Opinion ID: 627393
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Affirmative Remedies

Text: 8 As part of its benefits program for nurses, the Home offered tuition assistance to CNAs who desired to attend nursing school. Under the arrangement, the Home would pay approximately three-quarters of a CNA's tuition in exchange for that individual's promise to work for the Home for two years following graduation. On June 10, 1990, Home's Director of Nursing, Joyce Turpin, informed CNAs Karen Endsley and Stewart Edersheim that they had been accepted into Home's tuition assistance program. 9 In late June, three employees of the Home contacted the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to inquire about organizing a union. A meeting between Home employees and a Teamsters representative was scheduled for July 5 at a local public park. On June 25, Nursing Director Turpin told CNA Edersheim that the Home would be unable to send him and CNA Endsley to nursing school because to do so could be construed as trying to influence their votes on the union. Turpin added that previously scheduled wage increases for the two CNAs had been postponed for the same reason. This action ran counter to the Home's policy, since 1989, of granting a raise on an employee's anniversary date following a satisfactory job evaluation. 5 At the hearing before the ALJ, LPN Lisa Standefer testified that she overheard the conversation between Turpin and Edersheim, and that Turpin had said tuition assistance and wage increases would be considered a bribe. 6 10 Edersheim and Endsley were among the Home's employees who attended the July 5 union meeting, and both signed union authorization cards. On July 10, the Teamsters Union filed with the NLRB a petition for a union representation election at the Home. On July 30, CNA Endsley asked Nursing Director Turpin about her raise, which had been due the previous March, as well as about the Home's prior commitment to assist her with nursing school tuition. Turpin responded that the raise and assistance had been put on hold because of the union. Endsley started nursing school the following September, paying her own way. 7 Also in September, Edersheim spoke with Home Administrator Albert Wimer and was told that he could not receive tuition assistance because it would be viewed as an attempt to influence his vote in the union election. In October, Edersheim quit. The next month, the Home granted raises retroactive to each employee's starting date, although some employees, including Edersheim and LPN Feldpouch, never received one. 11 On the basis of these facts, the Board found that the Home violated Sec. 158(a)(1) by informing CNAs Edersheim and Endsley that their annual raises were being withheld, and the offers of tuition assistance rescinded, because of their union activities. The Board noted that it has found a violation of the NLRA where an employer refuses to follow an established practice of assisting employees in attending seminars or receiving job training because of the employees' union activities, citing St. Francis Hospital, 1982 WL 24751 (1982), enforced, 729 F.2d 844 (D.C.Cir.1984), and The Norwalk Hospital, 1979 WL 9968 (1979). The order adopted by the Board requires the Home to reimburse Endsley for the cost (including interest) of attending nursing school to the extent other employees were reimbursed under the tuition assistance program. In addition, the Home must pay Edersheim the annual raise he did not receive (also including interest). The Home argues that these affirmative remedies are inappropriate. 12 Congress has charged the Board with the task of devising remedies to effectuate the policies of the Act. NLRB v. Seven-Up Bottling Company, 344 U.S. 344, 346, 73 S.Ct. 287, 289, 97 L.Ed. 377 (1953). Accordingly, [i]t is for the Board not the courts to determine how the effect of prior unfair labor practices may be expunged. International Association of Machinists v. NLRB, 311 U.S. 72, 82, 61 S.Ct. 83, 89, 85 L.Ed. 50 (1940). See also NLRB v. Gissel Packing Company, 395 U.S. 575, 612 n. 32, 89 S.Ct. 1918, 1939 n. 32, 23 L.Ed.2d 547 (1969). The Board's authority to fashion remedies is a broad discretionary one, subject to limited judicial review; we only consider whether the remedial order attempts to effectuate the policies of the NLRA. Fibreboard Paper Products Corporation, 379 U.S. at 216, 85 S.Ct. at 406. See also United States Marine Corporation, 944 F.2d at 1314. 13 With respect to the remedy awarded to Endsley, the Home does not contest the Board's finding that the rescission of the offer of tuition assistance violated the NLRA, accordingly that finding is entitled to summary affirmance. United States Marine Corporation, 944 F.2d at 1314-15. See also NLRB v. Jakel Motors, Inc., 875 F.2d 644, 645 (7th Cir.1989). The Home argues only that the remedy is inappropriate because Endsley's voluntary departure in November 1990 made it impossible, under the terms of the tuition assistance policy, for her to honor her two-year commitment to work for the Home. According to the Home, it would have been impossible for Endsley to satisfy this requirement because she quit working and was later rehired. 14 This argument is without merit. The Board noted that a student's two-year obligation to the Home begins after completion of his or her nursing studies. A copy of the written tuition agreement used by the Home, entered in the record as Joint Exhibit 1, supports this view. The agreement states that the two-year commitment applies to full-time employment at the Home immediately following completion of nursing school (emphasis added). Under the terms of the agreement, the Home will make payments to [the] student each quarter or semester as appropriate; in return, the student, for his or her part, must sign and deliver a promissory note to the hospital. If the student successfully completes nursing school and works for the Home for two years, then the entire scholarship loan and interest shall be forgiven. 15 The Board's order requires the Home to provide Endsley with tuition assistance to the extent [the Home] reimbursed other employees for their nursing school costs before the involved union organizing drive, including interest. Before Endsley left the Home's employ in late November 1990 she had started nursing school, paying her own way because the Home would not honor its previous commitment to her. 16 We conclude that the Board's remedy properly attempts to restore Endsley to the position she would have occupied had the Home not unlawfully withheld promised benefits. At the time oral argument was heard in these cases, Endsley was still employed by the Home. Presumably she finished (or will finish) her studies during the course of her employment. Accordingly, the Home must provide Endsley with the tuition payments it should have made when she began nursing school in September 1990, though it can require her to sign a promissory note in order to protect its investment and to encourage her post-graduate employment at the Home. Adding interest to the amount Endsley is due merely accounts for the time value of money and insures that she is fully reimbursed for the costs she incurred. 17 The Home objects that, because the Board did not direct it to reimburse Edersheim, whose offer of tuition assistance was also rescinded because of his union activities, reimbursement to Endsley is inappropriate. This argument makes little sense. Endsley remains employed by the Home, Edersheim does not. Moreover, there is no evidence in the record that Edersheim, while still in the Home's employ, began nursing school paying his own way. Contrary to the Home's argument, there is nothing inconsistent in requiring that a particular remedy be awarded to a current employee, but not to a former one. Inasmuch as it seeks to return Endsley to the status quo, the Board's order of retroactive tuition assistance passes this test. See Gissel Packing Company, 395 U.S. at 612, 89 S.Ct. at 1939. 18 The Home argues next that it should not be required to give CNA Edersheim, who worked at the Home from April 1988 until his voluntary departure in October 1990, a retroactive pay raise as required by the Board. The Board's order states that the Home must 19 [m]ake whole Stewart A. Edersheim, and any other employee denied a timely raise, for the retaliatory denial of wage increases by making payments of a sum of money equal to that which they would have earned had [the Home] not engaged in ... unlawful action[,] with backpay and interest thereon.... 20 The Home asserts that it awarded wage increases effective September 1, 1990, retroactive to the individual employee's anniversary date, and that [s]ince Endersheim [sic] left in October it seems most difficult to conclude that he should receive a pay increase not effective until after he left. Whether or not the wage increase became effective after Edersheim left the Home's employ, the evidence is undisputed that he never received the wage increase that was withheld because of his union activities. 21 Before reaching the issue of the propriety of the Board's remedy as to Edersheim, however, we must first address the Home's argument that it did not violate the NLRA by withholding wage increases during the summer of 1990 because it was concerned that such conduct would be perceived as an improper attempt to influence the union representation vote held on October 3 of that year. Withholding regularly scheduled benefits during a union campaign can violate Sec. 158(a)(1) and (3) of the Act. NLRB v. Don's Olney Foods, 870 F.2d 1279, 1285 (7th Cir.1989). See also NLRB v. Industrial Erectors, Inc., 712 F.2d 1131, 1135 (7th Cir.1983); NLRB v. Lucy Ellen Candy Division of F & F Laboratories, Inc., 517 F.2d 551, 554 (7th Cir.1975). In Don's Olney Foods, we stated that 22 [i]n order not to unfairly influence a union election, the employer must maintain the pre-union status quo respecting employee benefits, viewed dynamically; that is, expectations of upcoming benefits created by the employer either by promises or through a regular pattern of granting benefits cannot be disappointed without proof of a union-neutral justification. 23 870 F.2d at 1285. 24 The Home maintains that the Board's holding in Retlaw Broadcasting, 1991 WL 69703 (1991), provides such a justification. In that case, employees were told that suspension of their annual evaluations and corresponding wage increases was based on the advice of the employer's attorney that to continue the evaluations could be considered unlawful interference in a union representation election, and that the employer would reinstate the program as soon as it was advised it was legal to do so. The Board ruled that an employer could suspend employee evaluations and raises on the advice of its attorney during a union organizing campaign, and even during the employer's appeal of the results of the subsequent election. In fashioning this rule, the Board relied on Atlantic Forest Products, 1987 WL 90186 (1987), which holds that an employer can postpone a wage adjustment so long as it makes clear to employees that the adjustment would be awarded whether or not they select a union, and that the sole reason for the postponement is to avoid the appearance of influencing the outcome of the representation election. 25 It is clear that neither Retlaw nor Atlantic Forest helps the Home in this case. The Home concedes that it told employees that wage increases were being withheld because of union activity but never informed them that the raises would be reinstated regardless of the outcome of the union election. Indeed, the Home breathed nary a word that the raises, even for those employees whose anniversary dates preceded the union campaign, 8 would ever be awarded. Thus, we conclude that the Board's finding that the Home unlawfully postponed wage increases is supported by substantial evidence. Moreover, we conclude that the Home's decision to award raises retroactively does not cure the violation with respect to Edersheim because he never received one. The violation of the Act occurred while Edersheim was an employee of the Home. The Board's order that he is entitled to the wage increase he would have received had it not been unlawfully withheld, with interest on that amount, is appropriate.