Court Opinion

ID: 9451257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:11:20.873599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:37.588275
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part):
I am in agreement with the majority's disposition of the Section 8(a) (1) violation; I cannot, however, agree that the discharges of Gentry and Flygare were unlawful under the Act.
This court, before the amendment of the National Labor Relations Act, held without varying that association with or membership in a labor union is not a guarantee against discharge; that when real grounds for discharge exist, management may not be prevented from discharging; and that opposition to union organization, even to the point of restraint, coercion, and interference in violation of Section 8(a) (1), is not enough, without more, to make the discharge unlawful.1 Thus “ [m] anagement can discharge for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all. It has, as the master of its own business affairs, complete freedom with but one specific, definite qualification: it may not discharge when the real motivating purpose is to do that which Section 8(a) (3) forbids.” NLRB v. McGahey, 233 F.2d 406, 413 (5th Cir. 1956).
Congress has made abundantly clear its concurrence; Section 10(c) of the Act now reads, in pertinent part, “[n]o order of the Board shall require the reinstatement of any individual as an employee who has been suspended or discharged, or the payment to him of any back pay, if such individual was suspended or discharged for cause.” This amendment “was intended to, and did, give legislative approval to these views and corresponding disapproval to the practices of examiners and board to the contrary.”2 NLRB v. Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills, 175 F.2d 675, 677 (5th Cir. 1949). Accord, NLRB v. Ray Smith Transp. Co., 193 F.2d 142, 146 (5th Cir. 1951).
In the present case Respondent assigned a valid cause for the discharge of both Gentry and Flygare. The Board refused to accept the cause assigned and found that Gentry and Flygare were discharged because of their union activities. It must be remembered that “[a]n unlawful purpose is not lightly to be inferred.” 3 NLRB v. McGahey, supra. With due deference to my colleagues of the majority, in my opinion the record before us “considered as a whole” does not present a substantial basis of believable evidence pointing toward an unlawful motive for the discharge, but rather indi*529cates that the Board based its finding on the Respondent’s general animosity toward the union 4 This in my opinion is contrary to the Congressional intent, and therefore I respectfully dissent.

. General Tire of Miami Beach, Inc. v. NLRB, 332 F.2d 58, 60 (5th Cir. 1964); NLRB v. Texas Bolt Co., 313 F.2d 761, 763 (5th Cir. 1963); NLRB v. Georgia Rug Mill, 308 F.2d 89, 92 (5th Cir. 1962); Frosty Morn Meats, Inc. v. NLRB, 296 F.2d 617, 620-21 (5th Cir. 1961); NLRB v. Dan River Mills, Inc., 274 F.2d 381, 384 (5th Cir. 1960); NLRB v. Hudson Pulp & Paper Corp., 273 F.2d 660, 666 (5th Cir. 1960); NLRB v. Birmingham Publishing Co., 262 F.2d 2, 9 (5th Cir. 1959); NLRB v. Fox Mfg. Co., 238 F.2d 211, 214 (5th Cir. 1956); NLRB v. McGahey, 233 F.2d 406, 410-13 (5th Cir. 1956); NLRB v. Denton, 217 F.2d 567, 571 (5th Cir. 1954), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 981, 75 S.Ct. 572, 99 L.Ed. 764 (1955); Rubin Bros. Footwear v. NLRB, 203 F.2d 486, 488 (5th Cir. 1953); NLRB v. Ray Smith Transp. Co., 193 F.2d 142, 146 (5th Cir. 1951); NLRB v. Russell Mfg. Co., 191 F.2d 358, 359 (5th Cir. 1951); NLRB v. Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills, 175 F.2d 675, 677 (5th Cir. 1949), and cases cited 175 F.2d at 677 n. 6. See also American Ship Bldg. v. NLRB, 380 U.S. 300, 311-313, 85 S.Ct. 955, 13 L.Ed.2d 855 (1965); NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U.S. 240, 254, 59 S.Ct. 490, 83 L.Ed. 627 (1939); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 45-46, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937).

. See the Conference Committee Report on the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, in U.S.Code Cong.Serv., 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 1145, 1161 (1947).

. Accord, NLRB v. Dan River Mills, Inc., 274 F.2d 381, 385 (5th Cir. 1960); NLRB v. Hudson Pulp & Paper Corp., 273 F.2d 660, 666 (5th Cir. 1960); NLRB v. Fox Mfg. Co., 238 F.2d 211, 215 (5th Cir. 1956).

. In NLRB v. McGahey, 233 F.2d 406, 411 (5th Cir. 1956) we said:
“Each [of the stated causes for discharge] was a perfectly sufficient explanation for the discharge of the particular employee and would itself sustain the burden, if it rested upon the employer, that the discharge of each was for the stated reasons. But the employer does not bear this duty. It is, rather on the General Counsel to establish by acceptable substantial evidence on the whole record that discharge came from the forbidden motives of interference in employee statutoi’y rights. The burden long imposed by this Court * * * has added sanction by express terms [of Section 10(c)] of the Act.”
See also NLRB v. Dan River Mills, Inc., supra note 3; NLRB v. Birmingham Publishing Co., 262 F.2d 2, 8 (5th Cir. 1959); NLRB v. Fox Mfg. Co., supra note 3, at 214-215, and cases there cited.