Opinion ID: 1200126
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Babcock-type Discrimination

Text: The Board's order rested exclusively on the Babcock discrimination exception, which has never been applied by the Supreme Court or this Court. In Lechmere, the Court identified the limited scope of the inaccessibility exception, noting that  Babcock 's exception was crafted precisely to protect the § 7 rights of those employees who, by virtue of their employment, are isolated from the ordinary flow of information that characterizes our society. 502 U.S. at 540, 112 S.Ct. 841. A brief examination of Lechmere 's explication of the inaccessibility exception sheds some light on the intended breadth of the discrimination exception. In Lechmere, a union conducted a campaign to organize the employees of a retail tenant of a large shopping mall and the campaign included placing literature on the windshields of cars parked in the mall parking lot. Id. at 529-30, 112 S.Ct. 841. The mall operator endeavored to enforce its ban on distribution of literature by asking the union organizers to leave and by removing the literature. Id. The Court denied enforcement of the Board's order granting the union organizers access to the mall and reiterated its prior observations that trespasses of nonemployee union organizers are `far more likely to be unprotected than protected,' and that the burden imposed on the union to justify access to the nonemployer's property was `a heavy one' which had not been met. Id. at 535, 112 S.Ct. 841 (quoting Sears, 436 U.S. at 205, 98 S.Ct. 1745). [2] The Board cites no reason why the burden in the discrimination context ought to be any less heavy than under the inaccessibility exception. We note that the Sixth Circuit has construed Babcock 's discrimination exception to mean favoring one union over another, or allowing employer-related information while barring similar union-related information. Sandusky Mall Co. v. NLRB, 242 F.3d 682, 686-87 (6th Cir. 2001). This interpretation has found favor with the Fourth Circuit, which has expressed its doubt that an employer's approval of limited charitable or civic distribution while excluding union distribution constitutes discrimination. Be-Lo Stores, 126 F.3d at 284. In deciding whether discrimination had been proven in the instant case, the Board focused on the mall operator's actions, which it viewed as demonstrating an intent to disfavor union activity. It concluded that the decision to exclude was based upon the mere fact that the Union is a union seeking to engage in labor-related speech. Of particular significance to the Board was that the mall operator did not know what the [Union's] literature would say. Because the Board's focus was on the mall operator's motives and not on a comparison of the treatment of speakers on a subject that section 7 protects, we conclude that the Board's interpretation was not reasonable. The focus of the discrimination analysis under section 7 of the Act must be upon disparate treatment of two like persons or groups. See Guardian Indus. Corp. v. NLRB, 49 F.3d 317, 319 (7th Cir.1995) (A person making a claim of discrimination must identify another case that has been treated differently and explain why that case is the same in the respects the law deems relevant or permissible as grounds of action. (internal quotation marks omitted)). The standard for assessing discrimination must take account of the general rule that a private property owner need not provide a forum for expression on its property and may be arbitrary and inconsistent in its selection of speakers. See Hudgens, 424 U.S. at 520-21, 96 S.Ct. 1029. To amount to Babcock -type discrimination, the private property owner must treat a nonemployee who seeks to communicate on a subject protected by section 7 less favorably than another person communicating on the same subject. The disparate treatment must be shown between or among those who have chosen to enter the fray by communicating messages on the subject, whether employers or employees. Under this standard, a mall operator could not allow Dick's to defend its contractors' use of carpenters who were paid below area standard wages but not allow the Carpenters' Union to tell its side of the story. It could not allow a competing union to distribute organizational literature but preclude the Carpenters' Union from doing so. The solicitation of Muscular Dystrophy donations by firefighters or the distribution of educational promotional materials on Higher Ed Night do not serve as valid comparisons to the Carpenters' Union distribution of literature touting the benefits of its apprenticeship programs or decrying the failure of a mall tenant to pay area standard wages. Only the rare case satisfies Babcock's inaccessibility exception, Lechmere, 502 U.S. at 537, 112 S.Ct. 841, and it may be that the same holds true under our interpretation of the discrimination exception. The result we reach is in substantial agreement with the understanding of the Sixth Circuit, which has construed Babcock 's discrimination exception in the context of nonemployees seeking to engage in organizational or informational activities at a private mall. See Sandusky Mall, 242 F.3d at 686. There was no evidence in this record that any employer was permitted to communicate to the general public, through the use of mall facilities, its reasons for not paying area standard wages to members of a unionized trade. Nor was any competing labor group permitted to engage in efforts to organize members of their trade. Accordingly, the Board's conclusion that the operator of the mall had discriminated against the Carpenters' Union cannot stand. The petition to review is granted, the Board's order is vacated, and the petition to enforce the Board's order is denied.