Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board

321 U.S. 678, 64 S. Ct. 830, 88 L. Ed. 1007, 1944 U.S. LEXIS 1306, 14 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 581

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 10, 1944
• Docket: 265
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Chief Justice Stone

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner recognized a labor union as the bargaining representative of its employees. At their request and upon their statement that they were dissatisfied with the union and would abandon it if their wages were increased, petitioner negotiated with them without the intervention óf the union, granted the requested increases in wages and thereafter refused to recognize or bargain with the union. The only questions raised by the petition for certiorari are whether in the circumstances, petitioner’s negotiations with its employees, its payment of increased wages, and its refusal to bargain with the union constituted unfair labor practices in violation of §§ 8 (1) and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158 (1) and (5).

Upon complaint of the National Labor Relations Board charging petitioner with unfair labor practices, issued pursuant to § 10 of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 160, the Board found that petitioner had violated §§ 8 (1) and (5) of the Act by-interfering with its employees in the exercise of their rights to bargain collectively, guaranteed by § 7 of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 157, and by refusing to bargain with a union representing its employees. The Board entered the usual order directing petitioner to cease the unfair labor practices so found, and requiring it to bargain with the union. 43 N. L. R. B. 989. On the Board’s petition to enforce its order, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overruled petitioner’s contentions that the union, at the time of the alleged unfair labor practices, no longer represented petitioner’s employees for purposes of collective bargaining and directed compliance with the order. 135 F. 2d 279. We granted certiorari, 320 U. S. 723, as the case involves questions of importance in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act.

The Board made findings supported by evidence that after eighteen of the twenty-six employees in petitioner’s shipping and receiving department, constituting an appropriate bargaining unit, had designated the union as their bargaining agent, petitioner, on June 4th and 5th, 1941, recognized it as the exclusive bargaining representative of the employees. The union having proposed a contract providing for an increase of wages for the employees, petitioner agreed to meet the union representatives on June 9, 1941 in order to begin collective bargaining.

Two days before that date, twelve of the employees who were members of the union, waited on petitioner’s manager and stated that they and the six other members had no desire to belong to the union if through their own efforts they could obtain wage increases, a list of which they submitted. The manager, at that time, declined to discuss the union, but stated that he would consider the request for wage increases with petitioner’s president on the latter’s return to the office on June 9th, and asked the employees to return on that day.

On June 9th, the manager, after a conference with the president, met with a committee of four of the employees who had conferred with him two days before. He advised them that petitioner would grant substantially the requested wage increases. The committee then withdrew to convey this message to the other employees, who thereupon agreed to accept the wage increases. The committee returned to inform the manager of this and that the employees “felt that they did not need the union, and we would rather stay out.” Later in the day, the committee notified the union representative that the employees no longer desired the union to represent them. At a meeting on the same day with the representatives of the union, at which this committee was present, petitioner’s attorney stated that he understood that the union no longer represented a majority of the employees and he declined to negotiate with it unless it were established by an election that it did.

From this, and from evidence which it is unnecessary to detail, the Board concluded, and we accept its findings, that the employees had not revoked their designation of the union as their bargaining agent before the wage increases were promised by petitioner’s manager on June '9th; that the increases were induced by negotiations begun with petitioner on June 7th and concluded on June 9th before they had repudiated the union; that petitioner’s determination to increase wages was “occasioned solely by the employees’ offer to withdraw from the union if the raises were granted”; and that the employees’ defection from the union was induced by petitioner’s conduct in dealing directly with the employees.¹

In sustaining the Board’s order the Court of Appeals assumed that as there had been no election or certification of the union as their bargaining representative, the employees were free to revoke their designation of it and to negotiate directly with the employer for an increase in wages, without, the intervention of the union. But it thought that if such a proposal came from the employer, it would be a forbidden interference with the collective bargaining process and it concluded that, in view of the difficulties of determining whether in fact such an offer, ostensibly coming from the employees, was induced by the employer, the Board could conclude that the mere acceptance by the employer of the employees’ offer was an unfair labor practice. A concurring judge thought that the case was stripped of any intimation of employer control but that the Board’s order should be sustained on the ground that it was an unfair labor practice for the employer to bargain with the employees when their revocation of the union’s authority was made conditional upon the majority’s agreement to abandon collective bargaining altogether, even for an unspecified time.

We think it plain that the findings of the Board do not admit of either of these dispositions of the case. While the negotiations of petitioner with the employees resulted in a wage increase and their abandonment of the union, the negotiations were carried on by certain of the employees purporting to act in behalf of and to represent a majority. Nothing appears which would suggest, as the concurring judge thought, that any of the employees during or as a result of the negotiations had by agreement or otherwise foreclosed themselves from continuing such bargaining through the same or any other representatives whom they might choose. Nor in the circumstances disclosed by the evidence and the Board’s findings can we say that it was of any significance whether, as the Court of Appeals thought, the employees’ offer to abandon the union originated with them or was inspired by the employer. Eor in either case, as will presently appear, we think that the negotiations by petitioner for wage increases with any one other than the union, the designated representative of the employees, was an unfair labor practice. We think that the Board’s order should have been enforced for the reasons stated by it.

The petition for certiorari does not challenge the Board’s findings that the union represented a majority of the employees in petitioner’s shipping department, and that they constituted a proper bargaining unit and that petitioner had agreed to bargain with the union. The evidence shows and the Board found that when the employees opened their negotiations with petitioner’s manager on June 7th, they had not repudiated the union. On the contrary they made it plain that their proposal for its abandonment was contingent upon petitioner’s willingness to give the desired wage increases. The evidence also shows, as the Board found, that the employees did not withdraw their designation of the union as their bargaining representative until after they had voted to accept the wage increases, and that until then, they had held themselves out as union members throughout their negotiations with petitioner and its representatives.

The National Labor Relations Act makes it the duty of the employer to bargain collectively with the chosen representatives of his employees. The obligation being exclusive, see § 9 (a) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 159 (a), it exacts “the negative duty to treat with no other.” Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 44; and see Virginian Ry. Co. v. System Federation, 300 U. S. 515, 548-549. Petitioner, by ignoring the union as the employees’ exclusive bargaining representative, by negotiating with its employees concerning wages at a time when wage negotiations with the union were pending, and by inducing its employees to abandon the union by promising them higher wages, violated § 8 (1) of the Act, which forbids interference with the right of employees to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choice.

That it is a violation of the essential principle of collective bargaining and an infringement of the Act for the employer to disregard the bargaining representative by negotiating with individual employees, whether a majority or a minority, with respect to wages, hours and working-conditions was recognized by this Court in J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 332; cf. Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Railway Express Agency, 321 U. S. 342; see also National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U. S. 350, 359-361. The statute guarantees to all employees the right to bargain collectively through their chosen representatives. Bargaining carried on by the employer directly with the employees, whether a minority or majority, who have not revoked their designation of a bargaining agent, would be subversive of the mode of collective bargaining which the statute has ordained, as the Board, the expert body in this field,, has found. Such conduct is therefore an interference with the rights guaranteed by §. 7 and a violation of § 8 (1) of the Act.² There is no necessity for us to determine the extent to which or the periods for which the employees, having designated a bargaining representative, may be foreclosed from revoking their designation, if at all, or the formalities, if any, necessary for such a revocation. Compare Labor Board v. Century Oxford Mfg. Co., 140 F. 2d 541, C. C. A. 2d, decided February 15, 1944. But orderly collective bargaining requires that the employer be not permitted to go behind the designated representatives, in order to bargain with the employees themselves, prior to such a revocation. And it is the fact here, as found by the Board, that the employees did not revoke their designation of the union as their bargaining agent at any time while they were themselves negotiating with petitioner, and that they left the union, as they had promised petitioner to do, only when petitioner had agreed to give them increased wages.

Quite apart from the Board’s finding of an unfair labor practice in petitioner’s direct negotiations with its employees when they had not revoked their designation of the union, there can be no question but that it was likewise an unfair labor practice for petitioner, in response to the offer of its employees, to induce them by the grant of wage increases, to leave the union.³ Labor Board v. Falk Corp., 308 U. S. 453, 460-461. This violation of § 8 (1) was in itself sufficient to support the Board’s order to cease and desist. The words and purpose of §§ 7 and 8 (1) of the Act enjoin an employer from interfering with, or coercing, its employees in their rights to self-organization, to form, join,.or assist labor organizations, and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. There could be no more obvious way of interfering with these rights of employees than by grants of wage increases upon the understanding that they would leave the union in return. The action of employees with respect to the choice of their bargaining agents may be induced by favors bestowed by the employer as well as by his threats or domination. International Association of Machinists v. Labor Board, 311 U. S. 72; Labor Board v. Falk Corp., supra; Labor Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, 303 U. S. 261, 266-268.

Petitioner contends that it would be equally an unfair labor practice to refuse the wage increases as to grant them, for that would influence the employees to stay in the union, instead of abandoning it. But either consequence, as well as any violation of the Act, would in this case have been avoided if the employer, as is its statutory duty, had refused to negotiate with any one other than the duly designated bargaining representative of his employees. We are not now concerned with the question whether, in other circumstances, such action would have been an unfair labor practice. Nor does that possibility relieve petitioner of the consequences of its unfair labor practices which the Board has found.

Petitioner was not relieved from its obligations because the employees asked that they be disregarded. The statute was enacted in the public interest for the protection of the employees’ right to collective bargaining and it may not be ignored by the employer, even though the employees consent, Labor Board v. Newport News Co., 308 U. S. 241, 251, or the employees suggest the conduct found to be an unfair labor practice, National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, supra, 353, at least where the employer is in a position to secure any advantage from these practices, H. J. Heinz Co. v. Labor Board, 311 U. S. 514, 519-521, and cases cited.

Petitioner cannot, as justification for its refusal to bargain with the union, set up the defection of union members which it had induced by unfair labor practices, even though the result was that the union no longer had the support of a majority. It cannot thus, by its own action, disestablish the union as the bargaining representative of the employees, previously designated as such of their own free will. Labor Board v. Bradford Dyeing Assn., 310 U. S. 318, 339-340; International Assn. of Machinists v. Labor Board, supra, 82; cf. National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, supra, 359. Petitioner’s refusal to bargain under those circumstances was but an aggravation of its unfair labor practice in destroying the majority’s support of the union, and was a violation of §§ 8 (1) and (5) of the Act.

The Board rightly determined that petitioner had engaged in the unfair labor practices which the Board found, and this determination supports its order directing the cessation of those practices. The petition for certiorari has raised no question as to the propriety of the Board’s order directing petitioner to bargain with the union, which was also sustained and ordered enforced by the Court of Appeals. We therefore have no occasion to consider that part of the order here. Compare Franks Bros. Co. v. Labor Board, post, p. 702.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Roberts dissents.

1 It has now long been settled that findings of the Board, as with those of other administrative agencies, are conclusive upon reviewing courts when supported by evidence, that the weighing of conflicting evidence is for the Board and not for the courts, that the inferences from the evidence are to be drawn by the Board and not by the courts, save only as questions of law are raised and that upon such questions of law, the experienced judgment of the Board is entitled to great weight. See Franks Bros. Co. v. Labor Board, post, p. 702; Labor Board v. Southern Bell Co., 319 U. S. 50, 60, and cases cited; Labor Board v. Nevada Copper Co., 316 U. S. 105, 106-107, and cases cited; cf. Dobson v. Commissioner, 320 U. S. 489, 501, and cases cited.

2 That the Act “carries the clear implication that employers shall not interfere” with the right of collective bargaining “by bargaining with individuals or minority groups in their own behalf, after representatives have been picked by the majority to represent all,” was recognized by the reports of the Congressional committees recommending the adoption of the bill which became the National Labor Relations Act. Sen. Rep. No. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 13; H. Rep. No. 1147, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 20.

3 We find no evidence in the record that petitioner’s representatives stated to the employees either in terms or in substance, “We will give you the [wage] increases and you can do as you please about the union.” From the evidence, which fully supports the findings, it appears that the employees proposed to petitioner’s manager on June 7th that they would leave the union if they were given wage raises; that the manager adjourned the meeting with the employees until June 9th in order to consider the suggested wage increases with petitioner’s president. On that date, after considering the matter with the president, the manager announced to the employees that wage increases would be given, and this was immediately followed by the employees’ desertion of the union. It also appears that it was petitioner’s normal practice to grant wage increases only at the close of the year. From these facts the Board could conclude, as it did, that the purpose and the effect of the wage increases was to induce petitioner’s employees to leave the union.