Court Opinion

ID: 8933283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 07:15:47.504779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:33.589326
License: Public Domain

HAYNSWORTH, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
It seems to me grossly unfair, in the circumstances of this case, to apply the Guitón rule retroactively. We are told that the back pay award would bankrupt the local union and would constitute a severe economic burden upon the employer, and the reinstatement of nine or more former employees would occasion serious disruptions in the lives of present employees in a work force which, we are informed, has dwindled to approximately fifteen. Furthermore, it would occasion serious disruptions and uncertainties in the management of labor relations contracts when parties are called upon to conduct themselves as if a narrow majority of Board members, instead, had been a dissenting minority.
This provision for super-seniority first came into the contract before the Labor Board had addressed the problem, and was carried over into the agreement dated February 10, 1979. At the time of the enforcement of the super-seniority clause in the 1979 agreement, the Board’s 1977 decision in Limpco appeared to be controlling. While there had been a strong dissent in that case, a majority of the Board members had aligned themselves in support of the position of the union and the employer in this case. They were entitled to place substantial reliance upon that decision of the Board. The presence of the dissent would diminish the strength of that reliance, but it should not dissipate it, when Limpco was recent and Guitón a good four years into the future. Even if attention is focused on the contract renewal in 1979, one could not realistically expect of the union the kind of prescience that might have led them to forego their contractual advantage.
At the time the parties acted, enforcement and compliance with the agreement *1104between the union and the employer was the only possible course open to them. Had the parties anticipated that in some future year the Board would come down with its decision in Guitón, and the union had then waived its contractual right and the employer broken the super-seniority clause by laying off the union’s recording secretary and its treasurer, they would have immediately exposed themselves to indefensible suits by the secretary and the treasurer. The secretary and the treasurer could have alleged and proved a violation by the union of its fiduciary duty of fair representation and the breach of the collective bargaining agreement by the employer. Neither the union nor the employer could offer any defense, and they would have suffered judgment against them both. A retroactive application of Guitón, however, imposes substantial sanctions upon them because they did not take a course which, at the time, was clearly unlawful.
The business of the employer has been a shrinking one. Its work force of over 260 people had shrunk to 68 by the time of the hearing before the administrative law judge. We are informed that it has continued to dwindle until now it is only approximately 15. Natural attrition cannot be expected to make room for nine or more other employees to whom the employer is required to offer reinstatement. Enforcement of the order will likely require the discharge of some of the present employees, not just the discharge of the recording secretary and treasurer.
The general purpose and design of the federal labor relations laws is to promote peace and order in industrial relations. That purpose is not served by a retroactive application of a new rule which would introduce great uncertainty into the administration of a collectively bargained agreement. Unless enforcement or maintenance of a particular contractual provision has been held by the National Labor Relations Board to be an unfair labor practice, the parties to such a contract should be able to act in compliance with their agreement with assurance that the Labor Board will not later apply a different rule to their conduct.
I would not punish the union and the employer for compliance with their bargain when, at the time they acted, their super-seniority provision had been approved by the National Labor Relations Board. It was simply beyond the capacity of the parties to elevate the views of the dissenters to an official declaration of the law by the Board. Without such a declaration there was no alternative to compliance with their bargain.