Opinion ID: 353218
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The 8(a)(5) Violation.

Text: 20 We find that the Board erred in concluding that the Company violated section 8(a)(5) by refusing to recognize and bargain with the Union on or after May 10, 1974. This conclusion rests on two grounds. 21 First, the 8(a)(5) charge was not fully and fairly litigated. Although the Union's charge against the Company, filed in May of 1974, alleged an 8(a)(5) violation, the Board's regional director dismissed that charge and the Board's general counsel upheld the dismissal. Neither the complaint filed by the regional director on October 16, 1974, nor the amendments filed on November 12, 1974, contains an allegation of a section 8(a)(5) violation. The administrative law judge made no finding of a section 8(a)(5) violation and the exceptions to the administrative law judge's decision filed by the Union as the charging party did not press a claim for an 8(a)(5) violation. 22 Nevertheless, the Board concluded that the Union had been the exclusive representative of the employees in the bargaining unit since May 10, 1974, and that the employer had violated section 8(a)(5) of the Act by refusing to bargain with the Union on and after May 10, 1974. Although the Board recognized that the complaint did not allege the refusal to bargain as an independent violation of the Act, it concluded that the facts necessary to find a section 8(a)(5) violation had in fact been litigated in the context of the 8(a)(1) charge. Therefore, the Board deemed it appropriate that it find the Company in violation of section 8(a)(5). 228 NLRB at ---, 94 LRRM at 1576 n. 21. 23 We have recognized the Board's power to decide an issue that has been fairly and fully tried by the parties, despite the fact that the issue was not specifically pleaded. See American Boiler Manufacturers Association v. NLRB, 366 F.2d 815, 821 (8th Cir. 1966). However, under the facts in this case we do not believe that the 8(a)(5) issue was fairly litigated. The most serious remedies imposed in this matter the retroactive bargaining order, the reinstatement of the strikers, and the backpay liability rest upon the Board's finding of an 8(a)(5) violation. Although the underlying facts were litigated, the Company, at the time of the hearing, was aware only of the possibility that the Board would find an 8(a)(1) violation and order a prospective bargaining order as relief. 3 Had the Company been given notice of the possibility of an 8(a)(5) violation and the resulting additional penalties, it might have litigated the matter differently. 24 Second, the Board's finding of an 8(a)(5) violation rested on the assumption that an obligation to bargain existed on May 10, 1974. 4 That  bargaining obligation, however, is merely a legal fiction enabling the Board, through hindsight, to create what it considers to be a full and complete remedy in the form of a retroactive bargaining order. An employer, in fact, is not under an obligation to recognize a union merely on the showing of majority support, for the employer has the right to insist on an election. NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., Inc., supra, 395 U.S. at 600, 89 S.Ct. at 1933. The refusal to bargain becomes unlawful only when the employer engages in contemporaneous unfair labor practices likely to destroy the union's majority and seriously impede the election. Id. In the present case, the Company was under no legally-established obligation to bargain on May 10, 1974, when, in the Board's words from a prior case, there was no way for anyone, including the Employer, the Union, or the employees, to have known that a bargaining obligation existed. Steel-Fab, Inc., supra, 212 NLRB at 363, 86 LRRM at 1476. The Company had no way of knowing that it had an obligation to bargain until the administrative litigation had been completed. Because no legally-established obligation to bargain existed on May 10, 1974, the Company did not commit an 8(a)(5) violation by refusing to bargain on that date. 25