Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This writ of certiorari brings here for review the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals enforcing an order of the National Labor Relations Board which was entered after the Board found upon hearings that petitioner had violated Sections 8 (1) and 8 (5) of the National Labor Relations Act.1 The petition for the writ presented issues [378]*378(1) as to whether two small related departments with thirty to forty employees may be an appropriate bargaining unit when the department store of which they are a part has around three hundred and fifty departments and approximately five thousand employees; (2) as to whether the Board could properly place the name of a Joint Labor Council on the ballot for the employees’ bargaining representative when none of the employees were members of the Council but only of a local union which was associated with others in the Council; (3) as to whether seeking authority by the employer from the National War Labor Board to increase wages without taking up the increase with a certified bargaining agent may be an unfair labor practice under § 8 (1) of the Labor Act; and (4) as to the propriety of a Board order to cease and desist generally from unfair labor practices instead of an order to cease and desist only from the type or types of unfair practices which the Board found the employer committed. As these issues presented important problems in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act, certiorari was granted. 324 U. S. 838.
Appropriate Unit. After a hearing in which the employer, the petitioner here, the May Department Stores Company, doing business as Famous-Barr Company, a St. Louis department store, took part, the Labor Relations Board, on June 16, 1943, found that all non-supervisory employees of the Company, then 28 in number, working in the main and basement men’s busheling rooms, constituted an appropriate unit for collective bargaining within the meaning of § 9 (b) 2 of the Labor Relations Act. [379]*379An election was ordered. It resulted in the choice and designation of the St. Louis Joint Council, United Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Employees of America, C. I. 0., as the representative for collective bargaining of the employees of the unit.
The Company contended that a store-wide unit of its five thousand employees was the most appropriate and at any rate that employees in the women’s alteration and the fur alteration departments should be added to the employees in the men’s busheling rooms to form the unit. As there is no provision for direct review of the determination and certification of the bargaining representative, the Company, in order to secure judicial review of the finding as to the unit, awaited this proceeding which sought a decree directing it to bargain collectively with the representative. See Inland Empire Council v. Millis, 325 U. S. 697.
A few months before this proceeding a determination that all employees of the Company subject to stated exceptions were the appropriate unit for collective bargaining had been sought by the C. I. 0. The Company objected because no sufficient showing of representation was made and because it took exception to the exclusion of certain employees from the proposed unit. This petition was dismissed for failure of the C. I. O. to make a substantial showing of membership in the suggested store-wide unit. 46 N. L. R. B. 305. That prior application is not a bar to this. The Board was careful to note in this proceeding that a larger unit might be fixed as appropriate if self-organization developed. Other departments of the store had members of this and other unions as employees. This presence of union members throughout the enterprise was a matter of consideration in deciding upon the appropriate unit but was not decisive. Compare Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 146, 156. No labor organization claimed to represent the entire body [380]*380of employees. Therefore the Board determined to approve this unit as appropriate so that collective bargaining might start for these employees without waiting until more employees might be organized into a larger unit. Compare Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 134.
Under § 9 (b) the Board is delegated the authority to determine the unit. The judicial review afforded is not for the purpose of weighing the evidence upon which the Board acted and perhaps to overrule the exercise of its discretion but to “guarantee against arbitrary action by the Board.”3 The Board had before it the business of the Company, the numbers of employees, the treatment of all employees as a unit by management with reference to sick leave, hospitalization, employee privileges, vacations, et cetera. Evidence was presented that a large proportion of employees in the proposed unit were members of the same union. It had testimony as to similarity and dissimilarity in tailoring and altering between the men's and women's alteration rooms. There was evidence that those who work on men’s clothing, speaking generally, belong to a different union organization than those who work on women’s clothes. The Board considered the interchange of workers between the two groups. We think that there was ample testimony to support the Board’s conclusion that the employees of the two busheling rooms were an appropriate unit, since these employees had a degree of self-organization and a special trade which sufficiently differentiated them from other employees.
Form of Ballot. Petitioner objects to the certification because the ballot contained the name of the St. Louis Joint Council, United Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Employees, as a candidate for bargaining representative from the unit. This was the organization which was [381]*381certified. It had filed the petition for determination of the representative. The Council claimed that more than 51% of the employees in the suggested unit had designated it as their collective bargaining representative. The Board directs what names go on the ballot. Unless there is a showing of a substantial number of employees in the proposed unit who have become members of and selected the petitioner as their bargaining representative, the Board does not ordinarily order an election.4 This is an administrative policy of the Board. In this case, on the Joint Council’s petition for certification, the Board found that the Council had a majority of the employees. As a matter of fact it was a local union which the employees had selected and joined. The Board pointed out in its finding of facts on the petition for an election that the Joint Council represented this local and similar locals in other stores.
The Company says that some employees may have been misled by the ballot into thinking that the Joint Council had a substantial number of the unit’s employees as members, because elections are not ordinarily called unless that situation exists. The local was represented by the Joint Council. Cf. Labor Board v. Franks Bros. Co., 137 F. 2d 989, 992, affirmed on other grounds, Franks Bros. Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 702.
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Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This writ of certiorari brings here for review the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals enforcing an order of the National Labor Relations Board which was entered after the Board found upon hearings that petitioner had violated Sections 8 (1) and 8 (5) of the National Labor Relations Act.1 The petition for the writ presented issues [378]*378(1) as to whether two small related departments with thirty to forty employees may be an appropriate bargaining unit when the department store of which they are a part has around three hundred and fifty departments and approximately five thousand employees; (2) as to whether the Board could properly place the name of a Joint Labor Council on the ballot for the employees’ bargaining representative when none of the employees were members of the Council but only of a local union which was associated with others in the Council; (3) as to whether seeking authority by the employer from the National War Labor Board to increase wages without taking up the increase with a certified bargaining agent may be an unfair labor practice under § 8 (1) of the Labor Act; and (4) as to the propriety of a Board order to cease and desist generally from unfair labor practices instead of an order to cease and desist only from the type or types of unfair practices which the Board found the employer committed. As these issues presented important problems in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act, certiorari was granted. 324 U. S. 838.
Appropriate Unit. After a hearing in which the employer, the petitioner here, the May Department Stores Company, doing business as Famous-Barr Company, a St. Louis department store, took part, the Labor Relations Board, on June 16, 1943, found that all non-supervisory employees of the Company, then 28 in number, working in the main and basement men’s busheling rooms, constituted an appropriate unit for collective bargaining within the meaning of § 9 (b) 2 of the Labor Relations Act. [379]*379An election was ordered. It resulted in the choice and designation of the St. Louis Joint Council, United Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Employees of America, C. I. 0., as the representative for collective bargaining of the employees of the unit.
The Company contended that a store-wide unit of its five thousand employees was the most appropriate and at any rate that employees in the women’s alteration and the fur alteration departments should be added to the employees in the men’s busheling rooms to form the unit. As there is no provision for direct review of the determination and certification of the bargaining representative, the Company, in order to secure judicial review of the finding as to the unit, awaited this proceeding which sought a decree directing it to bargain collectively with the representative. See Inland Empire Council v. Millis, 325 U. S. 697.
A few months before this proceeding a determination that all employees of the Company subject to stated exceptions were the appropriate unit for collective bargaining had been sought by the C. I. 0. The Company objected because no sufficient showing of representation was made and because it took exception to the exclusion of certain employees from the proposed unit. This petition was dismissed for failure of the C. I. O. to make a substantial showing of membership in the suggested store-wide unit. 46 N. L. R. B. 305. That prior application is not a bar to this. The Board was careful to note in this proceeding that a larger unit might be fixed as appropriate if self-organization developed. Other departments of the store had members of this and other unions as employees. This presence of union members throughout the enterprise was a matter of consideration in deciding upon the appropriate unit but was not decisive. Compare Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 146, 156. No labor organization claimed to represent the entire body [380]*380of employees. Therefore the Board determined to approve this unit as appropriate so that collective bargaining might start for these employees without waiting until more employees might be organized into a larger unit. Compare Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 134.
Under § 9 (b) the Board is delegated the authority to determine the unit. The judicial review afforded is not for the purpose of weighing the evidence upon which the Board acted and perhaps to overrule the exercise of its discretion but to “guarantee against arbitrary action by the Board.”3 The Board had before it the business of the Company, the numbers of employees, the treatment of all employees as a unit by management with reference to sick leave, hospitalization, employee privileges, vacations, et cetera. Evidence was presented that a large proportion of employees in the proposed unit were members of the same union. It had testimony as to similarity and dissimilarity in tailoring and altering between the men's and women's alteration rooms. There was evidence that those who work on men’s clothing, speaking generally, belong to a different union organization than those who work on women’s clothes. The Board considered the interchange of workers between the two groups. We think that there was ample testimony to support the Board’s conclusion that the employees of the two busheling rooms were an appropriate unit, since these employees had a degree of self-organization and a special trade which sufficiently differentiated them from other employees.
Form of Ballot. Petitioner objects to the certification because the ballot contained the name of the St. Louis Joint Council, United Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Employees, as a candidate for bargaining representative from the unit. This was the organization which was [381]*381certified. It had filed the petition for determination of the representative. The Council claimed that more than 51% of the employees in the suggested unit had designated it as their collective bargaining representative. The Board directs what names go on the ballot. Unless there is a showing of a substantial number of employees in the proposed unit who have become members of and selected the petitioner as their bargaining representative, the Board does not ordinarily order an election.4 This is an administrative policy of the Board. In this case, on the Joint Council’s petition for certification, the Board found that the Council had a majority of the employees. As a matter of fact it was a local union which the employees had selected and joined. The Board pointed out in its finding of facts on the petition for an election that the Joint Council represented this local and similar locals in other stores.
The Company says that some employees may have been misled by the ballot into thinking that the Joint Council had a substantial number of the unit’s employees as members, because elections are not ordinarily called unless that situation exists. The local was represented by the Joint Council. Cf. Labor Board v. Franks Bros. Co., 137 F. 2d 989, 992, affirmed on other grounds, Franks Bros. Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 702. The Joint Council was chosen by a majority of the employees of the unit and certified. In the circumstances of this election, we see no basis for the Company’s objection to the certified representative on the ground of possible confusion of the employees.
Action on Wages. The Board found that the Company interfered with, restrained and coerced its employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by § 7 of the Act, [382]*382under the circumstances herein detailed, in seeking the necessary approval (56 Stat. 765; Executive Order 9250, 7 Fed. Reg. 7871) on August 30,1943, of the National War Labor Board for an upward wage adjustment for a large proportion of its employees, including the employees of the unit here involved, without bargaining collectively on the subject of the wages with the certified union. A letter accompanied the request to the War Labor Board which explained that certain craft employees, not here involved, were excluded from the application for authority to increase wages because they were covered by collective bargaining agreements. The letter went on to say:
“The St. Louis Joint Council, United Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Employees of America, C. I. 0., . . . has been certified by the National Labor Relations Board, but we do not regard this as an appropriate unit and have consistently taken that position and have so notified all parties concerned. It is our intention to submit that question to the Courts, if and when the occasion arises. We have not recognized this Union and have not bargained with it for the employees in Departments 280 or 281 and no negotiations with that Union are pending. It is intended, however, that the employees in Departments 280 and 281 shall be included in this application.
“We do not believe that any of the organizations named in the application, nor the organization named above, have any interest whatever in the enclosed application. However, if the organization named above should object to the inclusion of the employees of Departments 280 and 281 in the application, you are advised that said application may be considered as having been amended so as to exclude those employees from the application.”
The next morning the employees were told over the store address system of the application for a wage increase for all employees, except higher paid executivés and those employees “whose salaries have been fixed by closed shop [383]*383agreements.” A short time later another reference to the application was made over the address system. A similar announcement appeared in the September 3 issue of the store paper. The conditional offer to exclude the employees of the unit was not referred to in the announcements. Upon these facts the Board found a violation of §8 (1).
The Company urges that its request for authority, without negotiation with the certified union as to the application to the War Labor Board, was not an unfair practice under § 8 (1) but only a necessary result of its position on non-recognition of the certified representative because the Company did not agree with the Board’s determination of the appropriate unit for the selection of representatives. The Company says it could not give recognition to the certified agent and maintain this position.
We have in a preceding division of this opinion stated our conclusion that the Joint Council was a properly certified bargaining representative. Therefore at the time of the request to the War Labor Board for authority to increase wages, the Joint Council must be considered as a properly certified bargaining agent. Company action in regard to it must be judged in that light even though its attitude toward the certification made its choice difficult.
The Joint Council was certified on July 12, 1943. After the election, the Council had requested a conference with the Company for negotiating a contract to cover wages, hours and working conditions. This request was declined on July 19th with the statement that the Company did not agree with the decision of the Board and desired to preserve its full rights to question the result as it “may see fit.” The application to the War Labor Board followed on August 30th.
It is settled law that the Labor Relations Act makes it an employer’s duty to bargain collectively only with the [384]*384duly recognized or accredited representative of the employees. Disregard of this duty violates § 8 (1) of the Act. § 9 (a). Medo Corp. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 678, 683-84. Any other conclusion would infringe an essential principle of collective bargaining. See J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 332, 338. Employer action to bring about changes in wage scales without consultation and negotiation with the certified representative of its employees cannot, we think, logically or realistically, be distinguished from bargaining with individuals or minorities. The fact that the application to the War Labor Board was not the actual increase of wages but a necessary preliminary does not make unilateral action, accompanied by publication of the step taken to the employees, any the less objectionable. The application to the War Labor Board marked a unilateral determination by the Company that the employees of this unit should have the specific increase deemed due them by the Company or none at all, if the bargaining agent should object in accordance with the letter quoted above. The employer was not getting into position to negotiate with the agent. He declared the contrary and proposed that he, as employer, would make the increase if permission were granted.
Two national labor groups had each separately sought for months to organize the Company. One effort to secure the designation of a unit had failed. The present designation was made over the protests of the Company. It had urged in its motion for reconsideration of the order of election:
“There are two competing labor organizations seeking to organize the employees in this store. By this decision one of them is granted an election in the unit composed of two departments. There are some 350 departments in this store and if this Employer is to be confronted with elections and separate bargaining for each one or two de[385]*385partments it will be an endless and intolerable interference with store operations, which should not be permitted/’
By going ahead with wage adjustments without negotiation with the bargaining agent, it took a step which justified the conclusion of the Board as to the violation of §8 (1). Such unilateral action minimizes the influence of organized bargaining. It interferes with the right of self-organization by emphasizing to the employees that there is no necessity for a collective bargaining agent. If successful in securing approval for the proposed increase of wages, it might well, as the Board points out, block the bargaining representative in securing further wage adjustments.
It may be that the Company sought only to preserve its opportunity to contest the certification of the unit. It is pointed out that the increases for which approval was sought covered several thousand employees and that it is hardly conceivable that a general increase for so many would be sought to injure so few. But the Board’s contention is not that the application, as a whole, was for the purpose of undermining the Council. Its conclusion was that the manner of presenting and publicizing the application had the effect of coercing the employees. Instead of taking up the increase of this unit’s wages with the Council, filing a joint application, with reservation of the Company’s legal right to challenge the certification of the bargaining agent when any complaint might be filed for refusal to bargain collectively, or, omitting the employees of the questioned unit, if the Council would not join in such an application, the Company chose to ignore the properly certified agent. Nor can we agree that if, under the procedure suggested, the employees in this unit had been omitted from the employees who received increases, there would have been danger that the National Labor Relations Board would have considered such omission an [386]*386unfair labor practice. Whatever weight an omission might have under other circumstances, under these it would have followed an effort to avoid injury to the employees and could not properly be held an interference with their rights.
We find no basis for eliminating the announcements or the publication from consideration on the ground that they were an exercise of the right of free expression, secured by the First Amendment. They are a part of the totality of Company activities and were properly received by the Board as evidence of the unilateral action of the employer. Labor Board v. Virginia Power Co., 314 U. S. 469, 477.
Breadth of Order. Petitioner complains here of the refusal of the Court to modify paragraph 1 (b) of the Board’s order to the extent which petitioner explicitly asked for below in its petition for rehearing.5 That paragraph, together with another which enjoins refusal to bargain, is [387]*387set out below.6 Petitioner argues that the broad, blanket provisions of 1 (b) are invalid, even though, of course, restricted to the few employees in the affected unit. The language of the prohibition covers interferences with all the rights of these employees which are secured by § 7 of the Labor Act, while at the most, petitioner urges, the [388]*388Board has found and the Circuit Court sustained only two unfair labor practices by petitioner, “(1) refusal to bargain and (2) the storewide salary increase.” Both of these, it is asserted, are but incidents in petitioner’s effort to obtain judicial review of the Board’s certification. As the Board’s selection of an appropriate unit to choose the employees’ bargaining representative and the Board’s subsequent certification of the representative chosen, § 9, are not judicially reviewable directly, petitioner takes the position that it committed the unfair labor practice of refusing to bargain with an accredited union merely to open the way for judicial review of the certification.7 Consequently petitioner urges the cease and desist order should be no broader than the refusal to bargain which is covered by paragraph 1 (a), note 6 supra, with the addition of “or from any other acts in any manner interfering with the representative’s efforts to negotiate.” The suggested addition is taken from the Express Publishing Company case, 312 U. S. at 438. Thus the breadth of paragraph 1 (b) of the Board’s order is sharply challenged as being beyond the power of the Board in view of the evidence and findings in this case.
The scope of injunctions which follow National Labor Relations Board determinations is important to employer and employee. While contempt proceedings can be instituted only by the Board and in the public interest,8 the possibility of contempt penalties by the court for future Labor Act violations adds sufficient additional sanctions to make material the difference between enjoined and non-enjoined employer activities.9 The deci[389]*389sion in the Express Publishing Company case emphasized this issue.10 The paragraph under attack in that case was substantially like the paragraph here attacked.
[390]*390The test of the proper scope of a cease and desist order is whether the Board might have reasonably concluded from the evidence that such an order was necessary to prevent the employer before it “from engaging in any unfair labor practice affecting commerce.” § 10 (a).11 Equity has long been accustomed in other fields to reach conclusions as to the scope of orders which are necessary [391]*391to prevent interferences with the rights of those who seek the courts’ protection.12 Injunctions in broad terms are granted even in acts of the widest content, when the court deems them essential to accomplish the purposes of the act.13 We think that the Board has the same power to [392]*392determine the needed scope of cease and desist orders under the National Labor Relations Act that courts have, when authorized to issue injunctions, in other litigation.
That power of the Board is subject to review under § 10. While the Board has been delegated initially the exclusive authority to prevent unfair labor practices,14 courts, which are called upon to enforce such orders by their own decrees, may examine its scope to see whether, on the evidence, they go so beyond the authority of the Board as to require modification as a matter of law before enforcement. § 10 (a) and (e). Thq Express Publishing Company case declared:
“To justify an order restraining other violations it must appear that they bear some resemblance to that which the employer has committed or that danger of their commission in the future is to be anticipated from the course of his conduct in the past.” P. 437.
We think that, in the circumstances of this proceeding, although there is a violation of § 8 (1) as well as 8 (5), the violation of 8 (1) is so intertwined with the refusal to bargain with a unit asserted to be certified improperly that, without a clear determination by the Board of an attitude of opposition to the purposes of the Act to protect the rights of employees generally, the decree need not enjoin Company actions which are not determined by the Board to be so motivated.
This conclusion requires a modification of the decree so that the injunction will not apply generally to all viola[393]*393tions under the Act of the rights of the employees in Departments 280 and 281, but will apply to other interferences, in violation of § 8 (1) or otherwise, with the Council's representation of these employees. There should be added to paragraph 1 (a) of the decree, note 6 supra, the following clause, “or from any other acts in any manner interfering with the representative’s efforts to negotiate for or represent the above named employees as bargaining agent.” Paragraph 1 (b) should be stricken. Textual corrections should be made to conform to these changes. As thus modified, the decree is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.