Court Opinion

ID: 9421672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:59:19.770636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:31.629327
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Warren
dissenting in part and concurring in part.
These two cases concern the issue of whether the enforcement of company rules preventing union solicitation or distribution is an unfair labor practice when concurrent with this enforcement the employer embarks on a program of advocacy against the union. Contrary to what is stated in the opinion of the Court, I do not believe that both these cases are controlled by the same considerations. The pivotal distinction is that in Labor Board v. Avondale Mills the employer’s antiunion activities were coercive in nature, while in Labor Board v. United Steelworkers they were not. I dissent from the judgment in No. 289, Avondale Mills, and concur in the result in No. 81, United Steelworkers.
In Avondale Mills this Court affirms the judgment of the Court of Appeals, which refused to enforce that portion of an order of the National Labor Relations Board which held that enforcement of the company’s rule against solicitation on the premises during working hours was an unfair labor practice contrary to Section 8 (a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act. I cannot agree with the conclusion of the majority that the record is *366insufficient to sustain the action of the Board. Their conclusion depends on two circumstances. The first is the failure of the union or the employees to request the employer not to enforce his antisolicitation rule during the union organizing campaign. This is a slender reed. Union membership cards were first distributed to employees on November 10, 1954. On the very next day certain employees were summoned to the office of a management representative, who read the following statement:
“It has come to our attention that you are attempting to solicit union membership in this plant during working hours, while the employees that you are attempting to solicit are at work. This is a violation of plant rules and any future instances of this sort will result in prompt dismissal.”
Immediately thereafter the company’s supervisory personnel engaged in a series of personal confrontations with union members and other employees, threatening loss of jobs and other benefits in case the organizing campaign continued or the plant became unionized. Furthermore, there was substantial evidence from which the Board was able to conclude that prior to November 11, 1954, there was in fact no rule against solicitation on the premises during working hours and that the rule was invoked solely as an antiunion measure. None of these conclusions was disturbed by the court below, which merely held that the invocation of the rule under these facts was part of the employer’s right to oppose the union. The majority thus attaches significance, where the Board did not, to the fact that the union failed to request the company to grant for the union’s benefit an exception to a rule that was promulgated to keep the union out.
The second circumstance on which the majority relies is the failure of the Board to make findings that reason*367able alternatives were not open to the union in the face of the no-solicitation rule. Admittedly, evidence and findings of this nature were elements in cases where the validity of employer no-solicitation and no-distribution rules was in issue. See Labor Board v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105; Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793. However, there has heretofore been no indication that such evidence and findings were indispensable elements to every case in which these employer rules were being examined.1 In contrast to Bab-cock and Republic Aviation we are not concerned here with the validity of these rules per se. The no-solicitation rule under examination here may well be valid if fairly applied. But the Board held that it was not fairly applied on account of its link to the company’s campaign of coercion, and the evidence and findings on that issue are far more relevant to this case than a discussion of the site of the plant, the nature of the surrounding area, and the places of residence of the workers.
While praising “the Board’s special understanding of these industrial situations,” the majority opinion reverses the Board on the very sort of issues that are within its special competence. An examination of the record shows that the Board has already carefully apprized itself of the interests of both sides in this controversy. An employer *368has forbidden his employees to engage in union solicitation within the plant during working hours. He contemporaneously engages in a campaign of coercive antiunion solicitation during those same working hours. The validity of both practices — the enforcement of the no-solicitation rule and the coercive antiunion solicitation— comes into question, for they are not separable. Under one set of circumstances the no-solicitation rule may be valid. However, the determination as to whether an employer’s antiunion activities are an unfair labor practice depends on the context in which those activities occur,2 and no-solicitation rules are -to be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny. Employees during working hours are the classic captive audience. At the very moment the employees in this case were under the greatest degree of control by their employer, they were forced to listen to denunciations of the union coupled with clear references to the personal disasters that would ensue if the union succeeded or if the particular employee continued to solicit for the union. These threats were themselves held to be unfair labor practices by the Board, and that holding was enforced by the'Court of Appeals and is not in issue here. During this same working time the unionized employees, who under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act have a right to engage in concerted activity, were unable, due to their employer’s own rule, to try to overcome the effect of his activities even though those activities were in violation of Section 8 (a)(1) of the Act. It is not necessary to suggest that in all circumstances a union must have the same facilities and opportunity to solicit employees as the employer has in opposing the union. However, the plant premises and working time are such decisive factors during *369a labor dispute that when an employer denies them to the union and at the same time pursues his own program of coercion on the premises and during working hours, this denial is by itself an interference with the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act and hence contrary to Section 8(a)(1).
There is no issue in this case of balancing the employee’s rights under Section 7 with the employer’s right to promote “the legally authorized expression of his anti-union views.” The only expression of views carried on by Avondale Mills was a series of threats against the union. Far from being “legally authorized,” this expression of views constituted an unfair labor practice by itself. Thus we are not concerned in this case with the possibility of curtailing legitimate employer expression in violation of either the First Amendment or Section 8 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act. Moreover, it is no aid to the company that all the activities here involved occurred on plant property and during working hours. When a choice has been required between an employer’s rights in his premises and the rights that Congress has protected under Section 7, this Court has not hesitated to give effect to the congressional will. Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, supra; Labor Board v. Stowe Spinning Co., 336 U. S. 226; cf. Labor Board v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., supra.
In United Steelworkers, I concur in the result. The National Labor Relations Board declined to hold that the enforcement of an employer’s no-distribution rule against a union was an unfair labor practice even though it was coupled with an antiunion campaign. The Court of Appeals reversed the Board on this point, modifying the Board’s order accordingly. This Court sustains the Board. It is conceded that the enforcement of this no-distribution rule against the union is not by itself an *370unfair- labor practice. The Board determined that the employer’s expressions of his antiunion views were non-coercive in nature. This fact creates a vital distinction between this ease and Avondale Mills. Being noncoercive in nature, the employer’s expressions were protected by Section 8 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act3 and so cannot be used to show that the contemporaneous enforcement of the no-distribution rule was an unfair labor practice.4

 In the opinion in Republic Aviation all that appears is that the company was a large nonurban manufacturer, many of whose employees lived at distances greater than walking distance from the plant in the Long Island area. 324 U. S., at 800. The opinion goes on to note that in both the Republic Aviation case and its companion Le Tourneau Co. case, “No evidence was offered that any unusual conditions existed in labor relations, the plant location or otherwise to support any contention that conditions at this plant differed from those occurring normally at any other large establishment.” Supra, at 801. Evidence and findings now required by this Court were similarly absent in Matter of Peyton Packing Co., 49 N. L. R. B. 828, quoted with approval in Republic Aviation, supra, at 803, n. 10.

 Cf. Labor Board v. Virginia Elec. & Power Co., 314 U. S. 469; International Assn. of Machinists v. Labor Board, 311 U. S. 72.

 “The expressing of any views, argument, or opinion, or the dissemination thereof, whether in written, printed, graphic, or visual form, shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice under any of the provisions of this Act, if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.”

 See H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 8, 33; H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 45. See also the remarks of Senator Taft during the Senate debate on the Act. 93 Cong. Rec. 6443-6444, 6446-6447, 6859-6860.