Opinion ID: 185453
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Parking Lot Access of Off-Site Employees

Text: 20 For nearly fifty years, it has been black-letter labor law that the Board cannot order employers to grant nonemployee union organizers access to company property absent a showing that on-site employees are otherwise inaccessible through reasonable efforts. NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U.S. 105, 112 (1956); see also Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB, 502 U.S. 527, 534 (1992); Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hosp. at Stanford v. NLRB, 97 F.3d 583, 587 (D.C. Cir. 1996). It is likewise well-established that the Board has the authority, under Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, to prevent employers from posting parking lots against off-duty employees unless the employer presents valid business justifications for the restriction. See Tri-County, 222 N.L.R.B. at 1089 (setting forth test); see also NLRB v. S. Md. Hosp. Ctr., 916 F.2d 932, 939-40 (4th Cir. 1990) (relying on Tri-County test to affirm Board's determination that no-access policy constituted unfair labor practice because limited neither to nonemployees nor to the interior of the hospital); NLRB v. Ohio Masonic Home, 892 F.2d 449, 453 (6th Cir. 1989) (affirming Board's application of Tri-County test to invalidate no-access policy applied to off-duty employees); NLRB v. Pizza Crust Co. of Pa., 862 F.2d 49, 52-55 (3d Cir. 1988) (same). ITT maintains that the Board overstepped its bounds by applying the Tri-County test off-the-rack to off-site employees, who, it argues, possess no greater 7 access rights than are afforded nonemployee union organizers under the Babcock doctrine. 21 Like other administrative agencies, the NLRB is entitled to judicial deference when it interprets an ambiguous provision of a statute that it administers. Lechmere, 502 U.S. at 536 (1992) (citing Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-43 (1984)). Section 7 does not itself speak of access rights, much less the access rights of off-site employees. Such statutory silence would generally counsel Chevron deference. However, once courts have settled on a statute's clear meaning,  'we adhere to that determination under the doctrine of stare decisis, and we judge an agency's later interpretation of the statute against [the] prior determination of the statute's meaning.'  Lechmere, 502 U.S. at 536-37 (quoting Maislin Indus., U.S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U.S. 116, 131 (1990)). With this principle in mind, we turn to prior judicial interpretation of 7 access rights. 22 No court has decided the specific question we face here, i.e., the scope of the Board's authority under 7 and 8(a)(1) to prevent employers from prohibiting parking lot access to off-site employees who are seeking to engage in organizational activities that would be lawful if pursued by on-site employees. ITT asserts, however, that the Supreme Court's 7 access cases compel application of the Babcock test, rather than the Tri-County test, in such situations. Despite the fact that Babcock, and more recently Lechmere, speak formally of the differing access rights guaranteed employees versus nonemployees, ITT maintains that the two cases in actuality establish a functional distinction between the access rights guaranteed invitees versus trespassers. In other words, ITT contends that, because nonemployee in the Babcock formulation is merely a proxy for trespasser, the Board's application of the Tri-County test to trespassing off-site employees runs afoul of Chevron step one. We do not agree that the Court's decisions are so clear. 23 Babcock was itself a response to the Board's then-policy of assessing all parking-lot no-access rules under the same balancing test, regardless of whether the rule barred access of employees or nonemployee union organizers. Though the Court acknowledged the deference normally owed the Board, it nonetheless faulted the Board for fail[ing] to make a distinction between rules of law applicable to employees and those applicable to nonemployees. Babcock, 351 U.S. at 112 (emphasis added). Calling the distinction one of substance, the Court held: 24 No restriction may be placed on the employees' right to discuss self-organization among themselves, unless the employer can demonstrate that a restriction is necessary to maintain production or discipline. But no such obligation is owed nonemployee organizers. Their access to company property is governed by a different consideration. The right of self-organization depends in some measure on the ability of employees to learn the advantages of self-organization from others. Consequently, if the location of a plant and the living quarters of the employees place the employees beyond the reach of reasonable union efforts to communicate with them, the employer must allow the union to approach his employees on his property. 25 Id. at 113 (citations omitted). In other words, nonemployees' access rights are merely derivative of on-site employees' organizational rights; nonemployees enjoy no independent, free-standing 7 right of access. See Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego County Dist. Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180, 206 n.42 (1978). Though the Court did not explicitly contemplate the problem of the trespassing off-site employee, it did note that [o]rganization rights are granted to workers by the same authority, the National Government, that preserves property rights. Accommodation between the two must be obtained with as little destruction of one as is consistent with the maintenance of the other. Babcock, 351 U.S. at 112. 26 The Court revisited Babcock twenty years later in Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507 (1976). Union member warehouse employees of Butler Shoe Company had gone on strike. In addition to picketing the warehouse where they actually worked, the strikers targeted Butler's nine Atlanta-area retail stores, including one inside the North DeKalb Shopping Center. The general manager of the shopping center threatened arrest for trespass, after which the union filed unfair labor practice charges. The Board agreed with the union, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed because the mall's interior nopicketing policy violated the First Amendment. 27 The Court reversed on the First Amendment ground, holding instead that the rights and liabilities of the parties in this case are dependent exclusively upon the National Labor Relations Act. Id. at 521. Though the Court ordered remand to allow the Board to decide the 7 question in the first instance, it described the task facing the Board as follows: 28 The Babcock & Wilcox opinion established the basic objective under the Act: accommodation of 7 rights and private property rights with as little destruction of one as is consistent with the maintenance of the other. The locus of that accommodation, however, may fall at differing points along the spectrum depending on the nature and strength of the respective 7 rights and private property rights asserted in any given context. In each generic situation, the primary responsibility for making this accommodation must rest with the Board in the first instance. 29 Id. at 522 (quoting Babcock, 351 U.S. at 112) (emphasis added and citations omitted). 30 The Court equivocated on the proper scope of off-site employee 7 access rights. Describing the Board's task on remand from Hudgens, the Court acknowledged that the underlying facts differed from those in Babcock in several respects which may or may not be relevant in striking the proper balance, including that the alleged trespass was carried on by Butler's employees (albeit not employees of its shopping center store), not by outsiders. Hudgens, 424 U.S. at 522. On the other hand, the Court hinted that access rights might depend on one's status as a trespasser or invitee. Distinguishing Babcock from Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U.S. 793 (1945), an earlier case in which the Court had affirmed a Board ruling that an employer may not prohibit distribution of organizational literature by employees in nonworking areas during nonwork time absent a showing that the ban was necessary to maintain plant discipline or production, the Court remarked: A wholly different balance was struck when the organizational activity was carried on by employees already rightfully on the employer's property, since the employer's management interests rather than his property interests were there involved. Hudgens, 424 U.S. at 521-22 n.10. 31 In Eastex, Inc. v. NLRB, 437 U.S. 556 (1978), the Court again addressed the invitee/trespasser distinction. The underlying facts in Eastex resembled those of Republic Aviation-the employer had prohibited employees from distributing a union newsletter in nonworking areas during nonwork time. The Board ruled that the prohibition constituted an unfair labor practice, because the employer had failed to demonstrate sufficiently special circumstances to justify the ban. The Fifth Circuit affirmed. In upholding the Board's decision, the Court explained the underlying concerns driving the different outcomes in Babcock and Republic Aviation: 32 In Babcock & Wilcox, ... nonemployees sought to enter an employer's property to distribute union organizational literature. The Board applied the rule of Republic Aviation in this situation, but the Court held that there is a distinction of substance between rules of law applicable to employees and those applicable to nonemployees. The difference was that the nonemployees in Babcock & Wilcox sought to trespass on the employer's property, whereas the employees in Republic Aviation did not. Striking a balance between 7 organizational rights and an employer's right to keep strangers from entering on its property, the Court held that the employer in Babcock & Wilcox was entitled to prevent nonemployee distribution of union literature [on its property] if reasonable efforts by the union through other available chan nels of communication will enable it to reach the employees with its message. 33 Eastex, 437 U.S. at 571 (quoting Babcock, 351 U.S. at 112, 113) (emphasis added and citations omitted). 34 Following Eastex and seizing on the Court's balancing language from Hudgens, the Board in 1988 reformulated its approach to no-access policies, once again adopting a single balancing test for assessing the validity of no-access policies generally, whether enforced against employees or nonemployees. See Jean Country, 291 N.L.R.B. 11, 14 (1988) ([I]n all access cases our essential concern will be the degree of impairment of the Section 7 right if access should be denied, as it balances against the degree of impairment of the private property right if access should be granted. We view the consideration of the availability of reasonably effective alternative means as especially significant in this balancing process.). When the Board applied this test to strike down an employer's application of its parking-lot no-access policy to nonemployee union organizers, the Court in Lechmere intervened. 35 Noting that [b]y its plain terms, ... the NLRA confers rights only on employees, not on unions or their nonemployee organizers, Lechmere, 502 U.S. at 532, the Court recast Babcock in Chevron terms: 36 In Babcock, ... we held that the Act drew a distinction of substance between the union activities of employees and nonemployees. In cases involving employee activities, we noted with approval, the Board balanced the conflicting interests of employees to receive information on self-organization on the company's property from fellow employees during nonworking time, with the employer's right to control the use of his property. In cases involving nonemployee activities (like those at issue in Babcock itself), however, the Board was not permitted to engage in that same balancing (and we reversed the Board for having done so). By reversing the Board's interpretation of the statute for failing to distinguish between the organizing activities of employees and nonemployees, we were saying, in Chevron terms, that 7 speaks to the issue of nonemployee access to an employer's property. Babcock's teaching is straightforward: 7 simply does not protect nonemployee union organizers except in the rare case where the inaccessibility of employees makes ineffective the reasonable attempts by nonemployees to communicate with them through the usual channels. 37 Id. at 537 (quoting Babcock, 351 U.S. at 109-10, 112, 113) (citations omitted). The Court thus reaffirmed Babcock's central thesis that 7 extends only derivative access rights to nonemployee union organizers. The union itself, untethered to a threshold claim that 7 employee organizational rights had been infringed, could not claim protection. 38 Lechmere and the Court's cases leading up to it simply do not answer the question before us. The Court never has professed to define the scope of the term employee in Babcock, Hudgens, Republic Aviation, Eastex, or Lechmere. And these cases certainly do not stand for the proposition that all trespassers, whether they be nonemployee union organizers or off-site employees, possess only derivative 7 access rights. Because the Court's cases do not bespeak a clear answer, and because the statute is silent on the point, we must defer to the Board's interpretation if reasonable. 39 Before assessing the reasonableness of the Board's interpretation, we pause to consider the significance of the Eleventh Circuit's decision in Southern Services, Inc. v. NLRB, 954 F.2d 700 (11th Cir. 1992). There, Coca-Cola had enforced a no-access policy against an employee of a janitorial subcontractor who serviced Coca-Cola's secured industrial complex in Atlanta. The complex was the only common workplace of the approximately 165 [subcontractor] employees who provide janitorial services to Coca-Cola under subcontract. Id. at 701. The Board ruled against Coca-Cola, despite the fact that the subcontractor's employees were technically nonemployees vis-A-vis Coca-Cola. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, reasoning that: 40 Babcock & Wilcox suggests two different routes for analyzing employer rights, which now diverge under this case's facts. Babcock & Wilcox implied that employers may restrict distribution by nonemployee organizers for the reason that those organizers are trespassers. Yet the holding addressed the section 7 rights of nonemployees-a category of persons who are not necessarily trespassers on the employer's premises. But dicta in the Supreme Court's post-Babcock & Wilcox cases indicate that it is the organizer's status as a trespasser or stranger to the employee's property, rather than the nonemployee status, that invokes the employer's property right to restrict premises distribution by the organizer. 41 Id. at 703 (citations omitted). 42 Of course that decision as the opinion of another circuit is not binding here. Moreover, Southern Services issued only one month after Lechmere and contains no reference to the Supreme Court's decision. The Eleventh Circuit's opinion thus has limited persuasive value-it does not account for Lechmere's express reaffirmation of the employee/nonemployee distinction, particularly its reliance on statutory mention of the term employee. In any event, nothing in Southern Services is dispositive of the issue before us in this case. 43 When it is unclear under established law whether a category of workers enjoys free-standing, nonderivative access rights, then a court is obliged to defer to reasonable judgments of the Board in its resolution of cases that have not as yet been resolved by the Supreme Court. We have no doubt that the Board could attempt a justification within the bounds of Babcock, Hudgens, and Lechmere for why 7 guarantees on-site subcontractor employees-like the I janitors at Coca Cola-nonderivative access rights similar to those enjoyed by on-site employees of the firm owning the site. Obviously, this is not a question before us. We make the point only to say that the Board, in the first instance under Chevron step two, must be allowed to define the limits of the NLRA in assessing the legality of no-access, no-solicitation rules not yet considered by the Supreme Court. 44 Although the Court's access cases do not foreclose the possibility that off-site employees might enjoy some measure of free-standing, nonderivative access rights, they do make clear that the reasonableness of such an interpretation depends in large part on the Board's considered justifications for extending greater access rights to trespassing employees than trespassing nonemployee union organizers. In determining whether an agency's interpretation represents a reasonable accommodation of conflicting statutory purposes, a reviewing court must determine both whether the interpretation is arguably consistent with the underlying statutory scheme in a substantive sense and whether 'the agency considered the matter in a detailed and reasoned fashion.'  Rettig v. Pension Benefit Guar. Corp., 744 F.2d 133, 151 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (quoting Chevron, 467 U.S. at 865). With this principle in mind, we simply cannot assess the reasonableness of the Board's decision to apply the Tri-County test to off-site employees in the present case. 45 First, the Board failed even to acknowledge that the question of off-site employee access rights was an open one, i.e., that, in Chevron terms, 7 and the Court's cases are silent on the issue. Rather, the Board decided sub silentio that 7 guarantees all off-site employees, whether members of the same bargaining unit or not, some measure of free-standing, nonderivative access rights. See Board Decision, at 4 ([E]mployees of the employer who work at one plant are still considered employees of the employer if they handbill at another of the employer's plants.). Indeed, by applying the Tri-County balancing test, the Board decided without analysis that trespassing off-site employees possess access rights equivalent to those enjoyed by on-site employee invitees. Because it is by no means obvious that 7 extends nonderivative access rights to off-site employees, particularly given the considerations set forth in the Court's access cases, the Board was obliged to engage in considered analysis and explain its chosen interpretation. 46 At oral argument, Government counsel insisted that the Board had already provided such an explanation in its prior off-site employee access cases and should not be required to repeat its justifications here. See Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc., 331 N.L.R.B. No. 14 (May 19, 2000); S. Cal. Gas Co., 321 N.L.R.B. 551 (1996); U.S. Postal Serv., 318 N.L.R.B. 466 (1995). The Government is certainly correct that the Board is not obligated to justify its interpretation anew with every application if it has done so adequately in a previous decision. None of the Board's previous cases, however, take any account of the Court's different access decisions or the trespass considerations articulated therein. Indeed, the most extensive treatment of the interpretive question can be found in United States Postal Service, 318 N.L.R.B. at 467. Rejecting arguments that the Babcock test rather than the Tri-County test should apply to off-site employees, the Board stated only: 47 No case has been cited which would warrant the distinction which Respondent proposes. In the instant case Respondent's employees enjoy the same benefits and working conditions regardless of the facility at which they work. For example, vacation benefits accrue in the same manner and rate regardless of an employee's assigned facility. Years of employment are counted toward an employee's pension from the day the employee is hired to the day he or she retires, regardless of which facility he or she is assigned to. In addition, an employee who is involuntarily transferred from one postal facility to another maintains his or her seniority regardless of the change of facility. In Nashville Plastic Products, supra, the Board recognized that the rule enunciated in Lechmere does not apply to employees. No distinction was made as to whether an employee worked at any particular facility. In addition, in Tri-County, supra, the Board prohibited a rule which denied off-duty employees entry to parking lots, gates, and other outside nonworking areas. Again, no distinction was made as to whether the off-duty employee worked at any particular facility. Accordingly, I believe that the rule enunciated in TriCounty Medical Center, supra, is controlling in the instant proceeding. 48 Id. Noticeably absent from this discussion is any mention of the employer's property rights or the different interpretive considerations presented by trespassing employees. There is certainly no consideration of the degree to which extending nonderivative access rights to off-site employees might intrude upon state trespass laws. See Sears, Roebuck & Co., 436 U.S. at 205 (holding that NLRA, as interpreted in Babcock, did not preempt state trespass laws in part because permitting state courts to evaluate the merits of an argument that certain trespassory activity is protected does not create an unacceptable risk of interference with conduct which the Board, and a court reviewing the Board's decision, would find protected. For while there are unquestionably examples of trespassory union activity in which the question whether it is protected is fairly debatable, experience under the Act teaches that such situations are rare and that a trespass is far more likely to be unprotected than protected). Moreover, many of the organizational considerations cited by the Board are situation-specific and would not justify the general rule adopted here. We therefore vacate the Board's decision and remand for the Board to consider and craft its interpretation in light of these concerns. 49 Second, even were we here to find reasonable the Board's decision to read into 7 some measure of free-standing, nonderivative access rights for off-site employees, the Board nevertheless failed to explain why the scope of such rights should be defined by the same Tri-County balancing test used to delineate the scope of on-site employee access rights. Lechmere makes clear that, even as to on-site employees, the Board must balance the conflicting interests of employees to receive information on self-organization on the company's property from fellow employees during nonwork time with the employer's right to control the use of his property. See Lechmere, 502 U.S. at 534. 50 It is obvious that the interests of employees located on a single employer site do not always coincide with the collective interests of employees located on several different sites. Indeed, this may be so even when employees on different sites are part of a single representational unit. The balance of conflicting interests may change dramatically when employees are widely dispersed at different employer locations, both because the employees' interests and working arrangements may be dissimilar and also because the employer's right to control the disputed premises likely implicates security, traffic control, personnel, and like issues that do not arise when only on-site employee access is involved. If, on remand, the Board determines that 7 indeed extends nonderivative access rights to off-site employees, it must then adopt a balancing test that takes proper account of an employer's predictably heightened property concerns. 51