Opinion ID: 269384
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Workers Who Refused Reinstatement

Text: 15 The Union made an unconditional application for reinstatement of about 1800 named employees on September 1, 1960, just after the Board's decree. Kohler soon sent offers of reinstatement to about 1400 of them. A substantial number either refused or did not respond to this offer. We must decide whether the Master correctly found that Kohler's offer to them was not in compliance with the decree; that the reasons some gave for not then accepting the offer entitled them to further offers upon their subsequent application; and that they have not waived any rights they might have under the decree. 16 The relevant facts, which we adopt from the Master's findings and memorandum, are these. Kohler's work force during the summer of 1960 was about 2400 employees, roughly three quarters of the pre-strike number. The work week, averaging a little more than forty hours over the plant as a whole, was almost four hours shorter than it had been in 1954. As the summer of 1960 drew to a close, adverse economic conditions which had helped to bring about this condition created a serious problem of overproduction, and the Company determined to cut back further. Rather than lay off workers, it decided to reduce the work week of a majority to 32 hours and to peg the week of other employees at 40 hours. As a matter of long-standing policy, it preferred a flexible work week to a flexible working force. This step was announced less than a month before the Board's order. 10 17 During the six years of the strike, Kohler hired over 1200 replacements. It announced early and often that they were being 'taken on as permanent employees,' and would not lose their jobs at the termination of the strike. The Board's order, however, required Kohler to discharge replacements 'if necessary' to afford returning strikers their 'former or substantially equivalent' positions. Kohler made offers of reinstatement to a group almost two-thirds as large as its current work force. The economic conditions which had led it to cut back the work week still prevailed and apparently continued until the late spring of the following year. 11 Yet the Master found that 'after the Board's decision was rendered, the Company made no secret of its intention to retain its existing employees and simply add returning strikers to the existing work force, regarding itself as being entitled to do so under the decision.' This is what it did; the 477 strikers who returned to work were simply added to the force. 18 On the day it requested reinstatement for Kohler's striking employees the Union in another letter requested Kohler to resume bargaining, in compliance with the Board's decree. While Kohler's offers of reinstatement were still open, Kohler said it would not resume bargaining until appellate review of the Board's order was completed. 19 The Board alleges that 105 strikers refused Kohler's offer of reinstatement because of the Short work week and Kohler's insistence on retaining all replacements. Another 238 allegedly refused to return because of the refusal to bargain. Finally, 180 strikers allegedly did not return because of both the short week and the refusal to bargain. At least some of these strikers expressly informed Kohler of the reasons for their action. 20 In June 1962, shortly after the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Kohler's appeal from our enforcement of the Board's decree, 12 Kohler resumed bargaining with the Union. In a letter sent in July 1962, the Union requested reinstatement for all strikers not previously reinstated, making specific reference to the three groups identified above. It refused, however, to comply with Kohler's request for a list of the strikers comprising each category. The Company made no offers of reinstatement in response to the Union's request.
21 The Master concluded, and we agree, that Kohler's offer failed to comply with the Board's order. An employer is not required to dismiss one replacement for every unfair labor practice striker reinstated pursuant to Board order. The purpose of the Labor Act is to remedy the effects of unfair labor practices, not to punish strikebreakers. But after an unfair labor practice strike, effective remedy requires that returning strikers be given a preference. N.L.R.B. v. Remington Rand, Inc., 2 Cir., 94 F.2d 862, cert. denied, 304 U.S. 576, 58 S.Ct. 1046, 82 L.Ed. 1540 (1938), 130 F.2d 919 (2d Cir. 1941) (on remand). The sanctioned purpose of a reinstatement order is 'to insure the returning strikers that the strike should not prejudice their position; that is, that they should have as good jobs as though there had been no strike.' N.L.R.B. v. Gianasca, 119 F.2d 756, 758 (2d Cir. 1941) (per L. Hand, J.). Here, economic factors had already diminished substantially the available work. Kohler diluted it further by deciding to add, rather than substitute, returning strikers. As the Master said, 'The strikers    had to take their chances on a work week adjusted    to (the Company's) business and its policy of reducing the work week rather than laying off employees, but not    based upon retention of employees hired on or after June 1, 1954.' When Kohler enlarged its work force in the face of economic trouble rather than break its promises to the replacements, it violated the Board's decree. 'The order secured (the strikers) the benefit of (Kohler's) judgment based upon the number of men who could efficiently do the work in hand,' N.L.R.B. v. Giannasca, supra at 758. Kohler denied them the benefit of that judgment. 13 The promises Kohler had made to their replacements do not excuse this denial. Consequently, there was no valid offer of a 'former or substantially equivalent position.' 14
22 Clearly, workers who did not accept Kohler's offer because of the Company's position with regard to replacements and the shortened work week did not receive the benefits of the order we enforced. Different questions arise with respect to strikers who assigned refusal to bargain, or both the short work week and the refusal to bargain, as the reason for not returning. 23 The Board has sought an adjudication of contempt less sweeping than our decree might support. Rather than argue that Kohler's offer of reinstatement was defective as to all workers because of the Company's refusal to discharge replacements, it concedes that unless a worker knew of and relied on this defect, the offer was complying as to him. The Board may have thought this a limited concession, made to avoid imposing heavier burdens on Kohler than the remedial goals of the Act require. 15 But the concession raises a broader question-- whether Kohler has met its obligation to all strikers who did not rely on the defect found. As to them, the concession seems to imply that Kohler made a complying offer, its only reinstatement obligation. It would thus appear that any right to protest Kohler's continuing refusal to bargain would be protected under the Act, N.L.R.B. v. R. C. Can Co., 328 F.2d 974, 978-979 (5th Cir. 1964), but not under the decree we enforced. Accordingly, the argument runs, when at the conclusion of their protest the Union members sought and Kohler refused reinstatement, the Board's proper response would have been to bring new unfair labor practice proceedings seeking an order for reinstatement. 24 The argument does not convince us because it neglects Kohler's non-compliance with another important provision of the decree, requiring it to bargain in good faith with Local 833. Kohler refused to bargain in order to avoid mooting its challenge to the Union's bargaining status. Although its reason for refusing may have been sound, we think that in essaying piecemeal compliance with the Board's decree it left open the possibility of such protest as here occurred. In the circumstances, Kohler's refusal to bargain was a continuation of its illegal course of action, interdicted under the decree and not a new cause for protest. We agree with the Master and the Board that workers could refuse to accept a complying offer of reinstatement when the Company in other respects ignored the Board's decree, without forfeiting their reinstatement rights. 25 We touch here on the rather unusual nature of contempt proceedings in connection with Labor Board orders. Our decree was patterned after the Board's administrative determination of the steps required to redress Kohler's unlawful behavior during the strike. But this determination did not resolve every question that might arise when compliance was attempted. We cannot anticipate all such questions and do not have the expertise to determine what resolution will provide the needed remedies. Board compliance officers, who act on behalf of the Board and are subject to review by it, regularly handle such problems. In construing our decree, we should give great weight to determinations by these officers and the Board as to its meaning. 16 26 The pleadings here disclosed such determinations. Correspondence between Kohler and Board compliance officers, submitted at our request, shows that Kohler early sought the Board's aid in construing the reinstatement order, particularly with respect to those workers who had not returned because of the refusal to bargain, the short week, or similar reasons. In April 1961, eleven months before our decree, the Board's officer responded. He said, as the Board does here, that employees have 'the right to refrain from accepting the Company's offer of reinstatement until the Company has complied with the Board's bargaining order. If and when they apply unconditionally for reinstatement, the Company must offer (it)   .' 17 Kohler disagreed and has not been willing to compromise in any respect. 18 The correspondence was not in the record when we issued our decree and Kohler did not attempt to define our decree at that time. Thus, it cannot be said that we adopted the Board's interpretation of its order by entering our decree of enforcement. But the nearly contemporaneous construction of the Board's order by its officers reinforces our conclusion that the Master was right in finding that Kohler violated our decree by failing to offer reinstatement, when sought, to the 'refusal-to-bargain' strikers. 27 Kohler argues that we should distinguish workers who complained of the Company's refusal to bargain from others who said they would not return because Kohler had made no contract with the Union. It says that though the decree required it to bargain it is not required by either the decree or the Act to enter a contract, and therefore the 'no contract' group should not be protected. While this distinction has technical merit, We agree with the Master and Board that it overlooks the realities of the situation. Union members cannot be expected to speak with legal precision in this matter. It is enough that they sought reinstatement during bargaining, and before a contract was signed. 28 Kohler argues also that the Union made no valid application for reinstatement, because its request of July 1962 did not include a list of names. But Kohler had been given a list of strikers seeking reinstatement in September, 1960, and the record shows that at least some of the strikers who did not return informed Kohler of the reasons for their decision. Where such notice had been given, Kohler did not need a new list in 1962. On the other hand, Kohler should not be required to reinstate workers who only now claim reasons for refusal which they may not have had in 1960. Unless a worker informed Kohler of the reason for his refusal to return, or manifested his reason to the company in some other way (e.g., by applying individually for reinstatement after bargaining was resumed in 1962), the Master may properly exclude him from reinstatement. As in the case of releasees and retirees, the questions of fact should be resolved with an eye to the remedial purposes of the decree, and the workers' lack of legal sophistication. But if convinced that Kohler could not have known that a worker was seeking reinstatement in 1962, the Master may deny reinstatement. 29 In sum, we agree with the Board and the Master that the following workers are entitled to receive offers of reinstatement under our decree: those who refused to return because of the short work week and the failure to discharge strike replacements, 19 those who refused to return because of failure to bargain in good faith with the Union and reach a contract, and those who relied on both the short week and the failure to bargain. In fairness to Kohler, however, we think the Master may exclude from these groups any worker as to whom there is neither contemporaneous evidence of his reason for refusing, 20 nor a subsequent individual application for reinstatement.
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