Court Opinion

ID: 9449391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:11:15.25388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:49.329829
License: Public Domain

KILEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
The trial examiner found that “more than one-half of the employees” of the bargaining unit of 120 struck on the morning of May 3 during the regular company coffee break.
That finding rests on the testimony of Reynolds, a member of the bargaining committee, that “between seventy-five— between seventy and eighty” left the plant at the beginning of the break; that he learned of the “walk-out” by “seeing them outside with their coats and lunches with them, they had taken their coats and lunches with them;” that after the end of break bell had rung about thirty returned to the plant; that at the meeting that night of the seventy-five or eighty who had “walked out,” about thirty-five were not present; that the next morning there were “approximately forty-five or fifty” who attempted to return to work; and that the “forty-five or fifty” represented “all of the individuals who had struck the day before.”
The General Counsel had the burden of proving that more than sixty employees who left the plant at the beginning of the coffee break engaged in a strike signifying their rejection of the final offer of respondent to the bargaining committee.
*664I think the evidence is too thin to furnish a substantial evidentiary basis for the finding that a majority struck that morning. There is no testimony as to the precise number of employees who took their coats and lunches with them on the break. There is no basis for the Board’s statement in a footnote in its brief that seventy-five or eighty had indicated that they were striking because they had “walked out” with their coats and lunch pails. Reynolds’ testimony was that he saw “them” with coats and lunch pails. This question is vital because the substance of the finding of the Board, as interpreted by the Board’s brief, is that the effect of what happened at the morning break on May 3 was that a majority of the 120 member bargaining unit had, by striking, informally rejected the final offer of the respondent.
It may be that there were seventy-five or eighty in front of the plant during the morning break and that all of these were dissatisfied with the progress of their bargaining committee and with what they had learned from Reynolds and others of the final offer. It seems to me that the Board in describing the event as an expression of dissatisfaction indicates uncertainty on its part as to exactly what the employees’ action was. In the context in which this event occurred and because of the vital nature attributed to the action of the employees by the Board, the only reasonable inference that can be drawn is that fifty-one who did not return to work struck and the balance had expressed dissatisfaction but had not struck.
Respondent in its hurried response to the action mailed fifty-one letters to members who were refused work the following day, and it seems plain to me from Reynolds’ testimony that only fifty-one of those who were outside the plant at the morning break actually refused to work. There is not substantial evidence that all, or the greater number, of the thirty returned under threat of having their cards pulled or had their lunch pails and coats with them.
There is no necessity of discussing here the right to strike, or whether employees may strike only under union authorization, or whether less than a majority of employees may lawfully strike. A strike vote need not depend upon the' formality of Robert’s Rules of Order, but before an inference can be drawn that a majority of employees by their conduct rejected the final offer, there ought to be more evidence than is in the record here, that a majority struck.
The 120 employees here selected the-International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers as a collective bargaining agent. They chose a bargaining committee from among themselves, and non-employee Lee, representing the Union, was spokesman for the committee. There was increasing dissatisfaction with the progress of the committee and a threatened strike during the week previous to the event subject of this proceeding. The bargaining unit did not revoke the authority of the bargaining committee. The Board found that in substance it was strengthening the committee’s hand.
The committee, through Lee, promised respondent that the final offer would be submitted to a meeting of the bargaining unit on May 5. The following day fifty-one dissatisfied employees refused to work. It is true that respondent made no attempt to conciliate the men and seemed eager to exploit the event which the unprotected activity presented it. Respondent, however, was entitled to the good faith performance of the promise of the bargaining committee and the employees should have approved or disapproved the “final offer” through the bargaining committee they had chosen.
This choice had been made in accordance with the orderly procedure contemplated by the collective bargaining principle. It seems to me that the peace and order aimed at through that principle is frustrated when members of the bargaining committee strike as a means of strengthening the hand of the committee they have chosen to represent them, while simultaneously and ostensibly maintaining the authority of the committee. The effect of what was done by the employees who refused to work was, in my view, to detract from the dignity and power of *665the committee and to place the respondent in a dilemma as to where the power to negotiate for the employees rested.
I think the conduct of the fifty-one employees who were not rehired on May 4 removed them from the protection of the Act.