1. The question of the responsibility of an employer, under the
National Labor Relations Act, for unauthorized activities of
supervisory employees is not one of legal liability on principles
of agency or
respondeat superior, but only whether the Act
condemns such activities as unfair labor practices so far as the
employer may gain from them in the bargaining process any advantage
of a kind which the Act proscribes. To that extent, the employer is
amenable to the Board's authority to prevent repetition of such
activities and to remove the consequences of them upon the
employees' right of self-organization. Pp.
311 U. S. 518,
311 U. S.
521.
So
held where the employer, when advised of activities
of supervisory employees encouraging the formation of a plant
union, took no step to notify the employees that such activities
were unauthorized, or to correct their impression that support of a
rival labor union was not favored by the employer, and would result
in reprisals. P.
311 U. S.
521.
Page 311 U. S. 515
2. Whether the continued existence of a labor union the
formation of which was influenced by unfair labor practices
constitutes an obstacle to the employees' light of
self-organization is a question of fact to be determined by the
Board from all the circumstances attending those practices. P.
311 U. S.
522.
3. An order of the National Labor Relations Board requiring the
disestablishment of a labor union, the formation of which was
influenced by unfair labor practices,
held supported by
the evidence. P.
311 U. S.
522.
4. Refusal of an employer, on request of a labor organization,
to sign a written contract embodying the terms of an agreement
which he has reached with it concerning wages, hours, and working
conditions is a refusal to bargain collectively, and an unfair
labor practice under § 8(5) of the Act. P.
311 U. S.
525.
5. Under § 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, the Board
may require an employer who has reached an agreement with a labor
organization concerning wages, hours, and working conditions to
sign a written contract embodying the terms of the agreement. P.
311 U. S.
526.
110 F.2d 843 affirmed.
Certiorari, 310 U.S. 621, to review a judgment directing
enforcement of an order of the National Labor Relations Board.
MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
Three questions are presented by the petition for certiorari in
this case.
First. Whether there is support in the evidence for the
finding of the National Labor Relations Board that petitioner has
been guilty of the unfair labor practices
Page 311 U. S. 516
defined by § 8(1) and (2) of the Act, interference with the
exercise by its employees of their rights of self-organization
guaranteed by § 7 of the Act, and, more particularly, interference
with the formation and organization of a labor union of its
employees.
Second. Whether the National Labor Relations Board
exceeded its authority in ordering the disestablishment of a labor
union in whose organization petitioner had interfered, and
Third. Whether the Board could validly find that
petitioner's refusal to join with representatives of the labor
organization authorized to represent its employees in collective
bargaining in signing a written contract embodying the terms of
their agreement concerning wages, hours, and working conditions
constituted a refusal to bargain collectively in violation of §
8(5) of the Act, and whether the Board exceeded its authority in
ordering petitioner to join in signing the agreement.
This is a proceeding brought by the National Labor Relations
Board in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to enforce the
Board's order directing petitioner to cease certain unfair labor
practices in which it found that petitioner had engaged, in
connection with the organization of the Heinz Employees
Association, a plant labor organization of petitioner's employees;
to disestablish the Association; to recognize and bargain
collectively with the Canning and Pickle Workers Local, Union No.
325, a labor organization affiliated with the American Federation
of Labor, and to sign a written contract embodying any agreement
which petitioner and the Union may reach respecting wages, hours,
and working conditions of petitioner's employees. The court of
appeals confirmed the findings of the Board and directed compliance
with the Board's order without modification. 110 F.2d 843. We
granted certiorari, 310 U.S. 621, the questions raised by the
petition being of public importance
Page 311 U. S. 517
in the administration of the Nation Labor Relations Act.
The Board found that, during April and May, 1937, the two rival
labor organizations, the Association and the Union, sought to
organize petitioner's employees at its Pittsburgh plant.
Petitioner's proposal that an election be held to determine which
organization represented a majority of its employees was rejected
by the Union, which called a strike on May 24, 1937. The strike was
ultimately settled by a written contract signed by petitioner, the
Union, and the Association, which provided for an election, by the
employees, under the supervision of a regional director of the
National Labor Relations Board for the choice of an organization to
represent them in collective bargaining. Meanwhile, and before the
election, a majority of petitioner's two thousand employees at the
Pittsburgh plant had signed petitions for membership in the
Association, but, upon the election held June 8, 1937, a majority
of the employees cast their ballots for the Union. Petitioner has
since recognized and bargained with the Union, but has refused to
embody its agreement with the Union in a written contract.
Before the election, the Union had lodged a complaint with the
Board concerning the participation by petitioner in the attempted
organization of the Association by petitioner's employees. The
Board found that petitioner had been guilty of unfair labor
practices by interfering in the organization of the Association,
contrary to the Act. It found in detail that petitioner, through
superintendent, foremen, and other supervising employees, had
interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the
exercise of their rights to organize in violation of §§ 7, 8(1) of
the Act; that it had dominated and interfered with the formation of
the Association, and contributed to its support within the meaning
of § 8(2), and that it had refused to sign an agreement with the
Union.
Page 311 U. S. 518
On the basis of these and subsidiary findings which need not now
be stated, the Board made its order, the terms of which so far as
now relevant have already been set forth.
Petitioner's Responsibility for Unfair Labor Practices.
It is unnecessary to make a detailed examination of the evidence
supporting the Board's findings respecting unfair labor practices,
both because the court below, after a thorough examination of the
record, has confirmed the Board's findings and because of the
nature of petitioner's contention with respect to them. Petitioner
does not deny that there is evidence supporting the findings that
petitioner's superintendent, during the organization campaign,
upbraided employees for attending Union meetings, threatened one
with discharge if he joined the Union, spoke to them disparagingly
of the Union, and directed some of petitioner's foremen to enroll
the employees in the Association, or that there was evidence
supporting the finding that a general foreman working throughout
petitioner's Pittsburgh plant was active in disparaging the Union
and its members to employees, and in urging them to repudiate the
Union organization, or that three other foremen in charge of
particular buildings or departments were active in dissuading
employees from joining the Union. All three spoke disparagingly of
the Union, one at a meeting of employees which he had called and
two were active in questioning employees concerning their labor
union sympathies. Two of them threatened employees with discharge
or loss of work or privileges if the Union were recognized.
There was also evidence that other foremen or forewomen in
charge of large groups of employees engaged in similar activities,
and that some solicited employees to join the Association; that one
of the three foremen induced an employee to solicit signatures to
the Association petition during working hours without loss of
pay,
Page 311 U. S. 519
and suggested the names of other employees to aid in this work.
There was also evidence that leaders or supervisors of employee
groups were allowed to go about the plant freely, during working
hours and without loss of pay, to solicit memberships in the
Association, which was done in the presence of the foremen.
Petitioner does not seriously dispute this evidence, or
challenge the findings of the Board summarizing it. The contention
is that the activities of these supervisors of employees are not
shown to have been authorized or ratified by petitioner; that,
following a complaint by a representative of the Union about May
1st, one of petitioner's officers instructed the superintendent
that the employees had a right to organize, and that he wished the
supervising force to understand that they should not be interfered
with in any way in organizing, and that, on May 21st, the officer
in question called a meeting of the supervisory force at which he
gave like instructions; that there is no evidence of like
activities after this time, and that, since the election,
petitioner has consistently recognized and bargained with the
Union. From all this, petitioner concludes that it is not
chargeable with any responsibility for the acts of its supervisory
employees, and that consequently the evidence does not support the
findings of unfair labor practices on its part or justify the
Board's order prohibiting petitioner, its officers and agents, from
interfering with the administration of the Association or
contributing to its support.
Notwithstanding the knowledge from the start of some of
petitioner's officers of the organization campaign, and
notwithstanding the unusual excitement and activity in petitioner's
plant attending it, we assume that all were unaware of the
activities of its supervisory staff complained of, and did nothing
to encourage them before the complaint of their activities made by
a representative of the Union about May 1st. At that time, the
campaign
Page 311 U. S. 520
for membership in the rival unions was at its height, and
resulted, as announced some three or four weeks later, in a
majority of petitioner's employees' signing as members of the
Association.
It is conceded that petitioner's superintendent and foremen have
authority to recommend the employment and discharge of workmen. It
is in evidence that they can recommend wage increases, and that the
group leaders also issued orders directing and controlling the
employees and their work, with authority to recommend their
discharge. There is evidence supporting the Board's conclusion that
the employees regarded the foremen and the group leaders as
representatives of the petitioner, and that a number of employees
signed as members of the Association only because of the fear of
loss of their jobs or of discrimination by the employer induced by
the activities of the foremen and group leaders.
We do not doubt that the Board could have found these activities
to be unfair labor practices within the meaning of the Act if
countenanced by petitioner, and we think that, to the extent that
petitioner may seek or be in a position to secure any advantage
from these practices, they are not any the less within the
condemnation of the Act because petitioner did not authorize or
direct them. In a like situation, we have recently held that the
employer whose supervising employees had, without his authority, so
far as appeared, so participated in the organization activities of
his employees as to prejudice their rights of self-organization
could not resist the Board's order appropriately designed to
preclude him from gaining any advantage through recognizing or
bargaining with a labor organization resulting from such
activities.
Machinists v. Labor Board, ante, p.
311 U. S. 72.
See Labor Board v. Link-Belt Co., 311 U.
S. 584.
Page 311 U. S. 521
The question is not one of legal liability of the employer in
damages or for penalties on principles of agency or
respondeat
superior, but only whether the Act condemns such activities as
unfair labor practices so far as the employer may gain from them
any advantage in the bargaining process of a kind which the Act
proscribes. To that extent, we hold that the employer is within the
reach of the Board's order to prevent any repetition of such
activities and to remove the consequences of them upon the
employees' right of self-organization, quite as much as if he had
directed them.
This is the more so here, where petitioner, when advised of the
participation of his supervising employees in the organization
campaign, took no step, so far as appears, to notify the employees
that those activities were unauthorized or to correct the
impression of the employees that support of the Union was not
favored by petitioner, and would result in reprisals. From that
time on, the Board could have found that petitioner was as
responsible for the effect of the activities of its foremen and
group leaders upon the organization of the Association as if it had
directed them in advance. The Board could have concluded that this
effect was substantial, for it was in the succeeding three weeks
that more than one-half of the majority of petitioner's employees
who joined the Association signed their petitions for membership.
We think there was adequate basis for the Board's order prohibiting
petitioner, its officers, and agents from interfering with the
exercise of its employees' rights of self-organization or with the
administration of the Association or contributing to its
support.
The Order Disestablishing the Association. What we have
said of the unfair labor practices found by the Board, when
considered with its unchallenged findings as to the relations of
petitioner to the two unions, affords
Page 311 U. S. 522
the answer to petitioner's contention that the Board was without
authority to compel disestablishment of the Association.
Disestablishment is a remedial measure under § 10(c), to be
employed by the Board in its discretion to remove the obstacle to
the employees' right of self-organization, resulting from the
continued or renewed recognition of a union whose organization has
been influenced by unfair labor practices. Whether this recognition
is such an obstacle is an inference of fact to be drawn by the
Board from all the circumstances attending those practices.
Labor Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, 303 U.
S. 261;
Labor Board v. Newport News Shipbuilding
& Dry Dock Co., 308 U. S. 241,
308 U. S.
250.
Petitioner argues that, as it has now recognized the Union and
bargains with it, it should be equally free to recognize the
Association, instead of the Union, whenever the former represents a
majority of the employees. But, in weighing this contention, the
Board could consider, as it did, that petitioner had failed to
notify its employees that it repudiated the participation of its
supervising employees in the organization of the Association, and
so has not removed the belief of the employees that petitioner
favored, and would continue to favor, the Association and the
employees joining it over others; that it had not mentioned the
name of the Union in its bulletins announcing the terms of its
agreement with the Union, and, although it had reached an agreement
with the Union, had persistently refused to sign any written
contract with it.
From this and other circumstances disclosed by the evidence, the
Board inferred, as it might, that the influence of the
participation of petitioner's employees in the organization of the
Association had not been removed, and that there was danger that
petitioner would seek to take advantage of such continuing
influence to renew
Page 311 U. S. 523
its recognition of the Association and control its action. This,
we think, afforded adequate basis for the Board's order.
Labor
Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, supra; Labor Board v. Falk
Corp., 308 U. S. 453,
308 U. S.
461-462;
Labor Board v. Link-Belt Co., supra.
Nothing in the order precludes members of the Association from
establishing an organization independently of participation by
petitioner and its officers and agents, and from securing
recognition through certification of the Board or an election as
provided by § 9(c) of the Act.
The Employer's Refusal to Sign a Written Agreement. It
is conceded that, although petitioner has reached an agreement with
the Union concerning wages, hours, and working conditions of the
employees, it has nevertheless refused to sign any contract
embodying the terms of the agreement. The Board supports its order
directing petitioner, on request of the Union, to sign a written
contract embodying the terms agreed upon on the ground, among
others, that a refusal to sign is a refusal to bargain within the
meaning of the Act.
In support of this contention, it points to the history of the
collective bargaining process showing that its object has long been
an agreement between employer and employees as to wages, hours, and
working conditions evidenced by a signed contract or statement in
writing, which serves both as recognition of the union with which
the agreement is reached and as a permanent memorial of its terms.
[
Footnote 1] This experience
has shown that refusal to
Page 311 U. S. 524
sign a written contract has been a not infrequent means of
frustrating the bargaining process through the refusal to recognize
the labor organization as a party to it and the refusal to provide
an authentic record of its terms which could be exhibited to
employees, as evidence of the good faith of the employer. Such
refusals have proved fruitful sources of dissatisfaction and
disagreement. [
Footnote 2]
Contrasted with the unilateral statement by the employer of his
labor policy, the signed agreement has been regarded as the
effective instrument of stabilizing labor relations and preventing,
through collective bargaining, strikes and industrial strife.
[
Footnote 3]
Before the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act, it had
been the settled practice of the administrative agencies dealing
with labor relations to treat the signing of a written contract
embodying a wage and hour agreement as the final step in the
bargaining process. [
Footnote
4] Congress, in enacting the National Labor Relations Act, had
before it the record of this experience, H.Rept. No. 1147, 71st
Cong., 1st Sess., p. 5,
and see also pp. 3, 7, 15-18,
20-22, 24; S.Rept. No. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2, 8, 9, 13,
15, 17. The House Committee recommended
Page 311 U. S. 525
the legislation as
"an amplification and clarification of the principles enacted
into law by the Railway Labor Act and by § 7(a) of the National
Industrial Recovery Act."
H.Rept. 1147,
supra, p. 3, and stated, page 7, that §§
7 and 8 of the Act guaranteeing collective bargaining to employees,
was a reenactment of the like provision of § 7(a) of the National
Industrial Recovery Act,
see Consolidated Edison Co. v. Labor
Board, 305 U. S. 197,
305 U. S. 236;
Labor Board v. Sands Mfg. Co., 306 U.
S. 332,
306 U. S.
342.
We think that Congress, in thus incorporating in the new
legislation the collective bargaining requirement of the earlier
statutes, included as a part of it the signed agreement long
recognized under the earlier acts as the final step in the
bargaining process. It is true that the National Labor Relations
Act, while requiring the employer to bargain collectively, does not
compel him to enter into an agreement. But it does not follow, as
petitioner argues, that, having reached an agreement, he can refuse
to sign it because he has never agreed to sign one. He may never
have agreed to bargain, but the
Page 311 U. S. 526
statute requires him to do so. To that extent, his freedom is
restricted in order to secure the legislative objective of
collective bargaining as the means of curtailing labor disputes
affecting interstate commerce. The freedom of the employer to
refuse to make an agreement relates to its terms in matters of
substance, and not, once it is reached, to its expression in a
signed contract, the absence of which, as experience has shown,
tends to frustrate the end sought by the requirement for collective
bargaining. A business man who entered into negotiations with
another for an agreement having numerous provisions, with the
reservation that he would not reduce it to writing or sign it,
could hardly be thought to have bargained in good faith. This is
even more so in the case of an employer who, by his refusal to
honor, with his signature, the agreement which he has made with a
labor organization, discredits the organization, impairs the
bargaining process, and tends to frustrate the aim of the statute
to secure industrial peace through collective bargaining.
Petitioner's refusal to sign was a refusal to bargain
collectively and an unfair labor practice defined by § 8(5). The
Board's order requiring petitioner, at the request of the Union, to
sign a written contract embodying agreed terms is authorized by §
10(c). This is the conclusion which has been reached by five of the
six courts of appeals which have passed upon the question.
[
Footnote 5]
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
Lewis L. Lorwin, The American Federation of Labor, p. 309;
Commons and Associates, History of Labor in the United States, vol.
II, pp. 179-181, 423, 424, 480; Perlman and Taft, History of Labor
in the United States, 1896-1932, vol. IV, pp. 9, 10; Paul Mooney,
Collective Bargaining, pp. 13, 14; Twentieth Century Fund, Inc.,
Labor and the Government, p. 339.
Concerning the growth and extent of signed trade agreements,
see National Labor Relations Board, Division of Economic
Research Bull. No. 4, Written Trade Agreements in Collective
Bargaining, pp. 213-236, 49-209; U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of
Labor Statistics, Five Years of Collective Bargaining, pp. 5-7;
Saposs and Gamm, Rapid Increase in Contracts, 4 Labor Relations
Reporter No. 15, p. 6.
[
Footnote 2]
Summer H. Slichter, Annals of the American Academy (March,
1935), pp. 110-120; R.R.R. Brooks, When Labor Organizes, p. 224.
Cf. Matter of Inland Steel Co., 9 N.L.R.B. 783, 796,
797.
[
Footnote 3]
Carroll R. Daugherty, Labor Problems in American Industry (Rev.
ed.1938), pp. 936, 937; Mitchell, Organized Labor, p. 347; George
G. Groat, At Introduction to the Study of Organized Labor in
America, 2d Ed.1926, pp. 337-339, 341, 345, 346; First Annual
Report, National Mediation Board, pp. 1-2.
[
Footnote 4]
The National Mediation Board, administering the Railway Labor
Act of 1926, as amended in 1934, 44 Stat. 577, 48 Stat. 926, 1185,
interpreted that Act which imposed a duty "to exert every
reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates
of pay, rules, and working conditions . . . ," to require signed
contracts.
See First Annual Report, National Mediation
Board (1935), pp. 1, 2, 36.
The National Labor Board, created to administer Section 7(a) of
the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195, 198, held that
the duty to bargain collectively imposed by that section included
an obligation to embody agreed terms in a signed trade agreement.
See Matter of Harriman Hosiery Mills, 1 N.L.R.B. 68;
Matter of Pierson Mfg. Co., 1 N.L.R.B. 53; Matter of National
Aniline & Chemical Co., 2 N.L.R.B. 38; Matter of Connecticut
Coke Co., 2 N.L.R.B. 88.
See also Matter of Whittier Mills
Co., Textile Labor Relations Board, Case No. 34. Its successor, the
first National Labor Relations Board, did likewise.
See
Matter of Houde Engineering Co., 1 N.L.R.B. (old) 35; Matter of
Denver Towel Supply Co., 2 N.L.R.B. (old) 221; Matter of Colt's
Patent Fire Arms Co., 2 N.L.R.B. (old) 135.
[
Footnote 5]
Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. v. Labor Board, 114 F.2d
930;
Art Metals Construction Co. v. Labor Board, 110 F.2d
148;
Labor Board v. Highland Park Mfg. Co., 110 F.2d 632;
Wilson & Co., Inc. v. Labor Board, 115 F.2d 759;
Continental Oil Co. v. Labor Board, 113 F.2d 473.
Contra, Inland Steel Co. v. Labor Board, 109 F.2d 9;
Fort Wayne Corrugated Paper Co. v. Labor Board, 111 F.2d
869.