Court Opinion

ID: 9491636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:19:16.844812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:51.545033
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I do not quarrel with the majority’s basic statement of the facts. I restate a few for emphasis.
In the course of contract negotiations, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 1936 (“the Union”) sought disclosure of claims information concerning the health benefit plan of petitioner United States Testing Company. As the majority recognizes:
[T]he Company ultimately turned over to the Union (1) the premium rate and premium paid for union employees, (2) a “benefit and service analysis” consisting of the coverage rates, charges, and adjustments for medical and dental benefits for all employees, (3) a benefits cost analysis that the Company had prepared for single and family coverage, showing the monthly premium and the percentage of premiums paid by an employee contributing thirty percent; (4) the insurance carrier’s summary of its experience monitoring the period of March 1994 through August 1995, including the total claims and premiums paid and the ratio of the two numbers; (5) a list of the names, premiums, and claims paid for each union employee; and (6) the total amounts of premiums and claims paid for union employees, nonunion employees, and for all employees.
Maj. Op. at 17.
The only thing that the Union wanted that the petitioner did not turn over was the individual claims made by nonunion individual employees and their dependents, showing the nature of the claims submitted and the benefits paid. The only showing of relevance *23that the Union made for the demand for this personal information was the insistence that it needed it to be able to “intelligently and fairly” respond to the proposal by petitioner that Union employees contribute thirty percent of the health plan costs. Nevertheless, the majority maintains that the company was required to divine the relevance of the requested information from the “context” of the negotiations. Id. at 19. Such a requirement is inconsistent even with the liberal “discovery-type standard” used in determining relevance since the Union had the burden of demonstrating the relevance of information relating to nonunion employees. See Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Local Union No. 6-418 v. NLRB, 711 F.2d 348, 359 (D.C.Cir.1983).
I emphasize again that it claimed to need this information in addition to the six categories of information the company had already provided. For this failing, the company, not the Union, was cited for and found guilty of an unfair labor practice by the National Labor Relations Board. The court upholds that Board decision.
As the majority recognizes, the Supreme Court has afforded to management the right to protect the privacy interests of its employees in complying with Union demands even for relevant information. Detroit Edison Co. v. NLRB, 440 U.S. 301, 99 S.Ct. 1123, 59 L.Ed.2d 333 (1979). Assuming that the Union’s minimum showing of relevance in the present case is sufficient, I fail to see how the privacy interest could be much higher than we have before us in the case today. The Union, armed with its generic desire to “intelligently” represent its members, demands the individualized detail on the medical history of the nonunion workers whom it neither does nor can represent. The majority faults the petitioner for not furnishing the information in a redacted form, but neither the majority nor the Board explains why the six categories of information furnished are not at least the functional equivalent of redacted claims so far as relevance to negotiation is concerned nor explains how redaction would be adequate protection for the privacy of employees in a workforce no greater than 200 in number in which identity might well be surmised by even redacted medical data. As in the case of relevance, I would place the burden of proof concerning the adequacy of the company’s accommodation on the Union. Where a company has “raised its concern over the confidentiality of the records involved,” it becomes “incumbent upon the Union to demonstrate that its need for the materials outweighed the [company’s] interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the records.” East Tennessee Baptist Hosp. v. NLRB, 6 F.3d 1139, 1144 (6th Cir.1996). Here, the Union has not come close to meeting its burden of proof.
Indeed, even if the burden of proof were on the company, I would still hold that the company adequately accommodated the Union’s request. In order to address confidentiality concerns, the company merely refused to provide the Union with the information in the form and manner it demanded. Instead of providing individual claims data for the nonunion employees, the company provided a wealth of claims information, including the aggregate “total claims and premiums paid” for nonunion employees. Yet, a “refusal to disclose the requested records in the form and manner demanded by the Union” does not constitute a failure to bargain. Id. at 1143-44. Moreover, the Union itself was unyielding in its demands and proposed no accommodations that might be agreeable to both parties. The Union did not even propose the- accommodation ultimately implemented by the NLRB order — redaction of the names on individual claims. Therefore, under the circumstances, the company’s attempts to accommodate the Union, far from being nonexistent as the majority suggests, were more than adequate.
In sum, the majority fails to grasp the significance of the privacy interests at stake in this case and to appreciate the lengths to which the company went to provide the Union with the information it requested while protecting the privacy of nonunion employees. As in Detroit Edison, in the instant case there is a “total absence of evidence that the [company] fabricated concern for employee confidentiality only to frustrate the Union in the discharge of its responsibilities.” 440 *24U.S. at 319-20, 99 S.Ct. 1123. Therefore, I would grant the petition for review.