Opinion ID: 624026
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Uncontested Finding

Text: First, some brush-clearing: Galicks does not challenge the Board’s finding that its failure to provide requested information to the Union in August 2005 violated Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5). By failing to appeal this finding, Galicks has admitted its truth. FiveCAP, 294 F.3d at 791 (citing NLRB v. Gen. Fabrications Corp., 222 F.3d Nos. 10-2028/2121 NLRB v. Galicks, Inc. Page 8 218, 232 (6th Cir. 2000)). Therefore, we must summarily enforce the Board’s order as to this finding. See, e.g., id.; Gen. Fabrications Corp., 222 F.3d at 232; NLRB v. Autodie Int’l, Inc., 169 F.3d 378, 381 (6th Cir. 1999). B. Galicks’s Failure to Recall Laid-Off Journeymen The National Labor Relations Act prohibits employers from refusing to recall union employees because of anti-union animus. 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (3).2 To determine whether anti-union animus motivated an employer’s decision, courts utilize the test first announced in Wright Line, 251 N.L.R.B. 1083 (1980). See NLRB v. Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. 393 (1983) (adopting the Wright Line test). Under Wright Line, the General Counsel must establish a prima facie case that anti-union animus at least partly contributed to an employer’s failure to recall laid-off employees. W.F. Bolin Co. v. NLRB, 70 F.3d 863, 870 (6th Cir. 1995) (citing Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. at 398–403). Once the General Counsel establishes a prima facie case of anti-union animus, the burden shifts to the employer to prove “by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have taken the same action even in the absence of protected conduct.” FiveCAP, 294 F.3d at 778 (quoting NLRB v. Gen. Sec. Servs. Corp., 162 F.3d 437, 442 (6th Cir. 1998)). Simply showing that the evidence supports an alternative story is not enough. Galicks must show that the Board’s story is unreasonable. Accord Island Creek Coal Co. v. NLRB, 899 F.2d 1222, at  (6th Cir. 1990) (unpublished table decision) (“Where a case does not rest on the credibility of witnesses, the Board is ‘free to substitute its judgment for the [ALJ’s].’” (quoting Sign & Pictorial Union Local 1175 v. NLRB, 419 F.2d 726, 734 (D.C. Cir. 1969))). The Board found that (1) the General Counsel met its burden, and (2) Galicks’s reason for its failure to recall the journeymen was pretextual. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusions. 2 Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of” their rights to collectively bargain. 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1). Because specific violations of Sections 8(a)(3) and 8(a)(5) constitute “derivative” violations of Section 8(a)(1), we review only whether the “substantive elements” of Sections 8(a)(3) and 8(a)(5) are supported by substantial evidence. NLRB v. Centra, Inc., 954 F.2d 366, 367 n.1 (6th Cir. 1992). Nos. 10-2028/2121 NLRB v. Galicks, Inc. Page 9 (1) The General Counsel submitted more than enough evidence to establish its prima facie case, including the following: ! In April 2005, Galigher refused to recognize the Union and told two Union representatives that he was “not interested in being union.” Galicks, Inc., 354 N.L.R.B. No. 39, slip op. at 2. ! Galligher also indicated the eventual heirs to his company—his sons—likewise were “not interested in being union.” Id. ! On the same day the Union petitioned for an election in the journeyman unit, he laid off his company’s last journeyman. ! Galicks stopped recalling journeymen for work that only journeymen were supposed to do. ! Galicks hired non-journeymen and assigned them journeyman work. ! Galicks unlawfully denied the Union’s information request in August 2005. (2) Galicks claimed it did not recall journeymen because there was no work to give them. The Board found that this reason was pretextual. The following evidence supports the Board’s finding: ! The ALJ found Galigher’s testimony that no journeyman work existed “contradictory or evasive.” Id., slip op. at 14. ! Other witnesses testified that Galicks had work to give journeymen but did not recall them. The ALJ found this testimony credible. ! Galicks’s own invoice summaries indicate that its existing production workers continued to perform journeyman work post-election. Id. ! Both the ALJ and the Board found that there was not “any decline in the volume of its business or significant change in the nature of its work” after the election. Id., slip op. at 16; see also id., slip op. at 4. This large amount of evidence shows that Galicks “expressed hostility towards unionization” with “proximity in time” between the journeymen’s union activities and their layoff or failure to be recalled. FiveCAP, 294 F.3d at 778 (quoting W.F. Bolin, 70 F.3d at 871). The evidence further demonstrates that Galicks “deviat[ed] from past practices” by failing to recall its journeymen, and the record reveals “inconsistencies” Nos. 10-2028/2121 NLRB v. Galicks, Inc. Page 10 between its asserted justification for doing so and the available documentary evidence. Id. In short, the evidence is more than sufficient to support the Board’s findings. But wait, says Galicks, some of this evidence is unreliable. First, Galicks says that only one of the two Board members relied on Galigher’s statements as evidence of anti-union animus in the panel’s original decision—an outdated argument because two of the three Board members expressly relied on these statements in affirming the decision in light of New Process Steel. Galicks, Inc., 355 N.L.R.B. No. 68, slip op. at 1 n.3 (Aug. 6, 2010) (“Chairman Liebman and Member Pearce do rely on that statement as evidence of union animus.”). Second, Galicks argues that Galigher’s statements are protected speech under the NLRA and therefore cannot serve as direct evidence of antiunion animus. Galicks Br. at 19–20. We do not need to decide whether the statements qualify as protected speech because even protected speech may serve as “background evidence of anti-union animus.” NLRB v. Vemco, Inc., 989 F.2d 1468, 1474 (6th Cir. 1993) (adopting this approach from Holo-Krome Co., 293 N.L.R.B. 594 (1989)). Thus, in combination with the other evidence, Galigher’s statements support a finding of animus. Galicks’s other counterarguments are not enough to sever the supporting links between the evidence and the Board’s inference that anti-union animus contributed to Galicks’s failure to recall its journeymen. Galicks argues that the Board impermissibly overturned several of the ALJ’s credibility findings in coming to its conclusion. But the Board expressly upheld all of the judge’s credibility findings. Galicks, 354 N.L.R.B. No. 39, slip op. at 1 n.3 (“The General Counsel has excepted to some of the judge’s credibility findings. . . . We have carefully examined the record and find no basis for reversing the findings.”). Galicks also offers a different interpretation of the evidence: by not recalling its journeymen, Galicks was simply adhering to its longstanding practice of assigning journeyman-only work to its production employees. Yet even if adherence to this practice—which violated the Building Trades Agreements with the Union—was a partial motivation, it does not erode the substantial evidence that anti-union animus also contributed to its refusal to recall journeymen. Nos. 10-2028/2121 NLRB v. Galicks, Inc. Page 11 In conclusion, substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding of prima facie animus and pretext. Galicks has not rebutted these findings or shown that the Board’s story is unreasonable. Therefore, we must uphold and enforce the Board’s finding that anti-union animus motivated Galicks’s failure to recall its journeymen in violation of Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3). C. Galicks’s Withdrawal of Recognition From and Refusal to Provide Requested Information to the Union Substantial evidence also supports the Board’s finding that Galicks unlawfully withdrew recognition from the Union and failed to provide the Union with the information it requested in August 2006. An employer violates Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) by “refus[ing] to bargain collectively with the representative of [its] employees,” 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(5), which includes unilaterally withdrawing recognition from a union supported by a majority of the bargaining unit’s members, Vanguard Fire & Supply Co. v. NLRB, 468 F.3d 952, 957 (6th Cir. 2006). Bargaining in good faith also requires an employer to supply relevant employment information when requested by the employees’ representative. E. Tenn. Baptist Hosp. v. NLRB, 6 F.3d 1139, 1143 (6th Cir. 1993) (citing Detroit Edison Co. v. NLRB, 440 U.S. 301, 303 (1979)). The Board found that Galicks had a duty to collectively bargain with the Union. It also found that Galicks violated this duty by withdrawing recognition from the Union and failing to respond to the Union’s information request in August 2006. Galicks does not dispute that it took either of these latter actions. Instead, Galicks argues that it did not have a duty to bargain in the first place because it had one or fewer journeymen in the bargaining unit. McDaniel Elec., 313 N.L.R.B. 126, 127 (1993) (holding that there is no duty to bargain if an employer can prove it has a stable one- or no-man bargaining unit). But the Board found that Galicks could not carry its burden of proving a one- or no-man unit of journeymen. Galicks, Inc., 354 N.L.R.B. No. 39, slip op. at 5; see McDaniel Elec., 313 N.L.R.B. at 127 (placing the burden of proving a one- or no-man bargaining unit on the party asserting its existence). Galicks did not prove that it would have recalled one or fewer Nos. 10-2028/2121 NLRB v. Galicks, Inc. Page 12 journeymen in the absence of the company’s anti-union animus. Galicks, Inc., 354 N.L.R.B. No. 39, slip op. at 5. Alternatively, the Board found that even if anti-union animus did not contribute to Galicks’s failure to recall, the number of Galicks’s journeymen fluctuated and so the company could not prove that its one- or no-man unit was stable. Id. Because the evidence supports the Board’s first finding, we need not reach the Board’s alternative finding. We have already held that substantial evidence supports the Board’s failure-torecall finding. See supra Part III.B. And Galicks offers no evidence to prove how many journeymen it would have recalled absent its anti-union animus. Accord NLRB v. MFY Indus., Inc., 573 F.2d 673, 675–76 (10th Cir. 1978) (affirming the Board’s determination that an employer’s withdrawal of recognition from an allegedly one- or no-man bargaining unit was unlawful because the court agreed that anti-union animus motivated the employer’s refusal to reinstate three employers into the bargaining unit). Therefore, substantial evidence also supports the Board’s conclusions that Galicks had a duty to bargain with the Union and that its actions violated this duty.