Court Opinion

ID: 9639727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:46:11.664598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:21.383460
License: Public Domain

MINTON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority says that the question “of the number and bases of bargaining units is for the Board whose experience entitles its judgment to almost complete finality. Unless its action is ‘arbitrary or capricious’ * * * we must, and will, accept it.”
I think the Board’s judgment is entitled to complete finality if it is “supported by evidence.” This is a purely administrative proceeding. What is an appropriate unit and the representative of that unit are to be determined by the Board and not by us or by the Marshall Field Company. If the Board’s findings are supported by evidence, I do not believe that we have the power to overthrow such findings by branding them as “arbitrary or capricious.”
The majority does not say that there is no evidence to support the Board’s findings. It finds fault with the way the findings were made. It says first, that there was failure to designate the unit before holding the election; and secondly, that by holding the election and reaching a decision in accordance with the election returns, the Board had delegated its power to the employees.
I find nothing in the statute to warrant the majority in saying that an election cannot be had until a unit has been designated. I see nothing wrong with the Board’s procedure adopted here in making tentative findings as to what may be an appropriate unit and then seeking the employees’ preference thereto. The employees’ views were proper to be considered. Pittsburgh Glass Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 313 U.S. 146, 61 S.Ct. 908, 85 L.Ed. 1251.
The Board had considered voluminous evidence concerning the bargaining unit and the claims to representation therein. The units found to be appropriate for craft units and to be represented by the American Federation of Labor were composed of the employees traditionally found in the craft units, such as engineers, steamfitters, and firemen and oilers. The unit found appropriate for representation by the Congress of Industrial Organizations contained for the most part employees that could not be considered skilled er readily classifiable in the crafts. They Were employees engaged in dusting, sweeping,, polishing and cleaning, the operators of the elevators, and some employees of the Engineering Department outside of the crafts. All of them did a similar work relating to the housekeeping and maintenance of the store. The kind of work they did, the fact that they were unskilled and not readily classified as craft workers, and many other factors were considered by the Board. The Board made tentative findings that certain groups might be considered as appropriate units for collective bargaining. Having made that determination tentatively, the Board sought the views of the employees in those groups by means of an election. The Board never submitted to the employees the question of what was to be the bargaining unit. The Board advised with the employees only to determine whom the employees would have as bargaining representative in the unit determined by the Board tentatively to be appropriate. *395This was no delegation of the Board’s power. It was a method of consultation by-means of election not prohibited by statute.
Suppose the Board had determined definitely and not tentatively the same units before the election, and then had held the election. Could there be any doubt that there is evidence in the record to support such action? Does the method of procedure, when not contrary to that laid down by the statute, vitiate the decision of the Board? I think not. The procedure should be liberal and flexible. The stick-in-the-bark legalisms of courtroom practice were not intended to be permitted to control the procedure of the Board. I do not think this Court can prescribe or veto the Board’s procedure in a proceeding of this kind. Congress may, but it has not done so.
Because I think that there is evidence to support the Board’s findings and that its procedure violates no provision of the statute, the Board’s order, which has been advisedly disobeyed, should be enforced.