Court Opinion

ID: 9426002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:26.111336+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.515869
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins,
dissenting.
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U. S. C. § 157, guarantees to *270employees the right to “engage in . . . concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” The Court today construes that right to include union representation or the presence of another employee1 at any interview the employee reasonably fears might result in disciplinary action. In my view, such an interview is not concerted activity within the intendment of the Act. An employee’s right to have a union representative or another employee present at an investigatory interview is a matter that Congress left to the free and flexible exchange of the bargaining process.
The majority opinion acknowledges that the NLRB has only recently discovered the right to union representation in employer interviews. In fact, as late as 1964— after almost 30 years of experience with § 7 — the Board flatly rejected an employee’s claim that she was entitled to union representation in a “discharge conversation” with the general manager, who later admitted that he had already decided to fire her. The Board adopted the Trial Examiner’s analysis:
“I fail to perceive anything in the Act which obliges an employer to permit the presence of a representative of the bargaining agent in every situation where an employer is compelled to admonish or to otherwise take disciplinary action against an employee, particularly in those situations where the employee’s conduct is unrelated to any legitimate union or concerted activity. An employer undoubtedly has the right to maintain day-to-day discipline in the plant or on the working premises and it seems *271to me that only exceptional circumstances should warrant any interference with this right.” Dobbs Houses, Inc., 145 N. L. R. B. 1565, 1571 (1964).2
The convoluted course of litigation from Dobbs Houses to Quality Mfg. hardly suggests that the Board’s change of heart resulted from a logical “evolutional approach.” Ante, at 265. The Board initially retreated from Dobbs Houses, deciding that it only applied to “investigatory” interviews and holding that if the employer already had decided on discipline the union had a §8 (a)(5) right to attend the interview. Texaco, Inc., Houston Producing Division, 168 N. L. R. B. 361 (1967), enforcement denied, 408 F. 2d 142 (CA5 1969). It reasoned that employee discipline sufficiently affects a “term or condition of employment” to implicate the employer’s obligation to consult with the employee’s bargaining representative, and that direct dealing with an employee on an issue of discipline violated § 8 (a)(5).3 For several years, the Board adhered to its distinction between “investigative” and “disciplinary” interviews, dismissing claims under both *272§ 8 (a) (1) and § 8 (a) (5) in the absence of evidence that the employer had decided to discipline the employee.4
Quality Mfg. Co. was the first case in which the Board perceived any greater content in § 7. It did so, not by relying on “significant developments in industrial life,” ante, at 265, but by stating simply that in none of the earlier cases had a worker been fired for insisting on union representation. The Board also asserted, for the first time, that its earlier decisions had disposed of only the union’s right to bargain with the employer over the discipline to be imposed, and had not dealt with the employee’s right under § 7 to insist on union presence at meetings that he reasonably fears would lead to disciplinary action. 195 N. L. R. B. 197, 198. Even this distinction was abandoned some four months later in Mobil Oil Corp., 196 N. L. R. B. 1052 (1972), enforcement denied, 482 F. 2d 842 (CA7 1973). There the Board followed Quality Mfg., even though the employees in Mobil Oil had not been fired for insisting on union representation and their only claim was that the employer had excluded the union from an investigatory interview. Thus, the Board has turned its back on Dobbs Houses and now finds a § 7 right to insist on union presence in the absence of any evidence that the employer has decided to embark on a course of discipline.
Congress’ goal in enacting federal labor legislation was to create a framework within which labor and manage*273ment can establish the mutual rights and obligations that govern the employment relationship. “The theory of the Act is that free opportunity for negotiation with accredited representatives of employees is likely to promote industrial peace and may bring about the adjustments and agreements which the Act in itself does not attempt to compel.” NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 45 (1937). The National Labor Relations Act only creates the structure for the parties’ exercise of their respective economic strengths; it leaves definition of the precise contours of the employment relationship to the collective-bargaining process. See Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U. S. 99, 108 (1970); NLRB v. American National Insurance Co., 343 U. S. 395, 402 (1952).
As the Court noted in Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Organization, § 7 guarantees employees’ basic rights of industrial self-organization, rights which are for the most part “collective rights . . . to act in concert with one’s fellow employees, [which] are protected, not for their own sake, but as an instrument of the national labor policy of minimizing industrial strife 'by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.’ ” Ante, at 62. Section 7 protects those rights that are essential to employee self-organization and to the exercise of economic weapons to exact concessions from management and demand a voice in defining the terms of the employment relationship.5 It does not define those terms itself.
The power to discipline or discharge employees has been recognized uniformly as one of the elemental prerogatives of management. Absent specific limitations *274imposed by statute 6 or through the process of collective bargaining,7 management remains free to discharge employees at will. See Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Co., 363 U. S. 574, 583 (1960). An employer’s need to consider and undertake disciplinary action will arise in a wide variety of unpredictable situations. The appropriate disciplinary response also will vary significantly, depending on the nature and severity of the employee’s conduct. Likewise, the nature and amount of information required for determining the appropriateness of disciplinary action may vary with the severity of the possible sanction and the complexity of the problem. And in some instances, the employer’s legitimate need to maintain discipline and security may require an immediate response.
This variety and complexity necessarily call for flexible and creative adjustment. As the Court recognizes, ante, at 267, the question of union participation in investigatory *275interviews is a standard topic of collective bargaining.8 Many agreements incorporate provisions that grant and define such rights, and arbitration decisions increasingly have begun to recognize them as well. Rather than vindicate the Board’s interpretation of § 7, however, these developments suggest to me that union representation at investigatory interviews is a matter that Congress left to the bargaining process. Even after affording appropriate deference to the Board’s meandering interpretation of the Act, I conclude that the right announced today is not among those that Congress intended to protect in § 7. The type of personalized interview with which we are here concerned is simply not “concerted activity” within the meaning of the Act.

 While the Court speaks only of the right to insist on the presence of a union representative, it must be assumed that the § 7 right today recognized, affording employees the right to act “in concert” in employer interviews, also exists in the absence of a recognized union. Cf. NLRB v. Washington Aluminum, Co., 370 U. S. 9 (1962).

 In one earlier case the Board had found a § 8 (a) (1) violation in the employer’s refusal to admit a union representative ■ to an interview. Ross Gear & Tool Co., 63 N. L. R. B. 1012, 1033-1034 (1945), enforcement denied, 158 F. 2d 607, 611-614 (CA7 1947). In that case, however, the Board found that the employee, a union committee member; was called in to discuss a pending union issue. The Board found that discharging her for insisting on the presence of the entire committee was a discriminatory discharge under § 8 (a)(1). The opinion in Dobbs Houses distinguished Ross Gear on the ground that the matter under investigation was protected union activity. 145 N. L. R. B., at 1571.

 The Board has not been called upon to pursue its § 8 (a) (5) theory to its logical conclusion. Its determination that all disciplinary decisions are matters that invoke the employer’s mandatory duty to bargain would seem to suggest that, absent some qualification of the duty contained in the collective-bargaining agreement, federal law will now be read to require that the employer bargain *272to impasse before initiating unilateral action on disciplinary matters. It is difficult to believe that Congress intended such a radical restriction of the employer’s power to discipline employees. See Fibre-board, Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S.203, 217, 218, 223 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring).

 Lafayette Radio Electronics, 194 N. L. R. B. 491 (1971); Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 192 N. L. R. B. 834 (1971); Texaco, Inc., Los Angeles Terminal, 179 N. L. R. B. 976 (1969); Jacobe-Pearson Ford, Inc., 172 N. L. R. B. 594 (1968); Chevron Oil Co., 168 N. L. R. B. 574 (1967).

 By contrast, the employee’s § 7 right announced today may prove to be of limited value to the employee or to the stabilization of labor relations generally. The Court appears to adopt the Board’s view that investigatory interviews are not bargaining sessions and *274that the employer legitimately can insist on hearing only the employee’s version of the facts. Absent employer invitation, it would appear that the employee’s § 7 right does not encompass the right to insist on the participation of the person he brings with him to the investigatory meeting. The new right thus appears restricted to the privilege to insist on'the mute and inactive presence of a fellow employee or a union representative; a witness to the interview, perhaps.

 Section 8 (a)(1) forbids employers to take disciplinary actions that “interfere with, restrain, or coerce” the employee’s exercise of § 7 rights. Other federal statutes also limit in certain respects the employer’s basic power to discipline and discharge employees. See, e. g., § 706 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 259, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5; Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 602, 29 U. S. C. § 623.

 The Board and the courts have recognized that union demands for provisions limiting the employer’s power to discharge can be the subject of mandatory bargaining. See Fibreboard Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S., at 217, 221-223 (Stewart, J., concurring).

 The history of a similar case, Mobil Oil, 196 N. L. R. B. 1052 (1972), enforcement denied, 482 F. 2d 842 (CA7 1973), illustrates how the Board has substituted its judgment for that of the collective-bargaining process. During negotiations leading to the establishment of a collective-bargaining agreement in that case, the union advanced a demand that existing provisions governing suspension and discharge be amended to provide for company-union discussions prior to disciplinary action. The employer refused to accede to that demand and ultimately prevailed, only to find his efforts at the bargaining table voided by the Board's interpretation of the statute.
Chairman Miller subsequently suggested that the union can waive the employee’s § 7 right to the presence of a union representative. See Western Electric Co., 198 N. L. R. B. 82 (1972). The Court today provides no indication whether such waivers in the collective-bargaining process are permissible. Cf. NLRB v. Magnavox Co., 415 U. S. 322 (1974).