Opinion ID: 269384
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Releasees

Text: 6 The releasees hare involved are 82 of the 133 strikers who secured formal releases from employment with Kohler prior to the strike's end. These releases were evidence by printed cards, prominently headed 'Release from Employment,' and signed by the employee as well as Kohler's representatives. Kohler did not request any employee to sign a release, even if he took interim employment. It listed all strikers as employees unless and until they applied for release. Thus, Kohler argues, an employee's acceptance of a release was an unequivocal act of resignation, and reinstatement need not have been offered. The Board contends that the 82 strikers it has identified executed the releases under economic compulsion, since they needed work during the strike and prospective employers required releases. It offered to show that the named workers had not intended to give up employment at Kohler and, in at least some cases, had notified Kohler of that fact, either at the time of seeking release or by personally seeking reinstatement when the strike ended. 7 The Master exonerated Kohler in regard to the releases. He found that the releasees were 'estopped from asserting that they did not, on obtaining the release, intend to permanently abandon their employment with the Company.' He grounded this conclusion in broad equitable principles. He said it was plain that 'the individuals who procured a release    knew what they were doing.' Even though other employers required the releases, he thought there was an 'element of deception' involved in the workers' professed intent to remain 'kohler strikers,' entitled to reinstatement. Such deception, he said, is 'abhorrent to American principles of justice,' and should not be condoned by a reinstatement order. An added consideration, he stated, was that proof of worker intent, if accepted as a standard for deciding the reinstatement issue, was too uncertain at this late date, and would put the Company to an unfair disadvantage. 8 We think the releases did not operate as an estoppel to reinstatement. The Master recognized that 'the fashioning of orders to effectuate the policies of the act is primarily the function of the Board.' However, he gave no credence to Board cases holding that employees who had signed releases were not thereby conclusively deprived of any reinstatement right, but that intent to resign was in every case a question of fact. 7 Supreme Court authority confirms the Board's central role in the definition of 'employee,' N.L.R.B. v. Hearst Publications, 322 U.S. 111, 64 S.Ct. 851, 88 L.Ed. 1170 (1944), and the Board's power to order reinstatement of employees who had found other employment, if to do so would effectuate the remedial policies of the Act, Phelps Dodge Corp. v N.L.R.B., 313 U.S. 177, 61 S.Ct. 845, 85 L.Ed. 1271 (1941). No one doubts that the Board meant to include releasees as 'striking employees' under the reinstatement order unless they had in fact abandoned the strike. To give the releases conclusive weight is to adopt a view of the Act which is inappropriate to both the Act's remedial aims and the Board's prior definition 8 of the measures necessary to the effectuation of those aims. 9 9 Contrary to the Master's view, the Board's case for contempt does not depend entirely on the strikers' possibly faulty memories of an intent to remain Kohler employees. If it did, treating the releases as conclusive evidence of intent might not have been erroneous. But the Board offered to show that the releases were signed under economic compulsion. It also sought to prove acts contemporaneous with release of the union's application for reinstatement from which intent might be inferred. This proffer, which the Master refused, apparently did not consist solely of striker testimony about intent. While, for example, a releasee's acts at the end of the strike might be less convincing than notice given Kohler when the release was signed, each matter is probative of intent. The proffer should have been received. 10 Nor are we concerned that recognizing the possibility of a right to reinstatement might, as the Master feared, '(shift) to the Company the burden of determining, at its peril, whether the (release forms) should be relied upon.' This kind of burden is borne whenever the Board requires affirmative action. Here, the Company was required to determine which release forms did and which did not reflect employee intent to resign. Its determinations would have been entitled to great weight in measuring compliance. But none were made. 11 We conclude that upon the present record, at least, Kohler cannot be found free of contempt in its treatment of the releasees. The Master must ascertain, as a question of fact in each case, whether a releasee intended by signing the release to resign. Questions of credibility and demeanor, which necessariiy include consideration of the effects of the passage of time, are, of course, for the Master.