Court Opinion

ID: 9643846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:41:42.270438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:04.390633
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree that the men who were on strike on July 5, 1935, were entitled to reinstatement, though not because the dispute which caused them to quit their jobs, was “current” when the act took effect. If I were free to decide, I should hold that it was an “unfair labor practice” to discriminate against anyone, whether an “employee”, or not. Section eight has five subdivisions and two of them — two and three — do not use the word. Moreover, not only does the text for that reason not require that these subdivisions shall be limited to employees, but the predominant purpose of the act as a whole requires an opposite construction. One can as effectively interfere with the rights which § 7 se*207cures by refusing to hire as by discharging; that is, unless we interpret “employees” in § 7, as limited to persons actually employed at the moment, which would certainly mutilate the act. Nor am I moved by the argument that the employer must be free to hire whom he will. The whole purpose is to limit his liberty so far as its exercise may invade the new rights created; and I can see no greater limitation in denying him the power to discriminate in hiring, than in discharging. Except for National Labor Relations Board v. National Casket Company, 2 Cir., 107 F.2d 992, I should therefore have sustained the order, not only as to those on strike when the “unfair labor practice” occurred, but as to the two who were not on any theory "“employees” at that time. But, having taken part in that decision and my notions being then overruled, I regard it as authoritative. It is another question whether anyone who is not an “employee”, is entitled to reinstatement, but that I pass, because it does not arise if it was not an “unfair labor practice” to discriminate against the two men in question.