Court Opinion

ID: 9489482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:17:05.934343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:33.653393
License: Public Domain

WALD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the majority that the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) might have reasoned more explicitly on remand in determining that Acme Die Casting (“Company”) had violated section 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act by unilaterally withholding pay increases in 1988. I believe, however, that the Board’s supplemental decision and order does manage to set out a “comprehensible standard for deciding whether a pattern of increases is sufficiently consistent in timing and/or amount to constitute a settled practice,” thus honoring the instruction of the prior panel. Acme Die Casting v. NLRB, 26 F.3d 162, 166 (D.C.Cir.1994) (Acme I).
As the majority opinion relates, the Board’s supplemental decision began with a description of the procedural history of the dispute and related enforcement actions against the Company. The Board then listed the dates of the sixteen pay increases that the Company offered between 1980 and 1987, as well as the amounts of the increases. It indicated that all of the increases save one were across-the-board raises in which every employee received the same hourly wage increase, and explained the one exception as an instance when the Company was attempting to equalize wages. The Board also noted that increases ranged from 15 to 30 cents per hour, with most falling between 20 to 25 cents per hour.1
The Board next turned to a discussion of the timing of the increases. It concluded that they occurred at “relatively regular intervals,” and while not interspersed at precisely the same intervals, they were by no means random either. In support of this conclusion the Board noted that thirteen of the fifteen intervals between pay increases fell within the range of five to seven-and-a-half months. The Board also emphasized that the Company had given raises over a seven-and-a-half year period and that for the five most recent years, September 1982 to September 1987, the intervals were even more similar, ranging only from six to seven- and-a-half months.
As this overview reveals, the supplemental decision pretty clearly indicates the factors that the Board considers important in determining whether a pay increase has become a settled practice. The Board focused on the *860following: whether the increases were given across-the-board or only to selected employees; whether the amounts of the increases and the intervals between increases were reasonably similar; whether the increases had been given over a lengthy period; and whether the increases had become more regular over time. While the Board did not state precisely what weight is to be given to each of these factors, its discussion puts greatest emphasis on the fact that the Company’s pay increases occurred at “regular intervals” and over a “significant period of time.” This emphasis on timing is consistent with the Board’s statement that its decision in this case is supported by its more elaborate analysis of the law, on remand, in Daily News of Los Angeles, 315 N.L.R.B. 1236, 1994 WL 731261 (Dec. 30, 1994). In Daily News, the Board reviewed its precedents and clarified its governing principle that increases given “in a clearly established pattern” are to be distinguished from those given at “random irregular intervals”; the former but not the latter become a settled term and condition of employment. Id., at 1240-41.2
It is of course quite apparent from its supplemental decision that the Board has eschewed the use of any bright-line rules, such as an inflexible requirement that intervals between increases must not vary in length more than two months, to define what is or is not a settled practice of pay increases. The Board is justified in this stance, given its traditional pattern of case-by-ease adjudication rather than rulemaking, so long as its parameters or its criteria are reasonable and discernible — as they are here. Moreover, as the majority acknowledges, our remanding order in Acme I did not require that the Board adopt a bright-line rule but rather only that the Board “set the parameters” to be used in determining that pay increases “constitute a settled practice.” Acme I, 26 F.3d at 166. The Board’s cleariy-evident concern is simply that increases be characterized by “relative consistency” as to timing and amount.
No doubt the Board could have spoken with greater clarity, indicating in one formula which factors are relevant to determining whether a pay increase has become a settled practice and which are not, the weight assigned to each and explaining why it rejected a more bright-line approach. But the majority unfairly ignores the analysis that the Board does offer; for example, the majority skips over much of the Board’s discussion of the timing of the increases and refuses to draw obvious inferences from the supplemental opinion simply because these inferences are not explicitly stated up front. In addition, the majority errs when it claims that “there is no evidence that the Company had ‘constrained’ itself by ‘established procedures’ or ‘fixed criteria’ for establishing the amounts of the increases.” Maj. op. at 858. Daily News II specifically held that a settled practice could exist where an employer retained discretion over the pool of money available for increases provided there be “fixed criteria” to determine who qualifies for a pay increase and the amount each individual employee receives. 73 F.3d at 408, 411-12. Here, the Board’s supplemental opinion makes clear that the increases were given across-the-board in the same amount, and thus there is evidence of fixed criteria used to determine who qualified for an increase and how much each employee received.3
*861As I read the supplemental opinion, the Board has identified which factors are relevant to deciding when pay increases have become a settled practice, indicated the relative importance of these factors and told us that it will apply a “relative consistency” standard to determining when pay increases constitute a settled practice; in my view that is enough to comply with our prior order on remand. Chevron deference precludes us from requiring that it do the job as professorially as we might prefer. See N.L.R.B. v. Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., 494 U.S. 775, 786-87, 110 S.Ct. 1542, 1549, 108 L.Ed.2d 801 (1990) (noting that NLRB deserves deference as it bears “primary responsibility for developing and applying national labor policy”); Gilbert v. NLRB, 56 F.3d 1438, 1444 (D.C.Cir.1995) (courts must accept reasonable NLRB constructions of the NLRA under Chevron).

. The majority's opinion indicates that all but three of the sixteen increases were between 20 to 25 cents per hour. See Majority opinion ("Maj. op.”) at 856.

. On review of the Board’s supplemental decision in Daily News we stated that "fixed timing alone" would not be sufficient to create a settled practice of merit pay increases but held that a settled practice could exist if a "merit-increase program is fixed as to timing and criteria.” Daily News of Los Angeles v. NLRB, 73 F.3d 406, 412 & n. 3 (D.C.Cir.1996) (Daily News II).

. In addition, since our decision in Daily News II was issued after the supplemental opinion here, the Board has not yet had occasion to decide how the fixed criteria requirement should be applied, if at all, where the increases are not based on merit or where the increases are similar in amount. It is not immediately apparent that Daily News II, which addressed merit-pay increases, should also apply in other contexts. See, e.g., Acme I, 26 F.3d at 166 ("We are aware that Daily News may be distinguishable [because it] involved merit-based increases ... rather than the across-the-board increases at issue here.”). We should leave this question for the Board to address in the first instance.