Court Opinion

ID: 9471407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:31:37.992283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:23.750376
License: Public Domain

BREYER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The Labor Board decided not to set aside a representation election simply because a union representative bought some drinks for some of the voting employees. The Board rested its decision on the sum total of special features of the individual case — no “advance inducement” to come to the bar, no coercive statements, no inebriation, a small dollar value, some distance from the polling place, and no conditions. The Board’s members, in deciding the case, divided three to two. The fact that the Board found this a close case, however, does not make it close in this court. Rather, this case presents precisely the type of minor, detailed, interstitial question of labor election policy that Congress asked the Labor Board, not the courts, to decide. Cf. NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U.S. 111, 130-31, 64 S.Ct. 851, 860-61, 88 L.Ed. 1170 (1944) (determination of coverage of Act in borderline cases assigned primarily to Board).
I do not understand what specific law or legal rule the Board has violated. Its action does not, in any obvious way, violate the terms of its enabling statute — a statute which simply provides (insofar as relevant here) that if the Board directs an election by secret ballot, it “shall certify the results thereof.” 29 U.S.C. § 159(c)(1). Nor has the agency violated its own rules. Cf. Arizona Grocery Co. v. Atchinson, Topeka & Sante Fe Railway Co., 284 U.S. 370, 389, 52 S.Ct. 183, 186, 76 L.Ed. 348 (1932) (agency must follow its own rules). The Board, from the beginning, has stated that its objective is “to provide a laboratory in which an experiment may be conducted, under conditions as nearly ideal as possible, to determine the uninhibited desires of the employees.” General Shoe Corp., 77 N.L.R.B. 124, 127 (1948). And it has made clear that it will consider the validity of providing refreshments on a “case by case” basis. Lach-Simkins Dental Laboratories, Inc., 186 N.L.R.B. 671, 672 (1970).
The Board has interpreted its policies in this area consistently. Cf. Sunbeam Television Corp. v. FCC, 243 F.2d 26, 28 (D.C.Cir. 1957) (agency must consistently apply its own policies). In prior (though less egregious) cases, it has allowed drinks. Jacqueline Cochran, Inc., 177 N.L.R.B. 837, 839 n. 1 (1969); Peachtree City Warehouse, Inc., 158 N.L.R.B. 1031, 1039-40 n. 1 (1966); Lloyd A. Fry Roofing Co., 123 N.L.R.B. 86, 87-88 (1959); Albion Malleable Iron Co., 104 N.L.R.B. 225, 226-27 (1953); Cooper’s Inc., 94 N.L.R.B. 1554, 1556 (1951). In the closest precedent, Lach-Simkins Dental Laboratories, Inc., supra, it allowed the union to serve a free lunch of sandwiches and soft drinks near the polling place during the election. The difference between “lunch and soft drinks” and “no lunch but one or two hard drinks” is more obvious to my brethren than to me. Perhaps it is a matter of hunger versus thirst.
The court apparently believes that the Board’s decision is “an abuse of discretion,” 5 U.S.C. § 706, and simply substitutes its judgment for that of the agency. Courts do not often second-guess agencies on discretionary matters of substantive policy directly related to their statutory missions. K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 29.00-1, at 520 (Supp.1982). And this case illustrates why. The question here is how this record might reasonably strike a body expert in labor relations. Why could that body not find the incident simply trivial? More important, why could it not see endless practical difficulties in policing strict rules that prohibit workplace associates from buying drinks for one another? Human nature being what it is, might not some drink-buying often prove inevitable and its presence offer a ready-made excuse to those seeking to delay or to prevent certification? The presence of these questions, not their answers, is sufficient to convince me that the Board’s decision is not unreasonable.
Nor (“The Last Hurrah” notwithstanding) does the Board’s decision run contrary to public policy. Drinks and elections are a subject that the public still debates. Mas*19sachusetts, for example, prohibited political committees from spending money on “intoxicating liquors,” 1946 Mass.Acts ch. 537, § 10, changed its mind in 1973, 1973 Mass. Acts ch. 285, changed its mind again in 1974, 1974 Mass.Acts ch. 859, § 4, and changed its mind for a third time in 1975, 1975 Mass.Acts ch. 151, § 1 (codified at Mass.Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 55, § 6). At the moment, Massachusetts does not prohibit these expenditures. Nor is federal policy much different. On October 6, 1983, the Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to allow a corporation to provide a “hospitality suite” at which it could serve drinks to delegates at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. FEC Advisory Opinion 1983-23 (treating food and alcoholic drinks similarly).
Now that the majority has distinguished the “tuna fish on rye with Pepsi” from the “double scotch” what is next? Will we have to decide where beer and hamburgers fit on the spectrum? If the basic division of tasks between administrative agency and court continues to have meaning, see FPC v. Idaho Power Co., 344 U.S. 17, 20-21, 73 S.Ct. 85, 86-87, 97 L.Ed. 15 (1952), the members of the National Labor Relations Board, not the members of this court, should decide the content of the labor/management election day menu.