Court Opinion

ID: 9467413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:48:09.750139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:20.164439
License: Public Domain

MURRAY M. SCHWARTZ, District Judge,
dissenting.
I concur in two of the majority’s conclusions: 1) that there is substantial evidence in the record to support the Board’s finding that Briscoe in refusing to rehire the laid-off ironworkers retaliated against all of them because some had filed EEOC charges; and 2) that filing the charges was “concerted activit[y] ... for mutual aid or protection....”1 I part company with the majority when it assumes that such activity is protected concerted activity “under Section 7 [of the National Labor Relations Act (“the Act”), 29 U.S.C. § 157],2 at least as *954long as it does not violate another important principle of labor law.... ” (Majority opinion p. 950).
In the instant matter Briscoe is charged with commission of an unfair labor practice under section 8(a)(1) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1),3 in that it retaliated against laid-off employees by refusal to rehire because some of their number filed charges with the EEOC. In Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Organization, 420 U.S. 50, 95 S.Ct. 977, 43 L.Ed.2d 12 (1975), the employer was charged with an unfair labor practice under section 8(a)(1) by reason of its retaliatory firing of picketing employees. In that case the employees were assumed to be engaged in concerted activity for the purpose of collective bargaining over issues of employment discrimination. The Supreme Court did not automatically assume the activity was protected. Instead it posed the issue as whether “in light of the national policy against racial discrimination in employment, the National Labor Relations Act protects concerted activity by a group of minority employees to bargain with their employer over issues of employment discrimination.” Id. at 52. Similarly, in the instant matter, the question this Court must answer is whether Congress intended that the National Labor Relations Act protect concerted activity by a group of minority employees who file charges with the EEOC when Congress expressly allocated adjustment of retaliation claims under Title VII to the EEOC.4 The majority has answered the question in the affirmative. This separate opinion arises from the belief that this Court should not permit the NLRB to arrogate to itself power Congress has placed elsewhere.
In recent years the Supreme Court has expressed considerable concern that employment discrimination matters be addressed in the appropriate forum. See NAACP v. Federal Power Commission, 425 U.S. 662, 96 S.Ct. 1806, 48 L.Ed.2d 284 (1976); Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Organization, 420 U.S. 50, 95 S.Ct. 977, 43 L.Ed.2d 12 (1975); Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974); see also International Union of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, Local 790 v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 429 U.S. 229, 97 S.Ct. 441, 50 L.Ed.2d 427 (1976). It has demonstrated the same concern in assuring that Title VII is not used as a substantive ground for finding violations of other statutes.5 See Great American Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Novotny, 442 U.S. 366, 99 S.Ct. 2345, 60 L.Ed.2d 957 (1979); Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Organization, supra.
Notwithstanding Supreme Court concern, the question of whether Congress intended to give jurisdiction to both the EEOC and NLRB when there is employer retaliation due to the filing of EEOC complaints is one of first impression at the appellate court level. Included within this question are two important sub-issues: allocation of jurisdiction between two governmental agencies and whether an unfair employment practice, a substantive right created by Title VII, can be remedied by the NLRB under the guise of an unfair labor practice. A broad overview of the legislative history of the Title VII and the NLRA, an unwillingness to conclude that Congress intended two administrative agencies to have separate jurisdiction over the same act of employment discrimination, and controlling case law lead to the conclusion that the majority result is unacceptable.
*955Careful scrutiny of the legislative history of Title VII cited in the majority’s able opinion reveals it is of no aid. The issue before the Court is whether employer retaliation for filing charges with the EEOC is within the jurisdiction of the NLRB. Thus, any argument that passage of Title VII was not intended to strip the NLRB of whatever statutory authority it had over employment discrimination prior .to passage of Title VII does not advance the inquiry.6 The focus of this Court is narrow: whether a newly created unfair employment practice which did not and could not exist prior to passage of Title VII and for which a remedy was specifically provided in Title VII is also an unfair labor practice7 under the NLRA.
Conversely, the legislative history of the National Labor Relations Act conclusively demonstrates that Congress did not intend for the NLRB to have an active civil rights role. See generally Axelrod and Kaufman, Mansion House — Bekins—Handy Andy: The National Labor Relations Board’s Role in Racial Discrimination Cases, 45 Geo. Wash.L.Rev. 675, 682-88 (1977). When the Wagner Act of 1935 was debated, Congress paid scant attention to civil rights problems and summarily rejected concerns of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People and National Urban League. When Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act,8 it added prohibitions of certain union practices, but expressly rejected efforts to insert prohibitions aimed at remedying employment discrimination. Finally, when Congress considered the Landrum-Griffin Act,9 which regulated internal union affairs, it rejected an amendment aimed at union discriminatory policies. 105 Cong. Ree. 15722-24 (1959).
Congress did not act to eliminate employment discrimination until 1964 when it passed Title VII. Responsibility for eradicating employment discrimination could have been lodged in the NLRB. Instead, a new Commission, the EEOC, was born. Similarly, Congress could have provided the EEOC with statutory implementation machinery like that of the NLRB. It did not. Political compromise resulted in an enforcement mechanism for Title VII vastly different from that of the NLRA.
Under Title VII
[ajnyone aggrieved by employment discrimination may lodge a charge with the EEOC. That commission is vested with the ‘authority to investigate individual charges of discrimination, to promote voluntary compliance with the requirements of Title VII, and to institute civil actions against employers or unions named in the discrimination charge.’ Thus, the Commission itself may institute a civil action. If, however, the EEOC is not successful in obtaining ‘voluntary compliance’ and, for one reason or another, chooses not to sue on the claimant’s behalf, the claimant ... may demand a right-to-sue letter and institute the Title VII action himself without waiting for the completion of the conciliation procedures.
In the claimant’s suit, the federal district court is empowered to appoint counsel for him, to authorize the commencement of the action without payment of fees, costs, or security, and even to allow an attorney’s fee. Where intentional engagement in unlawful discrimination is proved, the court may award backpay and *956order ‘such affirmative action as may be appropriate.’
Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, supra, 421 U.S. 454, 458, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 1719, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975). [citations omitted]. Thus, under Title VII the emphasis is on individual rights, conciliation and, if unsuccessful, filing of a law suit in the federal district court. “By contrast, once the General Counsel of the NLRB decides to issue a complaint, vindication of the charging party’s statutory rights becomes a public function discharged at public expense, and a favorable decision by the Board brings forth an administrative order.” Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Organization, supra, 420 U.S. at 72, 95 S.Ct. at 989.
The enforcement philosophies and mechanisms of the two statutes as recited above cannot be reconciled. Filing of an unfair labor charge will be an impediment to successful conciliation, irrespective of who prevails. Can we seriously attribute to Congress an intent to have the parties take part in the conciliation process at the same time they are engaged in an adversarial proceeding before the Board? Further, unless Congress explicitly so states, it is singularly inappropriate to attribute to that body an intent that an employer should be forced to appear before two administrative agencies for the same alleged act of employment discrimination. Implicit in the majority’s holding is that Congress intended to apply inconsistent enforcement philosophies and irreconcilable statutory enforcement schema to the same episode of employment discrimination in instances where the same is not expressly covered in the NLRA. This untenable result is even more difficult to accept when it is remembered that the two statutes have completely different objectives. The NLRA seeks to minimize industrial strife by guaranteeing employees the most basic “collective rights” of industrial self-determination by “ ‘encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining’ ” through majoritarian rule and the principle of exclusive representation Emporium Capwell, supra, 420 U.S. at 62, 95 S.Ct. at 984, quoting 29 U.S.C. § 151. Title VII, on the other hand, seeks to eradicate employment discrimination through exercise of rights by individual claimants.
On two occasions the Supreme Court has answered in the negative the question whether the substantive rights conferred by Title VII may be'used as the basis for relief under other statutes. In Great American Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Novotny, reversing this unanimous en banc court, it stated: “The right Novotny claims under section 704(a) did not even arguably exist before the passage of Title VII. The only question here, therefore, is whether the rights created by Title VII may be asserted within the remedial framework of § 1985(c).” 442 U.S. at 376-77, 99 S.Ct. at 2351. While preserving independently based rights, whether the same be contractual, see Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., supra; International Union of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, Local 790 v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., supra, or statutory, see Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, supra, the Supreme Court forbade suit under section 1985(c). In Emporium Capwell, the contention was made that the “congressional policy of protecting from employer reprisal employee efforts to oppose unlawful discrimination, as expressed in § 704(a) of Title VII” had to be a violation of section 8(a)(1)10 of the NLRA or “the integrity of § 704(a) will be seriously undermined.” 420 U.S. at 71, 95 S.Ct. at 989. The Supreme Court expressly rejected this invitation to make the substantive rights of Title VII a basis for an unfair labor practice charge stating that rights entitled to protection under section 704(a) of Title VII are “not necessarily entitled to affirmative protection from the NLRA.” Id. at 71-72, 95 S.Ct. at 989-990.
The Emporium Capwell opinion also answered in the most direct language possible the issue that necessitates this dissent. *957“Questions arising under Title VII must be resolved by the means that Congress provided for that purpose.... What is said above does not call into question either the capacity or the propriety of the Board’s sensitivity to questions of discrimination. It pertains, rather, to the proper allocation of a particular function — adjudication of claimed violations of Title VII — that Congress has assigned elsewhere." Id. at 71, n.25, 95 S.Ct. at 989 n.25 [emphasis added]. The concluding language of the Emporium Cap well majority has gone unheeded by this panel’s majority.
In order to hold that employer conduct violates § 8(a)(1) of the NLRA because it violates § 704(a) of Title VII, we would have to override a host of consciously made decisions well within the exclusive competence of the Legislature. This obviously, we cannot do.
Id. at 73, 95 S.Ct. at 990 [footnote omitted]. Given that the NLRA and Title VII have diverse objectives and vastly different enforcement philosophies and mechanisms for adjustment, it can be confidently predicted that today’s decision will eventually involve this Court in conceptual difficulties which will only be resolved by a broad based retreat.
In summary, because the decision of the majority does violence to an overall view of the legislative history of the NLRA and Title VII, attributes to Congress the intent to expose an employer to two administrative agencies with conflicting statutory philosophies and mechanics of enforcement for the same unfair employment practice, and does not give the necessary fealty to the holdings of Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Organization, supra, and Great American Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Novotny, supra. I respectfully dissent.

. The collective bargaining agreement is not part of the record in this case. At oral argument all counsel agreed this Court would have to treat the matter as it was handled before the Board, i. e., as concerted activity falling within the “mutual aid or protection” language of section 7 rather than the “collective bargaining” language of the same section. If there were an anti-discrimination clause in the collective bargaining agreement, Briscoe and the union would have arguably conferred jurisdiction upon the NLRB. See Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers v. NLRB, 49 U.S.L.W. 2388 (D.C.Cir. Nov. 28, 1980). That question and another posed by the majority at its note 6 are not before this panel.

. Section 7 reads in pertinent part:
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection....

. Section 8(a)(1) provides:
(a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
(1) To interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title;

. Section 704(a) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a), provides in pertinent part:
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against any individual . .. because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice by this subchapter, or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this subchapter.

. See infra pp. 956-957.

. The Title VII legislative history cited by the majority supports the proposition that passage of Title VII did not contract the jurisdiction of the NLRB, but does not address the issue confronting this panel — whether a newly created statutory right under Title VII should be a basis for an unfair labor practice charge. This is best illustrated by the language immediately preceding the excerpt from the interpretive Memorandum of Senator Clark cited in the majority opinion (Majority op. at p. 951). The missing language reads:
it has been asserted that it would be possible to deny unions their representation rights under the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act. This is not correct.
110 Cong.Rec. 7207 (1964).

. See note 1 supra.

. Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 136 (1947).

. Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 519 (1959).

. While the emphasis throughout has been on Section 7 of the NLRA, Briscoe was charged with a violation of section 8(a)(1) which by its terms makes any concerted activity protected by section 7 an unfair labor practice. See notes 2 and 3, supra.