Court Opinion

ID: 9479092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:08:16.770087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:49.496560
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Although the company did not contest the unfair labor practice citation, I believe that ordering Mid-South to establish an entirely new Forrest City facility, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, is too drastic a reme*465dy. The majority and NLRB have unrealistically minimized the company’s cost of reopening in light of its need to build a new facility from scratch and, as a highly-leveraged company, to avoid creating redundant and inefficient distribution systems. The profitability of this facility, never as rosy as the majority portrays, cannot be as high in the future because of the elevated reopening costs and the fact that it will divide business with other Mid-South facilities. One also wonders whether and how the employees will benefit from being relocated to Forrest City only three years after they were moved out. It is likely that Mid-South will have to hire an entirely new cadre of employees who may or may not have selected union representation. It would have been far more sensible for the NLRB to order Mid-South to compensate the former Forrest City employees for their likely union wages until an estimated reasonable closing date. The remedy selected by the NLRB seems so draconian and pointless that in this unusual case I would hold it an abuse of discretion.