Court Opinion

ID: 9428536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:05.171419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.102694
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Rehnquist, and Justice O’Connor join,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
1 concur in the Court’s holding that employees in the possession of proprietary or nonpublic business information are not for that reason excluded from the NLRA as “confidential” employees. By explicitly providing for the inclusion of professional employees, the Act itself indicates that Congress did not intend such a sweeping definition of the confidential employee exclusion. But because the majority’s decision “tends to obliterate the line between management and labor,”1 a line which Congress insisted be observed by enacting the Taft-Hartley Act, I dissent from the conclusion that the confidential secretary in this litigation2 is not a confidential employee excluded from the Act.
I
In NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267 (1974), we *193held that all managerial employees were excluded from the Act regardless of whether they had a “labor nexus.” In reversing the Board, the Court found that a basic purpose of the Taft-Hartley Act was to establish a sharp line between management and labor. When the Board breached this line by deeming supervisors to be “employees” within the Act, Congress responded by passing the Taft-Hartley Act with its explicit exclusion of supervisory employees. And when the Board in Bell Aerospace departed from its own recognition that “[i]t was the clear intent of Congress to exclude from the coverage of the Act all individuals allied with management,” 3 this Court responded by again requiring the Board to adhere to the dividing line between management and labor— a line fundamental to the industrial philosophy of the labor laws in this country.4
Indeed, it was to assure that those employees allied with management were not included in the ranks of labor that the Board originally developed the “supervisory,” “managerial,” and “confidential” employees exclusions from the Wagner Act. The Board recognized that employees who by their duties, knowledge, or sympathy were aligned with management should not be treated as members of labor. In the adversary system which our labor laws envision, neither management nor labor should be forced to accept a potential fifth column into its ranks. Thus, both before and after the Taft-Hartley Act, the Board excluded from bargaining units of the *194rank and file, employees who like “expediters” are “closely related to management,” Friez & Sons, 47 N. L. R. B. 43, 47 (1943), or who like assistant buyers have “interests . . . more closely identified with those of management.” Denver Dry Goods Co., 74 N. L. R. B. 1167, 1175 (1947). The Board has excluded employees “who formulate, determine, and effectuate an employer’s policies,” AFL-CIO, 120 N. L. R. B. 969, 973 (1958), and employees who because of their familial relation to management “are on an intimate relationship with officers of the company.” Burke Brewery, Inc., 54 N. L. R. B. 1061, 1062, n. 2 (1944).
The “confidential employee” exclusion and the labor nexus which the Board insists upon must be viewed as part of this larger effort to keep the line between management and labor distinct. Certainly employees with knowledge of sensitive labor relations information or “who assist and act in a confidential capacity to persons who formulate, determine, and effectuate management policies in the field of labor relations,”5 fall on the management side of the line and should be excluded from the Act. But useful as it may be in identifying employees who are allied to management, the “labor nexus” test is but a means to this end. By its rigid insistence on the labor nexus in the case of confidential secretaries, the Board, and now this Court, have lost sight of the basic purpose of the labor-nexus test itself and of the fundamental theory of our labor laws. Thus, it makes little sense to exclude “expediters,” “assistant buyers,” and “employment interviewers” as managerial but include within the rank and file confidential secretaries who are privy to the most sensitive details of management decisionmaking, who work closely with managers on a personal and daily basis, and who occupy a position of trust incompatible with labor-management strife. To include employees so clearly allied to management *195within the ranks of labor does a disservice to management and labor alike.6
II
The Court’s decision not only is in conflict with the basic framework of the labor laws, it also conflicts with explicit expressions of congressional intent on this subject. Congress only forbore from including an explicit provision in the Taft-Hartley Act excluding confidential secretaries because of its belief that the Board had been treating, and would continue to treat, such employees as allied to management. In discussing a proposed exclusion for confidential employees, the House Report stated:
“Most of the people who would qualify as ‘confidential’ employees are executives and are excluded from the act in any event.
“The Board, itself, normally excludes from bargaining units confidential clerks and secretaries to such people as these.'” H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1947) (emphasis added).
The Conference Report indicated a similar belief:
“In the case of persons working in labor relations, personnel and employment departments, it was not thought necessary to make specific provision, as was done in the *196House bill, since the Board has treated, and presumably will continue to treat, such persons as outside the scope of the act. This is the prevailing Board practice with respect to such people as confidential secretaries as well, and it was not the intention of the conferees to alter this practice in any respect.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 35 (1947) (emphasis added).
It was in light of these statements in the legislative history that we felt confident in Bell Aerospace that “‘Congress could not have supposed that, while “confidential secretaries” could not be organized, their bosses could be.’” 416 U. S., at 284, quoting Bell Aerospace Co. v. NLRB, 475 F. 2d 485, 491-492 (CA2 1973).
The Court’s opinion argues that the foregoing explicit legislative history is to be ignored because the express exclusion in the House bill of confidential secretaries vwas omitted in Conference. But it is clear from the language in the Reports italicized above that the omission was prompted by an understanding that the Board itself consistently had excluded “such people as confidential secretaries.”7 Indeed, *197the Members of Congress had no reason to believe that it could be argued seriously that confidential secretaries to management officials were not among the “individuals allied with management.” Swift & Co., 115 N. L. R. B. 752, 754 (1956). The “labor nexus,” as increasingly narrowed by the Board and now accepted by this Court, is antithetical to any common-sense view or understanding of the role of confidential secretaries.
Ill
Just as I would reject the Board’s adherence to the labor-nexus test in the case of confidential secretaries, so, too, I would reject the Board’s position that confidential employees are not excluded from the Act as a whole but only from collective bargaining. The Board urges the Court to hold that even if the secretary in this litigation was conceded to be a confidential employee, indeed, even if she had a labor nexus, the company still could not have dismissed her without incurring liability under the Act.
The Court wisely declines the Board’s invitation. See, ante, at 186, n. 19. Such a holding would be a major departure from the basic philosophy of the Act. See Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S. 485 (1947). Under such an interpretation confidential employees with a labor nexus might do anything in furtherance of their allegiance to labor except join the union, and the company would be powerless to protect itself. Confidential employees might join picket lines, sign petitions advocating the cause of labor, speak out against management at employee meetings, and engage in all manner of concerted activity. Even in the midst of labor-management strife, the confidential secretaries to the top managers of the company, with daily access to the company’s bargaining positions, might convey confidential information as to these positions to the union, as well as take their place on the picket lines. The company would be unable to dismiss them or demote them, at least without the risk of an unfair *198labor practice charge being filed. The Board developed the labor-nexus test because it recognized that “management should not be required to handle labor relations matters through employees who are represented by the union.” Hoover Co., 55 N. L. R. B. 1321, 1323 (1944). Neither should management be required to expose its flank to confidential employees who are overtly committed to the union or the cause of labor in all but actual membership.
The legislative history of the Act contains no support whatever for the Board’s position. To the contrary, the Congress repeatedly stated its belief that in addition to supervisors certain other employees would be excluded from the Act. Thus, the Conference Report stated that “[i]n the case of persons working in labor relations, personnel and employment departments, it was not thought necessary to make specific provision . . . since the Board has treated, and presumably will continue to treat, such persons as outside the scope of the act” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 35 (1947) (emphasis added). In a generally similar context in NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S., at 283, we said: “The legislative history strongly suggests that there also were other employees, much higher in the managerial structure, who were likewise regarded as so clearly outside the Act that no specific exclusionary provision was thought necessary” (emphasis added). As the majority’s discussion of the legislative history indicates, the Congress viewed the confidential and managerial exemptions as akin to the supervisory exclusion. Congress considered that confidential and managerial employees, like supervisors, would be entirely excluded from the Act.
In Bell Aerospace, supra, at 289, we held that “‘managerial employees’ are not covered by the Act.” The majority accepts this holding. See ante, at 187. Yet if managerial employees are excluded from the Act in its entirety I see no principled reason why confidential employees with a labor nexus should be treated differently.
*199I would reject the Board’s seeming “half-a-loaf” approach to the confidential employee exclusion.8 As Judge Craven explained for the Fourth Circuit:
“It strikes us as nonsense for the Board to exclude [a confidential secretary] from membership in the bargaining unit and then extend to her the same protection for the same concerted activity that she would have enjoyed if a union member. If [a confidential secretary] is committed to the union cause to the extent she joins the strike by refusing to cross the picket line, it would seem to matter little to the company that she is not technically a union member. A confidential secretary who plights her troth with the union differs in form, but not in substance, from one who holds a union card. Since she cannot formally join the unit, there is nothing incongruous in holding that she cannot ‘plight her troth’ with the unit. Indeed, it seems more consistent to say that if she cannot act in concert by participating in the unit, then she cannot act in concert on an informal basis, or more accurately, that if she does so, it will be without the protection of the Act.” NLRB v. Wheeling Electric Co., 444 F. 2d 783, 788 (1971).
Accord, Peerless of America, Inc. v. NLRB, 484 F. 2d 1108, 1112 (CA7 1973). But see NLRB v. Southern Greyhound Lines, 426 F. 2d 1299 (CA5 1970) (assuming without discussion that confidential employees are not excluded from the Act in its entirety).
IV
After today’s decision, labor must accept into its ranks confidential secretaries who are properly allied to management. *200And these confidential employees, who are privy to the daily affairs of management, who have access to confidential information, and who are essential to management’s operation may be subjected to conflicts of loyalty when the essence of their working relationship requires undivided loyalty. The basic philosophy of the labor relations laws, the expressed intent of Congress, and the joint desire of labor and management for undivided loyalty all counsel against such a result.

 Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S. 485, 494 (1947) (Douglas, J., dissenting).

 The secretary here had worked for four years as the personal secretary to the general manager, the chief executive officer of the company. She opened his mail, typed his letters, answered the phone, and typed the minutes of meetings of the board of directors. She and the general manager shared a single office with a 6-foot partition in between their desks. She could overhear his telephone conversations when he raised his voice. She handled no labor relations materials.

 Swift & Co., 115 N. L. R. B. 752, 753-754 (1956) (emphasis added).

 As Justice Douglas explained in his dissent in Packard, supra:
“The present decision [by the Court]. . . tends to obliterate the line between management and labor. It lends the sanctions of federal law to unionization at all levels of the industrial hierarchy. It tends to emphasize that the basic opposing forces in industry are not management and labor but the operating group on the one hand and the stockholder and bondholder group on the other. . . . [I]f Congress, when it enacted the National Labor Relations Act, had in mind such a basic change in industrial philosophy, it would have left some clear and unmistakable trace of that purpose. But I find none.” 330 U. S., at 494-495.

 B. F. Goodrich Co., 115 N. L. R. B. 722, 724 (1956).

 Just as management opposes the creation of conflicts of loyalty within its midst, neither does labor wish to represent employees who are allied to management. Thus, in Montgomery Ward & Co., 36 N. L. R. B. 69, 73 (1941), for example, it was the union that sought to exclude confidential secretaries to store managers from the bargaining unit. See, e. g., Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, 253 N. L. R. B. 447-448 (1980) (“the Employer argues the secretaries to the firm’s executive committee are not confidential employees and should be included in the unit. The [union] counters that the Employer must have some confidential employees . . .”); E. P. Dutton & Co., 33 N. L. R. B. 761, 766 (1941) (“Among the employees whom the Guild would exclude as confidential are three secretaries to officers of the Company”).

 This understanding was not without support in the case law. In E. P. Dutton & Co., supra, the Board excluded secretaries to officers of the company from the bargaining unit of clerical employees without any mention of a labor nexus. The Board took notice of the fact that “ ‘[t]he nature of a personal secretary’s work is such that much of the confidential material pertaining to the management passes through his or her hands. . . . [Management should not be required to handle such material through employees in the unit represented by the union with which it is dealing.’” Id., at 766-767, n. 8, quoting Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 13 N. L. R. B. 974, 986 (1939) (emphasis added). The Board expressed its belief that “private secretaries should be excluded where . . . [the union]... is of the opinion that the personal and confidential relationship existing between the private secretaries . . . and the Company’s officers is such as to create a possible division of their loyalties between the management and the potential bargaining agent.” 33 N. L. R. B., at 766-767, n. 8 (emphasis added). See also Montgomery Ward & Co., supra (secretaries of store managers excluded without reference to labor nexus).

 Of course there are limits to the power of management over its confidential employees just as there are limits to its power over its supervisory employees. See, e. g., NLRB v. Talladega Cotton Factory, Inc., 213 F. 2d 209 (CA5 1954).