and has been a frequent subject of dispute in the Circuit Courts (
). These circumstances, coupled with an objection that the order was "not supported or justified by the record," put the Board on notice of the issue now presented.
Inland Empire Dist. Council, v. Millis,
309 U. S. 269
for business operations under contempt orders, 41 Columbia L.Rev. at 913.
The problem of the scope of injunction dealt with in
, has recently received careful consideration by judges and writers. 41 Columbia L.Rev. 911; 29 Georgetown L.J. 1026; 53 Harvard L.Rev. 472; 23 Boston Univ.L.Rev. 447; 54 Yale L.J. 141.
110 F.2d 632 [§ 8(5)];
Art Metals Const. Co. v. Labor Board,
110 F.2d 148 [§ 8(5)];
Wilson & Co. v. Board,
124 F.2d 845 [§ 8(3)];
Labor Board v. Sunbeam Electric Mfg. Co.,
133 F.2d 856 [§ 8(1)];
Labor Board v. Standard Oil Co.,
138 F.2d 885 [§ 8(2)].
Labor Board v. Boss Mfg. Co.,
107 F.2d 574 [§§ 8(1), 8(3), 8(5)];
118 F.2d 874 [§§ 8(1), 8(3), 8(5)];
F. W. Woolworth Co. v. Board,
121 F.2d 658 [§§ 8(1), 8(3)];
Board v. Algoma Net Co.,
124 F.2d 730 [§§ 8(1), 8(3)];
Labor Board v. Baldwin Locomotive Works,
128 F.2d 39 [§§ 8(1), 8(2), 8(3), 8(4)];
Labor Board v. Brezner Tanning Co.,
141 F.2d 62 [§§ 8(1), 8(3)];
Idaho Potato Growers v. Board,
144 F.2d 295 [§§ 8(3), 8(5)].
Globe Cotton Mills v. Board,
103 F.2d 91 [§ 8(5)];
Labor Board v. Swift & Co.,
108 F.2d 988 [§ 8(2)];
McQuay-Norris Mfg. Co. v. Board,
119 F.2d 1009 [§ 8(5)];
Labor Board v. Newark Morning Ledger Co.,
120 F.2d 262 [§ 8(3)];
Labor Board v. Burry Biscuit Corp.,
123 F.2d 540 [§ 8(2)];
Labor Board v. Stone,
125 F.2d 752 [§ 8(1)];
Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Board,
135 F.2d 891 [§ 8(2)];
Consolidated Aircraft Corp. v. Board,
141 F.2d 785 [§ 8(1)];
Labor Board v. Walt Disney Productions,
146 F.2d 44 [§ 8(3)];
Labor Board v. Lipshutz,
149 F.2d 141 [§ 8(1)].
Press Co., Inc. v. Board,
73 App.D.C. 103, 118 F.2d 937 [§§ 8(1), 8(3)];
Labor Board v. Grower-Shipper Vegetable Assn.,
122 F.2d 368 [§§ 8(1), 8(3)];
Wilson & Co. v. Labor Board,
123 F.2d 411 [§§ 8(1), 8(2), 8(3)];
Labor Board v. Servel, Inc.,
149 F.2d 542 [§§ 8(1), 8(3)].
Bowles v. Montgomery Ward & Co.,
143 F.2d 38, (preliminary injunction against violation of any price regulation for violation of several provisions of one regulation sustained).
Bowles v. Town Hall Grill,
145 F.2d 680 (violation of restaurant ceiling prices on poultry, lobster, gin items; injunction limited to such items sustained);
Bowles v. Sacher,
146 F.2d 186 (sustaining preliminary injunction limited to particular type of violation proved).
Ostler Candy Co. v. FTC,
106 F.2d 962;
Hershey Chocolate Corp. v. FTC,
121 F.2d 968;
Eugene Dietzgen Co. v. FTC,
142 F.2d 321.
FTC v. Beechnut Packing Co.,
FTC v. A. McLean & Son,
84 F.2d 910;
Helen Ardelle, Inc. v. FTC,
101 F.2d 718.
313 U. S. 470
321 U. S. 724
286 U. S. 494
286 U. S. 508
"It may be conceded that, ordinarily, where it was found that acts had been done in violation of the statute, adequate measure of relief would result from restraining the doing of such acts in the future.
. But, in a case like this, where the condition which has been brought about in violation of the statute, in and of itself, is not only a continued attempt to monopolize, but also a monopolization, the duty to enforce the statute requires the application of broader and more controlling remedies."
221 U. S. 79
221 U. S. 81
291 U. S. 299
"Appellants seek elimination of the provision of the decree that enjoins them from using any of the offices or positions in Local 167 or the shochtim union 'for the purpose of coercing marketmen to buy poultry, poultry feed, or other commodities necessary to the poultry business from particular sellers thereof.' The United States is entitled to effective relief. To that end, the decree should enjoin acts of the sort that are shown by the evidence to have been done or threatened in furtherance of the conspiracy. It should be broad enough to prevent evasion. In framing its provisions, doubts should be resolved in favor of the government and against the conspirators.
265 U. S. 532
. . . . When regard is had to the evidence disclosing the numerous purposes of the conspiracy and the acts of coercion customarily employed by defendants, it is plain that the clause referred to cannot be condemned as unnecessary or without warrant."
See American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council,
257 U. S. 194
I cannot agree, as the Court seems to say and the Labor Board found, [
] that there were two unfair practices in this case -- (1) refusal to bargain, contrary to § 8(5), and (2) interference, restraint and coercion of employees in violation of § 8(1). I think only one unfair labor practice was shown -- namely, refusal to bargain -- and, for that reason, I think the Board's order must be modified to eliminate the restraints based on its finding of violation
of § 8(1) as the
, requires in such a situation.
I am unable to understand the majority's application of that case to a situation in which the Board has found there were two different and substantial violations of the Act. The Court does not hold to the contrary, or rule that either finding was unsupported by the evidence. Rather, it seems to approve and sustain both. Yet it modifies, as I think, ambiguously, [
] the relief which the Board found appropriate to prevent a repetition of the interference, coercion, and restraint it determined had been inflicted upon the employees, in addition to the refusal to bargain. The
case covers no such situation. It was limited to one where the Board had imposed both types of restraint upon a finding only of refusal to bargain. [
both types of restraint where it has found both kinds of violation and neither finding is overturned. If so, I think the result squarely conflicts with repeated decisions, reflected in the language of the opinion in the
case itself, that, "having found the acts which constitute the unfair labor practice, the Board is free to restrain the practice and other like or related unlawful acts."
repeating only one or by other modification to eliminate relief appropriately designed by the Board to prevent repetition of unfair practices it has found to exist. It is because, in my opinion, there was only one unfair practice, and that was the refusal to bargain. Hence, I think the
case exactly applies, and does so without necessity for extending the scope of its ruling, as the Court's application appears to do.
In my judgment, an employer does not commit an unfair labor practice when he does no more than exercise rights secured by the Federal Constitution and laws, including the Wagner Act. [
] That Act does not put him to the choice of giving up his rights or exercising them on pain of being found guilty of unfair practice. Apart from the evidence relating to refusal to bargain under § 8(5), there was nothing, in my opinion, which went beyond what was necessary to exercise or preserve the employer's rights secured by law. The application to the War Labor Board, for approval of the proposed weekly increase of $2.00 for all the St. Louis employees, except those represented by recognized unions, was made August 31, 1943, shortly after the company had declined to bargain with the union in order to preserve its right to contest appropriateness of the unit. Announcements of this action over the public address system followed on September 1 and 11, with one also in "Store Chat" on September 3.
The case, therefore, is not
] in spite of the Board's repeated and insistent argument to the contrary. There, the employer actually dealt with the employees, not only negotiating but contracting with them. So, in
. Here, there was neither negotiation nor contracting. There was nothing the employer could offer at that time, or the employees then could accept. There was only preparatory action looking to the possibility of later negotiations, and announcement of this action to the employees.
Other facts bear out this conclusion. One is that the Board made no finding that the employer's action was taken with intent to interfere with, restrain, or coerce the employees in respect to their rights. Naturally enough, there was no such finding. The application affected some 4,500 employees. The unit involved only about 30. It is hardly conceivable that the employer would have taken this step in relation to so many for the purpose of coercing, interfering with or restraining 30. There is lacking, therefore, any showing or finding of intent, a factor the courts have considered important in concluding from otherwise innocent or equivocal facts that unfair practice may exist, [
] and one which, in this case, the Court apparently makes crucial to determine whether relief relevant to a finding of unfair practice may be sustained. The Board found only that the employer's "unilateral action," in making the application to the War Labor Board and in announcing this fact, "
of depriving the Union of credit which normally would accrue to it, and of nullifying its efficacy as a bargaining agent." (Emphasis added.)
Moreover, the Board made no finding, presumably because there is no evidence to sustain one, of particular and concrete facts showing that the employer's so-called "unilateral action" adversely affected the union's status among its members or other employees. [
] It only concluded that the action "reasonably [may] be said to have undermined the Union . . . and to have discouraged employees generally in their union affiliation." Presumably since no such effects were proved or found specifically, the basis for this conclusion was the Board's "experience," though this was not referred to in the order or the report on which it was founded. That foundation was not sufficient, in my judgment, in the absence of proof of more unequivocal acts of unfair practice, of any finding of intent to interfere, restrain or coerce, and of any showing whatever of specific discouraging or undermining effects. Something more than supposition should underlie a conclusion which supports a finding of unfair practice.
union pending the obtaining of a decision, and its purpose for these reasons to include the affected employees in the application. But the application went on to say that, if the union should object to the increase for Departments 280 and 281, the Board should consider it as amended to exclude those employees. [
This hardly furnishes ground for concluding that the employer was attempting to "short circuit" the union, undermine it, or discredit it with the employees. It explicitly recognized that the union, if rightly designated and certified, was entitled to say whether or not the proposed change in pay should become effective. Actually, that right was conceded, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the issue on validity of the certification. [
] Clearly, in view of this concession, there was no effort either to contract with the employees directly or to deal with them, over the union's head, about the increase. Whether or not it should become effective as to them was left not to the employees themselves, but to the sole and exclusive judgment of the union. There was therefore no semblance of the short circuiting or direct dealing with employees which was present in both the
obviously the company would have laid itself open to a charge and a finding of unfair practice under § 8(1). The Board is unwilling, apparently, to put the employer in that dilemma.
Cf. Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. Labor Board,
321 U. S. 699
. It does not say, though the Court does, by way of dictum, that excluding these employees from the application would not have been an unfair practice. The Board says the employer's only way out was to consult the union before making the application.
This can only mean that the employer was compelled to ask the union's permission to include these employees -- in short, that the union had the right under the Wagner Act to veto any action taken by the employer to obtain the necessary legal authority to propose any increase for them, whether directly or through the union. I do not think the Wagner Act confers such a power on the union. Nor did the Stabilization Act or the regulations in effect pursuant to its provisions do so. [
] Moreover, the employer asserts that it could not refer the matter to the union without surrendering the very rights it was seeking to preserve. This, it says, would have amounted to recognition,
Whether or not that is true, there was certainly good reason to believe it so. The right to review is given in terms only as an incident of an unfair practice proceeding. § 10;
cf. American Federation of Labor v. Labor Board,
. In this state of the law, the company's only certain remedy was to withhold recognition until the matter could be determined. Had it recognized the union by seeking its permission to include the affected employees, there would have been no factual or legal basis for the only proceedings by which review was assured; and, in order to secure it, the company then would have been forced to commit some other act of unfair practice or to take its chance upon some other doubtful remedy. In either event, it would have been confronted with its prior action of dealing with the union and the possibilities this would present either for applying the broad doctrine of estoppel or for occupying the inconsistent -- not to say indefensible -- position of having recognized the union and then having deliberately repudiated the recognition.
I do not think the Wagner Act was intended to put the employer in such a dilemma. It has been settled that he takes the risk of his error when he mistakenly judges that the unit is not appropriate, or for other reason, that the duly selected or certified union is not entitled to recognition. [
] As to that, the employer's choice was hard, made so by the very state of the law. Had the law been that
certification was none of the Company's business, and that the company had no right of review, it would have known its rights and its liabilities. That was not and is not the law. The company was told expressly that it had a right of review, but only in an unfair practice proceeding. [
] It was therefore put to the choice, by the statute's terms, of foregoing review or having it by an act of unfair practice. Hence, the finding of unfair practice by refusal to bargain must be sustained. But, in taking this risk, the employer did no more than it was compelled by law to do to save its rights under the Wagner Act and to avoid being found guilty, by virtue of some alternative course of conduct relating to the application, of further unfair practices.
A word remains to be said concerning the announcements. As has been stated, if the company had the right to make the application as it did, it also had the right to announce that fact to the public and to the employees, so long as, in doing this, it did not do so with intent or in a manner to violate the Act. I find nothing in the announcements to justify a finding they were made with this purpose or effect, and there is no finding to the contrary. [
] They were, in my judgment, no more than an
exercise of the employer's rights of free speech and a free press, secured by the First Amendment.
Cf. Labor Board v. Virginia Elec. & Power Co.,
Labor Board v. Ford Motor Co.,
114 F.2d 905;
Labor Board v. American Tube Bending Co.,
134 F.2d 993;
compare Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Brotherhood,
Under the ruling, the Board is not free to utilize § 8(1) as a device for multiplying an unfair practice under § 8(5) so that the single act of refusing to bargain may be made to justify an order forbidding not only that conduct, but also the numerous types of unfair practice prohibited by the broad language of § 8(1). The gist of the decision was that the Board cannot thus pile unfair practice on unfair practice, like presumption on presumption, for purposes of enforceable relief notwithstanding the act of merely refusing to bargain may be held technically to violate both sections in view of the language of § 7.
This Court has, in various contexts, declared that the particular means by which the effects of unfair labor practices are to be expunged is for the Board, and not for the courts, to determine.
Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. Labor Board,
319 U. S. 539
See Labor Board v. Bradford Dyeing Association,
310 U. S. 342
-343. And the Court has said that "the relation of remedy to policy is peculiarly a matter for administrative competence," and that "courts must not enter the allowable area of the Board's discretion. . . ."
See also Regal Knitwear Co. v. Labor Board,
324 U. S. 9
324 U. S. 13
The Wagner Act, designed to promote the public interest by securing employees' rights, does so by appropriate remedies which also afford protections for the employer.
See Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Labor Board,
107 F.2d 555, 559;
Labor Board v. Whittier Mills Co.,
111 F.2d 474, 478, 479;
Labor Board v. Elkland Leather Co.,
114 F.2d 221, 224;
Labor Board v. Chicago Apparatus Co.,
116 F.2d 753, 756, 757;
Peter J. Schweitzer, Inc. v. Labor Board,
79 U.S.App.D.C. 178, 144 F.2d 520, 522.
The Board's brief states that the union objected and the War Labor Board accordingly eliminated the bushelmen from the application, citing
In re May Dept. Stores Co.,
N.W.L.B. Case No. 7-6585 (unreported).
The regulations required that the application be signed "either (a) jointly by the employer and a duly recognized collective bargaining agency . . . or (b) by the employer alone." 4 War Labor Rep. xxxi, xxxiii-xxxiv, § III, 3. It was further required, in either case, that the application state whether or not there was "a duly recognized collective bargaining agency . . . which has not joined with the employer in the application." If so, provision was made for the Wage and Hour Division to notify the organization and request it to inform the office of objections, if any, to action on the application.
note 9. If none were made, the application would be acted on. If made, the matter was to be treated as a dispute, and referred to the Conciliation Service of the Department of Labor
See, e.g., Labor Board v. Hearst Publications,
Franks Bros. Co. v. Labor Board,
cf. H. J. Heinz Co. v. Labor Board,
311 U. S. 523
(employer bargained, but refused to sign written contract).