Court Opinion

ID: 9459968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:36:42.86922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:24.848522
License: Public Domain

STEVENS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The complaint, as finally amended on November 12, 1970, alleged that respond*747ent had refused to bargain with Local 710 at its Chicago terminal, and had unlawfully discharged 11 employees in Chicago, Illinois, 13 employees in Atlanta, Georgia, and 9 employees in Jackson, Mississippi. In an 112 page decision, the Trial Examiner reviewed in detail the relevant facts about each of those 33 employees and concluded that with respect to 20 of them the evidence was sufficient and with respect to 13 it was not. He ordered the company to bargain with Local 710 in Chicago and to reinstate 10 employees at the Chicago terminal, 9 employees at the Atlanta terminal, and 1 at Jackson.
The charge was filed on January 27, 1970, by Local 710, which represented employees in the Chicago bargaining unit. That local had no jurisdiction over Atlanta or Jackson and, as far as I can determine, no interest whatsoever in the fate of the Atlanta or Jackson employees. They were not represented by any union for purposes of bargaining with the company or by any charging party for purposes of this litigation.
The discharges in Atlanta and Jackson occurred prior to the filing of the Chicago charge. The holding in Labor Board v. Fant Milling Co., 360 U.S. 301, 79 S.Ct. 1179, 3 L.Ed.2d 1243, is therefore inapplicable.1 Indeed, even the broad language of that opinion is inapplicable since it cannot be fairly said that the Jackson and Atlanta incidents grew out of the conduct alleged in the charge while the proceeding was pending before the Board.2 Cf. International Union, U. M. W. v. N. L. R. B., 112 U.S. App.D.C. 60, 299 F.2d 441, 443-444 (1962).
Exactly when one alleged unfair labor practice should be considered sufficiently “related” to another to permit one charge to support two Board complaints — or perhaps I should say, two counts in one complaint — is unclear. It does not seem to me that the fact that the same company, or even the same executive of that company, was involved in both transactions should be sufficient to supply the nexus. And, of course, neither uncouth language nor a consistent antiunion purpose should be controlling; for at least the latter can always be alleged and I would suppose the Board’s jurisdiction should be tested by the General Counsel’s allegations rather than his proof.
In my judgment it seems more reasonable to focus on the employees’ interest in the proceedings. If all of the allegations involved the same bargaining unit, I would assume that a wide variety of apparently separate transactions could appropriately be included in a single complaint based on a charge filed by a member of that unit. However, if the statutory requirement of a charge is to be meaningful, it does not seem to me that a charge filed by a Chicago local should be sufficient to authorize a nationwide investigation of all layoffs within the recent past. I do not reach the question whether it would be wise policy to authorize such broad investiga*748tory powers for the Board. I simply am not persuaded that Congress has yet executed that “carte blanche.”3 I therefore respectfully dissent.

. In Fant Milling, the Court quoted the following statement from its earlier opinion in National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U. S. 350, 357, 60 S.Ct. 569, 574, 84 L.Ed. 799:
“It is unnecessary for us to consider now how far the statutory requirement of a charge as a condition precedent to a complaint excludes from the subsequent proceedings matters existing when the charge was filed, but not included in it. Whatever restrictions the requirements of a charge may be thought to place upon subsequent proceedings by the Board, we can find no warrant in the language or purposes of the Act for saying that it precludes the Board from dealing adequately with unfair labor practices which are related to those alleged in the charge and which grow out of them while the proceeding is pending before the Board.” See 360 U.S. at 306-307, 79 S.Ct. 1179, 1182.
The dispute in Fant Milling, like that in National Licorice Go., related to events subsequent to the filing of the charge.

. In the final paragraph of its opinion in Fant Milling, the Court stated:
“What has been said is not to imply that the Board is, in the words of the Court of Appeals, to be left ‘carte blanche to expand the charge as they might please, or to ignore it altogether.’ 258 F.2d [851, 5 Cir.], at 856. Here we hold only that the Board is not precluded from ‘dealing adequately with unfair labor practices which are related to those alleged in the charge and which grow out of them while the proceeding is pending before the Board.’ National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U.S. 350, at 369 [60 S.Ct. 569, 84 L.Ed. 799].” 360 U.S. at 309, 79 S.Ct. at 1184.

. After quoting from National Licorice, in Fant Milling the Court stated:
“In the present case, as in National Licorice, the unilateral wage increase was ‘of the same class of violations as those set up in the charge . . . . ’ The wage increase was ‘related to’ the conduct alleged in the charge and developed as one aspect of that conduct ‘while the proceeding [was] pending before the Board.’ ” 360 U.S. at 307, 79 S.Ct. at 1183.