Court Opinion

ID: 9422983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:05:24.214432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:40.758224
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Goldberg,
with whom The Chief Justice joins,
concurring in the result.
I concur in the Court’s conclusion that the employer’s lockout in this case was not a violation of either § 8 (a) (1) or § 8 (a) (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158 (a)(1) and (3) (1958 ed.), and I therefore join in the judgment reversing the Court of Appeals. I reach this result not for the Court’s reasons, but because, from the plain facts revealed by the record, it is crystal clear that the employer’s lockout here was justifiable. The very facts recited by the Court in its opinion show that this employer locked out its employees in the face of a threatened strike under circumstances where, had the choice of timing been left solely to the unions, the employer and its customers would have been subject to economic injury over and beyond the loss of business normally incident to a strike upon the termination of the collective bargaining agreement. A lockout under these circumstances has been recognized by the Board itself to be justifiable and not a violation of the labor statutes. Betts Cadillac Olds, Inc., 96 N. L. R. B. 268; see Packard Bell Electronics Corp., 130 N. L. R. B. 1122; International Shoe Co., 93 N. L. R. B. 907; Duluth *328Bottling Assn., 48 N. L. R. B. 1335; Quaker State Oil Refining Corp., 121 N. L. R. B. 334, 337.
The trial examiner for the Labor Board found that the employer reasonably and “honestly believed that a strike might take place immediately, or when a vessel was docked, or that bargaining would be delayed until closer to the winter months when Respondent would be more vulnerable,” 142 N. L. R. B., at 1382, and that the company “by its actions, therefore, did not violate . . . the Act,” 142 N. L. R. B., at 1383. The Board did not dispute the trial examiner’s finding that the employer in fact believed that a strike was threatened. Nor did it deny that if the employer reasonably believed that “there was a real strike threat,” the lockout would be justified. 142 N. L. R. B., at 1364. The Board, however, rejected the ultimate finding of the trial examiner because it disagreed with his conclusion that the employer “had reasonable grounds to fear a strike.” (Emphasis added.) 142 N. L. R. B., at 1363. The Court of Appeals in a single sentence sustained the Board’s holding on this point concluding, without detailed analysis, “that the Board’s finding that respondent had no reasonable basis for fearing a strike is not without the requisite record support.” 331 F. 2d 839, 840. In my view the Board’s conclusion that the employer’s admitted fear of a strike was unreasonable is not only without the requisite record support but is at complete variance with “the actualities of industrial relations,” Labor Board v. Steelworkers, 357 U. S. 357, 364, which the Board is to take into account in effectuating the national labor policy.
We do not deal with a case in which the facts are disputed and the Board has resolved testimonial controversies. The facts here are undisputed, and a review of them demonstrates that the employer’s fear of a strike at a time strategically selected by the unions to cause *329it maximum damage and to give the unions the maximum economic advantage was totally reasonable.
The employer company is primarily engaged in repairing ships and operates four shipyards on the Great Lakes at Buffalo, New York, Lorain and Toledo, Ohio, and South Chicago, Illinois. As the Court points out, the employer’s business is highly seasonal, concentrated in the winter months when the Great Lakes are frozen over and shipping is impossible. Speed is of the utmost importance in this business, for the shipping season is short and the tie-up of a ship for several weeks during the season or a delay in a ship’s re-entry into service in the spring produces a severe economic impact. A work stoppage while a ship is in the yards can have serious economic consequences both for the employer and for his customers. Customers are justifiably wary of entrusting their ships to the yards at a time when a collective bargaining dispute is unresolved. For this reason the expiration date of a contract in situations such as this is a vital issue in collective bargaining. The employer seeks an expiration date during the slack season; the union seeks an expiration date during the busy season. In this case as a result of past bargaining, the employer’s contract expired on August 1, rather than during the busy season.
From 1952 until 1961, when the negotiations now under consideration began, the employer had negotiated five times with the eight unions here involved, and it had experienced exactly one strike per negotiation. The strikes in 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956 lasted about three weeks each, and the 1958 strike continued for 10 weeks. In 1955 employees had engaged in a slowdown before the agreement expired and thereby caught an $8,000,000 ship in the yard, the use of which was lost to the customer for four weeks during its busiest season. In February 1961, at the height of the busy season, wildcat work stoppages occurred in Chicago and Buffalo.
*330Shortly before May 1961 the unions notified the employer that they wished to modify the contract due to expire on August 1. At the first bargaining meeting on June 6, 1961, the employer spokesman maintained that competitive conditions prevented any increase in wages or benefits. The unions took an opposite view and asked for a substantial increase in pension and other benefits. The parties met on numerous occasions throughout June and July. As the negotiations progressed, the employer receded from its original position and offered improved wages and benefits; the unions receded from some of their demands, but a meeting of the minds was not reached. On July 20 and subsequently, with the August 1 expiration date approaching, the unions proposed a six-month extension of the current contract. This would have given the unions an expiration date at a time most advantageous to them; the employer rejected this proposal on the grounds that the contract would then expire on February 1, 1962, the very height of its busy season, and that no customer would risk its ships by putting them in the company’s yards knowing that the labor contract was about to expire. On July 28 the unions’ negotiator informed the employer that the union members had voted “overwhelmingly to take a strike if necessary.” On July 31 the employer made a new and increased offer on wages and benefits, asked that its proposals be submitted to the employees for a vote and offered to extend the contract for the limited period sufficient to enable this vote to be taken. The unions in turn asked that the labor agreement be extended indefinitely until a new agreement was reached. The employer refused to agree to an indefinite extension of its present contract on the ground that it could then be struck at any time of the unions’ choosing.1
Although the contract expired on August 1, the unions did not call a strike on that date but continued to work *331on a day-to-day basis and submitted the employer’s revised offer to a vote of the membership. On August 8 the unions informed the employer that its proposals had been “overwhelmingly” rejected by the employees. On August 9 the employer made a new package offer on many issues. The union negotiators rejected this new offer, refused to take it to the employees for a vote, and made no counteroffer. Negotiations were broken off without any definite plans for further meetings between the parties. Future meetings were left to the call of a federal mediator.
Faced with the situation of an expired contract and the unions free to strike at any time, in particular at a time of their own choosing during the busy season, or whenever the yard was filled with ships, the employer decided to shut down the Chicago yard completely and lay off all but two employees at Toledo. Notices were issued to employees at Chicago, Toledo, and to some in Buffalo, which stated, “Because of the labor dispute which has been unresolved since August 1,1961, you are laid off until further notice.” Negotiations were resumed after this lockout and continued until agreement was reached on October 27. The laid off employees were then recalled to work. Since then the parties have engaged in other negotiations and have agreed upon contracts without either strike or lockout.
On this record the trial examiner held that the employer reasonably feared that the unions would strike when the time was ripe. He found that the employer reasonably believed that:
“[t]he Unions’ strategy was:
“Keep working at Lorain, keep the nonproductive men on the payroll as long as possible at the other yards until one of two things occurred: (a) A shipowner would send a ship into one of the yards, and then by striking, the Respondent would be forced to his knees in effecting a labor settlement satisfactory to the Union, and if this didn’t occur, then, (b) con*332tinue to bargain, into the winter months, and then execute an agreement effective in November, December, January, or February, and in this way, when the agreement was reopened, Respondent would be sure to have ships in its docks, and a strike at such a time would bring the Respondent to his knees in effecting an agreement.” 142 N. L. R. B., at 1381.
Accordingly the trial examiner held that no unfair labor practice was committed. This holding followed settled Board doctrine that “lockouts are permissible to safeguard against unusual operational problems or hazards or economic loss where there is reasonable ground for believing that a strike [is] . . . threatened or imminent.” Quaker State Oil Refining Corp., supra, at 337.
The Board overturned the trial examiner’s ultimate holding, reaching what, on this record, is a totally unsupportable conclusion — that the employer’s fear of a strike was unreasonable. The Board rested its conclusion upon the grounds that “the Unions made every effort to convey to the Respondent their intention not to strike; and they also gave assurances that if a strike were called, any work brought into Respondent’s yard before the strike would be completed. The Unions further offered to extend the existing contract [which contained a no-strike provision] for 6 months, or indefinitely, until contract terms were reached 142 N. L. R. B., at 1364. Upon analysis it is clear that none of these grounds will support the Board’s conclusion that the employer had no reasonable basis to fear a strike.
The Board’s finding that “the Unions made every effort to convey to the Respondent their intention not to strike” is based upon statements made by union negotiators during the course of the negotiations. The chief negotiator for the unions testified that on the first day of negotiations, “I stated that it was my understanding that *333in the past there seemed to have been a strike at every— during every negotiation since World War II from information I had received, and it was our sincere hope that we could negotiate this agreement — go through those negotiations and negotiate a new agreement without any strife, that personally I always had a strong dislike to strike and that I thought if two parties sincerely desired to reach an agreement, one could be reached without strike. The Company . . . stated that the Company concurred in those thoughts, that they too disliked strikes, and it was their hope, also, that an agreement could be reached amicably.” 2 The negotiators for the unions expressed this same sentiment on several other occasions during the negotiations.
These statements, which one would normally expect a union agent to make during the course of negotiations as a hopeful augury of their outcome rather than as a binding agreement not to strike, scarcely vitiate the reasonableness of the employer’s fear of a strike in light of the long history of past strikes by the same unions. Further, they cannot be deemed to render the employer’s fear of a strike unreasonable after the negotiations had reached an impasse, particularly in view of the fact that a strike vote had been taken by the unions’ membership, and the membership rather than the union representatives had final authority to determine whether a strike would take place.
The fact that the assistant business managers of Local 85 and Local 374 of the Boilermakers Union “gave assur-*334anees that if a strike were called, any work brought into Respondent’s yard before the strike would be completed” 3 likewise cannot be deemed to offset the unions’ threat of a strike and its consequences. These men were officials of locals in only one of the eight separate unions involved. At most they could give assurances as to a few of the men at two of the company’s four yards. And even had all of the unions joined in these statements, which was not the ease, the employer had been subject to wildcat strikes at a time when the unions were bound by a no-strike clause in their contract. Therefore, without impugning the good faith of these union agents, it surely was not unreasonable for the employer, notwithstanding this assurance, to fear that its employees might not complete work on ships when they were not bound by a no-strike clause.
The Board also relies on the fact that the unions offered a six-month extension of the present contract. As I have already pointed out, this would have caused the contract to expire during the employer’s busiest season. The employer had a perfect right to reject this stratagem. Had it agreed, the unions would have achieved one of their important objectives without the necessity of striking. By the same token it is clear that the unions would have agreed not to strike had the employer accepted their proposals for increases in wages and benefits. Surely the employer had every right to reject these proposals, and its rejection of them would not show that it was unreasonable in fearing a strike based upon its failure to accede to the unions’ demands.
Finally, the offer of an indefinite extension of the contract is an equally unsupportable basis for the Board’s conclusion. An indefinite extension presumably would mean under traditional contract theory that the unions could *335strike at any time or after giving brief notice.4 Surely the employer would be reasonable in fearing that such an arrangement would peculiarly place the timing of the strike in the unions’ hands.
The sum of all this is that the record does not supply even a scintilla of, let alone any substantial, evidence to support the conclusion of the Board that the employer’s fear of a strike was unreasonable, but, rather, this conclusion appears irrational. Cf. Labor Board v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, at 236. I would therefore hold on this record that the employer’s lockout was completely justified.
The fact that the Board held on the undisputed facts that the employer’s fear of a strike was unreasonable and that the Court of Appeals has affirmed the Board does not preclude us from reviewing this determination. See Public Service Comm’n v. United States, 356 U. S. 421. The standard that should have been applied by the Court of Appeals was whether the Board’s finding was supported by substantial evidence when the record was viewed as a whole. Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, 340 U. S. 474. See Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 168; Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. J-T Transport Co., 368 U. S. 81, 93. “The Board’s findings are entitled to respect; but they must nonetheless be set aside when the record before a Court of Appeals clearly precludes the Board’s decision from being justified by a fair estimate of the worth of the testimony of witnesses or its informed judgment on matters within its special competence or both.” Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, supra, at 490. Indeed, the Board here set aside the report of its trial examiner, and in *336Universal Camera this Court recognized “that evidence supporting a conclusion may be less substantial when an impartial, experienced examiner who has observed the witnesses and lived with the case has drawn conclusions different from the Board's than when he has reached the same conclusion.” 340 TJ. S., at 496. The Court of Appeals in my view in its summary affirmance on this issue grossly misapplied the standards laid down by Universal Camera. This case is properly before us on a substantial legal question, which necessarily involves a review of the entire record. In making such a review, although we give proper weight to what the first reviewing court decides, we cannot ignore our duty to apply the statutory standard that the Board’s findings must be supported by substantial evidence. Since the Board’s holding was not so supported, but, on the contrary, as the plain facts of the record reveal, was irrational, I would reverse the Court of Appeals on this ground.
My view of this case would make it unnecessary to deal with the broad question of whether an employer may lock out his employees solely to bring economic pressure to bear in support of his bargaining position. The question of which types of lockout are compatible with the labor statute is a complex one as this decision and the other cases decided today illustrate. See Textile Workers Union v. Darlington Mfg. Co., ante, p. 263; Labor Board v. Brown, ante, p. 278. This Court has said that the problem of the legality of certain types of strike activity must be “revealed by unfolding variant situations” and requires “an evolutionary process for its rational response, not a quick, definitive formula as a comprehensive answer.” Electrical Workers v. Labor Board, 366 U. S. 667, 674; see also Labor Board v. Steelworkers, supra, 362-363. The same is true of lockouts.
The types of situation in which an employer might seek to lock out his employees differ considerably one from *337the other. This case presents the situation of an employer with a long history of union recognition and collective bargaining, confronted with a history of past strikes, which locks out only after considerable good-faith negotiation involving agreement and compromise on numerous issues, after a bargaining impasse has been reached, more than a week after the prior contract has expired, and when faced with the threat of a strike at a time when it and the property of its customers can suffer unusual harm. Other cases in which the Board has held a lockout illegal have presented far different situations. For example, in Quaker State Oil Refining Corp., supra, an employer locked out its employees the day after its contract with the union expired although no impasse had been reached in the bargaining still in progress, no strike had been threatened by the unions, which had never called a sudden strike during the 13 years they had bargained with the employer, and the unions had offered to resubmit the employer’s proposals to its employees for a vote. See also Utah Plumbing & Heating Contractors Assn., 126 N. L. R. B. 973. These decisions of the Labor Board properly take into account, in determining the legality of lockouts under the labor statutes, such factors as the length, character, and history of the collective bargaining relation between the union and the employer, as well as whether a bargaining impasse has been reached. Indeed, the Court itself seems to recognize that there is a difference between locking out before a bargaining impasse has been reached and locking out after collective bargaining has been exhausted, for it limits its holding to lockouts in the latter type of situation without deciding the question of the legality of locking out before bargaining is exhausted. Since the examples of different lockout situations could be multiplied, the logic of the Court’s limitation of its holding should lead it to recognize that the problem of lockouts requires “an evolu*338tionary process,” not “a quick, definitive formula,” for its answer.
The Court should be chary of sweeping generalizations in this complex area. When we deal with the lockout and the strike, we are dealing with weapons of industrial warfare. While the parties generally have their choice of economic weapons, see Labor Board v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, this choice, with respect to both the strike and the lockout, is not unrestricted. While we have recognized “the deference paid the strike weapon by the federal labor laws,” Labor Board v. Erie Resistor, supra, at 235, not all forms of economically motivated strikes are protected or even permissible under the labor statutes 5 or the prior decisions of this Court.6 Moreover, a lockout prompted by an anti union motive is plainly illegal under the National Labor Relations Act,7 though no similar restrictions as to motive operate to limit the legality of a strike. See Labor Board v. Somerset Shoe Co., 111 F. 2d 681; Labor Board v. Stremel, 141 F. 2d 317 ; Labor Board v. Somerset Classics, Inc., 193 F. 2d 613. The varieties of restrictions imposed upon strikes and lockouts reflect the complexities presented by variant factual situations.
The Court not only overlooks the factual diversity among different types of lockout, but its statement of the rules governing unfair labor practices under §§ 8 (a)(1) and (3) does not give proper recognition to the fact that “[t]he ultimate problem [in this area] is the balancing *339of the conflicting legitimate interests.” Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, 353 U. S. 87, 96. The Court states that employer conduct, not actually motivated by anti-union bias,8 does not violate § 8 (a)(1) or § 8 (a)(3) unless it is “demonstrably so destructive of collective bargaining,” ante, at 309, or “so prejudicial to union interests and so devoid of significant economic justification,” ante, at 311, that no antiunion animus need be shown. This rule departs substantially from both the letter and the spirit of numerous prior decisions of the Court. See, e. g., Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, supra, at 96; Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793; Labor Board v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105; Labor Board v. Burnup & Sims, Inc., 379 U. S. 21.
These decisions demonstrate that the correct test for determining whether §8 (a)(1) has been violated in cases not involving an employer antiunion motive is whether the business justification for the employer’s action outweighs the interference with § 7 rights involved. In Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, supra, for example, the Court affirmed a Board holding that a company “no-solicitation” rule was invalid as applied to prevent solicitation of employees on company property during periods when employees were free to do as they pleased, not because such a rule was “demonstrably . . . destructive of collective bargaining,” but simply because there was no significant employer justification for the rule and there was a showing of union interest, though far short of a necessity, in its abolition. See also, Labor Board v. Burnup & Sims, Inc., supra.
*340A similar test is applicable in § 8 (a) (3) cases where no antiunion motive is shown. The Court misreads Radio Officers v. Labor Board, 347 U. S. 17, and Labor Board v. Erie Resistor Corp., supra, in- stating that the test in such cases under § 8 (a) (3) is whether practices “are inherently so prejudicial to union interests and so devoid of significant economic justification that no specific evidence of intent to discourage union membership or other antiunion animus is required.” Ante, at 311. Radio Officers did not restrict the application of § 8 (a) (3) in cases devoid of antiunion motive to the extreme situations encompassed by the Court's test. Rather, in holding applicable the common-law rule that a man is presumed to intend the foreseeable consequences of his own actions, the Court extended the reach of § 8 (a)(3) to all cases in which a significant antiunion effect is foreseeable regardless of the employer’s motive. In such cases the Court, in Erie Resistor Corp., held that conduct might be determined by the Board to violate § 8 (a) (3) where the Board’s determination resulted from a reasonable “weighing [of] the interests of employees in concerted activity against the interest of the employer in operating his business in a particular manner and . . . [from] balancing in the light of the Act and its policy the intended consequences upon employee rights against the business ends to be served by the employer’s conduct.” 373 U. S., at 229.
These cases show that the tests as to whether an employer’s conduct violates § 8 (a)(1) or violates § 8 (a) (3) without a showing of antiunion motive come down to substantially the same thing: whether the legitimate economic interests of the employer justify his interference with the rights of his employees — a test involving “the balancing of the conflicting legitimate interests.” Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, supra, at 96. As the prior decisions of this Court have held, “[t]he function of striking . . . [such a] balance . . . often a difficult and *341delicate responsibility, . . . Congress committed primarily to the National Labor Relations Board, subject to limited judicial review.” Ibid.
This, of course, does not mean that reviewing courts are to abdicate their function of determining whether, giving due deference to the Board, the Board has struck the balance consistently with the language and policy of the Act. See Labor Board v. Brown, supra; Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, supra. Nor does it mean that reviewing courts are to rubber-stamp decisions of the Board where the application of principles in a particular case is irrational or not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. Applying these principles to the factual situation here presented, I would accept the Board’s carefully limited rule, fashioned by the Board after weighing the “conflicting legitimate interests” of employers and unions, that a lockout does not violate the Act where used to “safeguard against unusual operational problems or hazards or economic loss where there is reasonable ground for believing that a strike [is] . . . threatened or imminent.” Quaker State Oil Refining Corp., supra, at 337. This rule is consistent with the policies of the Act and based upon the actualities of industrial relations. I would, however, reject the determination of the Board refusing to apply this rule to this case, for the undisputed facts revealed by the record bring this case clearly within the rule.
In view of the necessity for, and the desirability of, weighing the legitimate conflicting interests in variant lockout situations, there is not and cannot be any simple formula which readily demarks the permissible from the impermissible lockout. This being so, I would not reach out in this case to announce principles which are determinative of the legality of all economically motivated lockouts whether before or after a bargaining impasse has *342been reached. In my view both the Court and the Board, in reaching their opposite conclusions, have inadvisably and unnecessarily done so here. Rather, I would confine our decision to the simple holding, supported by both the record and the actualities of industrial relations, that the employer’s fear of a strike was reasonable, and therefore, under the settled decisions of the Board, which I would approve, the lockout of its employees was justified.

 See note 4, infra.

 This same negotiator also testified as follows:
“Q. Did you say that the company was crying about not being able to afford a wage increase and yet did you say that in 1958 the company used the same argument and that a ten or a twelve week strike ensued at the conclusion of which an eight cent an hour increase was granted for each of three years and that the company was still not out of business?
“A. Yes.”

 There is some evidence in the record that one other local business agent gave a similar assurance.

 See 1 Williston, Contracts §§ 38, 39 (3d ed. 1957); cf. Pacific Coast Association of Pulp & Paper Manufacturers, 121 N. L. R. B. 990, 993.

 See, e. g., the secondary boycott and organizational picketing restrictions. 61 Stat. 141, 29 17. S. O. §158 (b)(4) (1958 ed.), 73 Stat. 542, 544, 29 ü. S. C. §§ 158 (b) (4) and (7) (1958 ed., Supp. V).

 See Automobile Workers v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 245; Labor Board v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U. S. 240.

 See Labor Board v. Truck Drivers Union, supra, at 93; Textile Workers Union v. Darlington Mfg. Co., ante, p. 263, at 268-269.

 National Labor Relations Act §8 (a)(3), 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §158 (a) (3) provides that it shall be an unfair labor practice “by discrimination ... to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.” The only type of discriminatory motive with which we are here concerned is that which discourages membership in a union.