Opinion ID: 3175254
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: deference due to the board’s findings

Text: It is well established that this court “accords a very high degree of deference to administrative adjudications by the NLRB.” Bally’s Park Place, Inc. v. NLRB, 646 F.3d 929, 935 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). We review the Board’s findings of fact for substantial evidence, which “gives the agency the benefit of the doubt, since it requires not the degree of evidence which satisfies the court that the requisite fact exists, but merely the degree which could satisfy a reasonable factfinder.” Allentown Mack Sales & Serv., Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U.S. 359, 377 (1998). Credibility determinations made by the ALJ, as adopted by the Board, are accepted unless they are patently insupportable. NLRB v. Creative Food Design Ltd., 852 F.2d 1295, 1297 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Furthermore, “[w]hen the Board concludes that a violation of the NLRA has occurred, we must uphold that finding unless it has no rational basis or is unsupported by substantial evidence.” Bally’s, 646 F.3d at 935 (citation omitted). “Indeed, the Board is to be reversed only when the record is so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find to the contrary.” Id. (citation omitted). Section 8(a)(3) of the NLRA makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.” 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). Such conduct also violates Section 8(a)(1) of the Act, id. § 158(a)(1), which makes it an unfair labor practice “to interfere with, restrain, or 11 coerce employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed” in the Act. Laro Maint. Corp. v. NLRB, 56 F.3d 224, 227 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1995). An employer may, however, lawfully lock out its employees for “the sole purpose of bringing economic pressure to bear in support of [its] legitimate bargaining position.” Am. Ship Bldg. Co. v. NLRB, 380 U.S. 300, 318 (1965). In order for such a lockout to be lawful, the employer must inform the union in a clear and timely manner of its demands so that the union has a fair opportunity to evaluate whether to accept the employer’s proposal and avoid a lockout. Dayton Newspapers, Inc., 339 N.L.R.B. 650, 656 (2003), enforced in relevant part 402 F.3d 651 (6th Cir. 2005); see also Dietrich Indus., Inc., 353 N.L.R.B. 57, 60 (2008). Alden Leeds argues that its October 30, 2009, email was clear, and that the record is replete with evidence that the Company’s negotiating position remained unchanged throughout the entire period leading up to, and including, the lockout. According to Alden Leeds, the record demonstrates that the Union knew and understood that the Company was offering a one-year freeze on all terms of the existing agreement, including the cost of employee health care. On this view of the record, the Company argues that the Board had no grounds to support its determination that Alden Leeds violated the Act. We disagree. Reviewing the record as a whole, it is clear that the Board’s judgment in this case is supported by substantial evidence. In considering the Company’s October 30, 2009, email to the Union – the last communication sent from the Company to the Union before the lockout – a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the Company’s proposal to the Union regarding health care was unclear. See Allentown Mack Sales, 522 U.S. at 377. The email fails to illuminate whether 12 the Company was proposing any or all of its various alternative health care plans, which differed from the existing health care plan under the 2005 collective bargaining agreement. Furthermore, the ALJ credited the testimony of both Cunningham and Troccoli that the Union was confused about which health care plan, if any, the Company was proposing in its October 30 email. We must accept these credibility determinations, as nothing in the record suggests that they are “patently insupportable.” See Creative Food Design, 852 F.2d at 1297. Although Alden Leeds argues that the record contains evidence that is contrary to the Board’s findings and supports its position, “[t]he question before us is not whether substantial evidence supports the [Company’s] view, but whether it supports the Board’s.” Wayneview Care Ctr. v. NLRB, 664 F.3d 341, 352 (D.C. Cir. 2011). The Board’s judgment in this case easily commands the deference of this court under the controlling standards of review.