Court Opinion

ID: 9470356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:03:29.23155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:51.189649
License: Public Domain

HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur in the denial of enforcement of the Board’s order, but in the partic*616ular circumstances of this case, I come to that view more directly.
This story began back in 1977, over five years ago, when the disputed representation election was held. Mosey Mfg., a modest sized company, then had 72 production and maintenance employees eligible to vote. The union won by one vote, but the company refused to bargain because of various alleged deficiencies of the Board and union.
This case first came here for enforcement consideration in 1977, but we felt compelled to remand, observing that the applicable area of labor law was “recently subjected to great flux.” N.L.R.B. v. Mosey Mfg. Co., Inc., 595 F.2d 375, 376 (7th Cir.1979). That “great flux,” it now appears, was not over.
From 1962 to 1977 the standard articulated in Hollywood Ceramics Co.1 applied, but in April 1977 a Board majority in Shopping Kart Food Market, Inc.2 overruled Hollywood Ceramics, and the “flux” began. Shopping Kart was in vogue at the time of the election, and remained so until after the Board’s decision and order. Then in 1978, in General Knit of California, Inc.,3 the Board deserted Shopping Kart and went back to Hollywood Ceramics. The briefs, in our first review of this case, argued Shopping Kart, but at oral argument the parties were arguing Hollywood Ceramics. This court declined to try to sort through it, and reasoned that it “would be incompatible with an orderly process of judicial review” for this court “to become embroiled in the shifting currents of the Board’s efforts to settle upon its standards,” labeling them as “on-again, off-again.” 595 F.2d at 377.
The case therefore was sent back to the Board which in turn reinstated its bargaining order, and has now come back again to have this court enforce the order. So, this court heard oral argument again, but not long after that and before the matter could be decided, the Board, in Midland Nat’l Life Ins. Co.,4 abandoned General Knit and took up again with Shopping Kart. So far as I can tell that is where we are at the moment. “On-again, off-again” is apparently on-again. Against that confusing background of delay traceable to the bureaucratic oscillation of the Board I would separate this case from those with ordinary delays, draw the line, and deny enforcement relying on the precedent of practical common sense. I view whatever standard the Board claims today supports its order to be irrelevant in this case now.
Five years ago one employee of this company cast the deciding vote in the contested election. Who the employees of Mosey Mfg. may be today, or what their thoughts may be about their own representation, we have not the slightest idea. One way to find out, however, is to give the current employees the opportunity to have a new election, if they so choose, so that they may have some voice in their own futures. The circumstances of this case are reason enough, I believe, to cut through it all directly to that end. If any problems were to arise during a new election, those problems optimistically could be resolved on an expedited basis by the Board, and by this court if necessary.
The Board admittedly has the right to change its mind, but there must be a limit to the Board’s right to impose the burdens of its own unstable expertise on others, employees, employers, and courts alike.

. 140 N.L.R.B. 221 (1962).

. 228 N.L.R.B. 1311 (1977).

. 239 N.L.R.B. 619 (1978).

. 263 N.L.R.B. No. 24, 110 L.R.R.M. 1489 (Aug. 4, 1982).