Court Opinion

ID: 9636716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:40:39.301993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:48.557707
License: Public Domain

TREANOR, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
If I correctly understand the opinion and decision of the majority, it rests upon the assumption that the employees of respondent company could not invoke the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board because the aforesaid employees had gone on a strike in violation of an agreement between the employees and respondent company.
*955It is dear from the chronological presentation of the successive steps in the controversy between the employees and respondent company 7 that a labor dispute existed between the employees and their employer, and that as a result of this dispute the employees struck. Granting that the employees, in view of an existing contract, were making unjustifiable demands upon the employer, the fact remains that there was a labor dispute; also, the fact was that the employer refused to submit to arbitration the questions raised by the employees’ demands. It may be that the employer was correct in claiming that the demands covered matters which were not included in the existing arbitration agreement between the employer and employees. But at any rate no committee of arbitration was appointed prior to the strike, and the clause of the agreement, which it is assumed that the employees violated by striking, provides that “there shall be no stoppage of work by either party to this contract, pending decision by Committee of Arbitration.”
The question for this Court to decide is whether the order of the National Labor Relations Board was within its statutory authority under the National Labor Relations Act. The conduct of respondent’s employees was a fact for the Board to consider in determining the ultimate fact of unfair labor practice by the employer; but in my opinion our decision in the cause presented by the petition of the Board for enforcement of its order does not turn on the rightfulness or wrongfulness of the strike of respondent’s employees.
The situation which arose out of the employees’ demands, and the refusal of the respondent company to accede to, or to arbitrate, these demands, clearly constituted a “labor dispute” within the definition of that term in section 152(9) of 29 U.S.C.A., the National Labor Relations Act. 8 And since by definition the term employee “shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute,” 9 it necessarily follows that for the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act the relationship of employee-employer still existed when the alleged unfair labor practices occurred; and that such relationship, for purposes of jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, continued to exist up to and including the date of the filing of the complaint in which it was charged that the company was engaging in unfair labor practices.
The order of the National Labor Relations Board was predicated upon the finding that the respondent company had been guilty of unfair labor practices, in that it had refused to bargain collectively with the representatives of the employees. There was some evidence to support this finding and this court cannot disturb it. On the basis of such finding the Board is expressly authorized by the act “to take such affirmative action, including reinstatement of employees with or without back pay, as, will effectuate the policies” 10 of the act.
It was the duty of the National Labor Relations Board to consider the conduct of the employees of respondent company for the purpose of determining whether or not the request for collective bargaining was made in good faith; for it would not seem that under even the strict provisions of the act that an employer could be charged with unfair labor practices for refusing to bargain collectively with his employees, if the facts disclosed that the employees were not seeking collective bargaining in a good faith effort to adjust labor disputes. Also, since the order of the Board did not provide for back pay, it is a reasonable inference that the Labor Board attributed the interruption in employment, in part at least, to improper conduct of the striking employees.
In view of the recent decisions of the Supreme Court defining the power of the National Labor Relations Board under the act, I am of the opinion that the law is with the petitioner, and that this Court should grant the petition for enforcement of the order of the Board,

 See note 2, supra.

 Title 29 U.S.O.A. § 152 (9):
“When used in sections 151 to 166 of this title * * *,
“(9) The term ‘labor dispute’ includes any controversy concerning terms, tenure or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.”

 Title 29 U.S.O.A. § 152 (3).

 Title 29 U.S.C.A. § 160 (c).