Opinion ID: 392028
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bargaining Unit Wage and Hour Information

Text: 119 The law is clear that the wage, hour, and benefit information requested regarding bargaining unit SGG employees (including the striker replacements, given that the bargaining unit is defined by jobs, not people, see note 8 supra) is presumptively relevant and must be disclosed on request, Rockwell Standard, supra, unless the company advanced a sufficient, good faith reason why full disclosure could not be made in the form or manner requested. San Diego Newspaper Guild, supra; Borden, supra. 120 The company offered two potentially adequate justifications for its limited disclosure: (1) with regard to the omission of names, its fear of harassment of the striker replacements if their identities were known; and (2) with regard to the incompleteness of the wage and hour data, the burdensomeness of producing weekly hours-worked data for each employee. 121 The record shows that the company's fear of harassment of replacements by strikers was a reasonable and bona fide one, in light of previous events during the strike. 33 There was, not surprisingly, considerable animosity between the two groups. One replacement, Raymond Irish, was assaulted, unprovoked, in a bar by union president David Bates. Others were threatened by picketing strikers on several occasions or followed home. Replacements' car windows were broken and their tires slashed. In another instance, a striker attempted to run off the road a company truck driven by a replacement. On other occasions vandalism was directed against the company, with several glass and window smashing incidents reported. Under these circumstances, it could reasonably be found that there was a clear and present danger that union members would use the replacements' names to facilitate further harassment. Shell, supra. The union offered no assurances that the names would not be misused. Moreover, other than for verification purposes, the union's need for the replacements' names is not obvious. The company's offer of third party verification satisfies this concern and is indicative of the company's good faith concern regarding employee harassment. Compare Pearl Bookbinding, supra. The union's failure to pursue the matter except by filing unfair labor practice charges substantially weakens its position. Cf. Emeryville, supra. We hold that withholding employee names under these circumstances did not violate § 8(a)(5) or (1). 122 However, the company's justifiable failure to disclose employee names makes even more unjustifiable its unexplained failure to provide the requested job descriptions corresponding to the wage rates it furnished. In the absence of job descriptions, the union could not substantiate its allegation that the SGG striker replacements had received the 25 cent-per-hour wage increase granted to SGI employees, a fact which the company had never admitted during the negotiations, and which was proved by the company's subsequent wage and hour disclosure pursuant to settlement agreement. The wage increases were also concealed by the company's unjustified failure to respond to the union's request for the amount(s) and date(s) of any change in hourly wages. 34 Nor could the union verify on the basis of the information it received whether or not the company was in fact getting its work done for less money than union employees had been paid, or whether the replacements were indeed more productive. The company's statement that the new employees had not been classified except as strike replacements is at best unresponsive. The relevant question, to which the union was entitled to a prompt answer, is replacements for which strikers, in terms of job description. In these respects, the company's response was legally insufficient and violated § 8(a) (5) and (1). 123 The sufficiency of the SGG wage and hour information provided presents a different, closer question. Again, such information is presumptively relevant, and was made more so by both the union's allegation that SGG replacements had received the disputed wage increase and the company's better men for less money claim. However, there is no evidence that the company's partial disclosure was designed to frustrate the union's bargaining effort or was merely a delaying tactic. The union asked for several types of detailed wage and hour data, and asked that the company supply it within a period, exclusive of weekends and the Thanksgiving holiday, of less than two weeks. The company supplied some of what was requested, describing that disclosure as a preliminary step, stated that compiling the detailed hour information requested would be burdensome and time-consuming, and suggested an approximate method by which the average weekly hours per man could be calculated. The company did not refuse to provide further wage and hour data or contest the union's right to the data concerning SGG employees. The clear implication was that the company was willing to supply the same at a later date, given time to prepare it, if the initial disclosure did not satisfy the union's needs. There is nothing in the record either to support or rebut the company's assertion of burdensomeness. At this point we merely note, taking into account the extent of the data involved, 35 that this claim is not facially frivolous, and we find nothing either in the company's remarkably candid letter of December 9 or elsewhere to suggest that it was not made in good faith. 124 A union's bare assertion that it needs information ... does not automatically oblige the employer to supply all the information in the manner requested. Detroit Edison, supra, 440 U.S. at 314, 99 S.Ct. at 1130. The union is not necessarily entitled to the information in the precise form demanded. Emeryville, supra, 441 F.2d at 887. When the employer presents a legitimate, good faith objection on grounds of burdensomeness or otherwise, and offers to cooperate with the union in reaching a mutually acceptable accommodation, it is incumbent on the union to attempt to reach some type of compromise with the employer as to the form, extent, or timing of disclosure. In these circumstances, immediate resort to the Board is premature. Emeryville, supra. To be sure, the union need not indulge the company in protracted negotiations over the terms, content, and form of disclosure. Id. at 885. Cf. Borden, supra, 600 F.2d at 318 (a company may not play dog-in-the-manger just to put the Union through the hoops). Nor, however, can the union instantly put the company to the election of either immediately supplying everything demanded or having to defend yet another unfair labor practice charge. Good faith is required on both sides. 125 Here, the record contains no evidence that the union made any effort whatsoever to pursue the information request with the company, but immediately filed unfair labor practice charges (which were ultimately settled when the company agreed to disclose the additional SGG wage and hour data, inter alia, on March, 1977). This all-or-nothing approach casts doubt on the union's good faith need or desire for the information, 36 and made a federal case out of a minor dispute which manifestly should and could have been informally resolved without invoking the Board's burdensome remedial mechanism. 126 We hold, following Emeryville and Shell, supra, that where, as here, the Company raises bona fide objections to the form in which information is requested and indicates its willingness to provide information sufficient to meet the Union's needs in a mutually satisfactory form, the Union must afford the company an opportunity to provide the data on mutually satisfactory terms. Emeryville, 441 F.2d at 885. Once the union has done so, but not before, the company's refusal to provide adequately to meet the Union's needs within a reasonable time would support an unfair labor practice charge. Id. It is only where such problems cannot be worked out, after some further minimal effort at the bargaining table, that the problem is properly presented to the Board and courts. Thus, we find no violation with respect to the SGG wage and hour information, and need not consider the relevancy and sufficiency of the subsequent disclosure of such information on March 8, 1977.