Opinion ID: 432214
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Union-Sponsored Training Seminar

Text: 35 Section 8(a)(3) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to discourage membership in any labor organization through discrimination with regard to ... any term or condition of employment. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(a)(3) (1976). Prior to the organizational campaign in 1979, the Hospital had always granted registration fees and time off for nurses to attend education seminars, including those sponsored by unions. After the election, however, the Hospital refused to send two nurses to a Union-sponsored seminar. One of the nurses was a Union supporter; the other nurse was not. 36 The ALJ found that the denial of the nurses' requests to attend the seminar was unlawful. Even with regard to the nonunion supporter, the ALJ concluded that the Hospital violated Section 8(a)(3) because [the denial of her request] amounts to an employer discriminating against a group of employees in order to reach the pro-union employees. 263 NLRB at 846. The Board upheld this decision, explaining: 37 [W]e rely on the fact that the Hospital's refusal was admittedly motivated by the fact that the seminar was sponsored by a union. Even though the Hospital had allowed employees to attend union-sponsored seminars in past years when there was no union activity among its employees, it refused to allow employees to attend such seminars when its employees were actively involved in union activities. Thus, regardless of whether the employees who applied to attend the seminar were prounion or anti-union, the Hospital's motivation was the same, i.e., to take away a benefit because of its employees' exercise of their Sec[tion] 7 rights .... 38 Id. at 834 n. 2. 39 Saint Francis contends that there was no discriminatory treatment of employees within the meaning of section 8(a)(3) because the prounion and antiunion nurses were treated similarly. Yet the Hospital's policy toward seminar attendance changed because of Union activity among the nurses at Saint Francis. The critical factor here is not the union sympathies of the two nurses, but the fact that the seminar was sponsored by the Union. By discouraging employee participation in a Union-sponsored activity, the Hospital sought to diminish employee participation in a legitimate Union activity, thus discouraging membership in the Union. A practice applied uniformly to all employees may be discriminatory and violate the Act .... Conduct by an employer which discourages a union activity protected by Sec. 7 may also discourage and discriminate against membership in a labor organization. Allied Industrial Workers, AFL-CIO, Local 289 v. NLRB, 476 F.2d 868, 877 (D.C.Cir.1973) (footnote omitted). 40 The Hospital also claims that the new Administrator, David Rose, had no knowledge of the Hospital's preexisting policy of permitting attendance at Union seminars or of the Union sympathies of the nurses who requested to attend the seminar. Yet the Hospital concedes that the new policy was motivated by Rose's philosophical opposition to Union sponsored seminars. Even where discriminatory conduct has only a comparatively slight effect on employee rights, the burden is upon the employer to establish that he was motivated by legitimate objectives since proof of motivation is most accessible to him. NLRB v. Great Dane Trailers, Inc., 388 U.S. 26, 34, 87 S.Ct. 1792, 1798, 18 L.Ed.2d 1027 (1967). See Allied Industrial Workers, 476 F.2d at 877. Because philosophical opposition to Union sponsored seminars is hardly a legitimation of the Hospital's change in policy, the Board's finding of a section 8(a)(3) violation must be upheld.