Opinion ID: 2995547
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: The standard governing our review of unfair labor practice proceedings before the Board is well-established. We ask only whether the Board’s decision is supported by substantial evidence and whether its legal conclusions have a reasonable basis in law. Multi-Ad Services, Inc. v. NLRB, 255 F.3d 363, 370 (7th Cir. 2001). Substantial evidence in this context means such relevant evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support the conclusions of the Board. Id. The presence of contradicting evidence is not of consequence as long as substantial evidence supports the Board’s decision. Beverly California Corp. v. NLRB, 253 F.3d 291, 294 (7th Cir. 2001). Further, we defer particularly to the Board’s findings regarding credibility, which cannot be disturbed absent extraordinary circumstances. Id. Indeed, we refuse to interfere with the Board’s choice between two permissible views of the evidence, even though we may have decided the matter differently had the case been before us de novo. Multi-Ad Serv., Inc., 255 F.3d at 371. This deferential standard of review is appropriate in light of Congress’ intent to confer upon the Board broad authority to develop and oversee national labor policy. Id. Section 8(a)(3) of the Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization. . . . 29 U.S.C. sec. 158(a)(3). An employer violates this provision when it threatens an employee with shop closure or discharge or interrogates an employee coercively in order to discourage union activity. Multi-Ad Serv., Inc., 255 F.3d at 371. Likewise an employer violates this provi sion ’when it purposefully creates working conditions so intolerable that the employee has no option but to resign- -a so-called constructive discharge.’ Canteen Corp. v. NLRB, 103 F.3d 1355, 1365 (7th Cir. 1997) (quoting Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, 894 (1984)). In determining whether an employee’s discharge is unlawful under sec. 8(a)(3) of the NLRA the employer’s motivation is paramount. NLRB v. Bestway Trucking, Inc., 22 F.3d 177, 180 (7th Cir. 1994). We employ a burden-shifting framework to determine whether an employer’s action and motive in terminating an employee was lawful. Within this framework, once it is shown that an employee’s union or protected activity was a motivating factor in the employer’s decision to take adverse action against him, the employer then has the burden of demonstrating that it would have taken the same action even in the absence of protected activity. Id.; see also Multi-Ad Serv., Inc., 255 F.3d at 371. On appeal LSF challenges the Board’s findings that it discharged (or constructively discharged) Dennis Hill, Walter Michaels, William Owens, and John Kawa. The company does not contest the remainder of the Board’s findings. We therefore summarily affirm those portions of the Board’s order dealing with LSF’s pre-election conduct and the discharge of three other employees (Mark Hasse, Michael Dooley, and Ron Holland).
LSF argues that the Board’s conclusion that it unlawfully discharged Dennis Hill because of his union activity is not supported by substantial evidence. The essence of the company’s argument is that it was required to discharge Hill because he had serious medical problems that caused his DOT license to come[ ] into question. In support, LSF submits that it received a letter from Dr. Feldman, its DOT physician, advising it that drivers with histories of seizures and chest pain should not be driving until released to work after complete physicals and evaluation. But the ALJ found and the Board affirmed that Hill had undergone a physical examination, at the Hammond clinic where Dr. Feldman was employed on April 7, 1994, and that the results of the examination and corresponding clearance for employment as a driver were valid for two years. The record reflects that LSF failed to submit any evidence to suggest that one year after this examination it had any valid reason to became genuinely concerned about Hill’s medical status. Furthermore, it failed to offer any evidence in support of its implied theory that Hill’s seizures had recurred or worsened during the course of the intervening year, much less any explanation why the medical certification obtained by Hill one year earlier was insufficient. Further, the ALJ ruled that it was firmly convinced that Belt set up the chain of events which led Dr. Feldman to unwittingly issue his letter, thereby providing Belt with an excuse to rid himself, once and for all, of one of the union’s most ardent supporters. For these reasons, I place no credence in Dr. Feldman’s letter. LSF has not devoted even a sentence in its brief to the ALJ’s credibility determination, and instead continues to insist without any support in the record that it discharged Hill because he did not have the required medical certification. The Board affirmed the ALJ’s findings with regard to Dennis Hill and LSF has failed to offer a scintilla of evidence to suggest any extraordinary circumstances that would have warranted setting aside the ALJ’s credibility determination finding that Belt was responsible for setting up a chain of events that culminated in Dr. Feldman’s letter and the Board’s finding of fact that Belt contrived to secure Dr. Feldman’s letter in order to provide him with an excuse to terminate Dennis Hill. See J.C. Penney Co. v. NLRB, 123 F.3d 988, 995 (7th Cir. 1997). After review, we agree that the record reflects a substantial amount of evidence in support of the Board’s and the ALJ’s finding that Belt’s sudden concern with Hill’s medical status was a pretext to discharge him in retaliation for his union activity.
LSF offers a number of explanations for its actions with regard to Walter Michaels./3 Initially, the company argues that Michaels voluntarily chose to resign from his position at LSF and further that he was not constructively discharged. In support, the company argues that Michaels returned to work after hernia surgery on May 15 with a medical clearance that allowed him to work without restriction. LSF suggests that it assigned Michaels to three consecutive long-haul runs between May 15 to May 18 because the number of short- haul runs needed by LSF’s customers had decreased. But Michaels’s interest in making only short-haul runs was common knowledge in the company for sometime. Indeed, when Michaels agreed to make infrequent and intermittent long-haul runs from November 1994 to January 1995 (before his union activity) because the company had developed a sudden increase in long-haul runs at that time. He did so only after receiving assurances from management that he would be reassigned to short-haul runs upon the company’s hiring of additional drivers. The company’s suggestion that Michaels was amenable to being assigned to long-haul runs simply lacks factual support in the record. Furthermore, the unusual timing and suspicious circumstances surrounding Michaels’s unanticipated and unexpected reassignment to the long-haul runs in spite of his well-known preferences and recent medical problems further suggest that it was done in retaliation for his union activity. For example, LSF’s questions towards Michaels regarding his union activity prior to the election can be classified as coercively interrogating. In addition, shortly before the election LSF suspended Michaels for two days after he refused a long-haul assignment (the unlawfulness of which LSF does not challenge in this petition), and in so doing made its intentions clear that it would assign Michaels to long-haul runs regardless of his desire to avoid them. The ALJ further found that when LSF ultimately reassigned Michaels to three consecutive long-haul runs it failed to provide him with any reason for its decision. LSF argues that Michaels’s assignment to long-haul runs only minimally changed the conditions of his employment and that because after his hernia surgery he was medically cleared (May 15) to work without restrictions, its decision to reassign Michaels to long-haul runs could not support a constructive discharge. But there is no question that long-haul runs are certainly more strenuous, taxing, and difficult on the human body and mind and require drivers to spend nights away from home, many sleeping in the cramped compartments of their tractor trailers. See Bestway Trucking, Inc., 22 F.3d at 181. In the past we have found that an employer’s sudden reassignment of an employee from short-haul runs to long- haul runs, contemporaneous with anti- union actions or comments made by management, suffices to create an intolerable working condition for the reassigned employee. Id. Accordingly, we agree with the Board that the record contains substantial evidence in support of the ALJ’s determination that LSF constructively discharged Michaels.
LSF insists that it had no choice other than to fire William Owens because of Owens’s failure to obtain a class A CDL, which would allow him to operate tractor trailers in addition to straight trucks. But the ALJ found that Belt met with Owens and another LSF employee, Bill Sadler, in January 1995 and assured Owens that he would protect him from having to get his class A license, and further offered to give him a written statement guaranteeing he would not have to drive a tractor trailer. LSF does nothing to refute the ALJ’s finding that Belt assured Owens he would not be required to obtain a class A CDL, and in fact references it in its own argument. Further testimony from Sadler before the ALJ corroborated the conversation between Belt and Owens, and Sadler testified that Owens told Belt that he had no intentions of getting a class A license and asked whether he was in danger of losing his job to which Belt responded in the negative. But on May 8, a mere 10 days after the union election, Owens received a memorandum from Belt advising him that he had but 11 days to obtain the class A license. Owens testified that it would be a practical impossibility to learn the skills and complete the paperwork necessary to obtain a class A license in 11 days. When Owens arrived at work on May 19, 1995 he was informed by Belt that he could not be dispatched on any assignments for LSF without a class A CDL. Owens asked whether he should turn in his LSF equipment, and Belt directed him to do so and his services were terminated. The ALJ found Owens’s testimony that Belt had assured him in January that he need not secure a class A CDL to be credible. The ALJ further found that LSF managers made many anti-union comments to Owens before the election, and that its decision to terminate him 10 days after the union election for failing to obtain a class A CDL was motivated by Owens’s union activity. LSF for the first time in this appeal, advances the argument that it had eliminated all of its straight trucks and therefore it had no vehicles that Owens was licensed to drive. We observe, as we have before, that LSF’s argument fails once again as required by Circuit Rule 28 to point us to any part of the record in support of its claim. Furthermore, we observe that according to the record before us LSF never advanced this non-discriminatory reason for Owens’s discharge before the Board, and therefore, has waived it. NLRB v. Alwin Mfg. Co., 78 F.3d 1159, 1162 (7th Cir. 1996). In short, LSF fails to make any argument whatsoever as to why we should set aside the ALJ’s credibility determinations that support his determination that the company unlawfully terminated Owens. Given the timing of Owens’s firing, LSF’s knowledge of Owens’s union support, and LSF’s extensive anti-union tactics, we agree with the Board that LSF terminated Owens because of his union activity.
Finally, the company argues that it discharged John Kawa for non- discriminatory reasons. On May 1, 1995, two days after the union election, Kawa received two driving citations, one for speeding and one for having a detectable amount of alcohol on his breath./4 The police officer made it a point to inform Kawa that he was not being cited for driving under the influence (which required a BAC more than four times greater than Kawa’s) and furthermore that the citation for having a detectable amount of alcohol would not be reflected on his driving record. LSF placed Kawa on suspension, pending further investigation, while he awaited the return of his license, which had been seized as bail bond at the time he was issued citations. Several LSF administrators assured Kawa that he would return to work when he received his license. On May 23, 1995, more than three weeks after the citations were issued, LSF decided to discharge Kawa, allegedly because of his citation three weeks earlier for having a detectable amount of alcohol on his breath when operating a company vehicle. According to LSF, its attorney advised it that it would be in violation of DOT regulations if it were to allow Kawa to continue driving, and thus it had no alternative but to discharge him. But we are unable to discern any such requirement among the regulations. The DOT regulations only provide for the disqualification of a driver who drove with an alcohol concentration of .04 percent or more, and we are confident that they certainly did not direct LSF to fire John Kawa for having a BAC of .009. 49 C.F.R. sec. 391.15 LSF’s continued erroneous insistence that it was merely following DOT regulations when it terminated Kawa, without displaying any letter much less policy or regulation mandating it, has further cast doubt upon the credibility and legitimacy of its explanation. The ALJ found that LSF discharged Kawa because of his union activity, and not because of the two citations referenced above. The ALJ also noted that LSF never explained why it waited more than three weeks after the citations were issued to discharge Kawa if they were the true reason for his discharge. The ALJ also ruled that Belt’s testimony regarding LSF’s reasons for terminating Kawa were less than truthful for Belt never did explain why in the first instance he assured Kawa that he could return to work once he regained his license and three weeks later terminated him because of the citations. Accordingly, the ALJ found that the employer’s proffered reason for firing John Kawa, that he had consumed alcohol prior to drinking, was false. As we have stated, an employer’s proffering of a false explanation for its actions justifies an inference that its real motive for a discharge was unlawful. See Jet Star, Inc. v. NLRB, 209 F.3d 671, 678 (7th Cir. 2000). LSF never even attempted to rebut the ALJ’s findings, much less offer a non-discriminatory reason for its firing of John Kawa. Instead it only continues to adhere to its red-herring argument and insists (erroneously) that the DOT regulations required that they terminate Kawa because of his citations.