Opinion ID: 527007
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mandatory Subjects of Bargaining.

Text: 12 First, GM contends that future employment eligibility is a mandatory subject of bargaining under 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(d); hence, plaintiffs' claims about GM's representations necessarily implicate GM's good faith in bargaining, or in failing to bargain, 3 over the future-employment issue. GM also asserts that its conduct was arguably prohibited or protected by the NLRA because section 8(a)(5) requires employers to bargain with union representatives before modifying policies that affect mandatory subjects of bargaining. See Armour & Co., 280 NLRB 824, 826 (1986). 4 13 The district court assumed arguendo that the VTEP was a mandatory subject of bargaining, such that GM had a duty to bargain with union representatives over the VTEP. 5 But the court concluded that the issue of future eligibility for rehire was not, in itself, a mandatory subject of bargaining so as to require GM to engage in bargaining over that issue as well: The fact that the matter at issue here, eligibility for future employment, in retrospect could have been and perhaps should have been included within [the VTEP] does not render that topic a fortiori a mandatory subject of bargaining. 14 We agree. As plaintiffs observe, the company's evaluation and consideration of individual applicants for employment lies at the very core of entrepreneurial control. The Supreme Court has held that these types of managerial decisions are not mandatory subjects of bargaining. See Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U.S. 488, 498, 99 S.Ct. 1842, 1849, 60 L.Ed.2d 420 (1979) (quoting Fibreboard Paper Prods. Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U.S. 203, 222, 85 S.Ct. 398, 409, 13 L.Ed.2d 233 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring)). An employer's failure or refusal to bargain over a non-mandatory subject does not violate section 8(a)(5). 6 See NLRB v. Wooster Div. of Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U.S. 342, 349, 78 S.Ct. 718, 722, 2 L.Ed.2d 823 (1958). 15 Thus, the fact that future eligibility for rehire might, in the context of the VTEP, have an economic value for those workers who accepted the plan, or that GM raised the issue during collective bargaining (a claim which plaintiffs contest), does not transmogrify a management prerogative into a mandatory subject of bargaining. The status of the issue of future eligibility does not change by virtue of its relation to, or even its purported inclusion in, a union-management agreement concerning other mandatory subjects of bargaining. See Wooster, id. As plaintiffs note, to hold otherwise would provide both management and labor with a bootstrap with which to make any bargaining subject a mandatory one. 16