National Labor Relations Board v. American Potash & Chemical Corp.

113 F.2d 232, 129 A.L.R. 874, 6 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 1008, 1940 U.S. App. LEXIS 3335
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJune 27, 1940
Docket8681
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 113 F.2d 232 (National Labor Relations Board v. American Potash & Chemical Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Labor Relations Board v. American Potash & Chemical Corp., 113 F.2d 232, 129 A.L.R. 874, 6 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 1008, 1940 U.S. App. LEXIS 3335 (9th Cir. 1940).

Opinions

DENMAN, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board filed a petition alleging that respondent American Potash and Chemical Corporation, hereafter called Potash, has committed certain acts in violation of three of our orders of June 27, 1938, in the case of National Labor Relations Board v. American Potash & Chemical Corporation, as set forth in our opinion reported in 9 Cir., 98 F.2d 488. Attached to the petition are supporting affidavits. An order to show cause was issued and Potash answered, joining issue with the allegations of its contumacious conduct, to which are attached its affidavits. The orders charged to be violated commanded Potash to:

“2. Take the following affirmative action which the Board finds will effectuate the policies of the Act:

“a. Offer to Earl Wright * * * [and others] immediate and full reinstatement, respectively, to their former positions, without prejudice to their seniority or other rights and privileges;

“b. Make whole said Earl Wright * * * [and others] for any losses of pay they have suffered by reason of their discharge and J. L. Ivers for any loss of pay he has suffered by reason of his demotion, by payment, respectively, of a sum of money equal to that which each would normally have earned as wages during the period from the date of his discharge, and with respect to J. L. Ivers, from the date of his demotion, to the date of such offer of reinstatement, less the amount which each has earned during that period;” and to cease and desist:

“1_ * * *

“c. From in any manner dominating or interfering with the administration of the Allied Chemical Workers’ Association, or any other labor organization of its employees, and from contributing support to the Allied Chemical Workers’ Association, or to any other labor organization of its employees.”

(a) With regard to our orders 2a and b, first, to reinstate th^e employees and, second, to make them whole, the affidavits of Potash show that they had never been obeyed by an unconditional offer to restore the men to their positions before determining their back pay. On the contrary, it appears that the unemployed men were offered their, back pay with an additional bonus of 12]^ percent if they would enable Potash to avoid our order by resigning their right to reinstatement.

The duty of an employer to reinstate arises from the statute’s specific provision •for such a mandate to effectuate the purposes of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. [235]*235That purpose is not effectuated by a mere giving of a private right to the unemployed man to be surrendered for a price. The primary purpose is not to create a remedy in the discharged employees. It is to safeguard the employees’ right, declared in section 1 of the Act, to self-organize or join an existing labor organization, by making it not only a costly matter to the employer to discharge men for exercising that right, but also by depriving him of any prestige he may have for ridding his organization of those who oppose his attempt so to destroy their right to organize.

The employer is not to be left in a condition to say to like-minded associates seeking to defeat the purposes of the Act, “It cost me a pot of money, but no man who has opposed me in forming a union ever worked in my plant again.”

One would be blind to the spirit which dominates his creative life in his company not to realize the destructive effect on the laborer of the loss of his place in the organization. “Not to belong” has in it all the poignant misery that O’Neil has shown in his tragedy of the Iiairy Ape. The loss of a job means much more to an American iaborer than the absence of his pay check. There is the deeper fear that he and his family may become one of a permanent class of the jobless and indigent. Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Sterling Electric Motors, Inc., 9 Cir., decided May 7, 1940, 112 F.2d 63. The Labor Act intends that the employer so shall not punish men who oppose his will in seeking to organize for collective bargaining.

The restoration must precede the determining of the back wages. In nearly all cases this will be a matter of negotiating with the men having the backing of the successful organization which the employer has attempted to prevent from bargaining collectively with him. The restored employee, as distinguished from the discharged one, technically made an employee by the statute, has the security and restored confidence necessary to participate in negotiations for the determination of his back wages. What Congress has said about the disadvantage of the employee in bargaining with the employer1 applies a fortiori to the discharged workman.

With respect to the particular negotiations for the settlement of back wages' between Potash and the discharged employees, Potash made a motion at the hearing for the enforcement of the Board’s orders to have this court hear and determine its propriety before it paid the men the agreed amounts. We held that this was a matter of compliance with the orders the Board was seeking to make effective through our decree and not a part of the proceeding to secure that order. National Labor Relations Board v. American Potash & Chemical Corp., 9 Cir., 98 F.2d 488, 492. The Act contemplates this will be a matter of the Board’s cognizance since under section 10(c) of the Act the Board may require Potash “to make reports from time to time showing the extent to which it has complied with the order.”

However, Potash relied on cases making it impossible to say that its motion was not in good faith. If granted it would have opened up the facts as to the method in which the settlement was procured from the men. The making of such a motion demonstrates an absence of a contumacious attitude toward the court or the Board at that time. We hence feel that, though the admitted failure to reinstate is a continuing violation of our order and that the back pay cannot be determined until such restoration, Potash need do no more to purge itself of its contempt than make the ordered restoration and payment of back pay within sixty days from the date of our decree.

(b) With regard to the claimed violation of our cease and desist order (c), the allegations of the Board’s petition show a different situation from the continuing and present violation of the order for restoration and back pay. The Board charges that Potash “sponsored and procured the formation of a labor organization known as the Independent Chemical Work[236]*236ers’ Union” and has dominated and interfered with the administration of that union.

As to this alleged violation of the cease and desist order the Board waited until 13 months after the alleged acts to advise this court of the affront to its dignity or to that of the Board whose order we enforced.

A part of the Board’s contention in both brief and argument here is that there was no supersedeas to our cease and desist order (c). Hence it was contemptuous at once to disobey it. Merrimack River Savings Bank v. City of Clay Center, 219 U.S. 527, 536, 31 S.Ct.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
113 F.2d 232, 129 A.L.R. 874, 6 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 1008, 1940 U.S. App. LEXIS 3335, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-american-potash-chemical-corp-ca9-1940.