Court Opinion

ID: 9459035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:08:33.133699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:59.365243
License: Public Domain

*699PELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with the majority that the arbitrator’s decision did not reach the issue before us. I further agree with the majority that summary judgment should not have been entered for the union by the district court. Beyond that point, however, our paths part. In my opinion, and respectfully to that expressed by the majority, there was no genuine issue of material fact and summary judgment should have been entered for Clark.
The majority sends the case back for a determination of whether Hinsch was a permanent replacement in Cinelli’s job. I fail to find any real dispute about this. He did not take Cinelli’s particular job. Hinsch, when he abandoned the strike during its duration, went back as a regular, permanent employee in the position he had occupied before the strike, that of machinist. Cinelli was a tool and die maker but pursuant to the departmental seniority he could have, under the union contract, in the event of an ordinary lay off, “bumped” Hinsch because of Cinelli’s greater seniority. The question here, however, is whether Cinelli’s greater seniority entitles him to “bump” Hinsch, who is occupying his machinist position by virtue of his taking employment during the pendency of the strike when Cinelli would not have taken any position in the department.
I find no dispute that the strike had serious consequences for Clark’s business. Prior to the strike there were 237 employees on the seniority list. When the strike ended in June 1970, there was work for only 85 persons. Nine months later, employment had actually dropped to 75 persons. At the time the strike ended, there were only three open positions in the department in question, one tool and die maker, one mold maker, and one machinist, being one in addition to that already occupied by Hinsch who was regularly so employed before the strike’s end. The first three positions were filled by employees who had greater seniority than Cinelli. Clark concedes Cinelli’s status as an employee following the arbitrator’s decision and states that he will be entitled to an offer of employment within the department on the occasion of a vacancy occurring therein. Clark contends, however, and correctly so in my opinion, that until such a vacancy occurs, either because of one of the present employees being no longer employed or because of an increase in the work force, Cinelli cannot replace the three employees with greater seniority and should not replace Hinsch, who took permanent employee status during the course of a strike thereby acquiring the protective mantle recognized in cases such as N. L. R. B. v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333, 58 S.Ct. 904, 82 L.Ed. 1381 (1938), and N. L. R. B. v. Fleetwood Trailer Co., Inc., 389 U.S. 375, 88 S.Ct. 543, 19 L.Ed.2d 614 (1967).
I do not find any controlling authority squarely in point and to that extent the case is one of first impression. However, the rationale which produced the Mackay and Fleetwood exception to the immediate reinstatement requirement seems to me to be clearly applicable here. That rationale is well stated in the majority opinion:
“In this situation, the employer’s interest in continuing his business during an economic strike coupled with the necessity of offering the inducement of permanent employment to secure employees willing to violate a picket line justify the exception of the reinstatement requirement.”
Clearly, Clark had the interest in continuing its business during a crippling strike and it seems equally patent that the company would have encountered great, if not insuperable, difficulty in inducing prospective employees, whether striking employees or outsiders, to take jobs in the strike-bound plant which would necessitate violating the picket line, in the absence of some assurance of job security vis-a-vis striking employees at the time of the discontinuance of the strike. If Hinsch did not have this protection, we have the anomalous situation that Clark could have employed four rank outsiders to permanent positions, *700all of whom would have had protected employment rights insofar as strikers returning after the strike were concerned, but that Hinsch, already an employee, would be displaced as soon as a striker with greater seniority attempted to return to work. As the Supreme Court stated in Mackay, supra, 304 U.S. at 345, 58 S.Ct. at 911, “it does not follow that an employer, guilty of no act denounced by the statute, has lost the right to protect and continue his business by supplying places left vacant by strikers.” That is exactly what Clark did here, and Hinsch who supplied one of those places should be entitled to the same protection as the outsider. Clark should not be “bound to displace men hired to take the strikers’ places in order to provide positions for them.” Mackay, supra at 347, 58 S.Ct. at 911.
However, once a striking employee has returned to work it would appear that he would only occupy his rightful niche in the seniority scheme in the event of a subsequent economic lay off, but until he does return, his seniority should be no basis for displacing a person accepting employment during the course of an economic strike. N. L. R. B. v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U.S. 221, 83 S.Ct. 1139, 10 L.Ed.2d 308 (1963).
While I earlier herein indicated my opinion that this is a case of first impression, the cases present factual situations implying support for the position taken in this dissent. Thus, in Erie Resistor, the question before the Supreme Court was whether it was an unfair labor practice to offer replacements of strikers super-seniority, 20 years in that case. The Court held that Mackay should not be extended that far, although Mr. Justice Harlan in a concurring opinion ventured that a shorter period of extra seniority might not be outlawed in the situation of replacing strikers. What is significant in Erie Resistor, as far as the present case is concerned, is that the company’s super-seniority inducement to employment was extended both to new employees and to employees on strike. A substantial number of strikers did in fact start work before the strike terminated along with some new employees. The Supreme Court gave no indication that the strikers who returned to work during the strike were any less protected than the new employees, merely that none of them were entitled to super-seniority.
I would hold that Cinelli was not entitled to reassume his employment, as contrasted to his continuing employee status, until a vacancy occurred. “If and when a job for which the striker is qualified becomes available, he is entitled to an offer of reinstatement.” Fleetwood, supra 389 U.S. at 381, 88 S.Ct. at 547. That entitlement, however, should not begin before the existence of a vacancy, and here there has been none because of the legitimate and substantial business justification of continuing the business during a strike.
For the reasons herein set forth, I would reverse, with the district court directed on remand to enter summary judgment for Clark.