Court Opinion

ID: 9652704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:30:36.673365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:53.632859
License: Public Domain

JONES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
The decree which the majority directs be entered conditions enforcement of the Labor Board’s order upon a redetermination by the petitioners’ employees of their majority choice of a bargaining representative. Upon evidence, which the majority of this court deem sufficient and in which I concur, the Board found the petitioners guilty of unfair labor practices. This conclusive finding and the fact that at the time of the unlawful practices there was a duly designated bargaining representative for the unit deny justification for the condition now imposed. Any defections in employee support of the already designated bargaining agent were the result of the petitioners’ illegal conduct. In such circumstances, our direction that the bargaining agent’s majority representation be reconfirmed as a condition precedent to enforcement of the Board’s appropriate order may readily serve to thwart consequential and effective administration of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S. C.A. § 151 et seq., -which the law commits to the responsibility of the Labor Board. National Labor Relations Board v. Bradford Dyeing Association, 310 U.S. 318, 342, 60 S.Ct. 918, 84 L.Ed. 1226. Consequently, I am constrained to dissent to the extent of the inclusion of the condition in this court’s decree of enforcement.
On January 19, 1938, the Textile Workers Organizing Committee, an affiliate of the C. I. O., (later known as Textile Workers Union of America, C. I. O.) was designated as the bargaining representative for the production employees in the petitioners’ plant at Philadelphia. The designation, which was immediately certified to the petitioners and to the union, was determined by the secret ballot of the petitioners’ employees at an election duly held under the auspices of the Mayor’s Labor Board of the City of Philadelphia pursuant to a written agreement between the petitioners and the union entered into on January 17, 1938. The petitioners expressly agreed to be bound by the result of the election and they further agreed that, if the union should receive a majority of the votes cast for bargaining representatives, they would negotiate with the union “with respect to any differences that may arise between the production employees and the management”. To this day, no one has ever assailed either that election as not being truly indicative of the majority’s untrammelled will or the designation of the bargaining representative as a result thereof.
In the year following the election, numerous conferences were held between the petitioners and representatives of the union but to no avail so far as collective bargaining was concerned. For this condition the Board found the employers responsible and the finding is supported by the evidence. The fact is that, upon two occasions, the petitioners promulgated orders, respecting a wage cut in one instance and weekly hours of work in the other, with*493out even notifying the bargaining representative in advance of their intended action, notwithstanding both matters were proper subjects for collective bargaining.'
Following the latter occurrence, the union filed formal charges with the Labor Relations Board alleging that the petitioners had been guilty of unfair labor practices in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Thereon, the ■ Board on February 28, 1939, issued its complaint directed to the petitioners. The answer of the petitioners denied the charges and alleged that the union no longer represented a majority of the petitionters’ employees. The amenability of the petitioners to the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, and hence, fine jurisdiction of the Labor Board, is conceded. A hearing was duly held and an intermediate report of the trial examiner was thereafter filed. The petitioners (respondents below) offered no' evidence to support their allegation that the union no longer represented a majority of their employees. As pointed out by the Board, “the only evidence in the record indicates that the Union’s majority status continued to the date of the complaint herein and, except for the effect of the respondents’ unfair labor practices, thereafter”. From this finding, the Board justifiably concluded “that on January 19, 1938, and at all times thereafter, the union was and that it is the duly designated representative of the majority of the employees of the appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bargaining”. This conclusion necessarily followed as a matter of law under the rule uniformly obtaining. National Labor Relations Board v. Bradford Dyeing Association, supra, 310 U.S. at pages 339 and 340, 60 S.Ct. 918, 84 L.Ed. 1226; M. H. Ritzwoller Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 7 Cir., 114 F.2d 432, 437, 438; National Labor Relations Board v. Somerset Shoe Co., 1 Cir., 111 F.2d 681, 690; Bussmann Mfg. Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 8 Cir., 111 F.2d 783, 788; International Ass’n of Machinists, etc., v. National Labor Relations Board, 71 App.D.C. 175, 110 F.2d 29, 33; National Labor Relations Board v. Highland Park Mfg. Co., 4 Cir., 110 F.2d 632, 640; National Labor Relations Board v. Louisville Refining Co., 6 Cir., 102 F.2d 678, 681; National Labor Relations Board v. Biles-Coleman Lumber Co., 9 Cir., 96 F.2d 197, 198; National Labor Relations Board v. Remington-Rand, Inc., 2 Cir., 94 F.2d 862, 870.
However, at the hearing before the trial examiner, a committee of five employees purporting to represent approximately 150 of the petitioners’ employees (more than a majority) petitioned the examiner for leave to intervene in the proceeding “and, if necessary, to present testimony * * * The examiner denied intervention both to the committee and to the individual employees whom the committee purported to represent as evidenced by a signed petition. The Board approved the action of the trial examiner in such regard and, in so doing, I think acted properly. The proceeding was upon a complaint which ran at the instance of the union against the employers to redress the latter’s alleged unfair labor practices. Thus, the issue was drawn between the union and the employers and none other were necessary parties to the record. National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., et al., 303 U.S. 261, 271, 58 S.Ct. 571, 82 L.Ed. 831, 115 A.L.R. 307; National Licorice Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 309 U.S. 350, 362, 60 S.Ct. 569, 84 L.Ed. 799.
Although the question whether the bargaining agent no longer represented a majority was not properly an issue in the proceeding before the Board, it intrudes here by reason of our allowance to the independent committee of leave to intervene in the hearing upon the employers’ pending petition to this court to set aside the Labor Board’s order. The improvidence of our action in such regard could yet be rendered harmless if we would now but deny standing to the. intervenors and enforce the Board’s order as the record otherwise requires. The Board acted within its power upon a complaint of unfair labor practices on evidence adduced at a hearing which comported “with the standards of fairness inherent in procedural due process”, made “findings based upon substantial evidence” and “ordered an appropriate remedy”. Our duty to enforce the Board’s order in such circumstances has been plainly stated. National Labor Relations Board v. Bradford Dyeing Ass’n, supra, 310 U.S. at page 342, 60 S.Ct. 918, 84 L.Ed. 1226.
The ordinary and instinctive desire to make sure that a designated bargaining agent actually represents a majority furnishes no excuse for ignoring or failing to observe the very essential requirement that the will of those composing the majority shall be untrammelled. All we have before us (and that, dehors the record certified by *494the Board) to suggest that the designated bargaining agent in this case may no longer represent a majority is a petition signed by' approximately 150 of the employees in the unit. That petition, at best, is evidence of no more than that 150 of the employees signed it. There is no evidence that their signing was an act of their untrammelled will. The established unfair labor practices of the employers suggest to the contrary, as the law appropriately recognizes. Cases cited ante. For a committee, openly adverse to the bargaining agent, as were their employers, to lay before an employee a petition for his signature affords little free choice as to whether he will or will not sign it. But, in any- case, where the Board has occasion to correct or abate unfair labor practices, the justification for or propriety of redetermining the employees’ choice of a bargaining agent is for the Board and not the court. International Association of Machinists, etc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 61 S.Ct. 83, 85 L.Ed.-.
Once the oppressive effect of the proven unfair labor practices in this case has been removed, which the Board’s order is intended to accomplish, any desire on the part of a majority of the employees to change their bargaining agent can be effectuated by application to the Board under § 9(c) of the Act. International Association of Machinists, etc., v. National Labor Relations Board, supra; Bussmann Mfg. Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, supra, 111 F.2d page 788. But, the coercive effect of the employer’s conduct must first be removed. National Labor Relations Board v. Somerset Shoe Co., supra, 111 F.2d page 690. Otherwise the employees’ will cannot be deemed to be untrammelled.
Ás authority for the imposition of the condition, the majority rely on Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 8 Cir., 104 F.2d 49, and National Labor Relations Board v. National Licorice Co., 2 Cir., 104 F.2d 655, 658. In the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. case, the employer had furthered a company union. The Board ordered the disestablishment of that union and the reinstatement of the employees who had been discharged for refusing to join it. Both of these requirements of the Board, the court enforced. But, as two other unions each claimed to represent a majority of the employees, the court directed that the Board determine and certify the employees’ majority choice. It may be pointed out that in the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. case there had been neither a formal designation of a bargaining representative nor an acceptance by the employer of an undominated one prior to or during the employer’s commission of the alleged unfair labor practices. The case is therefore distinguishable from the present on that ground at least. In the National Licorice Co. case the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, while conditioning its enforcement of an order of the Board, recognized that a designated bargaining representative has “a continued presumptive authority which the employer must overcome by evidence”, citing its own decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Remington-Rand, Inc., 2 Cir., 94 F.2d 862, 869. Nor may it be entirely without significance that upon review of the decision in the National Licorice Co. case, supra, the Supreme Court noted that the employer had not been hurt by the court’s directing an election and that the Labor Board had “not petitioned for certiorari and does not complain of this direction”. National Licorice Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 309 U.S. 350, 359, 60 S.Ct. 569, 575, 84 L.Ed. 799.
For the reasons given, it is my opinion that the Board’s order should be enforced without the imposition of the condition.