Court Opinion

ID: 6997592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 03:36:10.735499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:09:49.484868
License: Public Domain

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the majority that we are bound by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735, 108 S.Ct. 2641, 101 L.Ed.2d 634 (1988), and Ellis v. Brotherhood of Railway, Airline, and Steamship Clerks, 466 U.S. 435, 104 S.Ct. 1883, 80 L.Ed.2d 428 (1984), to reverse the decision of the Board. Neither the Board nor we can alter or even meaningfully distinguish Beck’s twin holdings that (i) NLRA § 8(a)(3) and § 2, Eleventh of the RLA are “statutory equivalents,” which (ii) preclude charging organizing expenses to objecting nonmembers. This rule would make sense in an industry and a competitive environment where no benefit inured to the nonmember objectors from uniform wage and benefit standards. But here, after reviewing academic research, empirical data and specific evidence as to the direct, positive relationship between the extent of unionization of employees and negotiated wage rates in the retail food industry, the Board concluded otherwise. It is troubling that Beck precludes us from giving the deference to the fact-finding and expertise of the agency charged with administering the labor laws that it would otherwise be accorded under Chevron, U.S.A. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). As Judge Posner, writing for the Seventh Circuit, has noted:
It is hard to think of a task more suitable for an administrative agency that specializes in labor relations, and less suitable for a court of general jurisdiction, than crafting the rules for translating the generalities of the Beck decision (more precisely, of the statute as authoritatively construed in Beck) into a workable system for determining and collecting agency fees.
Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers v. NLRB, 133 F.3d 1012, 1015 (7th Cir.1998). I respectfully submit that a case-by-case, industry specific approach, see Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Ass’n, 500 U.S. 507, 519, 111 S.Ct. 1950, 114 L.Ed.2d 572 (1991), which applies guidelines, not categorical rules, is the preferable approach. Not being presented with that *1121option in this case, however, I concur in the majority opinion.