Court Opinion

ID: 9650389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:34:47.140909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:20.709201
License: Public Domain

GARRECHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
With that part of the main opinion which nullifies the finding of the Board whereby it determined that “Association’s proposal of September 2, restricting recognition of the Union as representing its members only,” constituted a refusal to bargain collectively within the meaning of the Act, I do not agree. To my mind, the evidence to sustain this finding is as substantial as that which supports other findings which the opinion upholds.
It is admitted that the Union had been duly authorized to represent all the workers, non-union as well as union. The purpose of the respondents to restrict the Union to act or bargain solely for its own members or to offer to bargain with it on that basis only, did not meet the obligation of the respondents under the law. The main opinion obscures this crucial fact by eloquent emphasis about what the Board did not find or failed to find. The majority opinion seems to indicate that if respondents negotiated at all with the Union, this would preclude any finding of refusal to bargain collectively. Manifestly much of this negotiating on other matters was conversational camouflage utterly lacking in good faith. Indeed, one of the witnesses was asked if certain phases of it were not mere sham. Respondents objected to an answer as being a conclusion. However, the Board could draw the conclusion and there being substantial evidence in the record to support it this court is bound by the finding. The fact remains that the vital requirement that the Union be restricted to bargain only for its own members, which was injected into the discussion by respondents was never withdrawn. This is quite sufficient to sustain the Board in its finding:
“ * * * The language of the Association’s proposal of September 2, restricting recognition of the Union as representing its members only, constituted a clear refusal so to bargain. An employer cannot fulfill his obligation to a labor organization which is the exclusive representative of his employees by offering to bargain with it for its members only. We accordingly find that, on September 2, 1936, the respondents, except Western Growers’ Protective Association, H. P. Garin Company, and E. H. Spiegl, refused to bargain collectively with the Union. By so doing they also interfered with, restrained, and coerced the employees of members of the Association and of those firms which the Association was authorized to represent, in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act.”
In sustaining a similar finding the Supreme Court in the case of National Licorice Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 309 U.S. 350, at page 358, 60 S.Ct. 569, at page 574, 84 L.Ed. 799, said: “ * * * There is testimony that at the meeting with the Union representatives on July 29th petitioner’s president declined to recognize the Union as the bargaining representative of all the employees, and declared that he would negotiate with it only as the bargaining representative of the Union members, refusing to bargain with it as the representative of all the employees, a plain violation of the Act. §§ 8(5), 9(a). This was followed by petitioner’s refusal, on August 2nd, to negotiate with Union representatives. There was also evidence from which the Board could have found that the negotiations on July 20th and July 29th were not entered into by the petitioner in good faith, and were but thinly disguised refusals to treat with the Union representatives.”
The findings of the Board should be sustained.