Opinion ID: 3052717
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Delay in Reinstatement

Text: We first address the initial one-month delay in reinstatement from December 15 until January 22, the day by which all responses from returning employees were due to the employer. The Union argues that the company’s failure to immediately reinstate the locked out employees was “inherently destructive” of the employee’s statutory rights because only the unionized locked out employees, and not the replacement employees, suffered “the adversities of being kept out of work.” Such conduct, the Union argues, discourages protected activity by punishing an employee’s lawful right to strike. We reject this argument because it does not take into account the length of the lockout or the length of the delay itself. [4] The Supreme Court has defined “inherently destructive” conduct as conduct that “carries with it an inference of unlawful intention so compelling that it is justifiable to disbelieve the employer’s protestations of innocent purpose.” Am. Ship Bldg. Co. v. NLRB, 380 U.S. 300, 311-12 (1965); see Portland Willamette Co. v. NLRB, 534 F.2d 1331, 1334 (9th Cir. 1976) (defining “inherently destructive conduct” as conduct that has “far reaching effects which would hinder future bargaining” and “create[s] visible and continuing obstacles to the future exercise of employee rights”). If the natural tendency of the employer’s actions is to severely “discourage union membership while serving no significant employer interest,” then the conduct is “inherently destructive” and discriminatory. Am. Ship Building, 380 U.S. at 312; see also Erie Resistor, 373 U.S. at 228. 3 The Union also argues that the ALJ and the Board erred in parsing the company’s behavior and analyzing each alleged violation individually, as opposed to in the aggregate. This argument is without merit as we have analyzed each allegation of a violation of the NLRA individually in the past. See L’Eggs Prods., Inc. v. NLRB, 619 F.2d 1337 (9th Cir. 1980). FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WORKERS v. NLRB 11267 [5] The Supreme Court’s application of this standard is illustrative of employer conduct that necessarily implies discrimination and anti-union animus. In Erie Resistor, the Court concluded that an employer granting twenty years of superseniority to replacement workers and workers who broke the strike was inherently destructive. See generally Erie Resistor, 373 U.S. 221. In Metropolitan Edison, the Court concluded that an employer’s discipline of union leaders more severely than non-union leaders was “inherently destructive” of their statutory rights. 460 U.S. 702-03. “In each of these cases, the employer treated employees within a bargaining unit differently depending upon the degree of their union activity.” Int’l Paper Co. v. NLRB, 115 F.3d 1045, 1050 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (emphasis omitted). Thus, from the employee’s perspective there could be no question that the employees were being punished for their union activities because those employees who chose to engage in union activities were given fewer benefits or were punished as compared to those that did not engage in union activities. [6] Here, the employer’s one month delay stands in stark contrast to the above examples of conduct found to be “inherently destructive.” This case does not present a reinstatement delay that is relatively long compared to the lockout itself. See Westpac Electric Inc., 321 N.L.R.B. 1322, 1364 (1996) (concluding a reinstatement delay of two to three hours after a three hour strike was “inherently destructive”). In such a case the Board may be justified in concluding that a delay is “inherently destructive” of employee rights because the employees could infer that the delay was instituted to punish their union activities. In contrast, when a reinstatement delay is short relative to the lockout period, it is less likely that employees will view the delay as punishment for a protected activity. [7] After a fourteen-year lockout, a delay of a few more weeks prior to reinstatement does not necessarily express antiunion animus beyond that expressed by the lockout itself. 11268 FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WORKERS v. NLRB Indeed, since the workers had just voted against union representation by a substantial margin, it is not clear that the company had much to gain at the time by taking further action to discourage union activity. Given the length of the lockout it is most likely that employees would understand that some period of time was necessary and normal to accomplish the reinstatement, and therefore not view the delay as an action by the company to obstruct or discourage employees from exercising their statutory rights. Moreover, it was reasonable to anticipate that many or most of the locked out employees would likely need some time themselves to prepare for the possible transition: some employees would need time to make their decision, leave their current employers, and prepare to resume working for Bud Antle. Under the circumstances, the Board’s conclusion that the delay did not “imply hostile motivation any more than the lockout itself,” and thus was not inherently destructive of employee’s rights such that antiunion animus can be inferred, is supported by substantial evidence. See NLRB v. Brown, 380 U.S. 278, 284 (1965). The Union challenges the Board’s determination that the delay from December 15 to January 22 was supported by a substantial and legitimate business justification.4 Generally, an employer is obligated to reinstate employees after a lockout without unreasonable delay. “[W]hat is reasonable or unreasonable depends on all the facts and circumstances of a particular case and the existence of legitimate and substantial business reasons for the delay.” Mercy-Memorial Hosp. Corp., 231 N.L.R.B. 1108, 1113-14 (1977). We give deference to the Board’s expertise in determining whether employer conduct is reasonable and supported by legitimate and substantial business justifications. See NLRB v. Fleetwood Trailer Co., 389 U.S. 375, 378 (1967) (citing Great Dane Trailers, 388 U.S. at 33-34) (“It is the primary responsi- 4 The employer has not challenged the Board’s conclusion that the delay from January 23-February 23 violated the NLRA and therefore we do not review the Board’s findings on this issue. FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WORKERS v. NLRB 11269 bility of the Board and not of the courts ‘to strike the proper balance between the asserted business justifications and the invasion of employee rights in light of the Act and its policy.’ ”). The Board found that both of the business justifications offered by the employer in this case, in the circumstances of an unusually lengthy lockout, supported the delay through January 22. First, the Board concluded that the union election agreement justified a one-month delay for the employer to organize the reinstatement of the returning employees. This conclusion was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence. The notice had to be prepared and sent to the locked out employees after the election results were certified, and at least a little time was needed to accomplish that. The agreement with the Union provided that workers would have at least thirty days to respond to the notice. The replacement employees and the locked out employees would have equal seniority rights, so the company would not know which employees would be bumped based on seniority until it had a complete list of employees seeking to return at the end of the notification period on January 22. At the end of the lockout, the facility was operating with 90 replacement employees. There were 133 previously locked out employees to whom notices were sent. Thus, there were potentially more than 220 employees who would seek to fill between 90-100 jobs. Bud Antle could not know, prior to the January 22 deadline, how many employees would be seeking jobs, and what their respective seniority levels would be.5 Thus, it could not know which employees would be bumped and which would not. Even if, as the Union argues, at least one of the returning 5 Though the company might have assumed that there would not be many employees returning after fourteen years, over 250 individuals voted in the union election, far more than the number of current workers. It was not unreasonable for the company to anticipate at least a possibility that more workers would be returning than turned out to be the case and thus to proceed cautiously with determining who would wind up with the jobs. 11270 FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WORKERS v. NLRB employees had sufficient seniority to guarantee that he would be at the front of the line, that could not have been clear for all of the potentially returning employees. [8] The Board also concluded that the company’s desire to train all the returning employees together was an independent reason to support the delay. This conclusion was reasonable. Fourteen years had passed. Some level of retraining would seem justified under any circumstances after that long an interval off the job. The changes in the company’s operations and products gave further support for the Board’s conclusion in this case that it was not unreasonable for the company to retrain the returning employees after fourteen years. It was likewise not unreasonable for the company to wish to train all of the returning employees together. Although the company representative testified that the company had trained new employees individually in the past, he noted that they had never had to train a large number of employees one-on-one before. The Union argues that National Football League Management Council, 309 N.L.R.B. 78 (1992), contradicts the Board’s decision and establishes that the delay here was unreasonable and unsupported by a substantial and legitimate business justification. In that case, NFL players agreed to return to work on Thursday, October 15, after a twenty-fiveday strike. The NFL Clubs responded by refusing to allow players that were ineligible to play on Wednesday from playing in the upcoming weekend’s games. Id. at 79. Thus because the striking players agreed to return to work on Thursday, instead of Wednesday, they were unable to play in the games scheduled that week on October 18 and 19. The Board rejected the employer’s argument that the delay in reinstatement from October 15 (when the unconditional offer to return to work was tendered) to October 25 or 26 was reasonable and supported by a substantial business justification. The Board concluded that, under the circumstances, the Club’s claims that the striking players may not have been in suffiFRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WORKERS v. NLRB 11271 cient physical condition to play, and that they had to deal with the administrative inconvenience of juggling both the roster of replacement players and striking players were not substantial and legitimate business justifications for the Wednesday eligibility rule. See id. at 82-83. The Union’s citation to National Football League and similar decisions fails to deal with the unique circumstances of this lockout, notably its extraordinary duration. A strike lasting twenty-five days is not the same as a lockout lasting fourteen years. Because of the extraordinary time gap, the employer’s concerns here were magnified. For example, Bud Antle had to determine where the striking employees were, whether they would return, whether they could continue to perform the job, and how to integrate them back into the company. Although the owners faced similar questions in National Football League, it is difficult to ignore the effect a fourteen-year time period can have on the employer’s decision making. In National Football League, there was other evidence, including contradictory explanations for the delay, and the fact that the Clubs had failed to enforce the Wednesday eligibility rule in a past strike that was twice as long, that made the Board question the credibility of the asserted business justifications. Id. at 82. Such concerns are not presented here: the company has not asserted contradictory business justifications. Additionally, the circumstances of the election agreement materially differed from those in National Football League. The agreement here required the company to rehire both striking and replacement employees based upon the seniority of all workers. The company, therefore, needed to wait until the end of the reinstatement period to dovetail the list of employees so that it could determine which employees would be hired and retained. The NLRB has noted the importance of evaluating an employer’s conduct based upon the unique circumstances in the record, and properly so. In Mercy-Memorial Hospital, the NLRB recognized that reasonable delays in reinstatement can 11272 FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WORKERS v. NLRB arise at the conclusion of a lengthy strike. At the close of a three-year strike, state law required that the returning employees be subjected to medical examinations in order to be eligible to work in the employer’s hospital. 231 N.L.R.B. at 1114. The Board concluded that the nearly one-month delay in which the company updated employee files, waited to determine which employees would be returning to work, and conducted physical examinations for returning employees was reasonable given “the problems necessarily occasioned by the sudden termination of a 3-year-old strike.” Id. [9] Given the length of the lockout here, the uncertainties surrounding who would request reinstatement, and the letter of agreement that held the reinstatement period open for thirty days, there was substantial evidence supporting the Board’s conclusion that substantial and legitimate business justifications supported the employer’s conduct and thus the employer did not violate the NLRA.