Court Opinion

ID: 9483843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:32:57.184192+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:51.984265
License: Public Domain

WILL, Senior District Judge,
concurring.
Judge Easterbrook and Judge Cudahy both arrive at the same destination though by slightly different routes. Both would enforce the Board’s order.
I concur with Judge Easterbrook that the Board correctly held U.S. Can’s conduct constituted an adoption of the existing master labor agreement notwithstanding its denials that it intended to do so. Actions speak louder than words. Adopting 90% or more of an agreement, including all the provisions favorable to the successor employer, warrants concluding that the agreement has been adopted, oral protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
I also agree with Judge Easterbrook and Judge Cudahy that, although the Board for some unexplained reason eschewed the obvious ground that because what took place here was a typical stock acquisition-reorganization, U.S. Can should be bound to the master labor agreement on that ground alone.
Since Judge Easterbrook’s conclusion that U.S. Can adopted the existing agreement with which I agree is sufficient grounds for ordering enforcement of the Board’s order, it is not necessary for us to enter the controversy of whether or not NLRB v. Burns International Sec. Servs., Inc., 406 U.S. 272, 92 S.Ct. 1571, 32 L.Ed.2d 61 (1972) warrants the conclusion that a successor employer, while it has a right to set the initial terms and conditions on which it will hire substantially all of the incumbent employees must, nevertheless, bargain in good faith to an impasse with the existing union before imposing the new terms and until it does is bound by the existing agreement.
This is a murky area. Burns clearly requires that a successor employer negotiate and bargain with the existing union in good faith when requested to do so. Burns at 295, 92 S.Ct. at 1586. It does not state expressly that it must bargain in good faith to an impasse. Nor did the Board so hold here, stating only that U.S. Can’s “obligations under Burns included not only the duty to recognize and bargain with the union, but also to ‘consult with the employees’ bargaining representative before [fixing initial] terms’ of employment.” Board Decision and Order at p. 3 n. 4. The Board also held that U.S. Can had not done so. The AU, however, clearly read Burns to require that the company continue to operate under the old agreement “until reaching a new agreement or bargaining to impasse.” AU Decision at p. 26.
I confess that I have difficulty distinguishing between “consulting, negotiating, or bargaining in good faith” and “bargaining in good faith to an impasse.” It seems to me that the latter is the best measure of the former, yet a number of courts have made that distinction. Saks & Co. v. NLRB, 634 F.2d 681, 687-88 (2d Cir.1980); Nazareth Regional High School v. NLRB, 549 F.2d 873, 881-82 (2d Cir.1977); Kallmann v. NLRB, 640 F.2d 1094, 1102-03 (9th Cir.1981); NLRB v. Dent, 534 F.2d 844 (9th Cir.1976); Machinists v. NLRB, 595 F.2d 664, 672-76 (D.C.Cir.1978). Indeed, Judge Easterbrook in his dissent in U.S. Marine Corp. v. N.L.R.B., 944 F.2d 1305, 1328, asserts that Burns creates “only a bargaining obligation even if the successor plans to (and does) hire all of its predecessor’s employees.”
Since I am not perceptive enough to determine if there has been good faith consulting, negotiating, or bargaining before *875reaching an impasse and different courts have applied different criteria in determining whether or not the successor employer had discharged its Bums duty to negotiate and bargain, I would read Burns to require good faith bargaining to an impasse. If a successor employer need simply propose new and changed terms and conditions, and then, if the Union rejects them or makes counterproposals, may put the new terms and conditions into effect, it is obvious to me that this will generate labor strife and strikes which could be avoided by requiring good faith bargaining to an impasse.
I am satisfied, however, in this case, to join in Judge Easterbrook’s conclusion that the evidence here clearly establishes that, as the Board found, U.S. Can adopted the existing master agreement and enforcing the Board’s order on that ground.