Opinion ID: 287676
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: hurricane bonuses

Text: 20 In the first three weeks of the strike, the Company secured replacements for virtually all of its employees. Four of the replacements, Fred and Roger Frost, Robert Lannum and Donald Willett, who had previously worked for the Company as crewmen, were hired at their old wage rates of $1.50 an hour and were among the lowest paid of the replacements. The other replacements were new at the job, many of them being untrained migrant workers. On October 4, the Company's billboards were threatened by a hurricane. The Frosts, Lannum and Willett took the novice employees out to secure the billboards, directed their work and successfully prepared the billboards to withstand the storm. In appreciation, the Company gave each of the four a twenty-five dollar bonus. The Union's argument that this was a unilateral change constituting an unfair labor practice was accepted by the trial examiner but was rejected by the Board. 21 Although it is true that hurricane alerts are not uncommon in Miami and the Company had never before granted a hurricance bonus, the Board found it significant that the Company had not previously been confronted with a shortage of trained employees under such emergency conditions. It thus not unreasonably concluded that the unilateral granting of a bonus to a few employees under such unusual conditions did not violate Section 8(a) (1) or (5). A struck employer clearly has the right to keep his business operating, Hawaii Meat Co. v. N.L.R.B., 321 F.2d 397, 400 (C.A. 9, 1963), and often emergency situations justify emergency responses, particularly in the midst of a strike. Cf. N.L.R.B. v. Abbott Publishing Co., 331 F.2d 209, 213 (C.A. 7, 1964). The payment of a twenty-five dollar bonus to the Frosts, Lannum and Willett for their outstanding action in the wake of an emergency threatening the Company's business was a small matter resulting from `circumstances which the Board could or should accept as justifying or excusing unilateral action.' United Steelworkers, etc., Local 5571 v. N.L.R.B., 130 U.S.App.D.C. 369, 373, 401 F.2d 434, 438 (1968), quoting from N.L. R.B. v. Katz, 369 U.S. 736, 748, 82 S. Ct. 1107, 8 L.Ed.2d 230 (1962). It was prompted by a desire to meet a temporary emergency need rather than by an effort permanently to alter the relationship between the Company and the Union. Cf. Puerto Rico Telephone Co. v. N.L.R.B., 359 F.2d 983, 987 (C.A. 1, 1967).