Opinion ID: 511694
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ability of core members to become full members

Text: 96 Perhaps most important to the majority's conclusion that there is substantial evidence of discriminatory animus is its suggestion that the union effectively prevented core members from converting to full membership status. The majority refers to testimony by three core members who sent letters to union officials in early 1983 asking to become full members, and whose requests were still pending at the time of the administrative hearing that November. See Maj. op. at 1255-1256. My colleagues conclude that it was proper for the NLRB to infer, from the Union's failure to act upon these requests for reinstatement to full membership, that the purpose of its December 1982 discriminatory action against financial core members was to punish them for crossing the picket line. Id. at 1256. Unfortunately for the majority's argument, no such inference was made by the NLRB. 97 Both the non-existent inference and the evidence of delay are fundamental elements of the majority's case. Had the Board made an inference of discriminatory treatment in reliance on evidence that the union refused to act on applications for full membership, and had the record as a whole justified the drawing of such an inference from such evidence, there would in all likelihood be sufficient basis for a finding of improper motivation. However, not only did the Board not make the inference relied on by the majority but it appears to have given no weight at all to the testimony regarding the alleged delays. Nowhere in its decision is any reference whatever made either to the evidence or the rationale upon which the majority relies. Moreover, the record contains undisputed testimony that a number of employees who crossed the picket line and chose to become financial core members did convert to full membership status after the strike, apparently without difficulty. 98 Thus the majority is simply incorrect when it suggests that the Board concluded that the union effectively prevented core members from converting to full membership status. Indeed, the only logical inference we can draw from the entire record and the Board's decision not to rely on the evidence of delay is that the Board concluded that the evidence was not sufficiently credible or probative to affect its judgment. 99 Finally, even if the majority's suggestion that core members were effectively prevented from converting to full membership status were correct, the judgment of the Board could not be affirmed on that ground. [A]n agency's order must be upheld, if at all, 'on the same basis articulated in the order by the agency itself.'  FPC v. Texaco, Inc., 417 U.S. 380, 397, 94 S.Ct. 2315, 2326, 41 L.Ed.2d 141 (1974) (quoting Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 168-69, 83 S.Ct. 239, 245-46, 9 L.Ed.2d 207 (1962)). See also Industrial Union Dept. v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U.S. 607, 631, 100 S.Ct. 2844, 2858, 65 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1980) (plurality opinion); FTC v. Sperry & Hutchinson Co., 405 U.S. 233, 249, 92 S.Ct. 898, 908, 31 L.Ed.2d 170 (1972). Indeed, the Supreme Court has long held that we must judge the propriety of such [administrative] action solely by the grounds invoked by the agency. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 322 U.S. 194, 196, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 1577, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947). Here, the Board clearly did not purport to base its judgment on the inability of core members to convert. Thus the majority affirms the judgment of the Board in reliance on an entirely new ground, one never referred to by the Board. This it may not do. 100 The majority errs egregiously when it attributes to the Board an inference the Board never made, ignores the undisputed testimony that core members were free to convert, and upholds the Board's judgment on a basis not invoked by the Board. Without this critical underpinning, there is simply no adequate basis for the majority's decision.