Opinion ID: 800229
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Navarro’s Termination

Text: On May 15, 2006, EPE terminated meter reader Mario Navarro after Navarro skipped his breaks and lunch, finished his work early, and left his work area in order to reconnect the power to his new home. Gonzales cited Navarro’s leaving his meter-reader route early without authorization and reconnecting service without authorization as the reasons for his termination. The Board determined that EPE improperly terminated Navarro because his termination was based in part on the improperly changed break policy. EPE responds that Navarro’s termination was not based on a violation of the break policy but 9 Case: 10-60771 Document: 00511860901 Page: 10 Date Filed: 05/18/2012 No. 10-60771 instead was based on Navarro leaving his work area in a company vehicle for personal reasons without authorization and for reconnecting service without authorization. EPE additionally argues, citing Boland Marine & Mfg. Co., Inc., 225 N.L.R.B. 824 (1976), and Essex Valley Visiting Nurses Assoc., 343 N.L.R.B. 817 (2004), that the discharge is lawful because it was not solely the result of a unilateral policy change. First, substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination that Navarro was fired in part based on the unlawfully changed break policy. In reaching its decision, the Board relied on EPE’s own admission that, “it terminated Navarro in part because he violated the work rules concerning lunch and break periods by leaving work early.” Supervisor Gonzales stated that the problem was that Navarro did not reconnect his service during his lunch hour but, instead, at the end of the work day. Though Gonzales testified that Navarro improperly took a company truck outside Navarro’s assigned work area, he also testified that other meter readers had taken their trucks outside their assigned work areas and no one had been terminated for these actions. He admitted that he did not keep track of employees’ locations during their work day; he just wanted to be sure that employees completed their work. Second, as a matter of law, an employee’s termination need not be solely based on an improperly changed policy in order for the termination to violate the NLRA. Management violates § 8(a)(5) when it discharges an employee in whole or part based on the employee’s violation of an unlawful unilateral policy change. The Board held in Great Western Produce, Inc., 299 N.L.R.B. 1004, 1005 (1990), overruled on other grounds by Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 351 NLRB 644 (2007)), that, “[i]f the Respondent’s unlawfully imposed rules or policies were a factor in the discipline or discharge, then the discipline or discharge violates Section 8(a)(5).” The Board reasoned that: 10 Case: 10-60771 Document: 00511860901 Page: 11 Date Filed: 05/18/2012 No. 10-60771 An employer that refuses to bargain by unilaterally changing its employees’ terms and conditions of employment damages the union’s status as bargaining representative of the unit employees. That status is further damaged with each application of the unlawfully changed term or condition of employment. No otherwise valid reason asserted to justify discharging the employee can repair the damage suffered by the bargaining representative as a result of the application of the changed term or condition. Id.; see also Moore-Duncan ex rel. NLRB v. Aldworth Co., Inc., 125 F. Supp. 2d 268, 289 ( D.N.J. 2000). The Board reaffirmed its ruling recently in San Miguel Hosp. Corp., explaining that, “if [management’s] unlawfully imposed rules or policies were a factor in the discipline or discharge, then the discipline or discharge violates Section 8(a)(5).” 355 N.L.R.B. No. 43, at  (2010) (quoting Great Western Produce, 299 N.L.R.B. at 1005). It, therefore, is not the case that the employee must be terminated solely because he or she violated an unlawful unilateral policy change for the discharge also to be unlawful.5 Boland and Essex Valley Visiting Nurses do not undermine this authority. In Boland, the Board ordered that the company “make whole those employees who are either discharged, suspended, or otherwise denied work opportunities solely as a result of the unilateral promulgation of [the unlawfully changed] rules.” 225 N.L.R.B. at 825. This case did not address whether the unlawful reason must be the sole reason for discipline because the employees at issue 5 EPE’s reliance on Anheuser Busch, Inc., 342 N.L.R.B. 560 (2004), remanded by 414 F.3d 36 (D.C. Cir. 2005), decision supplemented by 351 N.L.R.B. 644 (2007), is misplaced. Anheuser Busch concerned employee discipline for misconduct that was uncovered in an unlawful way. Id. at 561. Anheuser Busch installed surveillance cameras in their facility without bargaining with the union. Id. at 560. Later, employees were disciplined for violating unaltered and pre-existing plant rules unrelated to the cameras; the cameras merely uncovered the misconduct. Id. at 561. The Board held that there was “an insufficient nexus . . . between [Anheuser Busch’s] unlawful installation and use of the cameras and the employees’ misconduct to warrant a make-whole remedy.” Id. The Board also explicitly distinguished cases like Anheuser Busch where the unilateral change “did not concern any rule that the employees were disciplined for violating” from instances, like the present case, where the change “was to the very policy under which the employees were discharged.” Id. 11 Case: 10-60771 Document: 00511860901 Page: 12 Date Filed: 05/18/2012 No. 10-60771 were solely disciplined for violating the unilaterally changed rules. Id. at 824. It merely addressed what relief should be given to employees who are fired as a result of an unfair labor practice in violation of the NLRA. Id. at 824–25 (determining that the relief should be broadened to include full restoration of the pre-disciplinary status of employees disciplined for violating or failing to comply with “the unilaterally promulgated safety and employee conduct rules”). In Essex Valley Visiting Nurses, the Board determined that, “a discharge resulting directly from that unilateral change may also violate Section 8(a)(5).” 343 N.L.R.B. at 819. The Board rejected the Union’s claims, finding that the nurses were not fired, even in part, because of the unilateral change (the transfers of employees); they were fired for failing to cooperate and perform adequately once in their new positions. Id. In a footnote, the Board explained in dicta that Boland’s assertion that discipline only violates the NLRA if it is solely due to the unlawful policy change conflicts with the language of Great Western. Id. at 819 n.9. The Board believed that Boland’s interpretation of the law should be adopted rather than controlling precedent holding the opposite but did not develop the issue because it still would have concluded that the discharges were lawful under Great Western’s analysis because “they were caused solely by the inability of the nurses to perform.” Id.6 6 Notably, the dissent in Essex Valley Visiting Nurses was careful to disagree even with the footnote dicta and accurately cited three cases that explain that an unlawful change need only be one factor supporting the discipline: Flambeau Airmold Corp., 334 N.L.R.B. 165, 167 (2001) (applying Great Western Produce to hold that the new work requirement was a factor in the employee’s discharge and, thus, the discharge violated § 8(a)(5)); Consec Security, 328 N.L.R.B. 1201, 1202 (1999) (determining that the firing was most significantly based on the unlawful change in policy and thus violated the NLRA); and Great Western Produce, Inc., 299 N.L.R.B. 1004. Essex Valley Visiting Nurses, 343 N.L.R.B. at 824–25 (Member Walsh, dissenting). As the dissent explained, “Great Western requires that the unilateral action be a factor in—not the direct cause—of the discharge, and the word ‘may’ nowhere appears in the Great Western test; if the unilateral action is a factor in the discharge, the discharge violates Section 8(a)(5).” Id. This, again, has been the Board’s announced legal position applied recently in San Miguel. 355 N.L.R.B. No. 43, at . 12 Case: 10-60771 Document: 00511860901 Page: 13 Date Filed: 05/18/2012 No. 10-60771 Thus, because Navarro was terminated in part for violating an unlawfully changed policy, we affirm the Board’s determination that Navarro was improperly terminated.