Court Opinion

ID: 9439319
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:31:13.384389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:18.640380
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
While I join in the careful and thorough opinion of the court, I write separately to emphasize certain details in the strange history of this case, and to offer a suggestion to the litigants herein. Lest it remain buried in the details, it is the National *220Labor Relations Board and not Lee Lumber that has for twelve years deprived the employees of their right to choose their own bargaining representative or to choose none at all. Because Lee Lumber twelve years ago allowed some employees to take a petition for decertification for filing on company time, and because Lee Lumber paid a few dollars of parking for those employees, the National Labor Relations Board has resorted to foot dragging, suspicious remands, and even the entry of an unlawful bargaining order to prevent the employees of Lee Lumber from exercising their rights of labor democracy under 29 U.S.C. § 157 (2000). See generally Lee Lumber and Building Material Corp. v. NLRB, 117 F.3d 1454 (D.C.Cir.1997). Because the Board’s order requires Lee Lumber to make a posting admitting its own violations, while we have no authority to order it, I would suggest to the parties that in fairness, Lee Lumber Company should also post the opinions of this court so that the employees might know that it was the unlawful acts of the Board and not those of Lee Lumber that have deprived them of free choice for these many years.