Court Opinion

ID: 9476222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:50:31.626913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:11.682973
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
Sections 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1) and (3) (1982), prohibit an employer from interfering with an employee’s right to strike, or from discriminating against an employee for the exercise of that right. This prohibition shields a striking employee from an employer’s retaliatory refusal to rehire, but only up to a point. The National Labor Relations Board recently defined that point, stating in Clear Pine Mould-ings, 268 N.L.R.B. 1044, 1046 (1984), that an employee loses his right to reinstatement when he engages in “misconduct ... that, under the circumstances existing, ... may reasonably tend to coerce or intimidate employees in the exercise of rights protected under the Act.”
During a strike at Keco Industries, Inc., striker Ruben Lima twice approached the plant gate used by nonstriking workers, sporting a gun in his belt. Keco Indus., Inc., 276 N.L.R.B. No. 167 at 21-24 (1983) {“ALJ Decision ”). When first spotted by a security guard, he retreated. Lima approached again, this time to within 30 to 40 feet of two guards who had come to the gate in response to the first guard’s call for assistance. Again he retreated. When police officers responding to the security guards’ summons found Lima, he had no gun. As the Administrative Law Judge believed the witnesses who said they saw one in Lima’s belt, id. at 22, the necessary inference is that he discarded it in the meantime.
The Board’s succinct opinion identified as “salient” the fact that “Lima carried and displayed a weapon in the vicinity of the plant entrance used by nonstrikers. Lima offered no excuse or explanation for his action here; rather, he denied having a gun at all, which denial the [AU] discredited.” Keco Indus., Inc., 276 N.L.R.B. No. 167 at 2 (1985) (“Board Decision ”). Accordingly, it found that “in these circumstances” Lima’s behavior was “the kind of misconduct that would reasonably tend to coerce or intimidate employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights [here, the right not to strike],” and, under Clear Pine Mouldings, was not protected from employer sanction. Id. at 1-2 (footnote omitted).
The Clear Pine Mouldings doctrine is not here under attack. Nor, so far as I can discern, does the majority deny that the Board may find Lima’s conduct within its strictures. So far we agree. The majority nevertheless reverses the Board’s decision, because it finds it impossible “to evaluate whether the Board’s application of the Clear Pine Mouldings rule is rational, based on substantial evidence, and consistent with the Board’s own precedents.” Majority Opinion at 303.
Unlike the majority, I have no problem discerning the path of the Board’s route from the statute to its decision. See, e.g., Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 286, 95 S.Ct. 438, 442, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974) (“we will uphold a decision of less than ideal clarity if the agency’s path may reasonably be discerned”).
Detailed exposition is hardly needed to show that guns are intimidating. See, e.g., McLaughlin v. United States, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 1677, 1678, 90 L.Ed.2d 15 (1986) (“the display of a gun instills fear in the average citizen”). In a strike situation, mere “[w]ord that strikers were armed could have a strong coercive effect on non-strikers; a striker’s apparent willingness to use a weapon makes the effect even stronger.” Advance Industries Div.-Overhead Door Corp. v. NLRB, 540 F.2d 878, 882 (7th Cir.1976).
Although the record does not contain evidence of the presence of nonstrikers at the plant gate when Lima approached with his gun, see ALJ Decision at 23, the Board clearly regarded his approaches as having a sufficient tendency to coerce or intimidate. The Board’s conclusion would be obvious if Lima had approached a group of nonstrikers with his gun concealed, reached for it, and been apprehended by security officials a second before any nonstriker actually laid eyes on the gun. See, e.g., Local 542, Int’l Bhd. of Operating Engi*305neers v. NLRB, 328 F.2d 850, 852-53 (3rd Cir.) (“That no one was in fact coerced or intimidated is of no relevance.”), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 826, 85 S.Ct. 52, 13 L.Ed.2d 35 (1964); Highway Truck Drivers & Helpers Local 107 v. NLRB, 273 F.2d 815, 818 (D.C.Cir.1959) (regardless of success, union’s attempt to bring about secondary boycott violated § 8(b)(4)(A) of the Act). The difference between that ease and the present one lies in the vigilance of the security officers; it does not excuse Lima.
Contrary to the AU’s characterization of Lima’s decision to “stick a pistol in his belt” as a “rapidly passing fancy,” AU Decision at 24, the record clearly indicates that he acted with deliberate purpose. Cf. Advance Industries, 540 F.2d at 882 (striker “did not inadvertently bring the gun to the picketing scene”). Twice Lima approached the plant gate, which is located adjacent to the employee parking lot. These approaches occurred at aproximately 11:15 AM, a time when workers on the 7:00 to 3:30 shift could be expected to be on or about to begin their lunch break. See ALJ Decision at 23-24. Moreover, when the security guards’ alertness drove Lima away from the gate area, he did not take his weapon elsewhere but proceeded to the front of the plant where other strikers were congregated. See ALJ Decision at 22; Joint Appendix at 119.
The tense atmosphere surrounding the strike clearly demonstrates the coercive effect Lima’s open possession of a weapon would have wrought had security officers been less vigilant. Violence, and threats of more violence, had already occurred. The day before Lima’s escapade, a striker had thrown a rock at a nonstriker’s car. AU Decision at 11. The rock-thrower had also threatened the occupants, saying he would “blow your ... heads off.” Id. at 12. As he was known to carry a gun and had told one of the victims that he had “beat [his wife] in the head with his pistol,” id. at 12 n. 19, they could hardly have discounted the threat; testimony indicates that they were “scared and shook up,” id. at 13. Lima’s open display of a gun would clearly have had a similar effect.
Nor need the status of Lima’s gun under Ohio law concern us. As the Board does not mention it, we may safely infer that it believed it irrelevant to whether Lima’s behavior would tend to coerce or intimidate nonstrikers. Such a view seems clearly permissible. The Board is charged with administering federal labor policy, not state gun control legislation. Moreover, the lawfulness of gun possession (if it be lawful in Cincinnati, Ohio) would surely not express a public policy in favor of persons bringing such weapons to tense confrontations; a state’s decision to allow the use of gasoline does not express approval of those who toss it on fires.
Finally, the Board noted that Lima offered no “excuse or explanation for his action.” Board Decision at 2. Compare Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. NLRB, 738 F.2d 1404, 1409 (4th Cir.1984) (where it was common in community for workers to wear small sheathed knives, a striker’s doing so, unaccompanied by any threatening gestures, did not reasonably tend to intimidate). There can be no reasonable objection to the Board’s willingness to consider mitigating factors. Lima, however, did not suggest any; he simply denied carrying a gun.
There is, to be sure, ambiguity in the Board’s opinion. It is unclear to what extent it regards the context here — incidents of violence and threats — as critical in finding that the employer may sanction a striker for bringing a gun to the picketing site. Chairman Dotson evidently believed that sanctions were permissible in the absence of such a context. A footnote states that he
finds it difficult to envision any set of circumstances where weapon carrying in the tense atmosphere created by a picket line would not reasonably tend to be coercive under the standard of Clear Pine Mouldings.... He notes also that our decision here imposes no arguable burden on protected concerted activity. To avoid the risk of lawful discharge strikers need only to leave deadly weapons at home. Seeking excuses for this type of misconduct only encourages brinksmanship.
Board Decision at 2 n. 1. The Chairman’s apparent need to articulate the position pre*306sumably reflects his belief that the majority relied in part on violence and threats antedating Lima’s action. Their decision not to reach out and set a general rule was surely within the range of adjudicative discretion.
In carrying out our duties of judicial review we must of course assure ourselves that the agency followed a reasoned path from its statutory authority to its conclusion. But we are not grading essays. Insistence on thorough explication of every point carries a cost: diversion of agency resources from the more difficult cases and delay of its entire process. Cf. Stephens v. Heckler, 766 F.2d 284, 287 (7th Cir.1985). Where the Board’s action is squarely within its authority, I think a simple statement is enough.1
The record clearly supports the Board’s conclusion that “Lima’s conduct was the kind of misconduct that would reasonably tend to coerce or intimidate.” Board Decision at 1-2. I would affirm.

. I am baffled by the majority's praise for the ALJ's opinion ("careful analysis," Majority Opinion at 303). It was fairly long, to be sure (four single-spaced typewritten pages on this issue alone). But its primary intellectual effort was an exegesis of the Board’s thinking in a decision that the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had reversed in Advance Industries Div.-Overhead Door Corporation v. NLRB, 540 F.2d 878 (7th Cir.1976); I see nothing especially admirable in analysis seemingly built on the premise that the Board would flout the Seventh Circuit's reading of the law. The hazard of all this is that the Board may conclude that it is safe if its opinions are wordy.