Opinion ID: 387055
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Access Remedies

Text: 33 The Board ordered the Employer to grant the Union access to company bulletin boards and other posting places for a two-year period, to make available to the Union a list of the names and addresses of its current employees, to give Union spokesmen reasonable access to nonwork areas during nonwork periods, to grant the Union equal time if the Employer convenes its employees for a captive audience speech on union representation, and to allow the Union to make one 30-minute preelection speech if there is a Board election involving the Union. The Employer makes two general arguments against this set of remedies. The first is that access remedies of any kind are unwarranted, because the record demonstrates that the Union successfully engaged in direct employee solicitation without interference by the Employer. This argument flies in the face of the Board's findings that the Employer had fired employees for their union activities, warned workers not to associate with union adherents, and fired one employee for chatting with members of the picket line. 34 The Employer next cites N.L.R.B. v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U.S. 105, 76 S.Ct. 679, 100 L.Ed. 975 (1956), and its progeny, 9 as authority for the proposition that the Employer's property rights preclude union access to the property unless there are no other reasonable means of reaching the employees. But none of these cases deal with the remedial powers of the Board; they only seek to determine when an employer's denial of access to his property can itself be deemed an unfair labor practice, see Decaturville Sportswear Co. v. N.L.R.B., 406 F.2d 886, 889 (6th Cir. 1969). 35 Some of these remedies are severe, but they are not new departures. See, e. g., Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers v. N.L.R.B., 547 F.2d 575 (D.C.Cir.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 966, 97 S.Ct. 2923, 53 L.Ed.2d 1062 (1977) (bulletin boards); Food Store Employees Local 347 v. N.L.R.B., 476 F.2d 546 (D.C.Cir.1973), rev'd on other grounds, 417 U.S. 1, 94 S.Ct. 2074, 40 L.Ed.2d 612 (1974) (names and addresses); Montgomery Ward & Co. v. N.L.R.B., 339 F.2d 889 (6th Cir. 1965) (right to reply to captive audience speech); N.L.R.B. v. Crown Laundry & Dry Cleaners, Inc., 437 F.2d 290 (5th Cir. 1971) (pre-election speech). 10 We cannot say that they constitute a patent attempt to achieve ends other than those which can fairly be said to effectuate the policies of the Act.