Court Opinion

ID: 9643471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:30:21.499966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:59.997788
License: Public Domain

TREANOR, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
My disagreement with the reasoning and result of the majority decision rests upon a difference of opinion as to the respective powers of the National Labor Relations Board and this court in the determination of the legal consequences to be attached to the unlawful acts of striking employees. It is, in short, my understanding of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., that when employees have ceased work in connection with a labor dispute or because of an unfair labor practice, the employer-employee relationship continues by force of law; and that although unlawful conduct by striking employees is a fact which must be considered by the Board in determining the scope of its order, such order cannot be set aside by this court unless the making of the order constitutes an. abuse of discretion by the Board in view of all pertinent facts, including the fact of misconduct of the employees.
The National Labor Relations Act presupposes the existence of two basic facts: (1) A denial by employers of the right of employees to organize, and a refusal by the employers to accept the procedure of collective bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest; and (2) the necessary effect of the foregoing is to burden or obstruct commerce. It is the policy of the United States, as declared by the Act, to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate these obstructions when they hav,e occurred by encouraging practices and procedure of collective bargaining, and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self organization, and decision of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection. The procedural mechanism created by the Act and the powers conferred upon the National Labor Relations Board are carefully chosen to make effective the foregoing policy. The Act declares that certain designated labor practices shall be “unfair labor practices” and empowers the Board to prevent, by means provided in' the Act, any person from engaging in any unfair labor practice affecting commerce.
The Board is without power to attach any punitive consequences to unlawful conduct of employees occurring in connection with labor disputes or strikes. Indeed the legislative history of the Act discloses that such power was intentionally withheld from the Board; and that it was the congressional intention to leave unlawful conduct of employees of labor unions to be dealt with under the appropriate laws of the states and of the United States.1 This one-*384sided feature has been criticized but the judicial 'answer was given by the United States Supreme Court in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.2
While the Act does not purport to relieve striking employees from the legal consequences of unlawful acts committed in connection with a strike, Section 13, 29 U.S.C.A. § 163, provides that “nothing in this Act [chapter] shall be construed so as to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike.” The only conduct with which the Act purports to deal is the conduct of employers which comes within the legislative definition of unfair labor practices which are made unlawful by the Act itself; and which, apart from statutory regulation, are not unlawful.
But it is urged that the “sit-down” feature of the strike, plus the violence of the strikers when they resisted the efforts of officers to evict them from the petitioner’s buildings, gave their employer sufficient cause to sever the employer-employee relationship, and that the employer did sever the relationship by discharging the strikers a few hours after the beginning of the strike. If the employer, in fact and in law, terminated the employer-employee relationship, it necessarily follows that that part of the order of the Board which required reinstatement was erroneous, since it is clear that the Board has power to reinstate only by ordering the employer to put back to work -persons whose status, or relationship, of employee’ is preserved by the National Labor Relations Act. Respondent, National Labor Relations Board, insists that the purported discharge of the strikers was not in fact a discharge and was not so intended by the employer and not so understood by the striking employees. There is evidence which indicates that the action of the employer was intended merely to strengthen the bargaining position of the employer by weakening the force of the strike. The tenor of the negotiations with individual strikers after the strikers had been evicted from the plant buildings was consistent with the assumption that the employer still considered them to be striking employees. But granting that the petitioner intended to sever the employer-employee relationship, we are confronted with the plain language of the Act which, as a matter of law, continues the employer-employee relationship for purposes of the Act.3 The reasonable construction is that one who is *385an employee at the inception of a labor dispute or unfair labor practice, and ceases work because of either, remains an employee as long as the labor dispute is “current” or as long as the unfair labor practice is cognizable by the Board as an obstruction to commerce. The obvious purpose of the Act is to continue the employee relationship as an instrumentality to be used by the Board as the basis of a reinstatement order, or other affirmative action and to avoid any factual controversy, such as in the instant case, respecting the continuance of the relationship.
In the instant case the striking employees were individuals whose work had ceased “in consequence of” and “in connection with” a current labor dispute, and the immediate cause of the cessation was the unfair labor practice of petitioner committed on February 17, 1937. Further, there was no contention that any of the individuals whose work had ceased had obtained “any other regular and substantially equivalent employment.” The law of the National Labor Relations Act, applied to the facts of the instant case, required the Board, and requires this court, to recognize that the striking employees continued to have the status of employees for the purposes of the Act. And assuming that the misconduct of the striking employees was a material fact to be considered by the Board in making its decision, still no decision or order of the Board legally could have been predicated upon the assumption that the employer-employee relationship was terminated by the purported discharge of the men at a time when their work already had ceased as a consequence of, and in connection with, both a current labor dispute and an unfair labor practice by their employer.
There is substantial evidence to support a finding that the petitioner engaged in unfair labor practices in the following respects:
(1) Petitioner, prior to February 17, 1937, consistently interfered with, restrained and coerced its employees in their attempted exercise of rights guaranteed by the Act.
(2) On February 17, 1937, petitioner refused to bargain collectively with the Union, which at that time was the legal representative of the employees, who as -an appropriate unit, were seeking to bargain with petitioner through its union as their agent.
(3) Subsequently petitioner refused at different times to bargain collectively with the Union as the representative of the striking employees.
(4) Petitioner “dominated and interfered” with the formation and administration of the R.M.W.A., a company union, which was organized subsequently to February 17, 1937.
The Board is empowered to prevent any person from engaging in any unfair labor practice affecting commerce4 by issuing an order requiring the employer to cease and desist from any unfair labor practice. And on the basis of its findings, the Board clearly was empowered to issue the cease and desist order in question unless the conduct of the striking employees in some way paralyzed the power of the Board and rendered it impotent to carry out the expressed purpose and policy of the Act by taking the specific action which the statute empowers it to take. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the materiality of misconduct of employees to the exercise of its powers by the Board.
The power of the Board extends only to action to prevent unfair labor practices by employers and the Board has no power to control or punish conduct of employees either directly by imposing penalties or indirectly by relieving employers of the consequences of unfair labor practices. The conduct of employees prior to the commission of an alleged unfair labor practice is a material fact which the Board cannot ignore in determining whether the employer has engaged in unfair labor practices, but it is not available as a bar to the issuance of a cease and desist order when the evidence supports a finding that the employer has engaged in an unfair labor practice, *386And in National Labor Relations Board v. Carlisle Lumber Company5 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that enforcement of the National Labor Relations Board’s cease and desist order would not be denied under the clean hands doctrine on the ground that picketing by the members of the Union, with which the'employer had refused to bargain collectively as employees’ agent, had resulted in violence and had violated state laws. The court disposed of the question in the following statement, page 146:
“Respondent contends that the proceeding before us is an equitable proceeding; that the union’s picketing resulted in violence, as the Board found, which was a violation of the laws of Washington, and therefore enforcement should be denied for the reason that the union has not come into the court with clean hands. It is not the union, but the Board, which is asking enforcement.”
And the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has held that an employer may not refuse to negotiate with a union because of its past misconduct if the union offers in good faith to negotiate as the representative of employees.6 The following statement from the opinion is .pertinent to the facts of this case:
“For this reason the conduct of a union, like that of an employer, not only during the negotiations when there are ’ any, but before there are, may be relevant in ascertaining whether the proposal to confer is genuine, or only part of the tactics of the fight. Nothing else can be material; though the union may have misconducted itself, it has a locus pranitentias; if it offers in good faith to treat, the employer may not refuse because of its past sins. In the case at bar there was no warrant whatever for supposing that further negotiations would have been useless.”
In the instant case no misconduct of members of the union either as employees of petitioner or as representatives of the bargaining unit occurred prior to the unfair labor practices in which the petitioner had engaged prior to and including February 17, 1937, and which culminated in the bald refusal on February 17, 1937, to bargain collectively. Consequently, the misconduct could not affect the validity of the Board’s order insofar as it required the petitioner to cease and desist from those unfair labor practices. And if I am correct in believing that the strikers continued to be employees for the purpose of the exercise by the Board of its powers under the Act, the misconduct could not have vitiated the power of the Board to attempt to remedy, by a cease and desist order, the effects of the unfair labor practices engaged in subsequently to February 17, 1937, - since the evidence discloses that the striking employees were continuously willing to enter into good faith negotiations with the petitioner. National Labor Relations Board v. Remington Rand, Inc., supra; National Labor Relations Board v. Carlisle Lumber Co., supra.
In respect to the reinstatement provision of the Board’s order the petitioner makes the point that the Board is authorized to take only such affirmative action as will effectuate the policies of the Act; and urges that the reinstatement of tEe individuals who participated in unlawful acts •would militate against, rather than effectuate, the policies of the Act. In my opinion petitioner is right in its contention that the authority of the Board in respect to affirmative action is limited to such action-as will effectuate the policies of the Act. Consequently, it does not follow that the Board must reinstate all, or any employees, even though it properly finds that .the employer has engaged in unfair labor practices and must, therefore, issue a cease and desist order. This is clear from the language of the pertinent section which definitely fixes the content of the cease and desist order but leaves the content of the order, requiring affirmative action by the employer, in the discretion of the Board subject only to the qualification that it effectuate the policies of the Act.
It was held in National Labor Relations Board v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., supra, that the Board properly ordered reinstatement of employees who were refused reinstatement by the employer solely because of their union activities. But the unfair, labor practice complained of in that case was the alleged discrimination in reinstating employees. Obviously such order of reinstatement effectuated the policy of preventing that particular type of unfair labor practice. On the other hand the Mackay opinion states that an employer who has .not been engaged in any unfair *387labor practice has not lost the right to protect and continue his business by supplying places left vacant by strikers; and that the employer is not engaging in an unfair labor practice either when, in order to obtain employees to fill strikers’ places, he assures them of permanent employment or when he reinstates only enough to fill vacant places. But the foregoing observations were applied to a case in which the employees had gone on a strike in connection with a labor dispute and had abandoned their strike before any unfair labor practice had been committed by the employer. The only unfair labor practice charged was the discriminatory refusal to reinstate five men. And the Supreme Court upheld the Board’s order requiring the reinstatement of the five men. In the instant case before the strike and during the pendency of a labor dispute the employer had engaged in unfair labor practices of the type which, if persisted in, would completely nullify the policies of the Act. The positive refusal on February 17, 1937, to recognize and bargain with the union, which was the lawful bargaining agent of the employees, precipitated the strike. It is the position of the Board that the status quo must be restored as of the time of the unfair labor practice of February 17, 1937, in order to effectuate the policies of the Act; and that this necessitates the reinstatement of all the members of the appropriate bargaining unit and the recognition of the union as the bargaining agent for the unit. The general principle seems sound under the Act and is amply supported by the reasoning and decisions in National Labor Relations Board v. Remington Rand, Inc., supra, and Black Diamond S. S. Corporation v. National Labor Relations Board.7 In the latter case various groups of employees had ceased work in connection with labor disputes before any unfair labor practices had occurred. Later there was a refusal, on December 14, 1937, to bargain collectively with the lawful agents of appropriate units. The following statements by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in its opinion in the Black Diamond Case are of special significance in determining the validity of the reinstatement feature of the Board’s order in the instant case:
“The act so far as reinstatement is concerned only applies after there has been an unfair labor practice. As we have said in the opinion in National Labor Relations Board v. Remington Rand, Inc., 2 Cir., 94 F.2d 862, to be filed herewith: ‘the powers granted the Board under section 10(c), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(c), are only remedial; they are designed to enable it to restore the status quo as nearly as possible, had the wrong not been committed; further it may not go.’
******
“Under the act men who cease working because of a labor dispute or because of an unfair labor practice retain the status of employees. How long this continues is not made clear. But it is not necessary to decide the point here. All engineers were employees under the act, who had left work in consequence of labor disputes. But, having done so before any unfair labor practice, they were relying, and were only entitled to rely, upon a test of economic strength. They struck at a time when the Board was conducting an election. Since the act expressly leaves the right to strike unaffected, any remedies they had were unaffected by continuing on strike. When, on December 14, 1936, the Black Diamond refused to bargain with the certified bargaining agent of its employees, it violated the act and became subject to such orders of the Board ‘as will effectuate the policies of this Act (chapter).’ Section 10(c), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(c).
“From the date of the respondent’s first unfair practice, its ordinary right to select its employees became vulnerable. Accordingly it was proper for the Board to order it to discharge all engineers hired for the first time since December 14, 1936, and to offer reinstatement first to those striking engineers whose former positions were open, and then to the other striking engineers if, for any reason, any man entitled to reinstatement refused to accept it. To those men so reinstated the company must also give back pay. This is the extent of the order.
“ * * * They say that in the Supreme Court’s recent decisions sustaining the Wagner Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 151-166, the persons reinstated had been discharged because of union membership or activities, whereas here the severance of relations was voluntary. But under section 2(3) of the act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(3), the striking engineers still remained employees, and to ‘effectuate the policies of this act (chapter),’ section 10(c), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(c), *388no more is done than to maintain the status quo which existed on December 14, 1936, as against unfair labor practices which occurred thereafter. The facts bring the case within the rule established in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352, and the other Supreme Court decisions.”
On the authority of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the National Labor Relations Act has been construed and applied, and more particularly on the authority of the Supreme Court decision in the Mackay Case, supra, and the decisions of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the Remington Rand and Black Diamond Cases, supra, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Carlisle Case, supra, I am of the opinion that the order of the Board in the instant case is in general valid.
I believe, however, that petitioner’s contention that the reinstatement feature is too broad, even under the decision in the Black Diamond Case, is well taken, unless the present reinstatement provision can be construed to limit the requirement of reinstatement to those for whom jobs would be available upon dismissal of all new employees who were hired after the refusal to bargain on February 17, 1937. Although management policies and practices which affect the positions of employees may be the basis of legitimate labor disputes in respect to which the employees may assert their right to collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act, yet there is no provision in the Act which purports to qualify the right of an employer to abolish unnecessary jobs either during the pendency of a labor dispute or after the commission of an unfair labor practice by an employer. In short, the National Labor Relations Act continues the employer-employee relationship for the purpose of enabling the Board to effectively prevent unfair labor practices, but does not protect striking employees from disadvantages which result from normal management action taken by the employer during the time the striking employees voluntarily refuse to work. >
As indicated above, I believe that it is the duty of the Board, in determining the scope of a reinstatement order, to take into consideration unlawful conduct of striking employees when such conduct will militate against the effectuation of the policies of the Act in case of restoration of striking employees to their work. It is not within the lawful authority of the Board to order reinstatement, or refuse to order it, as a punitive measure either against employees for unlawful acts or against employers for engaging in unfair labor practices. Obviously, the threat of continued unlawful acts by striking employees should not be considered a factor favoring reinstatement; on the other hand neither should the possibility of friction between employer and reinstated employees resulting from the employer’s resentment of reinstatement as a means of effectuating the policies of the Act be considered a factor favoring refusal of reinstatement. It seems that the dominating consideration should be the probable effect upon the future relations between the employer and the employees in respect to the problem of avoiding, or peaceably settling industrial disputes. If, in the instant-case, employees had continued their unlawful acts in disregard of the rights of petitioner, and if there had been reasonable ground for the Board to conclude that because of the continuing effect of employees’ misconduct, a general reinstatement would demoralize the operation of petitioner’s business and would encourage rather than discourage interruptions of production with consequent interference with commerce, then the Board should have denied a general reinstatement. This should have been done, however,' not under the unrelated equity doctrine of clean hands, but because a general reinstatement reasonably could not contribute to the effectuation of the policies of the Act.
In view of the evidence which was before the Board, I do not believe that -this court can hold that the Board acted arbitrarily in concluding that the return of the striking employees under a general reinstatement order would contribute substantially to the effectuation of the policies of the National Labor Relations Act.
After the evictiorf of the striking employees from the plant buildings there were no unlawful acts committed by the employees and no unlawful efforts to interfere with the operation of the plant. The request for union recognition and collective bargaining was repeated and was refused. Petitioner’s superintendent had authority to restaff the plant with new employees in addition to such of the old employees as he should see fit to reinstate. Thirty-five of the sit-down strikers were reinstated and *389many of them testified at the hearing that they had been active in resisting the officers who were seeking to evict them from the petitioner’s buildings. Four strikers who testified at the hearing that they had engaged in violence, and detailed acts of violence committed by themselves, were returned to work; and these men, along with other sit-down strikers who were working for petitioner at the time of the hearing, were paid full wages for the time which was lost by reason of the sit-down strike. One striking employee testified that in a conversation with petitioner’s superintendent he was told that he would be called when he was needed; that the superintendent made no objections to his return to employment because of his participation in the sit-down strike. He also testified that the superintendent shook hands with him and said “all is forgiven.” There is testimony which indicates that other sit-down strikers could have returned to their jobs if they had been willing to return without union recognition and general reinstatement of the strikers.
In view of the foregoing and other evidence which is in the record it was not unreasonable for the Board to conclude that a general reinstatement of the striking employees would not result in friction between employer and employees merely because of the presence and activities of the reinstated employees. And, assuming full recognition by the petitioner of the policy of collective bargaining as provided for in the Act, the Board was justified in concluding that future peaceable settlement of labor disputes would be facilitated rather than obstructed.
It is urged that an affirmance of the order of the Board is an approval of the unlawful acts of the employees. I understand the emotional appeal involved in that contention, but cannot comprehend its relation to a judicial consideration of the question before us. It is as meaningless as would be the contention that a reversal of the order of the Board constitutes an approval of the unlawful defiance of the National Labor Relations Act by the petitioner. Granting that the employees were wrong in assuming that they could rightfully strengthen the force of their strike by remaining in possession of the building in which they worked, it is obvious that they' did not make a greater mistake as to the law than did the petitioner and its advisers who believed that the petitioner could rightfully refuse to bargain collectively with the agent of the employees on the ground that the National Labor Relations Act was unconstitutional. The striking employees paid the penalty for their resistance of the officers of the law who were acting under order of the state court, — at least all did against whom proceedings were not dropped. The National Labor Relations Board had no jurisdiction over that question. It does have jurisdiction over the case presented by the unfair labor practices of the petitioner; and the question for decision by this court is whether the order of the Board made in the performance of its duties under the National Labor Relations Act was within its statutory power to make on the basis of the findings which were sup-, ported by substantial evidence. With the exception above noted, I think it was.

 “Nor can the committee sanction the suggestion that the bill should prohibit fraud or violence by employees or labor unions. The bill is not a mere police court measure. The remedies against such acts in the State and Federal courts and by the invocation of local police authorities are now adequate, as arrests and labor injunctions in industrial disputes throughout the country will attest. *384* * * In addition, the procedure set up in this bill is not nearly so well suited as is existing law to the prevention of such fraud and violence. * * * The only result from introducing proposals of this sort into the bill, in the opinion, of the committee, would be to overwhelm the Board in every case with counter-charges and recriminations that would prevent it from doing the task that needs to be done.” Sen.Rep. No. 573, 74th Cong. 1st Sess. (1935), pp. 16, 17. See also H.R. No. 1147, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935), pp. 16, 17. its proper field, need not embrace all the evils within its reach. The Constitution does not forbid ‘cautious advance, step by step,’ in dealing with the evils which are 'exhibited in activities within the range of legislative power. Carroll v. Greenwich Insurance Co., 199 U.S. 401, 411, 26 S.Ct. 66, 50 L.Ed. 246; Keokee Consol. Coke Co. v. Taylor, 234 U.S. 224, 227, 34 S.Ct. 856, 58 L.Ed. 1288; Miller v. Wilson, 236 U.S. 373, 384, 35 S.Ct. 342, 59 L.Ed. 628, L.R.A.1915F, 829; Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 396, 52 S.Ct. 581, 76 L.Ed. 1167. The question in such cases is whether the Legislature, in what it does prescribe, has gone beyond constitutional limits.”

 301 U.S. 1, 46, 57 S.Ct. 615, 628, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352.
“The act has been criticized as one-sided in its application; that- it subjects the employer to supervision and restraint and leaves untouched the abuses for which employees may be responsible; that it fails to provide a more comprehensive plan, — with better assurances of fairness to both sides and with increased chances of success in bringing about, if not compelling, equitable solutions of industrial disputes affecting interstate commerce. But we are dealing with the power of Congress, not with a particular policy or with the extent to which policy should go. We have frequently said that the legislative authority, exerted within

 Third. The strikers remained employees under section 2 (3) of the act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 152 (3), which provides: ‘The term “employee” shall include * * * any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantial equivalent employment * * V Within this definition the strikers remained employees for the purpose of the act and were protected against the unfair labor practices denounced by it.” National Labor Rela*385tions Board v. Mackay Radio & Tel. Co., 58 S.Ct. 904, 910, 82 L.Ed. —, Supreme Court of the United States, May 16, 1938.

 29 U.S.O.A. § 160 (a): “The Board is empowered, as hereinafter provided, to prevent any person from engaging in any unfair labor practice (listed in section 158) affecting commerce. This power shall be exclusive, and shall not be affected by any other means of adjustment or prevention that has been or may be established by agreement, code, law, or otherwise.”

 94 F.2d 138, 146.

 National Labor Relations Board v. Remington Rand, Inc., 94 F.2d 862, 872, 873.

 2 Cir., 94 F.2d 875, 879.