Opinion ID: 379143
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Establishing Good Faith Reasonable Doubt

Text: 25 Whether an employer has established a good faith reasonable doubt defense is a determination that must be made initially by the Board. The Board's decision will be upheld if it is supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. Sahara-Tahoe Corp. v. NLRB, 581 F.2d at 771. 26 In Tahoe Nugget and Sahara-Tahoe we stressed that the evidence presented to establish reasonable good faith doubt, individually or cumulatively, must unequivocally indicate that union support had declined to a minority. In those cases the Board found that the employers had not established the good faith doubt defense. Some evidence was presented of employee discontent, high employee turnover rates, low union membership, financial difficulties of the union, and a vigorous union membership drive. However, after evaluating the evidence, the Board determined that the evidence introduced by the respondents was not sufficient to support a good faith reasonable doubt of the union's majority status. The evidence, standing alone or viewed in their totality, presented only an ambiguous inference of loss of majority support for the union. We enforced the Board's orders in those cases, determining that there was substantial evidence on the record as a whole to support the findings. 27 The evidence presented here does not differ materially from that considered by the Board and this court in Tahoe Nugget and Sahara-Tahoe. The Board in the present cases found that the respondents failed to establish the good faith reasonable doubt defense. Substantial evidence on the record as a whole supports the findings that the evidence, individually or cumulatively, presents only an equivocal inference of loss of majority support for the union.