Court Opinion

ID: 9653774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:54:09.643282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:01.491918
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
The Board argues in its petition for rehearing that we have in effect held that the day shift, which acted in concert to strike and with whom the other strikers cooperated, was not a labor organization within the meaning of the Act. We held no such thing. The Board had found “that the respondent, by its course of conduct on and after July 3, 1942, as set forth above and in the Intermediate Report, discriminated in regard to the hire and tenure of employment of all its striking employees, and thereby discouraged membership in the Union * * As a conclusion of law based upon this finding, the Board held: “By discriminating in regard to the hire and tenure of employment of * * * its striking employees and thereby discouraging membership in Local No. 12418, District 50, United Mine Workers of America, the respondent has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices, within the meaning of Section 8(3) of the Act.” The “Union” referred to in the findings was the C. I. O.
The Board had found and held that the discrimination discouraged membership in the Union. We simply held that there was no substantial evidence to support a finding that such discrimination thereby discouraged membership in the Union, that is, the C. I. O. All of the evidence was to the effect that the Union had no connection with the activities of the strikers. The discrimination found by the Board was not discrimination to discourage membership in such “labor organization” as the day shift and its cooperating fellow workers represented, but such discrimination as “discouraged membership in the Union.” We held only that the discrimination as practiced by the respondent was not shown by substantial evidence to have been for the purpose of discouraging membership in the Union. If it was done to discourage membership in the loose organization that represented the striking employees, there was no finding of the Board to that effect. We must take the findings of the Board as made and not as they might have been made.
It is next urged that we erred in holding that the striking employees were not acting as members of the Union. This was not a case where union men conceal their union affiliation in order that their employer may not be influenced thereby. This was a case where the workers were known to be Union members, but were not acting as members of the Union; and the Union had nothing to do with the strike. This was a “wildcat” strike in a war industry in time of war, and the Union accepted no responsibility therefor. From President Murray on down, the Union had pledged no strikes in war industries in war time and had denounced “wildcat” strikes. To find that these striking employees were acting for and on behalf of the Union would do violence to the facts and to the known policy of the Union from its President on down. It would violate the Union’s pledge of no strikes in a situation that the Union .had carefully kept out of.
The Board next insists that the discharge of the first shift necessarily discouraged membership in a “labor organization.” If it did, that was not what the Board found. *861The Board found, as we have heretofore pointed out, that such conduct discouraged membership in the Union.
Finally, the Board urges that for a violation of Section 8(1), 29 U.S.C.A. § 158 (1), it could have applied the same remedy of reinstatement with back pay which it applied for the violation of Section 8(3). The Board found that the discrimination in hire and tenure was for the purpose of discouraging membership in the Union and for such discrimination the respondent was guilty of a violation of Section 8(3). The Board never found that the discrimination in the hire and tenure had any relation to a Section 8(1) violation. The Board says it is not powerless to apply the same remedy for a violation of Section 8(1). We have no way of knowing what the Board might find and what remedies it might apply if given a “second bite at the cherry.” We know only that the Board did not apply such remedy, and on that record we act and not on some other record the Board might have made.
The petition for rehearing is denied.