National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Co.

312 U.S. 426, 61 S. Ct. 693, 85 L. Ed. 930, 1941 U.S. LEXIS 1214, 8 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 415
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedMarch 3, 1941
Docket442
StatusPublished
Cited by628 cases

This text of 312 U.S. 426 (National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States 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. Express Publishing Co., 312 U.S. 426, 61 S. Ct. 693, 85 L. Ed. 930, 1941 U.S. LEXIS 1214, 8 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 415 (1941).

Opinion

*428 Mr. Justice Stone

delivered, the opinion of the Court.

The National Labor Relations Board ordered respondent affirmatively to bargain collectively with the San Antonio Newspaper Guild, the authorized representative of respondent’s employees. In addition it ordered respondent, (1) to “cease and desist” from refusing to bargain collectively with the Guild; (2) to “cease and desist” from “interfering with, restraining or coercing its employees in the exercise of their rights to self-organization,” and other rights guaranteed by § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449; 29 U. S. C. Supp. V, § 151, et seg.; (3) to post notices stating, among other things, that respondent will “cease and desist as aforesaid” and will bargain collectively with the organized representative of its employees. On the record before us the question for our decision is whether the provisions of the order which we have enumerated are supported by the Board’s finding that the respondent had refused to bargain collectively with the authorized representative of its employees, and had interfered with such bargaining negotiation, and had thereby interfered with the exercise of the rights guaranteed by § 7 of the Act.

The Board issued its complaint charging respondent, a publisher of a newspaper, with refusal to bargain collectively with the Guild as the authorized representative of the employees in respondent’s editorial department, and that by such refusal and by statements made by respondent at a meeting of those employees it “did interfere with, restrain and coerce” its employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by § 7 of the Act 1 and did *429 engage in unfair labor practices defined by §§ 8 (1) and 8 (5). The usual proceedings and hearings before the Board resulted in findings by the Board to the effect that although respondent had throughout recognized the organization of respondent’s editorial room employees and the Guild as their representative, and had met with the Guild representatives whenever requested for the purpose of discussing the employees’ demands, it nevertheless had persistently .refused to discuss in detail the proposals of the Guild, to make any counter proposals or to. enter into any agreement with it, and had not negotiated in good faith in a genuine effort to compose the differences between employer and employees.

The Board found that respondent had refused to bargain as required by § 8 (5) of the Act. It found that respondent had made the statements charged in the complaint at a meeting of its employees and that these statements were an “interference with the Guild’s efforts to negotiate.” Treating respondent’s action in refusing to bargain and in interfering with the bargaining negotiations as an infringement of all the rights guaranteed to the employees by the Act, it found broadly, in the words of the statute, a violation of § 8 (1) which declares that it is an unfair labor practice for the employer “to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7.” Section 7 provides: “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to' bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities, for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”

*430 From all this the Board concluded that the “appropriate remedy” was an order directing respondent “upon request, to bargain collectively with the . . . ■ Guild” as the “exclusive representative” of respondent’s editorial room employees and “if understandings are reached, to embody such understandings in a signed agreement, if requested to do so by the Guild.” Having provided the recommended remedy by the provisions of its order directing the respondent to bargain and to cease and desist from refusing to bargain the Board went further and ordered broadly that respondent should in effect refrain from violating the Act in any manner whatsoever. This it did by paragraph 1 (b) of the order which directed respondent to cease and desist from

“In any manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of their rights to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection, as guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act.”

It is this and the provisions of the order other than that part of it directing respondent to bargain which are the subjects of the present controversy.

Upon petition of the Board to enforce the order, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck from it all the provisions except that which directed respondent to bargain with the Guild on request, and to embody any understanding in a signed agreement. For so much of the order as directed the posting of notices the court substituted a requirement that respondent notify the Guild of its willingness to comply with the order as modified and to notify a specified agent of the Board what steps respondent had taken to comply with the order. 111 F. 2d 588. We granted certiorari, 311 U. S. 638, the ques *431 tions raised being of importance in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act.

Although respondent has not sought certiorari it seeks to retain such advantages as it may have gained from the modification of the Board’s order below, by arguing broadly that the Board’s finding of respondent’s refusal to bargain is without support in the evidence, which it is said shows only that respondent refused to yield to the Guild demands as it was free to do. But in the absence of a cross-petition for certiorari by respondent that question is not open here. Without the findings relating to respondent’s refusal to bargain there was no basis for any order by the Board and we think that the purpose and effect of the judgment sustaining so much of the Board’s order as directed that respondent bargain with the Guild was to sustain the findings on which it was based. This appears both from the opinion of the Court of Appeals, the purport of which is that respondent in its negotiations with the Guild had not acted in good faith and so had failed to bargain as the statute requires, and also from the terms of the judgment modifying the Board’s order. The judgment affirming the Board’s order as modified retained, as the foundation of the judgment, the recital contained in the Board’s original order that it was made upon the basis of all the Board’s findings. In this state of the record our review is limited to the sufficiency of the Board’s findings to support the order.

We conclude also that it is not open to respondent to challenge the judgment below, as it attempts to do, on the ground that the Board’s complaint in charging a failure to bargain did not sufficiently inform respondent of the contention that it had failed to bargain in good faith. This is the case both because respondent has sought no review of the judgment below and because it sufficiently appears from the record that in the *432

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Bluebook (online)
312 U.S. 426, 61 S. Ct. 693, 85 L. Ed. 930, 1941 U.S. LEXIS 1214, 8 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 415, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-express-publishing-co-scotus-1941.