Opinion ID: 186604
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Board's Treatment of Cogburn's Evidence of Changed Circumstances

Text: 22 Despite deeming Cogburn's motion untimely, the Board nonetheless went on to consider Cogburn's claim that changed circumstances now require a different result, or, more precisely, a different remedy. In its motion, Cogburn asserted that a Gissel bargaining order was no longer necessary, because, in the five years since the organizing campaign and election, there had been substantial changes at the Company. Examples of these changes included the following information: (1) only 44% of Cogburn's 169 designated bargaining unit employees in 2001 were employed during the Union election campaign; (2) of the 82 employees that signed authorization cards, only 25 were still employed in 2001; (3) there had been significant management turnover, including the death of the Company's co-owner and Vice President, Steve Roberts, who was identified by the Board as a major perpetrator of Cogburn's ULPs, and the replacement of Company co-owner and Administrator, Suzanne Hughes, who was also responsible for various ULPs; and (4) subsequent to the ALJ's decision in 1998, no ULP charges had been filed. See Cogburn Motion at 2, 5-6, J.A. 24, 27-28. Based on these developments and the long passage of time between the alleged ULPs and the issuance of the bargaining order, Cogburn argued that it was now possible for the Board to hold a fair and impartial election. Id. at 8, J.A. 30. 23 This court has, on numerous occasions, directed the Board to provide a reasoned analysis when considering the imposition of a bargaining order. See, e.g., Douglas Foods Corp. v. NLRB, 251 F.3d 1056, 1065 (D.C.Cir.2001); Vincent Indus. Plastics, Inc. v. NLRB, 209 F.3d 727, 738 (D.C.Cir.2000); Flamingo Hilton-Laughlin v. NLRB, 148 F.3d 1166, 1170 (D.C.Cir. 1998); Avecor, Inc. v. NLRB, 931 F.2d 924, 937-39 (D.C.Cir.1991). The required analysis must contain an explicit balancing of three considerations: (1) the employees' § 7 rights; (2) whether other purposes of the Act override the rights of employees to choose their bargaining representatives; and (3) whether alternative remedies are adequate to remedy the violations of the Act. Vincent Indus., 209 F.3d at 738. Furthermore — and most relevant here — we have made it clear that the Board must consider the appropriateness of a bargaining order at the time the order is issued. See Charlotte Amphitheater Corp. v. NLRB, 82 F.3d 1074, 1079 (D.C.Cir.1996); Avecor, 931 F.2d at 937. 24 The Board may have undertaken a thorough Gissel analysis with respect to the information it had at the time of its original order in 2001. See Cogburn Healthcare Ctr., 335 N.L.R.B. at 1398-1401. But its analysis failed when Cogburn proffered evidence of changed circumstances. In response to Cogburn's motion to reopen the record, the Board stated: 25 Although [Cogburn] has recited changed circumstances as grounds for rescinding the Gissel order, the Board's established policy is to assess the propriety of a bargaining order as of the time that the respondent committed the violations. We therefore conclude that [Cogburn]'s motion does not comply with the Board's Rules. 26 Cogburn Healthcare Ctr., 2004 WL 1413262, at . The Board's decision on this point was wrong as a matter of law. As we explained in Charlotte Amphitheater: 27 Circumstances . . . may change during the interval between the occurrence of the employer's unfair labor practices and the Board's disposition of a case. There is, therefore, the obvious danger that a bargaining order that is intended to vindicate the rights of past employees will infringe upon the rights of the current ones to decide whether they wish to be represented by a union. Therefore, we have repeatedly instructed the Board to determine the appropriateness of a Gissel bargaining order in light of the circumstances existing at the time it is entered. 28 82 F.3d at 1078 (emphasis added). If the Board continues to disagree with us, it is of course free to seek Supreme Court review. Id. at 1079. But [s]o long as the Board persists on its current course we have no choice but to remand each offending order. Douglas Foods, 251 F.3d at 1067. 29 The Board points out that in Charlotte Amphitheater, this court stated that 'the Board has no affirmative duty to inquire whether employee turnover or [the] passage of time has attenuated the effects of earlier unfair labor practices.' Br. for NLRB at 53 (quoting Charlotte Amphitheater, 82 F.3d at 1080). But our decision in Charlotte Amphitheater also states that an employer must be allowed the opportunity to introduce evidence of changed circumstances that would mitigate the need for a bargaining order. Charlotte Amphitheater, 82 F.3d at 1080. There is no doubt here that the Board was obligated to consider thoroughly Cogburn's timely motion to reopen the record. 30 The little bit that the Board offered in a defense of the proposed Gissel bargaining order falls far short of what is necessary. With respect to Cogburn's claims of management turnover — the death of co-owner and Company Vice President, Steve Roberts, and the departure of co-owner and Company Administrator, Suzanne Hughes — the Board responded that Hughes's replacement, Prentiss Smith, played a role in illegally thwarting the Union's organizing drive in 1996, and added that Dietary Manager, Sonya O'Shea, who was found to have interrogated three employees and threatened other employees with facility closure, had been rehired after a two-year absence from the Company. The Board also claimed that Cogburn d[id] not contend that there has been any significant change in the family ownership group, . . . other than the death of Steve Roberts. Cogburn Healthcare Ctr., 2004 WL 1413262, at . The Board said nothing about employee turnover. Rather, in response to Cogburn's evidence of the dwindling percentage of voting employees still employed by the Company (44%) and the small percentage of those employees still with the Company who signed authorization cards (30%), Board counsel argued that 44% is a substantial percentage which constitutes a remaining core of employees sufficient to support a bargaining order. Br. for NLRB at 58 (quotation marks omitted). 31 The Board's rote treatment of Cogburn's evidence is entirely unconvincing. For one thing, as noted above, the Board simply ignored the evidence of employee turnover. This error alone dooms the Board's order, for we have made it clear that the Board is not free to disregard employee turnover when issuing a bargaining order. Douglas Foods, 251 F.3d at 1066; see also Avecor, 931 F.2d at 937. 32 Moreover, the Board's cursory review of the change in Company management hardly reflects reasoned decisionmaking to which we might otherwise defer. The Board summarily discounted the departure of two of the most prominent executives of the Company, who were significantly responsible for approximately 15 ULPs, five of the 15 instances of unlawful interrogations, and four of the six discharges. The Board undertook no analysis of the effect these changes might have had on the employees and, instead, merely concluded that, because two management officials still remained, a bargaining order was the appropriate remedy. And the Board's suggestion that Cogburn does not contend that there has been any significant change in the family ownership group, without more, proves nothing. The Board never made the ownership group the main culprit for the ULPs; rather the Board's focus in the ULP case was on the management group, and most of the cited managers are no longer with the Company. 33 Finally, the Board failed to address Cogburn's perfectly reasonable argument that the five-year span of time between the ULPs and the Board's decision warranted a second look at the need for a bargaining order. The Board stated, without explanation, that the passage of time does not render a bargaining order inappropriate. Cogburn Healthcare Ctr., 2004 WL 1413262, at . This is a specious argument, both as a matter of commonsense and in light of the governing case law. Time is a factor that should be considered by the Board, along with employee and management turnover. See Flamingo Hilton-Laughlin, 148 F.3d at 1171; Charlotte Amphitheater, 82 F.3d at 1078. As we noted in Peoples Gas System, Inc. v. NLRB: 34 [W]ith the passage of time, any coercive effects of an unfair labor practice may dissipate, employee turnover may result in a work force with no interest in the Union, and a fair election might be held which accurately reflects uncoerced employee wishes as of the present time. 35 629 F.2d 35, 47 (D.C.Cir.1980). This matter is now 10 years old, largely because of the Board's extraordinary delays in case processing. In this situation, it is the height of chutzpah for the Board to pronounce that the passage of time is irrelevant.