Opinion ID: 1547796
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Challenge of Particular Provisions of the Order.

Text: Besides urging the invalidity of the order of the Board as above examined, Gluek contends a portion of the affirmative relief under the order is, as construed by the Board, impossible of performance. [8] That portion of the order is: Offer to the employees named in Appendix A, attached hereto, immediate and full reinstatement to their former positions as drivers and helpers, or to substantially equivalent positions for which they are qualified, or place them upon a preferential list of employment in accordance with the procedure set forth in the section of the Intermediate Report entitled `The Remedy,' without prejudice to their seniority and other rights and privileges. The procedure set forth, referred to in the preceding quotation is: It will be recommended that the respondents offer to each of the employees named in footnote 1 above (excepting Dominic Hebzynski), immediate and full reinstatement to their former positions as drivers and helpers or substantially equivalent positions, and fully restore to them all rights and privileges enjoyed by them as acknowledged employees of the respondent Gluek prior to December 5, 1941, and, if necessary, discharge any or all of the drivers and helpers employed by the respondent Bach for the purpose of delivering the respondent Gluek's products, with the exception of the five employees named in footnote 2 above. In the event that a sufficient number of positions are not available, after the discharge of the employees above described, to which reinstatement may be made, it will be recommended that employees for whom such reinstatement is now unavailable shall be placed upon a preferential list for employment and shall be reinstated to their former or to substantially equivalent positions when such employment becomes available and before any persons with less seniority are hired for such work. Gluek construes this part of the order as giving it three alternative lines of action as follows: (1) Offering immediate and full reinstatement to former positions as drivers and helpers; (2) offering substantially equivalent positions for which they are qualified; (3) placing on a preferential employment list. It states, however, that it has been advised by the Board that these alternatives do not exist but that it must first offer these men their positions as drivers and helpers, and in that connection, it must see to it that the employees of the Bach Transfer Company    must be discharged and room made for the men to whom the offer is to be made. It argues the impossibility of compliance with the order as follows: (a) It cannot discharge employees of Bach, because they are Bach's employees, not Gluek's. (b) It cannot offer reinstatement of positions of drivers and helpers because it has no such positions. (c) It cannot create such positions because it cannot obtain trucks; its trucks have been sold; they belong to someone else; trucks are not now available. Countering, the Board states: The Board moulded its remedy to avoid hardship and required neither the elimination of the arrangement with Bach nor the expansion of the delivery operations to their former scope in order to provide work for the members of the displaced Brewers. Even if the restoration of the bargaining rights of the Brewers be undertaken within the framework of present delivery arrangements, as the Board's order permits, no basic dislocation of relationship or marketing structure would result. Further, respondent Gluek's objection to the order upon the asserted ground that it has no drivers' jobs to be filled or trucks to be driven amounts to a contention that the sanctions of the Act should be withheld from conduct precisely because it is successful. Indeed the Supreme Court said of a related contention that it presents no basis for `relief from the Board's order of reinstatement; instead there is added ground for compelling obedience'. Southport Petroleum Co. v. N. L. R. B., 315 U.S. 100, 106, 62 S.Ct. 452, 86 L.Ed. 718. Determination of the form of remedy to rectify unfair labor practices is peculiarly a function for the Board (Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 319 U.S. 533, 539, 63 S.Ct. 1214, 87 L.Ed. 1568; International Assoc. of M. T. & D. M. v. National Labor Relations Board, 311 U.S. 72, 82, 61 S.Ct. 83, 85 L.Ed. 50; National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Co., 311 U.S. 584, 600, 61 S.Ct. 358, 85 L.Ed. 368) and will be upheld if within its powers and not arbitrary or capricious (National Labor Relations Board v. Mackay R. & T. Co., 304 U.S. 333, 348, 58 S.Ct. 904, 82 L.Ed. 1381). We cannot say that this part of the order of the Board was without its powers or was either arbitrary or capricious. The order covers both companies. Under the evidence as to their relations with each other, it should not be impossible for them to work out the intent of the order. Gluek argues also the impossibility of its ceasing and desisting from giving effect to a closed shop contract between Bach and Local No. 792. The order is against both Gluek and Bach jointly and severally. They are so to act as to nullify the unlawful situation created by them. It may be that some things must be done by one and other things by the other. It is left to them, jointly or severally, to work out the ways to comply with the order. Gluek objects to that part of the order reading In any other manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing their employees in the exercise of the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, as guaranteed in Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. The assigned reason is there is no warrant therefor in the violations charged or in the evidence. This objection is well taken. (National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Co., 312 U.S. 426, 433, 61 S.Ct. 693, 85 L.Ed. 930). The same objection applies to the closing expression in 1(a) of the order reading or in any other manner discriminating in regard to their hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of their employment. Gluek contests that part of the order which is directed not only at the respondents and their officers and agents but also their successors and assigns. This form of order is proper. Southport Petroleum Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 315 U.S. 100, 106 note 6, 62 S.Ct. 452, 86 L.Ed. 718. If a successor or an assign should be involved in a contempt proceeding for violation of the enforcement order of this Court, those terms will be construed and applied to avoid punishment of the innocent. See National Labor Relations Board v. Bachelder, 7 Cir., 125 F.2d 387, 388; National Labor Relations Board v. Blackstone Mfg. Co., 2 Cir., 123 F.2d 633, 635; Bethlehem Steel Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 74 App.D.C. 52, 120 F.2d 641, 650, 651. With the modifications hereinbefore stated (elimination of the quoted language in 1(a) and the elimination of 1(c)), the order of the Board will be enforced. Before closing this opinion, it is proper to comment upon statements [9] in the brief of intervener Local No. 792. Such statements serve notice upon this Court  if, indeed, they do not amount to threats  that this intervener will disregard any decision of the Board and of this Court upholding the Board and will exercise what it calls its constitutional rights to render the order of the Board and the order of this Court ineffective. Such character of statement in a brief is as impertinent as it is frank. It has no place in the brief of any responsible counsel in this or any court. However, the weight of this matter is not so much in the circumstance that the statements were improper. The gravity is in the situation that a labor union deems it has the uncontrollable power to disregard and to nullify a determination of the Labor Board and an order of a court sustaining the Board. It may have such power or it may not. This is neither the time nor place to determine that. Such problem will become acute only if the threat ripens into action and something must be done in a contempt or other proceeding. If this power does not exist, the statute law should be made clear. If it does exist, there is even more necessity for remedying a situation where any person or body of persons in this country is above the law as declared by the Congress. The grave purpose of Congress in passing this Act was to provide the means for protecting the rights of labor to organize. The Act defines those rights and sets up the machinery to effectuate such protection. Here is an employer who is friendly to organized labor and has, for years, operated a closed shop business. This situation is expressly protected in the Act itself, § 8(3). A rival labor organization seeks to change the affiliation of some of those employees and, being unsuccessful in its endeavors, brings such economic pressure upon the employer that, to save itself from seriously threatened ruin, it breaks its closed shop agreement and violates the Act itself. The Board determines the unfair practices violating the Act and orders them rectified. This Court orders enforcement of the order. The loser before the Board and the Court says it will not abide by the result of the orderly determination in the manner required by Congress. It will destroy the innocent employer and put its organized employees upon the street. If nothing can be done, in an orderly way under existing law, to prevent this, then there is a vital defect in the powers of the Board or of the Courts because they are unable to effectuate the purpose of Congress to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection Act § 1, 29 U.S. C.A. § 151.