Court Opinion

ID: 9425619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:15.919533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.628490
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Powell and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
To the extent the Court holds that a union cannot contractually waive the right of disaffected employees to distribute in nonwork areas and during nonwork time literature advocating the displacement of the incumbent collective-bargaining representative, I am in complete agreement. This is the essence of the Board's decision in Gale Products, 142 N. L. R. B. 1246. But it seems to me wholly inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the National Labor Relations Act to relieve the union of its promise that its own self-serving literature will not be so distributed in the plant.
Although the union is deemed to represent all employees in the bargaining unit, both pro-union and anti-union, and may waive important § 7 rights in the course of collective bargaining, presumably in return for management concessions on other fronts, this authority cannot extend to rights with respect to which the union and the individual employees have essentially conflicting interests. The Board stated the point succinctly in its decision in General Motors Corp., 158 N. L. R. B. 1723, 1727:
“[T]he employees, by once selecting the union as their representative, do not forfeit their fundamental right to change their representative at appropriate times. When a union acts to abridge that right *328in the manner presented in this case, it is essentially benefiting the union qua union, to the detriment of the employees it represents.”
Any such attempted waiver of the rights of others is so clearly in the union’s self-interest of perpetuating its status as the bargaining agent, and at odds with the interests of the disaffected employees, that “the premise of fair representation” underlying contractual waivers of § 7 rights is wholly undermined. Mastro Plastics Corp. v. NLRB, 350 U. S. 270, 280.
Judicial nullification of contractual concessions, however, is contrary to what the Court has recognized as “[o]ne of [the] fundamental policies” of the National Labor Relations Act — “freedom of contract.” H. K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U. S. 99, 108. “The theory of the Act is that free opportunity for negotiation with accredited representatives of employees is likely to promote industrial peace and may bring about the adjustments and agreements which the Act in itself does not attempt to compel.” NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 45. Contractual waivers against a union’s own interests are seldom if ever gratuitously granted in the give and take of the collective-bargaining process. In return, the union typically exacts some form of quid pro quo from the management negotiators. Since it is usually impossible to identify the consideration given in return for a particular union concession, the result of nullifying a union’s agreement to waive the § 7 rights of its supporters will necessarily be to deprive management of the benefit of its bargain and to leave the union with a windfall. This sort of invalidation of bargained-for concessions does not promote stability in the collective-bargaining process and must certainly have a negative effect on labor-management relations. For this reason, the Board and the courts should *329not relieve the parties of the promises they have made unless a contractual provision violates a specific section of the Act or a clear underlying policy of federal labor law.
In Gale Products the Board correctly determined that the union could not waive the distribution rights of employees who sought to distribute literature advocating the ouster of the incumbent union; for the clear policy of federal labor law forbids either the union or the employer to freeze out another union or to entrench the incumbent union by infringing the § 7 rights of dissident employees. I see no justification, however, for the Board’s extension of the Gale Products rule to prevent the union’s waiver of the distribution rights of its supporters in the bargaining unit.*
The considerations that distinguish the waiver of supporters’ distribution rights from the waiver of opponents’ distribution rights were cogently stated by the Fifth Circuit in NLRB v. Mid-States Metal Products, 403 F. 2d 702, 705:
“Where union and employee interests are one it can fairly be assumed that employee rights will not be surrendered except in return for bargained-for concessions from the employer of benefit to employees. But the rationale of allowing waiver by the union disappears where the subject matter waived goes to the heart of the right of employees to change their bargaining representative, or to have no bargaining representative, a right with respect to which the interests of the union and em*330ployees may be wholly adverse. Solicitation and distribution of literature on plant premises are important elements in giving full play to the right of employees to seek displacement of an incumbent union. We cannot presume that the union, in agreeing to bar such activities, does so as a bargain for securing other benefits for the employees and not from the self-interest it has in perpetuating itself as bargaining representative.
“A waiver of the right to solicit and distribute literature does not hamper the union as it does the union’s adversaries. The union can communicate through the bulletin board, union meetings and the force of status as bargaining representative, enjoying an advantage in preserving the status quo. Its adversaries will not have equal access to and communication with their fellow employees.”
In nullifying, the union’s promise to waive the literature-distribution rights of its own supporters, the Board and today the Court are upsetting the delicate balance achieved in the give and take of negotiations and presenting the union with an undeserved windfall. This nullification, at the behest of the union that made the promise, can only contribute to future instability in collective bargaining between labor and management.
One can, of course, envision exceptional circumstances in which the union supporters’ access to and communication with their fellow employees in the bargaining unit might be so restricted that it would be extremely difficult, in the absence of their § 7 distribution rights, for them to respond to the arguments made in literature distributed by their opponents. In such a case, the waiver of the supporters’ rights might result in such a distortion of the labor political process as to prevent the balanced presentation of the issues to the em*331ployees that national labor policy seeks to promote. This concern was aptly expressed by the Board in its General Motors decision, 158 N. L. R. B., at 1726:
''[W]e recognizfe] the salutary purpose of refusing to disturb concessions yielded by either party through the processes of collective bargaining even where such a concession may infringe upon rights guaranteed employees under Section 7 of the Act. . . . [T]he validity of a particular concession or waiver must depend upon whether the interference with the employees’ statutory rights is so great as to override any legitimate reasons for upholding the waiver, or would unduly hamper the employees in exercising their basic rights under the Act.” (Internal quotations omitted.)
Thus, if in the absence of § 7 distribution rights the union supporters would be incapable of adequately presenting their position to the employees in a representation controversy, a strong argument could be made that the union’s agreement was contrary to a basic policy of the. National Labor Relations Act and that, despite the negative effect on the bargaining process, the union’s promise could not be effective.
In this case, however, there is no suggestion of such exceptional circumstances that would incapacitate the union’s supporters in any dispute regarding the union’s continued status as the collective-bargaining agent. It is clear from the record that the union supporters have access to the company bulletin boards; that they may still solicit support, although not distribute literature, in non work areas during nonwork time; and that they may distribute literature, and have done so in the past, at the gates of the plant. Thus, it is evident that the union supporters would not be disabled by this provision of *332the collective-bargaining agreement from maintaining their end of the political discourse that national labor policy seeks to foster.
I cannot agree to a general rule that allows the Board to nullify the union’s promise, contained in a collective-bargaining agreement, that its supporters will not distribute literature in the plant. For this reason, I dissent from the judgment and the opinion of the Court insofar as they hold that the union could not validly waive the distribution rights of the employees who support it.

Tlie Board held, and I presume the Court agrees, that the union could waive any right that the employees might have to distribute union institutional literature. The only question in this ease relates to the waivability of rights to distribute literature regarding the proposed selection, retention, or displacement of the collective-bargaining agent.