Case Name: UNION MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1955-01-14
Citations: 221 F.2d 532
Docket Number: No. 12021
Parties: UNION MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 221
Pages: 532–541

Head Matter:
UNION MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent.
No. 12021.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued May 25, 1954.
Decided Jan. 14, 1955.
Writ of Certiorari Denied May 9, 1955.
See 75 S.Ct. 660.
Danaher, Circuit Judge, dissented.
Mr. John R. Fitzpatrick, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Edward J. Lynch, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for petitioner.
Mr. Frederick U. Reel, Attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C., of the Bar of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court, with whom Mr. A. Norman Somers, Asst. General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for respondent.
Before PRETTYMAN, WASHINGTON and DANAHER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge.
This is a petition for review of an order of the National Labor Relations Board. The Board had found that the Company, our petitioner, had committed an unfair labor practice within the meaning of Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a) (5) of the National Labor Relations Act as amended, in refusing to bargain with a union certified by the Board after an election.
The facts were stipulated, and the question before us is a question of law, one of statutory construction. A strike occurred at the Company's plant. It is agreed that it was an economic strike. While it was in progress the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, A.F.L., requested the Company to recognize the Federation as the bargaining representative of the employees. An election was held. When certain strikers appeared to vote, the Company challenged their votes. There were enough challenges to affect the result of the election, and the Company refused to bargain with the union selected by counting the challenged votes. The Board considered the challenges and at first ordered a hearing but then, without a hearing, overruled them. This is the order under review.
The challenges were upon the ground that the strikers involved had been guilty of strike misconduct and so were not entitled to vote under a specific provision of the statute. Affidavits submitted to the Board were said to establish the facts of misconduct. These strikers had not been discharged by formal action of the Company, and they had not been replaced or denied reinstatement.
The statute contains this sentence: "Employees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement shall not be eligible to vote."
The question before us is the meaning of the foregoing sentence.
The Company says that it is established that strikers who engage in misconduct are not eligible for the protection of the Act and are not entitled to an order of reinstatement (citing cases), that the purpose of the statute is industrial peace, and that the disputed sentence means precisely what it says. The Company says that discharge or replacement of these strikers was a matter for managerial discretion in the Company and that the employees were not "entitled" to either. It says that any employee who is not qualified for the prote ;tion of the Act — by reason of discharge, replacement, or because he is subjec; to denial of reinstatement— is "not entitled to reinstatement" and so, according to the Act, is.not entitled to vote. It says that to hold that an employer must take an affirmative action of discharge or replacement, and thus must subject itself to charges and.claims for damages, is to impose upon an employer a burden clearly not contemplated by this provision of the Act. It says, moreover, that, if actual discharge or replacement is the sole criterion of eligibility to vote, the employer has control in a major way over the election. It says that the purpose of the disputed sentence is to limit eligible voters to those employees who have not forfeited their rights to reinstatement. The. gist of the Company's contention is that the disputed sentence creates a special class of strikers, consisting of those who by their acts of misconduct have forfeited their rights to protection under the statute and 30 are ineligible to vote. The Company relies upon the literal reading of the sentence.
The Board says that the basic criterion for eligibility to vote is whether the voter will be affected by the election; that if it be clear that an employee will not be affected — i.e., if he has been discharged or replaced — he cannot vote; otherwise he is eligible. It says that any econnmic striker can be denied reinstatement for any nondiscriminatory reason and that the phrase "not entitled to reinstatement" could not reasonably be held to refer to all economic strikers. It says that a striker who engages in misconduct does not automatically forfeit reinstatement, he merely supplies a ready reason for his employer's action. If the employer chose not to replace these strikers and they were ultimately reinstated after being denied a vote, they would thereafter be represented by an agent not of their choosing. It says that prior to the insertion of the disputed sentence in the statute both employees who had been replaced and their replacements could vote by well-established rules of the Board and that the sole purpose of the sentence was to eliminate this unseemly duplication. It says that the sentence means that strikers' actually discharged or replaced, and so in a real and actual sense not entitled to reinstatement, cannot vote.
. [1] In the light of these opposing contentions we think the disputed sentence is ambiguous. On the face of it both contentions have reasonable support. Since the sentence upon its face is ambiguous we turn to the legislative history to try to ascertain its meaning from its purpose.
That portion of Section 9(c) (3) with which we are concerned was not in the bill initially passed by the House of Representatives. It first appeared in the version of the bill as reported to the Senate by its Committee. Thereafter a unanimous consent agreement was reached in the Senate, providing that the House bill be amended by substituting the text of the Senate bill as amended. The sentence then contained a clause "unless such strike involves an unfair labor practice on the part of the employer." Following passage in the Senate the bill went to conference, where the "unless" clause was deleted and the form now before us adopted.
From this legislative history it is apparent that the discussion in the Senate reflects the Congressional understanding of the legislative purpose. The Senate Report stated:
"When elections are conducted during a strike, situations frequently arise wherein the employer has continued to operate his business with replacement workers. If such strike is an economic one and not caused by unfair labor practices of the employer, strikers permanently replaced have no right to reinstatement (N. L. R. B. v. Mackay Radio, 304 U.S. 333 [58 S.Ct. 904, 82 L.Ed. 1381]). It appears clear that a striker having no right to replacement [sic] should not have a voice in the selection of a bargaining representative, and the committee bill so provides."
In the Mackay Radio case a strike by all the workers was staged in a branch office of a communications company. In order to maintain service the company imported employees from its other offices to fill the strikers' places. After the strikers returned to work, five of the imported workers desired to remain, so the company notified five strikers that the roll of employees was complete and they would not be reinstated. The Supreme Court held that the replaced strikers had no right to reinstatement provided there was no discrimination exercised against employees because they had been active in the union. That case involved an affirmative act by the employer — replacement,-—and its citation in the Senate Report is an indication that the Senate had that situation in mind. Senator Taft, Chairman of the Committee which reported the bill, discussed on the floor of the Senate the sentence now before us. He used as an example a case in California, where strikers had been out eighteen months and had gradually been replaced. Even though the replaced strikers were working on new jobs elsewhere, they cast votes in an election of a bargaining agent at their former place of employment. Thus the employer was left helpless to stop the strike, because he could deal only with the union representing men who were no longer in his employ. Senator Taft stated that this bill was designed to end this sort of situation by providing that former employees cannot vote in an election.
One of the authors of the Senate Minority Report on this bill attacked the provision and asked for an interpretation. A member of the majority of the Committee replied and cited a situation where "the individuals who were on strike and whose jobs had been filled, and who were not entitled to reinstatement, swung the election and decided the bargaining agent. There was the ridiculous situation of a thousand persons voting for a bargaining agent for only 500 jobs. That does not make sense. All the amendment does is to say that only employees, who under present rules are on strike and entitled to reinstatement, can vote to select the bargaining agent."
This same majority member, Senator Ball, later made a radio speech, printed in the Congressional Record, in which he interpreted the provision as follows:
"Section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act, which deals with election of bargaining representatives, is completely rewritten in the pending bill, with every change designed to assure to employees, not employers, their full rights and freedoms.
"Briefly, those changes (5) [provide] that when an election is held during a strike, only employees working or entitled to reinstatement may vote. The Board at present permits strikers who have been i eplaeed and have no legal right to reinstatement to vote, and in effect, block the free choice of the real employees."
It thus appears that both majority and minority members of the Senate Committee sponsoring the bill interpreted the provision in the same way. There is no helpful legislative history on the House side.
Upon the basis of the history of the sentence here in controversy, we think it clear that its purpose was to make ineligible strikers whose reinstatement rights had already been destroyed by the employer's action and who were for that compelling reason ineligible for reinstatement at the time of the election. Such beir g its legislative intent, and the sentence being otherwise ambiguous, we hold that to be its meaning.
We are in accord here with the authorities which require great weight to be given an administrator's interpretation of the statute he is directed and empowered to administer.
Our dissenting judge would give controlling weight to the purpose and policy of the statute. He says, correctly, that this purpose and policy is the preservation of peace in industry-labor relations. We do not agree with his estimate of the restraining effect on striking employees of a threat of denial of voting rights. The employer has a right to discharge employees who misconduct themselves. We think a mere denial of a vote in a bargaining agent election would add little, if anything, to the deterring effects' of the employer's right to discharge. '.if an employee is not deterred from violence by the risk of discharge, it seems unlikely that he would be deterred because he might not be allowed to vote in the election.
We think the challenges here involved were not valid as a matter of law. It follows that the order of the Board must be sustained. An order of enforcement will be entered.
Affirmed.
. 61 Stat. 140 (1947), as amended, 29 U.S. C.A. § 158(a) (1) and (5).
. Section 9(c) (3) of the National Labor Relations Act as amended, 61 Stat. 144 (1947), 29 U.S.C.A. § 159(c) (3).
. H.R. 3320, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. § 9(c) (3) (IS 47), .1 Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, p. 59 ¡G.P.0.1948) (hereafter cited as Leg.Hist.).
. S. 1120, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. § 9(e) (3) (1947), 1 Leg-Hist. 119.
. 93 Cong.Rec. 4999, 5117 (1947), 2 Leg. Hist. 1468, 1522.
. H.R. 3020 (with amendments of Senate), 80th Cong., 1st Sess. § 9(c) (3) (1947), 1 Leg.Hist. 246.
. H.R.Conf.Rep.No.510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 49-50 (1947), 1 Leg.Hist. 553-4.
. Sen.Rep.No.105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 25 (1947), 1 Leg.Hist. 431.
. 93 Cong.Rec. 3838-9 (1947), 2 Leg.Hist. 1014.
. 93 Cong.Rec. 4196 (1947), 2 Leg.Hist. 1102.
. 93 Cong.Rec. A2252-3 (1947), 2 Leg. Hist. 1525.
. See 93 Cong.Rec. 6527 (1947), 2 Leg. Hist. 1696.
. Unemployment Compensation Comm. v. Aragon, 1946, 329 U.S. 143, 67 S.Ct. 245, 91 L.Ed. 136, and cases there cited; Brooks v. National Labor Relations Board, 1954, 347 U.S. 916, 74 S.Ct. 517, 98 L.Ed. 1071; Id., 348 U.S. 96, 75 S.Ct. 176, 99 L.Ed. —.