Opinion ID: 339061
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Discharge of Employees for Engaging in Protected Concerted Activities

Text: 14 Palm Sunday is customarily a work day for the Company since it falls one week before Easter Sunday and the Easter season is one of the busiest of the year in the cheese industry. Given the increased demand for its product and the short shelf life of certain types of cheese the Company has found it necessary to lengthen the work week to seven days at this time of the year. On Friday, April 5, 1974 the Chairman of the Union shop committee presented plant manager Fazzino with a petition signed by twelve of the Company's twenty employees protesting the scheduling of Palm Sunday, April 7 as a work day. The petition stated: 15 Since this is a religious holiday that is important to us, we request that this schedule be rescinded. 16 In the event that this schedule is not changed, you are advised that we will not report for work on Palm Sunday, April 7, 1974, but will report to work on Monday, April 8, 1974. 17 On Saturday, April 6 Fazzino received a telephone call from Union representative DeBella concerning the petition. Fazzino told DeBella that everyone knows we have to work on Sunday and refused to accede to the demand that the schedule be changed. DeBella reiterated the signatory employees' objection to working on a religious holiday and stated that they would be willing to work overtime the following week. Fazzino rejected this offer as unsatisfactory and the conversation was terminated. The next day, Palm Sunday, six of the petitioners failed to appear for work. They did report for work the next day however and nothing further was said. On June 7, 1974, two months later, the Employer fired these employees for their refusal to work on Palm Sunday. We agree with the Board that these discharges interfered with the employees' right, statutorily protected by Section 7 of the Act, to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection thereby violating Section 8(a)(1) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1). 18 Discharge of employees for engaging in concerted activities protected by Section 7 is an unfair labor practice. N. L. R. B. v. Washington Aluminum Co., 370 U.S. 9, 82 S.Ct. 1099, 8 L.Ed.2d 298 (1962); Shelly & Anderson Furniture Manufacturing Co., Inc., v. N. L. R. B., 497 F.2d 1200 (9th Cir. 1974); First National Bank of Omaha v. N. L. R. B., 413 F.2d 921 (8th Cir. 1969); N. L. R. B. v. Morris Fishman and Sons, Inc., 278 F.2d 792 (3d Cir. 1960); N. L. R. B. v. M & M Bakeries, Inc., 271 F.2d 602 (1st Cir. 1959). The one day strike or work stoppage by the discharged employees in support of their petition protesting the Palm Sunday schedule is statutorily protected because it constituted concerted activity aimed at changing working conditions at the plant. See N. L. R. B. v. Leprino Cheese Co., 424 F.2d 184 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 915, 91 S.Ct. 173, 27 L.Ed.2d 154 (1970). While the strike undoubtedly brought inconvenience and economic loss to the Company in view of its unusually heavy production schedule due to the Easter season, such a result is obviously the very object of any concerted employee action protected by the Act. Although it is true that not all concerted employee activities are protected by Section 7, see N. L. R. B. v. Washington Aluminum Co., supra, 370 U.S. at 17, 82 S.Ct. 1099, the economic pressure brought to bear here, unlike that present in the narrow class of cases relied on by respondents, clearly failed to reach a degree so grossly disproportionate to the goal sought to be achieved that it renders the conduct unprotected and thereby justifies discharge of the participating employees. In N. L. R. B. v. Marshall Car Wheel & Foundry Co., 218 F.2d 409, 411 (5th Cir. 1955) cited by respondents, the planned employee walk-out held to be unprotected occurred at the moment molten iron was ready to be poured and this action might well have resulted in substantial property damage to the plant. Similarly in Dobbs Houses, Inc. v. N. L. R. B., 325 F.2d 531 (5th Cir. 1963) a mass departure of waitresses at the dinner hour to protest the discharge of a supervisor was held unprotected by Section 7. See also, N. L. R. B. v. Local Union No. 1229, Int. Brotherhood of Electrical Wkrs., 346 U.S. 464, 74 S.Ct. 172, 98 L.Ed. 195 (1953); Southern Steamship Co. v. N. L. R. B., 316 U.S. 31, 62 S.Ct. 886, 86 L.Ed. 1246 (1942). The employees' conduct in the instant case was not simply an attempt to deliberately inflict economic harm on the Company without compensatory gain to themselves. It served a legitimate work-related goal and was therefore protected by the Act. 19 Respondents' reliance on Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Organization, 420 U.S. 50, 95 S.Ct. 977, 43 L.Ed.2d 12 (1975) is also misplaced. In Emporium a minority group of employees, dissatisfied with their union's reliance upon the existing collective bargaining agreement's grievance procedure refused to participate in it and, acting contrary to the union's advice, picketed their employer's store in an attempt to circumvent the union and bargain separately with the company over the terms and conditions of employment with respect to racial minorities. The Court held such conduct to be unprotected by Section 7 because it undercut the statutory principle of exclusive representation embodied in Section 9(a) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 159(a). In the instant case, however, there is no evidence that the Palm Sunday strikers were at odds with or attempting to by-pass their Union. Indeed, Union representative DeBella spoke to Fazzino before the strike and stated, in effect, that the Union supported the employees in this effort. Under these circumstances, Emporium is inapposite. 11 20