Opinion ID: 269384
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Back Pay Rights

Text: 30 As we have stated, we are not asking the Master to determine back pay amounts. However, the Board recognizes that those strikers was refused to return to work in 1960 because of Kohler's refusal to bargain were entitled to reinstatement only as of their July 1962 application. A determination that a striker was a 'refusal-to-bargain' striker would thus limit the amount of back pay available to him. To this extent, the Master will be making back pay decisions. 31 This becomes important in regard to those workers who relied on both the refusal to bargain and the short work week. The Master felt they, like the refusal-to-bargain strikers, should be accorded back pay from July 1962. The Board argues that unless Kohler can show that a particular worker would not have accepted an offer complying as to work week and treatment of replacements, he should get back pay from September 1960. In support of this argument, the Board cites Atlantic Maintenance Co., 134 N.L.R.B. 1328 (1961), enforced, 305 F.2d 604 (3d Cir. 1962); L. Ronney Sons Furniture Mfg. Co., 97 N.L.R.B. 891 (1951), enforced as modified, 206 F.2d 730 (9th Cir. 1953); cf. N.L.R.B. v. Remington Rand, Inc., 94 F.2d 862, 872 (2d Cir. 1938), cert. denied, 304 U.S. 576, 58 S.Ct. 1046, 82 L.Ed. 1540 (1938). Kohler says these cases establish only that 'where an employer places an illegal condition on his offer of reinstatement he should bear the burden of proving that a striker would have rejected the offer even had it not included the illegal condition.' But when enforcement is sought through contempt rather than unfair labor practice proceedings, the question is not whether the condition was illegal but whether it complied with the Board's order. We have already agreed with the Master that it did not. Therefore, he should determine on remand the date on which each of these 'dual reason' strikers became eligible for back pay. 21