Opinion ID: 782343
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fluor Daniel's hiring preference system

Text: 34 Fluor Daniel argues that the NLRB failed to take into account the Company's written policies regarding hiring preferences. As explained previously, Fluor Daniel gave first priority to applicants who were certified by the Company, second priority to applicants who had previously worked with Fluor Daniel, and third priority to all other applicants. Fluor Daniel argues that given these priorities, the length of craft experience required and the policy that applications were only active for sixty days, only twelve of the discriminatees at Palo Verde could have been hired absent Fluor Daniel's violation of the Act. 35 There is substantial evidence in the record to support the NLRB's finding that Fluor Daniels's hiring system was used in a discriminatory manner. We must give deference to the inferences drawn by the Board and must determine whether those inferences are reasonable in light of the facts. See, e.g., NLRB v. Ky. May Coal Co., 89 F.3d 1235, 1242 (6th Cir.1996). Fluor Daniel is correct in asserting that the NLRB never challenged the validity of hiring preferences per se. But, as with the thirty-day application rule, the NLRB found that Fluor Daniel applied its preferences in a manner which discriminated against the union activists. In particular, the NLRB found evidence that the scope of the preferences was expanded to include all former Fluor Daniel employees (not solely certified ones), without proper authorization. Fluor Daniel, 2001 NLRB LEXIS, at -. 36 Regarding the Exxon site, the NLRB found that since [n]early one-fifth of Exxon journeyman hires were non-preferenced, id. at , the use of the preference system could not explain why the discriminatees were not hired. The NLRB also found that Fluor Daniel hired forty-three former employees in lieu of discriminatees, even though those former employees lacked the required forty-two months of craft experience, were certified in crafts other than those for which they were hired, whose applications had expired, or were considered for crafts other than those for which they had applied. Id. at -. Furthermore, the NLRB found that Fluor Daniel's proffered defense that the discriminatees did not have the necessary forty-two months of craft experience was also pretextual. Id. The NLRB found that many of the discriminatees had twenty to thirty years of experience; that Fluor Daniel recruiters never informed them that their applications contained insufficient experience; that Fluor Daniel did not give credit for training in union apprenticeship programs, while it did give credit for training at Fluor Daniel's craft school; and that over a hundred other applicants had less than forty-two months of experience. Id. In sum, the NLRB concluded that Fluor Daniel used its hiring preferences as a pretext for discriminating against the union activists. A review of the record shows that the inference made by the NLRB on this issue is supported by substantial evidence. 37