Court Opinion

ID: 9450479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:50:16.778979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:21.394777
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot accept the court’s conclusion. It is, of course, true that an employer may grant certain benefits to a represented unit that it does not afford its unrepresented employees. The fact that this may give kudos to the union, and may encourage membership, is not in itself enough to make it illegal. But, equally, it is familiar principle that an employer cannot “discriminate” against non-union employees because of their lack of membership. Definitions may be in order. It seems to me that the cross-over from permissible, incidental, favoring, to direct, unlawful discrimination, occurs when the benefit given the union members is at the expense of the non-members. If there were two units, one, A, represented and the other, B, not, and the employer granted seniority within the unit to the employees in A, and did not in B, the employees in B might feel that the A employees were better off, but they would have no complaint under the Act. A different question would arise if the employees in A were permitted to bump *12employees in B who had been longer with the company than they. It seems to me that this would be unlawful discrimination. Cf. NLRB v. International Ass’n of Machinists, 9 Cir., 1960, 279 F.2d 761, cert. den. 364 U.S. 890, 81 S.Ct. 221, 5 L.Ed.2d 187.
What the court now tolerates seems even more marked. White Brothers’ unionized employees newly hired by the respondent Whiting have been given a seniority status not merely inter se, but at the direct expense of those simultaneously employed in the very same unit who were not previously unionized. In my view this is not a case where, to quote the court, the Board has proceeded on the “premise that seniority was a term or condition of employment of White Brothers’ Hyannis employees.” It was not, and the Board has not said it was. Rather, it wishes to start fresh. It has said that Whiting’s new employees cannot have an artificial or carryover seniority with Whiting if they had . been union members while working for White, but not otherwise. I see no distinction between using past union status as a means for choosing employees, admittedly improper, cf. Local 357, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, etc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 1961, 365 U.S. 667, 81 S.Ct. 835, 6 L.Ed.2d 11, and using it as the basis for keeping them.
Nor should it be an answer that this was the result of a prior contract which was in precise anticipation of this exact situation. A union’s primary duty is to represent all employees in its unit, here Whiting, fairly and alike. Perfection is not always possible. Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 338, 73 S.Ct. 681, 97 L.Ed. 1048. However, the grounds for possible disparity mentioned in Huffman did not include union membership, and a deliberate use of that as a basis, whether by contract or otherwise, seems to me improper. Wallace Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 1944, 323 U.S. 248, 255-256, 65 S.Ct. 238, 89 L.Ed. 216; Radio Officers’ Union, etc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 1954, 347 U.S. 17, 47, 74 S.Ct. 323, 98 L.Ed. 455.