Opinion ID: 301373
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the soundness of the laidlaw doctrine

Text: 7 The Company's position places primary reliance on disputing the efficacy of the Doctrine enunciated in The Laidlaw Corp, supra, and enforced in four Circuits. 3 The Company's argument is that in overruling the Board's prior rule precisely contrary to Laidlaw, which had been expressly endorsed in this Circuit, 4 the Board has misconstrued the Act and the Supreme Court cases on which it relies. It is important, therefore, to review the caselaw Laidlaw overturned, and the caselaw and statutory provisions on which it is premised, in order to determine which assessment of its validity is correct. 8 The circumstances with which the Laidlaw Doctrine is concerned occur when the union embarks on an economic strike, 5 the employer then replaces the strikers with new employees, and the strikers subsequently seek reinstatement. The questions posed are (1) whether the replacement of strikers terminates their status as employees, and if not, (2) when must they be reinstated and (3) when, if ever, does a striker not reinstated cease to be an employee? 9 The statutes which bear most directly on those questions are two. The first, Sec. 2(3) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 152(3), provides in pertinent part: 10 The term 'employee' shall include . . . any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment. . . . 11 The second, Sec. 8(a)(1) and (3), provides in pertinent part: 12 (a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer- 13 (1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in [section 7] 14