Court Opinion

ID: 9465126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:36:27.750094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:59.187934
License: Public Domain

CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with part I of the majority opinion and I concur in the result reached in part II. I respectfully dissent, however, from that portion of part III of the majority opinion which affirms the Board’s conclusion that a Gissel bargaining order is necessary in this case. I do not agree that we can imply a Board finding that employee sentiment can best be protected in this particular case by a bargaining order. Yet this finding is one of the four that must be made to determine that a bargaining order is appropriate. NLRB v. American Cable Systems, Inc., 414 F.2d 661, 668-69 (5th Cir. 1969) (American Cable I).
After enumerating the § 8(a)(1) violations found, the ALJ concluded:
Such conduct by the Respondent makes it highly unlikely that a rerun election can be utilized in the foreseeable future as an accurate indicator of employee sentiment. By this conduct the Respondent has forfeited a right which it might otherwise have to insist that the question concerning representation herein be resolved by use of ballots rather than designation cards.
This determination was affirmed by the Board, which states only the following with *774respect to the appropriateness of the bargaining order:
We also find, in agreement with the Administrative Law Judge, that the 8(a)(1) and (3) violations herein called for a remedial bargaining order.
. [I]n cases such as this, where the respondent has committed violations of Section 8(a)(1) and (3) which preclude the holding of a fair rerun election, we will issue a remedial bargaining order.
Although it is clear that the ALJ felt a bargaining order appropriate since the company had forfeited its right to demand an election, and although the ALJ and Board felt it unlikely that a fair rerun election could be held, there is nothing to show that either the ALJ or the Board gave any consideration to the sentiments of the present work force.
I don’t see how this appellate court could imply that the Board must have concluded that employee sentiment could best be protected in this particular case by a bargaining order. At the time the bargaining order issued, only 15 of the company’s then 43 employees had been with the company in January 1975. This means that 28 employees were then new to the time of the unfair labor practices found and the solicitation of cards. The Board, however, refused to consider this evidence. In its Supplemental Decision and Order issuing the bargaining order, the Board justified this refusal as follows:
Following the hearing [before the ALJ] in this case, Respondent filed a motion to reopen the record in order that the Board consider evidence of employee turnover since the election and its effect on the efficacy of issuing a bargaining order in lieu of directing a second election. In view of our disposition of the case in the previously issued decision, we denied the motion because the evidence sought to be admitted was irrelevant. In view of our disposition of the proceeding in this Supplemental Decision, Respondent’s motion is denied as lacking in merit. It is well settled that the Board is not precluded from issuing a bargaining order even though time has passed and a substantial turnover of personnel has occurred since the commission of the unfair labor practices. N. L. R. B. v. Benne Katz d/b/a Williamsburg Steel Products Co., 369 U.S. 736, 82 S.Ct. 1107, 8 L.Ed.2d 230 (1962); New Alaska Development Corp., Alaska Housing Corporation, 180 NLRB 971 (1970).
The relevant time-period for determining whether a bargaining order is required is when the matter is before the Board for remedial action. Although it is inappropriate for this court to consider changes occurring after the date of the Board’s order, the Board should consider the current situation in the plant at the time it issues a bargaining order. J. P. Stevens & Co. v. N. L. R. B., 441 F.2d 514, 524-25 & n.16 (5th Cir. 1971). See N. L. R. B. v. Gibson Products Co., 494 F.2d 762 (5th Cir. 1974); N. L. R. B. v. American Cable Systems, Inc., 427 F.2d 446 (5th Cir. 1970) (American Cable II). If conditions at the plant at the time of the Board proceedings are such that employee sentiment can be expressed in an election, the Board should not enter a bargaining order. J. P. Stevens & Co. v. N. L. R. B., supra. The majority cautions noninterference with the Board’s practice of accepting without further investigation the AU’s findings, likening our role there to review of trial proceedings. However, it seems to me that the Board’s responsibility to view the situation existing at the time of its order makes the analogy inappropriate. While apropos to the proposition that the ALJ’s findings regarding witness credibility should stand, I cannot accept its application to factual findings which may have changed prior to the relevant time of inquiry.
I respectfully disagree with the majority’s statement that the Board extensively investigated and evaluated the conditions in the shop at the time the order was under consideration. As I read the record, it appears that the Board, without any objective evidence before it, simply concluded ipse dixit that the sentiment of this work force, the overwhelming majority of which have never been exposed to any proven unfair *775labor practice, could best be protected by a bargaining order. The bottom-line reason for this conclusion is revealed in the ALJ’s order: the company has “forfeited” its right to demand an election because of its prior misdeeds. By focusing on protecting employee sentiment “in the long run” rather than at the time of the Board’s order, the majority accepts that rationale. Such use of a bargaining order to punish an offending company has been rejected by our cases; the only legitimate occasion to use such a remedy is when its therapeutic value is necessary because the electoral atmosphere continues to be contaminated and its use would best protect the sentiment of the work force. N. L. R. B. v. Gibson Products Co., 494 F.2d at 770; American Cable II, 427 F.2d at 448.
Bargaining orders are not traditional remedies. The Board’s increasing resort to this extraordinary procedure is disquieting. In what is an obvious effort to punish Bandag for its past violations by making it bargain with the offended union, the Board has ignored the interests of employees who would be forced into accepting this bargaining agent whether they like it or not. This court has recently recognized that “it is indisputable that the thrust of the NLRA is not the protection of the union, not the protection of the employer, but rather the protection of the employee.” Mosher Steel Co. v. N. L. R. B., 568 F.2d 436, 442 (5th Cir. 1978). Gissell was designed to protect employee sentiment which may have become overborne by an employer’s past anti-union activities. But where, as here, it is not clear whether at the time of the Board’s order such practices clouded that sentiment or whether natural attrition itself was responsible for a legitimate change in sentiment, a bargaining order no longer serves that purpose, I say only that it is the Board’s responsibility to make that determination. To carry out that responsibility, it need not in every case require an election as the majority asserts.
American Cable I teaches that it is inappropriate for this court to make a finding on the question of whether the sentiment of these 28 employees would best be protected by a bargaining order. None of these 28 had ever signed cards, and none of them was in the plant when the practices found to forfeit the company’s right to protest a bargaining order took place. In the absence of any specific finding as to their views or the impact, if any, of past practices on their present ability to protect themselves in another election, this court should not imply that past practices live on in the lore of the shop and thus require a bargaining order for their protection.
If the interests of the present employees in this case, who are being forced into collective bargaining with an unchosen union as their representative, are not to be jeopardized, .we should remand so that the Board may determine whether it can make the necessary finding on protection of employee sentiment, just as was done in American Cable I.