Opinion ID: 771050
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alaska Pulp I

Text: 19 Following the strike, a number of individual employees filed unfair labor practice charges against Alaska Pulp that challenged, inter alia, the company's practice of returning strikers only to entry level positions. The Regional Director for Region 19 of the Board, which is based in Seattle, Washington, then issued a complaint alleging that Alaska Pulp had violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the Act. 3 See 29 U.S.C. S 158(a)(1), (3). The Director argued that the entry level approach served no business purpose and ensured that returned strikers would always hold positions inferior to permanent replacements and crossovers. 20 Alaska Pulp responded that an order forcing it to place strikers in their old positions would undermine its right to reinstate workers based on merit. Put more precisely, Alaska Pulp claimed that, if not all given entry level positions, the strikers would leapfrog each other up and down the merit rankings as their former jobs randomly became available. A prohibition against starting returnees in the lowest positions would thereby defeat its ability to reinstate workers solely in order of their relative worth. See Alaska Pulp I , 296 NLRB at 1266. 21 After a hearing in 1988, an ALJ found that offering only entry level positions to former strikers was an unfair labor practice. This finding was subsequently affirmed by the NLRB, which noted that Alaska Pulp's reinstatement plan improperly denied former strikers access to higher paying jobs, subjected them to potential layoffs, and eliminated their seniority. See Alaska Pulp I, 296 NLRB at 1266. The Board also determined that Alaska Pulp had unlawfully eliminated several strikers from the preferential recall list and had terminated an employee because of his union activity. See id. at 1269-77. However, the Board found the evidence insufficient to support a separate charge that Alaska Pulp, for discriminatory reasons, placed five former union officials lower than they should have legitimately appeared on the Laidlaw list. See id. at 1269. It is worth appreciating that after this unsuccessful charge no party has come any closer to proving that Alaska Pulp ordered the recall list in such a way as to punish union leaders. 22 As a remedy for the unfair labor practices it found, the Board ordered Alaska Pulp to offer reinstatement to qualified employees on the preferential recall list to any and all positions in each department and each progression level thereof which have been available since the termination of the strike, in a manner consistent with this decision. Id. at 1277. It further required Alaska Pulp to make whole for any loss of pay and benefits those strikers who already had suffered by the entry level reinstatement plan. See id. The determination of which workers were harmed was saved for future compliance proceedings. See id. Finally, the Board ordered Alaska Pulp to include on the preferential recall list five employees it had unlawfully excluded for alleged strike misconduct. See id. at 1277-78. 23 In their original charge to the Region, the employees also alleged that ranking and reinstating employees by merit was discriminatory in light of Alaska Pulp's historical reliance on a seniority based progression approach. The Regional Director dismissed this allegation by letter dated August 31, 1987. He concluded that it was not illegal for [Alaska Pulp] to devise such a [merit] recall system or to recall employees by department. The Office of Appeals sustained the Region, noting that the evidence failed to indicate that the new merit recall system was unlawfully motivated or instituted. 24 When the employees and the General Counsel tried to raise the same issue before the ALJ, the judge specifically held that the Regional Director's partial dismissal foreclosed any determination of whether Alaska Pulp was precluded from applying its merit system. After quoting language from the Regional Director's dismissal letter, the ALJ concluded that [Alaska Pulp] may use its merit recall system in a manner which is not inconsistent with this decision. Id. at 1266. The dismissal was never appealed. See id. 25 When the Board affirmed the ALJ, it also noted how the Region's dismissal had a preclusive effect: [T]he question whether [Alaska Pulp] could lawfully use a merit recall system . . . was previously resolved in Case 19-CA-19242 and is therefore not before us. Id. n.3. Thus, the issue at bar was simply whether [Alaska Pulp] could lawfully relegate unreinstated strikers who are offered reinstatement to entry level jobs only. Id. This crucial point merits repeating: Alaska Pulp I determined that Alaska Pulp had to reinstate strikers to their pre-strike or substantially equivalent positions; it did not determine the order in which that reinstatement was to take place. Indeed, the Board clearly affirmed the ALJ's rulings, findings, and conclusions, which explicitly contemplated that Alaska Pulp's merit rankings could be used to determine the order in which would-be reinstatees would be compensated. Id. at 1260 (footnote omitted). 26 This court enforced Alaska Pulp I on September 18, 1991. See NRLB v. Alaska Pulp Corp., 944 F.2d 909, 1991 WL 181760 (9th Cir. 1991) (unpublished disposition).