Court Opinion

ID: 9487981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:32:34.702773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:36.663070
License: Public Domain

TATEL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree that the Board failed to explain its decision adequately, and thus concur with the majority’s denial of the Board’s petition for enforcement. But because I think it is possible for the Board to set forth a rational and consistent explanation for not counting Mus-grave’s ballot, I would remand to the Board for further explanation.
The Board’s main flaw was not that it improperly applied the law, but that it failed to explain why it did not follow the flexible approach it has taken in some past cases. As I read those cases, the Board has deviated from the four-hour rule in three specific circumstances: 1) where employment in the particular industry is by its nature sporadic, see Trump Taj Mahal Assocs., 306 N.L.R.B. 294, 296 (“Finally, the Board has been flexible in carrying out its responsibility to devise formulas suited to unique conditions in the entertainment industry, as in other specialized industries, to afford employees ... the optimum opportunity for meaningful representation.”), enforced, 2 F.3d 35 (3d Cir.1993); American Zoetrope Prods., Inc., 207 N.L.R.B. 621 (1973); Median, Inc., 200 N.L.R.B. 1013 (1972); 2) where individual employees have reduced their workload for personal reasons, e.g. maternity and other personal leave, and where those employees worked on a sufficiently regular basis both before and after their leave, see Northern Calif. Visiting Nurses Ass’n, 299 N.L.R.B. 980, 980-81 (1990) (personal leave/vacation); Pat’s Blue Ribbons, 286 N.L.R.B. 918, 919 (1987) (maternity leave), and; 3) where the employees were new hires who began work prior to the eligibility date and where their work since being hired has been sufficiently regular. See Beverly Enters.-Mass., Inc., 310 N.L.R.B. 538, 538 n. 3 (1993); Pat’s Blue Ribbons, 286 N.L.R.B. at 919; Stockham Valve & Fittings, Inc., 222 N.L.R.B. 217, 218-19 (1976).
The responsibility for deciding whether one of these exceptions applies, or a more general exception implicit in them, is the Board’s, not ours. We should take that responsibility from the Board — that is, reverse without remanding — only if we are sure that no way exists for it to reasonably articulate a basis for excluding Musgrave’s ballot. This is not such a case.
The Board could reasonably find, for example, that the first two exceptions do not apply because B B & L’s business is not sporadic, and because Musgrave’s irregular work was not due to personal circumstances. As for the third exception, the Board could conclude that Musgrave was clearly not a “new hire” in the sense of Stockham Valve or Pat’s Blue Ribbons since he was working for B B & L on a casual basis for seven months *373prior to the eligibility date. The Board is not necessarily required to apply its more flexible “new hire” analysis to this case merely because Troutman, who Musgrave was hired to replace, retired on March 31. Nothing happened between that day and the eligibility date, May 2, that would force the Board to conclude that Musgrave suddenly joined the community of interest of the regular employees. Given the Board’s emphasis on hours as a proxy for “community of interest,” it could reasonably consider it significant that Musgrave only worked one day— the Saturday after the union filed its certification petition — between April 1 and the eligibility date. It could thus conclude that Musgrave was not a new hire for purposes of voting — that his “casual” status effectively continued through the eligibility date — because the most important factor defining his association with the employee community— his schedule — remained sporadic through that date. See Pat’s Blue Ribbons, 286 N.L.R.B. at 919 n. 6.
The majority points out that the Board “appears never to have used the period between a relevant change of circumstance and the eligibility date as a basis for excluding workers.” Maj.Op. at 371 n. 5 (emphasis omitted). This is true, but only because the “relevant change of circumstance” in Stock-ham Valve, Beverly Enterprises, and other “new hire” decisions has always involved an entirely new hire, never, as here, the evolution of a “casual” into a “part-time” employee. In these circumstances, the Board could reasonably conclude that it will not consider a continuing “casual” employee eligible to participate in the election, even if he has ostensibly changed jobs, unless a change in the hours or duties of that employee demonstrates that the employee has come to share the community of interest enjoyed by regular employees. This is at least one explanation that the Board could articulate on remand which would support its decision to exclude Musgrave’s ballot and to which we could defer. By reversing without remanding, the majority precludes the Board from articulating this or other plausible explanations and substitutes the court’s own judgment for the Board’s expertise in the arena of representation. I think the better route — and one that best ensures that national labor policies and the certainty of the four-hour rule are advanced — is to remand this case to the Board so that it can better articulate how its eligibility rules apply to the unique circumstances of this case.