Court Opinion

ID: 9451158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:08:19.888839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:35.710041
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
On January 19 and 20, 1964, four of the five laboratory technicians signed *916union cards. On January 21, the union informed the company that it represented a majority of these employees and requested recognition. The company made no written reply but proceeded to question each of the employees. It thereby verified the fact that a majority of the laboratory technicians were represented by the union. The company did not comply with the union’s request for recognition despite this verification. Instead, its superintendent, in conversation with two of the technicians, alluded to disadvantages which would follow from union accession. The union, having received no reply to the request for recognition, filed a petition with the Board for an election. Shortly thereafter, the four employees who had signed union cards wrote letters to the union, with the assistance of company superintendent Colvin, indicating their withdrawal.
I am of the opinion that the failure of the company to comply with the request to bargain with the union after it had learned of the union’s majority status, the subsequent statements of the company superintendent to the employees, and the assistance given to the employees in submitting their withdrawals from the union in their totality constitute substantial evidence of a refusal to bargain within the meaning of section 8(a) (5). Once having ascertained that a union represents a majority of the employees, an employer may not delay in complying with a request to bargain until the majority status has been erased, particularly when the employer himself has contributed to such effacement. Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. N. L. R. B., 321 U.S. 679, 687, 64 S.Ct. 830, 88 L.Ed. 1007 (1944); Franks Bros. Co. v. N. L. R. B., 321 U.S. 702, 704, 64 S.Ct. 817, 88 L.Ed. 1020 (1944)
The court’s opinion attaches some significance to the union’s change of view with respect to the appropriate bargaining unit and also to the fact that this case concerns only five employees. It is true that the union’s initial request for representation contemplated a separate unit restricted to the laboratory technicians and that its representation petition requested that the technicians be merged with the existing production and maintenance unit. The company, however, made no objection about the appropriate unit. Its refusal to bargain did not stem from any bona fide doubt on that point. Therefore, the union’s change of view is wholly immaterial to the issue before us. Also immaterial is the fact that this case is concerned with a very few employees. The National Labor Relations Act makes no distinction regarding the number of employees whose rights must be affected in order to apply its safeguards.
I would enforce the Board’s order in its entirety.