Court Opinion

ID: 9449616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:17:14.466832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:54.761735
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I must respectfully dissent.
The premise of the main opinion is that a majority of the employees engaged in concerted activity which was not in derogation of the position taken by their bargaining agent. Could I find support in the record for such premise I would be in complete accord. But I do not think it proper to examine events that occurred long after petitioner’s job was effectively struck and was completely shut down to determine whether the employees’ action was concerted, a majority, and protected activity.
At about 8:30 a. m. on June 15 nine employees, admittedly but a small minority of the bargaining unit, walked off the job and caused petitioner’s entire project to shut down at 11:00 a. m. These nine employees initiated and effectuated a strike without consulting with their union membership or their bargaining agent and with no knowledge or concern for the wishes of their fellow members, their bargaining agent, or the orderly process of collective bargaining. In fact, upon receiving word of the strike, the Union immediately and emphatically disclaimed any responsibility for the strike but indicated it would cooperate with the employees in negotiations; on June 18, three days later, the will of the majority1 became apparent when by a vote of 15 to 12 the employees agreed not to work; and, finally, on June 22, the employees, after completing orderly collective bargaining, voted to and did return to work unconditionally.
It seems to me that the validity of this strike must be tested against conditions that existed at the time of the strike and cannot gain comfort from subsequent events. The principles of collective bargaining contemplate the reflection of the will of the majority through a designated bargaining agent. The process does not contemplate coercive action by a handful of employees and a subsequent determination of the validity of such action by use of bargaining and vote. The Act contemplates the democratic procedure of discussion, vote, and then action. In the case at bar the procedure is reversed and seems to me to corrupt traditional collective bargaining.
I would infer from the reasoning of the main opinion that had the eventual vote of the employees been 15 to 12 against the strike that the action of the original nine would not then be majority *902action nor protected concerted activity. I understand the position of the Board to be much broader for in the case at bar it relies on its earlier decision in Sunbeam Lighting Co., Inc., 136 N.L.R.B. 107. Sunbeam has now been reversed by the Seventh Circuit, National Labor Relations Board v. Sunbeam Lighting Co., Inc., 7 Cir., 318 F.2d 661, and I am unable to distinguish, as do my Brothers, the principles of that case as expressed by Judges Castle and Kiley from those here involved.

. The majority opinion states that the night shift “joined soon after the first incident * * But the night shift knew nothing of the strike and was flagged down en route to work. The job was shut down and they couldn’t work.