Opinion ID: 105187
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: power of board to draw inferences.

Text: Petitioners in Gaynor and Radio Officers contend that the Board's orders in these cases should not have been enforced by the Second Circuit because the records do not include independent proof that encouragement of Union membership actually occurred. The Eighth Circuit subscribed to this view that such independent proof is required in Teamsters when it denied enforcement of the Board's order in that proceeding on the ground that it was not supported by substantial evidence of encouragement. The Board argues that actual encouragement need not be proved but that a tendency to encourage is sufficient, and such tendency is sufficiently established if its existence may reasonably be inferred from the character of the discrimination. We considered this problem in the Republic Aviation case. To the contention that there must be evidence before the Board to show that the rules and orders of the employers interfered with and discouraged union organization in the circumstances and situation of each company, we replied that the statutory plan for an adversary proceeding does not go beyond the necessity for the production of evidential facts, however, and compel evidence as to the results which may flow from such facts. . . . An administrative agency with power after hearings to determine on the evidence in adversary proceedings whether violations of statutory commands have occurred may infer within the limits of the inquiry from the proven facts such conclusions as reasonably may be based upon the facts proven. One of the purposes which lead to the creation of such boards is to have decisions based upon evidential facts under the particular statute made by experienced officials with an adequate appreciation of the complexities of the subject which is entrusted to their administration. . . . 324 U. S., at 798, 800. See also Labor Board v. Nevada Consolidated Copper Corp., 316 U. S. 105; Labor Board v. Link-Belt Co., 311 U. S. 584. In these cases we but restated a rule familiar to the law and followed by all fact-finding tribunalsthat it is permissible to draw on experience in factual inquiries. It is argued, however, that these cases ceased to be good law under the Taft-Hartley amendments. The House Report on their version of § 10 of the amendments, in discussing shocking injustices resulting from limited court review of Board rulings, stated that requiring the Board to rest its rulings upon facts, not interferences [ sic ], conjectures, background, imponderables, and presumed expertness will correct abuses under the act. [55] We do not read that statement nor statements in the House Conference Report, upon which petitioners rely to support their contention, to hold that the Board may not draw reasonable inferences from proven facts. The House Conference Report stated that, under the Wagner Act standard of review, courts had abdicated to the Board and in many instances deference on the part of the courts to specialized knowledge that is supposed to inhere in administrative agencies has led the courts to acquiesce in decisions of the Board, even when the findings concerned mixed issues of law and of fact [citing cases], or when they rested only on inferences that were not, in turn, supported by facts in the record [citing the Republic Aviation case]. [56] The report concluded that the amendment to § 10 (e), requiring Board findings to be supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole, will be adequate to preclude such decisions as those in inter alia the Nevada Copper Corp. and Republic Aviation cases. In Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, 340 U. S. 474, we carefully considered this legislative history and interpreted it to express dissatisfaction with too restricted application of the substantial evidence test of the Wagner Act. We noted, however, that sufficiency of evidence to support findings of fact was not involved in the Republic Aviation case, and stated that the amendment was not intended to negative the function of the Labor Board as one of those agencies presumably equipped or informed by experience to deal with a specialized field of knowledge, whose findings within that field carry the authority of an expertness which courts do not possess and therefore must respect. There is nothing in the language of the amendment itself that suggests denial to the Board of power to draw reasonable inferences. It is inconceivable that the authors of the reports intended such a result, for a fact-finding body must have some power to decide which inferences to draw and which to reject. We therefore conclude that insofar as the power to draw reasonable inferences is concerned, Taft-Hartley did not alter prior law. The Board relies heavily upon the House Report on § 8 (3), which stated that the section outlawed discrimination which tends to `encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization,'  [57] for its conclusion that only a tendency to encourage or discourage membership is required by § 8 (a) (3). We read this language to mean that subjective evidence of employee response was not contemplated by the drafters, and to accord with our holding that such proof is not required where encouragement or discouragement can be reasonably inferred from the nature of the discrimination. Encouragement and discouragement are subtle things requiring a high degree of introspective perception. Cf. Labor Board v. Donnelly Garment Co., 330 U. S. 219, 231. But, as noted above, it is common experience that the desire of employees to unionize is raised or lowered by the advantages thought to be attained by such action. Moreover, the Act does not require that the employees discriminated against be the ones encouraged for purposes of violations of § 8 (a) (3). Nor does the Act require that this change in employees' quantum of desire to join a union have immediate manifestations. Obviously, it would be gross inconsistency to hold that an inherent effect of certain discrimination is encouragement of union membership, but that the Board may not reasonably infer such encouragement. We have held that a natural result of the disparate wage treatment in Gaynor was encouragement of union membership; thus it would be unreasonable to draw any inference other than that encouragement would result from such action. The company complains that it could have disproved this natural result if allowed to prove that Loner, the employee who filed the charges against it, had previously applied for and been denied membership in the union. But it is clear that such evidence would not have rebutted the inference: not only would it have failed to disprove an increase in desire on the part of other employees, union members or nonmembers, to join or retain good standing in the union, but it would not have shown lack of encouragement of Loner. In rejecting this argument the Second Circuit noted that union admission policies are not necessarily static and that employees may be encouraged to join when conditions change. This proved to be an accurate prophecy regarding the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers' Union, involved in this case, for in 1952 it altered its admission policy to allow membership of all steady situation holders, thus admitting many employees not previously eligible. The circumstances in Radio Officers and Teamsters are nearly identical. In each case the employer discriminated upon the instigation of the union. The purposes of the unions in causing such discrimination clearly were to encourage members to perform obligations or supposed obligations of membership. Obviously, the unions would not have invoked such a sanction had they not considered it an effective method of coercing compliance with union obligations or practices. Both Boston and Fowler were denied jobs by employers solely because of the unions' actions. Since encouragement of union membership is obviously a natural and foreseeable consequence of any employer discrimination at the request of a union, those employers must be presumed to have intended such encouragement. It follows that it was eminently reasonable for the Board to infer encouragement of union membership, and the Eighth Circuit erred in holding encouragement not proved.