Court Opinion

ID: 9443312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:17:30.488773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:32.766887
License: Public Domain

SWAN, Chief Judge
(dissenting in part).
I dissent from so much of the opinion as holds that because of the employer’s no-solicitation rule it was an unfair labor practice not to grant the union’s request for' an opportunity to reply to Rudolph’s speech under similar conditions. Section 8(c) of the Act as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(c), grants the employer the privilege of arguing against unionization without any limitation except that the expression of his views must contain “no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.” It is clear from the legislative history, which criticized as too restrictive the decision in Clark Brothers, 70 N.L.R.B. 802, that Congress intended the employer, to have the right to address his employees on company time and property.1 There is no suggestion that if he exercised the right he must accord to union representatives a similar opportunity. My brothers apparently agree that he need not, unless he has in effect a no-solicitation rule.- I am unable to see the relevancy of such rule in the interpretation to be given to section 8(c). As Board member Reynolds well says in his dissenting opinion:
“The legislative history attendant the enactment of Section 8(c) is replete with assurances that its passage would guarantee free speech to employers in labor disputes. That this freedom of speech encompassed the right to address employees in the plant, as did Respondent’s President, is beyond question. Nowhere in the Act or in its legislative history, however, does it appear that a concomitant of this right is the obligation to provide a forum of debate for unions. Indeed, hinging an employer’s right to speak upon his readiness to make available the means by which his arguments, views, and opinions can be nullified, effectively emasculates Section 8(c) as it applies to the right of an employer to address his employees.”
Nor do I find persuasive the authorities cited in my brothers’ opinion in support of this part of their decision.2 They were decided prior to enactment of section 8(c). I think enforcement of the order should be denied without remand for further proceedings.

. Senate Report No. 105 on S. 1126, Legislative History of the Labor Management Act, 1947, p. 429.

. Republic Aviation Corp. v. N. L. R. B., 324 U.S. 793, 65 S.Ct. 982, 89 L.Ed. 1372; N. L. R. B. v. American Furnace Co., 7 Cir., 158 F.2d 376; N. L. R. B. v. Waterman Steamship Corp., 309 U.S. 206, 60 S.Ct. 493, 84 L.Ed. 704.