Opinion ID: 406424
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the back-pay remedy

Text: 42 The final issue to be resolved is whether the Board erred in ordering back-pay to the date of Main's unlawful discharge. 8 The company argues that Main, as a striker, was receiving no pay and would receive none while he continued on strike. Consequently, the back-pay remedy should be limited to the date on which the strike was ended and Main would have been available for work. The Board, consistent with its opinion in Abilities and Goodwill, Inc. and Abilities and Goodwill Association of Professional Employees, 241 NLRB 27 (1979), enforcement denied on other grounds, 612 F.2d 6 (1st Cir. 1979), rejected the company's argument. 43 Abilities and Goodwill changed the longstanding Board rule that a discriminatorily discharged striker had to request reinstatement before the employer's back-pay obligation was triggered. The Board's rationale for changing the rule is set forth in the following passages from Abilities and Goodwill : 44 The issue is whether an unlawfully discharged striker, unlike an unlawfully discharged employee, must unconditionally request reinstatement in order to trigger an employer's backpay obligation. We believe that the equities and policies of the Act compel a negative answer. It is, of course, well settled that a discriminatorily discharged employee is entitled to reinstatement and backpay from the date of the employer's unlawful action. There is no requirement that such employee first request reinstatement. Indeed, such a request, in all likelihood, would fall upon deaf ears when one considers that the employer has just fired the employee. In this connection, the Board has frequently said that it will not require a person to perform a futile act. Furthermore, since it is the employer who has acted unlawfully in discharging the employee, the burden is on that employer to undo its unfair labor practice by offering immediate reinstatement to the employee, and by reimbursing the employee for all losses suffered from the date of its discriminatory action. 45 The foregoing rationale is, in our view, equally applicable to employees who are unlawfully discharged while engaged in a lawful strike. A discharged striker is a discharged employee, and is entitled to be treated as such, for there is nothing peculiar to a strike which justifies dissimilar treatment. The nature of the employer's unlawful conduct is not changed by the fact that the employee happens to be a striker at the time of discharge. Furthermore, to require a discharged striker to request reinstatement would be no less futile than it would be for a discharged employee. Thus, no logical reason presents itself for treating the two categories of employees differently. In both cases, the employer has acted in violation of the Act in terminating the employee, and in both cases the burden rightfully rests on the employer to remedy the situation. Accordingly, we now hold that a discharged striker is entitled to backpay from the date of discharge until the date he or she is offered reinstatement. To the extent that this holding represents a departure from prior policy, that policy is hereby overruled. 46 241 NLRB at 27. 47 Abilities and Goodwill specifically addressed the argument that a back-pay award to the date of discharge may result in a situation where a striker is compensated for a period of voluntarily withheld labor. The Board's answer was as follows: 48 The problem in resolving the issue herein is that the discharge of a striker creates an ambiguous situation. When discharged strikers withhold their services after the date of the unlawful discharge, one cannot really be certain whether their continuing refusal to work is voluntary, i.e., a result of the strike, or whether the reason for not making application for reinstatement is that the employer, by discharging the employees, has mistakenly impressed on them the futility of making such an application. Thus, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether the employees would have continued to strike and, if so, for how long, had the opportunity to return to work been available. This uncertainty could, of course, be resolved if the employees immediately apply for reinstatement, and, one might say, as our dissenting colleague does, that a showing of such an application is not an unduly burdensome condition for establishing entitlement to backpay. However, because the uncertainty is caused by the employer's unlawful conduct, we will not indulge in the presumption that the discharge itself played no part in keeping the employees out of work. Rather, it seems to us more equitable to resolve the ambiguity against the wrongdoer and presume, absent indications to the contrary, that the discharged strikers would have made the necessary application were it not for the fact that the discharge itself seemingly made such application a futility. 49 Id. at 28 (emphasis added). 50 The Board's shift of position by placing the burden on the wrongdoer is a type of decision allowable for an agency which has the primary responsibility for formulating remedies designed to minimize the impact of unfair labor practices. As we observed in NLRB v. Eagle Material Handling, Inc., 558 F.2d 160, 163-64 (3d Cir. 1977), our role is to determine whether the remedy ordered was within the Board's broad discretion, keeping in mind that the order should not be disturbed 'unless it can be shown that (it) is a patent attempt to achieve ends other than those which can fairly be said to effectuate the policies of the (National Labor Relations) Act.'  Quoting Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB, 319 U.S. 533, 540, 63 S.Ct. 1214, 1218, 87 L.Ed. 1568 (1943). Even if on policy grounds, we might have let the old rule stand, we will not intrude on the administrative process so deeply that the agency is precluded from formulating or changing standards in an effort to implement its responsibilities under the Act. The basic difference between the old rule and the new is that in the latter the burden is shifted to the wrongdoer. Since the new rule creates only a rebuttable presumption in favor of the discriminatee, we reject Garrett's efforts to shift the burden on to the victim of the unfair labor practice. Accord NLRB v. Lyon and Ryan Ford, Inc., 647 F.2d 745 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 391, 70 L.Ed.2d 209 (1981); NLRB v. Trident Seafoods Corp., 642 F.2d 1148 (9th Cir. 1981). In this case, the company was free to but produced no evidence of Main's unwillingness to return to work after he was unlawfully discharged, nor did it show that he would have refused an offer of reinstatement if it had been tendered. Consequently, we will enforce the Board's order of back-pay to the date of the unfair labor practice discharge.