SDBC Holdings, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board

711 F.3d 281, 2013 WL 1235644, 195 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2397, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 6258
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMarch 28, 2013
Docket10-3709 (L)
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 711 F.3d 281 (SDBC Holdings, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
SDBC Holdings, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 711 F.3d 281, 2013 WL 1235644, 195 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2397, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 6258 (2d Cir. 2013).

Opinions

LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner-Cross-Respondent SDBC Holdings, Inc. (“SDBC”), formerly known as Stella D’oro Biscuit Co., Inc. (“Stella D’oro” or “the Company”),1 petitions this Court for review of a decision and order by the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “the Board”), which held that Stella D’oro engaged in unfair labor practices principally by declining to permit Local 50, Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (the “Union” or “Local 50”), to retain a copy of the Company’s 2007 audited financial statement (the “2007 Financial Statement” or “Statement”) during the course of collective bargaining. The NLRB cross-petitions for enforcement of its order. For the reasons set forth below, we grant SDBC’s petition and deny the NLRB’s cross-petition.

BACKGROUND

I.

Stella D’oro was a New York corporation engaged in the manufacture of baked goods. It operated a single bakery plant at 184 West 237th Street in the Bronx. The Union represented employees at this plant. In 2006, Brynwood Partners [283]*283(“Brynwood”), a private equity investment firm, acquired Stella D’oro from Kraft Foods for about $17 million. Brynwood’s business model involves purchasing companies (often distressed), improving their value, and then selling them at a profit. Brynwood typically holds a company for a period of five to 10 years before selling. Consistent with Brynwood’s overall business model, in the period after Brynwood acquired Stella D’oro, the bakery introduced product and marketing innovations, price increases, and reductions in management staff. Brynwood also provided funding for Stella D’oro’s purchase of automated packaging equipment at an expense of $3.1 million.

At the time Brynwood acquired Stella D’oro, a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) existed between Stella D’oro and Local 50. This agreement by its terms governed the relationship between Stella D’oro and Local 50 for a period of three years, from June 29, 2005, through June 29, 2008. On May 30, 2008, Stella D’oro and the Union held their first formal bargaining session to discuss the renewal of the contract.2 Present at this meeting were Henk Hartong (“Hartong”), the non-executive chairman of Stella D’oro’s board of directors as well as a partner at Bryn-wood, Daniel Myers, Stella D’oro’s Chief Operating Officer, and Mark Jacoby (“Jacoby”), counsel for Stella D’oro. Local 50 was represented by Joyce Alston (“Alston”), President of Local 50, and Calvin Williams (“Williams”), Local 50’s Secretary and Treasurer, as well as Mike Filippou (“Filippou”) and several other employees of Stella D’oro who were members of Local 50 (together with Alston and Williams, the “Union Committee”).

At the May 30 meeting, Stella D’oro’s representatives presented the Union Committee with a document that set out a variety of figures concerning Stella D’oro’s financial performance and expenses over the last several years (the “May 2008 Report”). Notably, between fiscal year 1997 and fiscal year 2007 (the last year for which data were presented), Stella D’oro’s net sales had fallen by over 50 percent, from approximately $52 million in FY 1997 to approximately $24 million in FY 2007. The May 2008 Report further showed that prices for some of the ingredients Stella D’oro relied on for its baking, including egg yolks, cake flour, bread flour, and palm shortening, had risen steadily over many months, as had the price of transporting Stella D’oro’s products. The report indicated that, in fiscal year 2007, Stella D’oro posted an operating loss of roughly $1.6 million.

Jacoby walked the Union Committee through the May 2008 Report, emphasizing Stella D’oro’s financial difficulties. According to Alston’s testimony in the proceedings before the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”), Jacoby explained that Stella D’oro “had to reduce the costs of the labor agreement in order for them to stay in business.... [T]hey could not go on with the business unless they were able to further reduce costs.” Hartong related, according to Alston, that Brynwood “had bought a troubled company, that [it] had raised the prices of the product twice, that [it] intended to do so again in September,” and that Brynwood had also invested in automation. Brynwood wanted to “continue with the company, to help it grow, and become — continue to be a profitable organization.” Stella D’oro, however, was losing money and, according to Alston’s notes, Brynwood was “not in the business to sustain losses.” Jacoby testified that he ex[284]*284plained to the Union Committee that, while the hourly wages paid by Stella D’oro to those in higher-skilled positions were competitive with the rates paid by other companies, the hourly wages paid to those in lower-skilled positions were “well above what the competitive wage rates were for those jobs.” Indicating that these high wages for unskilled workers “contributed to [Stella D’oro’s] very high labor costs,” Jacoby affirmed that in the course of bargaining, Stella D’oro would, among other things, pursue proposals aimed at “negotiating some change in that,” as well as lengthening the work week and'reducing benefit costs.

Alston testified that, during the course of the meeting, she indicated that the Union would “need some sort of financial documentation to prove that [Stella D’oro] really [was] losing this kind of money,” before the Union could consider acceding to the sorts of concessions the Company intended to propose. She specifically requested to review financial materials relevant to the 2007 operating losses. Jacoby explained that these losses were reflected in Stella D’oro’s 2007 Financial Statement, which he agreed to bring to the next bargaining session. Alston consented to this arrangement.

At the next session, held on June 4, Stella D’oro proposed terms for a new labor contract. Stella D’oro’s proposal called for, among other changes, wage cuts across the board, a two-thirds reduction in the number of paid sick days, and a cap on the amount of vacation available to employees. Jacoby recalled justifying the wage cuts as lowering wages to “what [Stella D’oro] believe[d] were the competitive rates for different classifications based on different level[s] of skill.” He also explained that Brynwood was prepared to fund losses in the short term, but that it needed a longer contract (five years, as opposed to three) so that it could see “light at the end of the tunnel.” According to Filippou, Hartong warned that Brynwood buys companies to make a profit and that it would “take its toy and ... leave” if SDBC could not be made profitable.

As promised, Jacoby brought a copy of the 2007 Financial Statement, which consisted of only 19 pages, including a title page and table of contents, to the June 4 meeting. He showed Aston the document’s single page Statement of Operations, which contained the operating loss figure presented in the May 2008 Report, and told the Union Committee members that they could inspect and take notes on the Statement at the bargaining site “all day,” but that he could not provide them with a copy to retain. He explained that Stella D’oro did not want the Statement falling into the hands of competitors, vendors, or customers, lest they learn of Stella D’oro’s poor financial condition. Aston offered to sign a confidentiality agreement, but Jacoby demurred, citing difficulty in enforcing such agreements.

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711 F.3d 281, 2013 WL 1235644, 195 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2397, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 6258, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sdbc-holdings-inc-v-national-labor-relations-board-ca2-2013.