Opinion ID: 405345
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Separate Proceeding

Text: 12 The Separate Proceeding arises largely out of actions taken by Local 455 after our 1978 decision. In an effort to meet our holding in Independent Association that the 1976 offers to return to work were not unconditional, Local 455, on August 9, 1978, sent each of the employers a letter on behalf of the company's striking employees containing an offer to return to work. The complaint in the Separate Proceeding, in which Local 455 appeared as the charging party, alleged that the employers failed to comply with the offer and that even those striking employees who had been given positions had not received rates of pay and other employment benefits equal to those they had received prior to the commencement of Local 455's strike. 13 Earlier, on July 13, 1978, in another effort to meet our holding in Independent Association, Local 455 made written requests for separate bargaining to four Class III employers-Zaffino, Achilles, Kuno and Peelle. Local 455's complaint in the Separate Proceeding set forth these requests and alleged that the employers had unlawfully refused to bargain. 14 The ALJ recommended that the complaint against Kuno should be dismissed. He found that when Local 455 made its request for bargaining on July 13, 1978, Kuno had only one employee-Ogey Eretzian-and that Kuno had reasonable grounds to believe that he did not wish Local 455 to represent him. He found also that Eretzian and the only other employee at the time of the commencement of the strike, Vogt, had received, since their return to work, the same or greater pay than that they had been receiving under Kuno's 1975 contract with Local 455. 15 With respect to the three other Class III employers named in the complaint, the ALJ found that in July 1978, Achilles and Peelle entertained rational, good faith doubts concerning Local 455's majority status; he found otherwise with respect to Zaffino and recommended that a bargaining order be entered against it. 16 The ALJ also concluded that Zaffino and two Class I employers named in the complaint, Mohawk and Roman, had violated §§ 8(a)(1) and (3) in refusing to reinstate employees who had made an unconditional offer to return to work on August 9, 1978, and directed their reinstatement to their former or equivalent positions and backpay to compensate them for any losses. 5 He also held the three employers liable for backpay to strikers returning before August 9, 1978; he left to the compliance phases of these proceedings determination of the amount of backpay, which is to be calculated based upon the difference, if any, between compensation that strikers received upon their return to work and that which they received prior to Local 455's strike. 17 Exceptions having been filed by respondents, the General Counsel and the charging party, the Board modified the ALJ's decision in a number of respects, see also note 5, supra. It rejected his conclusion that Achilles had not unlawfully refused to bargain in July, 1978. Accordingly, it subjected Achilles to a bargaining order, as well as to one for the reinstatement of strikers and payment of backpay for the period after Local 455's August 9, 1978, offers for strikers to return to work. 6 The Board also reversed the ALJ's conclusion that in July, 1978, Peelle had a good faith doubt as to Local 455's continued majority status and subjected it to a bargaining order. However, it held that Peelle had not violated §§ 8(a)(1) and (3) by refusing to reinstate employees in August, 1978, since, subsequent to the commencement of the strike, Peelle transferred its fabricating operations to Toronto, Canada, reinstated striking employees who offered to return, and hired permanent replacements for the remaining positions available in the warehousing and distribution work left in New York. As to economic strikers who had returned prior to Local 455's August 9, 1978, offer, the Board found Peelle liable for backpay for any differences in compensation between the employees' new jobs and those they held at the commencement of Local 455's strike. The Board reached similar conclusions as to employees who returned to work at Achilles, Master, Roman, Zaffino and Mohawk prior to August 9, 1978. The calculation of the exact amount of the employers' liability was left to the compliance phases of these proceedings. 252 N.L.R.B. at 906 n.5. 7 The Board adopted the ALJ's recommendations regarding the reinstatement of the unfair labor practice striker employees of Mohawk and Roman and issued a similar order against Master. 18 The Board sustained the ALJ's recommendation that the complaint against Kuno be dismissed but upon a different ground. This was that (t)he Board had long held that it will not certify a union as representative for a one-person unit, and will not find that an employer unlawfully refused to bargain in such a unit.