San Francisco Local Joint Executive Board of Culinary Workers v. National Labor Relations Board, (Two Cases). San Francisco Local Joint Executive Board of Culinary Workers v. National Labor Relations Board, McDonald System of California, Inc., Intervenor

501 F.2d 794
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedJune 21, 1974
Docket73-1489
StatusPublished

This text of 501 F.2d 794 (San Francisco Local Joint Executive Board of Culinary Workers v. National Labor Relations Board, (Two Cases). San Francisco Local Joint Executive Board of Culinary Workers v. National Labor Relations Board, McDonald System of California, Inc., Intervenor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
San Francisco Local Joint Executive Board of Culinary Workers v. National Labor Relations Board, (Two Cases). San Francisco Local Joint Executive Board of Culinary Workers v. National Labor Relations Board, McDonald System of California, Inc., Intervenor, 501 F.2d 794 (D.C. Cir. 1974).

Opinion

501 F.2d 794

86 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2828, 163 U.S.App.D.C. 234,
74 Lab.Cas. P 10,127

SAN FRANCISCO LOCAL JOINT EXECUTIVE BOARD OF CULINARY
WORKERS et al., Petitioners,
v.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent (two cases).
SAN FRANCISCO LOCAL JOINT EXECUTIVE BOARD OF CULINARY
WORKERS et al., Petitioners,
v.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent, McDonald's
System of California, Inc., Intervenor.

Nos. 73-1489, 73-1579 and 73-1605.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued April 5, 1974.
Decided June 21, 1974.

David Nevins, Washington, D.C., of the bar of the Supreme Court of Minnesota, pro hac vice, by special leave of court, for petitioners. Barry S. Jellison and David J. Salniker were on the brief for petitioners.

Robert A. Giannasi, Atty., NLRB, with whom John S. Irving, Deputy Gen. Counsel, Patrick Hardin, Associate Gen. Counsel, and Elliott Moore, Deputy Associate Gen. Counsel, NLRB, were on the brief, for respondent.

Wesley J. Fastiff, San Francisco, Cal., with whom Robert M. Lieber, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for intervenor in No. 73-1605.

Before WRIGHT and MacKINNON, Circuit Judges, and DAVIES,* Senior District Judge.

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge:

The petitioner union requests review of three orders issued against it by the National Labor Relations Board. Though each of these orders was based upon findings that the union had picketed specific employers in violation of Section 8(b)(7) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(7) (1970), the orders were framed broadly to restrain the union from picketing any employer in violation of Section 8(b)(7). We hold that in each case the NLRB's findings of union violations of the Act were supported by substantial evidence considered on the record as a whole,1 but that the orders cannot be enforced so broadly framed. We shall discuss the evidence supporting the Board's unfair labor practice findings in the three cases before turning to the broad order issue common to all the cases.

I. NO. 73-1489

In this case the Board found the union to have violated Section 8(b)(7)(B) of the Act by picketing the two employer members of the Associated Union Street Restaurants for the purpose of obtaining recognition as the collective bargaining agent of the employees of these employers within 12 months of a valid Board representational election.2 The union concedes that it picketed the employers with a recognitional objective and that it continued to do so shortly after the Board conducted an election in which another labor organization failed to obtain representational status. However, it contends that the NLRB's election was not, as required by the terms of Section 8(b)(7) (B), a valid one. The union's position rests on two theories, both of which the Board had sufficient evidence to reject.

First, the union argues that by processing the election the NLRB transgressed one of its self-imposed jurisdictional limitations. Though Congress has vested in the Board 'the fullest jurisdictional breadth constitutionally permissible under the Commerce Clause,' NLRB v. Reliance Fuel Oil Corp., 371 U.S. 224, 226, 83 S.Ct. 312, 313, 9 L.Ed.2d 279 (1963), the Board long ago recognized that the limited amounts of money appropriated to it to administer the Act required it to adopt minimum jurisdictional standards.3 Under one of these standards, the Board will not assert jurisdiction over the labor relations of a retail enterprise unless it has annual gross revenues of at least $500,000. E.g., Carolina Supplies & Cement Co., 122 NLRB 88, 89 (1958). Neither of the picketed restaurants individually has gross revenues of this size. However, the Board has long held that where a multi-employer bargaining unit is appropriate, the economic impact of the employers is to be combined for purposes of determining whether the jurisdictional standards are met. See NLRB v. Sightseeing Guides & Lecturers Union Local 20076, 2 Cir., 310 F.2d 40, 42 (1962). Here the trial examiner, and the Board by adopting his report, determined that a bargaining unit combining the employees of the two picketed restaurants was appropriate because the restaurants had incorporated an association to which they had mutually and unequivocally committed their collective bargaining and because the only labor organization which had provided any evidence of employee support had agreed to a multi-employer unit.

The Board's acceptance of the appropriateness of a multi-employer unit, and thus its assertion of jurisdiction, was both within its statutory discretion and consistent with its past exercise of that discretion. The Board has been vested by Section 9(b) of the Act with 'a broad discretion to determine appropriate units.' Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U.S. 485, 491, 67 S.Ct. 789, 793, 91 L.Ed. 1040 (1947). This discretion has been employed with judicial approval to recognize multi-employer units where there is either "a controlling history of collective bargaining on such basis, or an unequivocal agreement of the parties to bind themselves to a course of group bargaining in the future." NLRB v. Johnson Sheet Metal, Inc., 10 Cir., 442 F.2d 1056, 1060 (1971), quoting Electric Theatre, 156 NLRB 1351, 1352 (1966).

The trial examiner's decision adopted by the Board found such an unequivocal agreement in the instant case to be evidenced by the bylaws of the association the employers created to perform their collective bargaining jointly. By one of the articles of the bylaws the employers authorize the association to be their 'exclusive representative in collective bargaining.'4 The union stresses that the bylaws also effectively permit either employer to reject any agreement negotiated by the association.5 However, the Board has declined, quite reasonably we think, to rule that employers in a multi-employer unit must agree in advance to accept every jointly bargained agreement as long as the employers did not retain the freedom to bargain individually and sign individual contracts. E.g., Air Conditioning Co. of Southern California, 81 NLRB 946, 951 (1949). The union argues that bylaws provisions prescribing the manner and the amount of notice for resignation from the association also render inappropriate the multi-employer unit. But the Board has regularly permitted employers to withdraw from multi-employer units at appropriate times, not including periods of substantive bargaining, even in the absence of prior withdrawal agreements. See, e.g., Sullivan Mining Co.,101 NLRB 1366, 1369 (1952); Milk & Ice Cream Dealers of Greater Cincinnati Area, 94 NLRB 23, 25 (1951).

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