Following discharge of petitioners, managers of meat departments
in respondent Food Fair's stores, because of their union
membership, the union filed unfair labor practice charges with the
National Labor Relations Board, which were dismissed on the ground
that the protection of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) did
not extend to "supervisors" like petitioners. Thereupon petitioners
brought suit in state court, under § 95-83 of North Carolina's
right-to-work law. The trial court granted respondents' motion for
summary judgment. On the ground that enforcing the state law in
favor of petitioners was barred by the second clause of § 14(a) of
the NLRA ("no employer . . . shall be compelled to deem individuals
defined herein as supervisors as employees for the purpose of any
law, either national or local, relating to collective bargaining"),
the State Supreme Court ultimately upheld that ruling.
Held: The second clause of § 14(a) applies to any law
requiring an employer to accord to supervisors like petitioners,
who are "the front line of management," the "anomalous status of
employees," and enforcement of the North Carolina law would thus
flout the national policy against compulsion upon employers from
either federal or state authorities to treat supervisors as
employees. Pp.
416 U. S.
656-662.
282 N.C. 530,
193
S.E.2d 911, affirmed.
BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Page 416 U. S. 654
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Taft-Hartley amendments [
Footnote 1] of the National Labor Relations Act excluded
supervisors from the protections of the Act, and thus freed
employers to discharge supervisors without violating the Act's
restraints against
Page 416 U. S. 655
discharges on account of labor union membership. The question in
this case is whether those amendments also freed the employer from
liability in damages to the discharged supervisors under §§ 95-81
and 95-83 of North Carolina's right-to-work law that provides such
an action for employees discharged for union membership. [
Footnote 2]
Respondent Food Fair of North Carolina, Inc. (Food Fair), a
grocery chain, operates stores throughout North Carolina.
Petitioners were managers of meat departments in Food Fair Stores
in the Winston-Salem area. When Local 525 of the Amalgamated Meat
Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO, organized
the stores' meatcutters, petitioners also joined the union. Food
Fair discharged them, allegedly on account of their union
membership, immediately after Local 525 won a representation
election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. The Local
claimed that the discharges constituted an unfair labor practice,
and filed charges with the Regional Director of the NLRB. The
Regional Director refused to issue a complaint on the ground that
petitioners were "supervisors" excluded from the Act's protection.
On appeal, the NLRB General
Page 416 U. S. 656
Counsel refused to issue a complaint, on the same ground.
[
Footnote 3] Petitioners
thereupon brought this suit in state court against Food Fair under
§ 95-83. Food Fair contended successfully that the second clause of
§ 14(a) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 164(a)
--
"but no employer . . . shall be compelled to deem individuals
defined herein as supervisors as employees for the purpose of any
law, either national or local, relating to collective
bargaining"
-- prohibited enforcement of the state law in favor of
supervisors, and was granted summary judgment. The North Carolina
Court of Appeals reversed in reliance upon
Hanna Mining v.
Marine Engineers, 382 U. S. 181
(1965). 15 N.C.App. 323,
190
S.E.2d 333 (1972). The North Carolina Supreme Court, in turn,
reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the summary judgment.
282 N.C. 530,
193 S.E.2d
911 (1973). We granted certiorari, 414 U.S. 907 (1973). We
affirm.
Petitioners concede that the Taft-Hartley amendments exclude
supervisors from the protection of the Act. And it is undisputed
that petitioners' status as "supervisors" has been settled by the
determinations of the Regional Director and General Counsel of the
NLRB.
See n 3,
supra; Hanna Mining v. Marine Engineers, supra, at
382 U. S. 190;
Brief for Respondents 7. The Act therefore did not protect
petitioners against discharge by Food Fair solely because of their
membership in Local 525.
Oil City Brass Works v. NLRB, 357
F.2d 466 (CA5 1966);
NLRB v.
Page 416 U. S. 657
Fullerton Publishing Co., 283 F.2d 545 (CA9 1960).
See NLRB v. Inter-City Advertising Co., 190 F.2d 420 (CA4
1951);
NLRB v. Griggs Equipment, Inc., 307 F.2d 275 (CA5
1962);
NLRB v. Big Three Welding Equipment Co., 359 F.2d
77 (CA5 1966); Brief for Petitioners 8-9.
Our inquiry is thus narrowed to the determination of whether
Congress, in addition to denying the protections of the federal law
to supervisors discharged for union membership, should be taken as
having also precluded North Carolina from affording petitioners its
state damages remedy for such discharges. Section 14(a) does not
wholly foreclose state regulations respecting the status of
supervisors, but its two clauses require individualized
consideration in view of the Court of Appeals' reliance on
Hanna Mining. Hanna, construing the first clause
--
"Nothing herein shall prohibit any individual employed as a
supervisor from becoming or remaining a member of a labor
organization"
-- held that "certainly Congress made no considered decision
generally to exclude state limitations on supervisory organizing,"
382 U.S. at
382 U. S. 190.
The Court accordingly held that the Wisconsin anti-picketing
statutes -- that furthered, not hindered, the Act's limitations --
could be applied to activity by a union of supervisors.
That construction, of course, is consistent with the objectives
of the section. But the second clause is a broad command that no
employer shall be compelled to treat supervisors as employees for
the purpose of "any law, either national or local, relating to
collective bargaining." Consistently with this broader command, and
Hanna's further statement that
"Congress' propelling intention was to relieve employers from
any compulsion under the Act and under state law to countenance or
bargain with any union of supervisory employees,"
382 U.S. at
382 U. S. 189,
the North Carolina Supreme Court concluded that §§ 95-81 and 95-83
of the State's right-to-work
Page 416 U. S. 658
law contravened the congressional objective. That court
held:
"To permit a state law to deprive an employer of his right to
discharge his supervisor for membership in a union would completely
frustrate the congressional determination to leave this weapon of
self-help to the employer."
282 N.C. at 541, 193 S.E.2d at 918.
Petitioners argue, however, that Congress must have meant that
the reach of the limitation of the second clause that
"no employer . . . shall be compelled to deem . . . supervisors
as employees for the purpose of any law, either national or local,
relating to
collective bargaining"
(emphasis supplied) did not bar state damages remedies for the
discharge of supervisors for union membership, but was a limited
prohibition against state regulations that compel the employer to
bargain collectively with unions that include supervisors as
members. The legislative history of § 14(a), read with its
companion amendments, §§ 2(3) and 2(11), satisfies us that Congress
embraced laws like North Carolina's §§ 95-81 and 95-83 within the
prohibition against "any [local] law . . . relating to collective
bargaining."
Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, before the
1947 Taft-Hartley amendments, provided that "[t]he term
employee' shall include any employee. . . ." 49 Stat. 450. The
NLRB, after much vacillation, [Footnote 4] interpreted this term as including
supervisors. Packard
Page 416 U. S. 659
Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U.
S. 485 (1947), sustained the Board. Congress reacted by
amending §§ 2(3) and 2 (11), and enacting § 14(a) for the express
purpose of relieving employers of obligations under the Act when
supervisors, if employees under the Act, would be the focus of
concern.
Hanna Mining v. Marine Engineers, supra, at
382 U. S. 188.
Those amendments were the product of compromise of H.R. 3020 and S.
1126, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947). There were differences in the
specific provisions addressed to supervisory employees, [
Footnote 5] but no difference in
objective. Employers were not to be obliged to recognize and
bargain with unions including or composed of supervisors, [
Footnote 6] because supervisors were
management
Page 416 U. S. 660
obliged to be loyal to their employer's interests, and their
identity with the interests of rank-and-file employees might impair
that loyalty and threaten realization of the basic ends of federal
labor legislation. Thus, the House Report stated:
"
Management, like labor, must have faithful agents. --
If we are to produce goods competitively and in such large
quantities that many can buy them at low cost, then, just as there
are people on labor's side to say what workers want and have a
right to expect, there must be in management and loyal to it
persons not subject to influence or control of unions not only to
assign people to their work, to see that they keep at their work
and do it well, to correct them when they are at fault, and to
settle their complaints and grievances, but to determine how much
work employees should do, what pay they should receive for it, and
to carry on the whole of labor relations."
H.R.Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1947).
Page 416 U. S. 661
Further:
"The bill does not forbid anyone to organize. It does not forbid
any employer to recognize a union of foremen. Employers who, in the
past, have bargained collectively with supervisors may continue to
do so. What the bill does is to say what the law always has said
until the Labor Board, in the exercise of what it modestly calls
its 'expertness,' changed the law: that no one, whether employer or
employee, need have as his agent one who is obligated to those on
the other side, or one whom, for
any reason, he does not
trust."
Id. at 17 (emphasis in original).
The same theme -- that unionizing supervisors threatened
realization of the basic objectives of the Act to increase the
output of goods in commerce by promoting labor peace -- is repeated
in the Senate Report. The Report refers to the NLRB rulings that
included supervisors as protected employees as
"[a] recent development which, probably more than any other
single factor, has upset any real balance of power in the
collective bargaining process. . . . "
"The folly of permitting a continuation of this policy is
dramatically illustrated by what has happened in the captive mines
of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. since supervisory employees
were organized by the United Mine Workers under the protection of
the act. Disciplinary slips issued by the underground supervisors
in these mines have fallen off by two-thirds, and the accident rate
in each mine has doubled."
S.Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 3, 4 (1947)
This history compels the conclusion that Congress' dominant
purpose in amending §§ 2(3) and 2(11), and enacting § 14(a) was to
redress a perceived imbalance in
Page 416 U. S. 662
labor-management relationships that was found to arise from
putting supervisors in the position of serving two masters with
opposed interests.
See generally NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co.,
ante, p.
416 U. S. 267. We
conclude, therefore, that the second clause of § 14(a) relieving
the employer of obligations under "any law either national or
local, relating to collective bargaining" applies to any law that
requires an employer "to accord to the front line of management the
anomalous status of employees." S.Rep. No. 105,
supra, at
5. Enforcement against respondents in this case of §§ 95-81 and
95-83 would plainly put pressure on respondents "to accord to the
front line of management the anomalous status of employees," and
would therefore flout the national policy against compulsion upon
employers from either federal or state agencies to treat
supervisors as employees.
Cf. Teamsters Union v. Morton,
377 U. S. 252,
377 U. S.
258-260 (1964). [
Footnote 7]
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, c. 120 61 Stat. 136. The
three amendments relevant to this case provide:
§ 2(3).
"The term 'employee' shall include any employee, and shall not
be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless the
Act explicitly states otherwise, and shall include any individual
whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with,
any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice,
and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially
equivalent employment, but shall not include any individual
employed as an agricultural laborer, or in the domestic service of
any family or person at his home, or any individual employed by his
parent or spouse, or any individual having the status of an
independent contractor, or any individual employed as a supervisor,
or any individual employed by an employer subject to the Railway
Labor Act, as amended from time to time, or by any other person who
is not an employer as herein defined."
61 Stat. 137, 29 U.S.C. § 152(3)
§ 2(11).
"The term 'supervisor' means any individual having authority, in
the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off,
recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other
employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their
grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in
connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not
of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of
independent judgment."
61 Stat. 138, 29 U.S.C. § 152(11).
§ 14(a)
"Nothing herein shall prohibit any individual employed as a
supervisor from becoming or remaining a member of a labor
organization, but no employer subject to this Act shall be
compelled to deem individuals defined herein as supervisors as
employees for the purpose of any law, either national or local,
relating to collective bargaining."
61 Stat. 151, 29 U.S.C. § 164(a).
[
Footnote 2]
Those sections provide:
"§ 95-81. Nonmembership as condition of employment prohibited.
-- No person shall be required by an employer to abstain or refrain
from membership in any labor union or labor organization as a
condition of employment or continuation of employment."
N.C.Gen.Stat. § 95-81 (1965).
"§ 95-83. Recovery of damages by persons denied employment. --
Any person who may be denied employment or be deprived of
continuation of his employment in violation of §§ 95-80, 96-81 and
95-82 or of one or more of such sections, shall be entitled to
recover from such employer and from any other person, firm,
corporation, or association acting in concert with him by
appropriate action in the courts of this State such damages as he
may have sustained by reason of such denial or deprivation of
employment."
N.C.Gen.Stat. § 95-83 (1965).
[
Footnote 3]
The position of the General Counsel was unequivocally set forth
in the letter of denial, quoted by the North Carolina Court of
Appeals:
"Your appeal in the above matter has been duly considered. The
appeal is denied. The four alleged discriminatees involved herein
were supervisors within the meaning of Section 2(11) of the Act,
and hence were not entitled, in the circumstances herein, to the
protection of the Act."
15 N.C.App. 323, 325,
190
S.E.2d 333, 334 (1972).
[
Footnote 4]
The Board initially held that supervisors may organize in
independent or affiliated unions,
Union Collieries Coal
Co., 41 N.L.R.B. 961 (1942);
Godchaux Sugars, Inc.,
44 N.L.R.B. 874 (1942). Then, following introduction of proposed
corrective legislation,
see H.R.Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong.,
1st Sess., 13 (1947), the Board announced that it would not find
any organization of supervisors an appropriate bargaining unit,
Maryland Drydock Co., 49 N.L.R.B. 733 (1943). Finally, in
Packard Motor Co., 61 N.L.R.B. 4 (1945), the Board
reverted to its initial position.
[
Footnote 5]
Although H.R. 3020 lacked a counterpart to § 14(a) in S. 1126,
it contained a more detailed, and expansive, definition of
"supervisor," including individuals with "hire-and-fire" authority,
those who worked in
"labor relations, personnel, employment, police, or time-study
matters . . . or who [are] employed to act in other respects for
the employer in dealing with other individuals employed by the
employer,"
and those with access to information "of a confidential nature."
§ 101, amending § 2(12) of NLRA, H.R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.
(1947).
Aside from the use of the Senate's proposals for §§ 2(3), 2(11),
and 14(a) in the final amendments, the only pertinent congressional
action during passage was the addition of the words "or
responsibility to direct them" to § 2(11) on the floor of the
Senate. 93 Cong.Rec. 4677-4678 (1947).
[
Footnote 6]
The legislative history is determinative of any contention that
a different rule should be applied for unions composed entirely of
supervisors, on the one hand, and for unions of the rank and file
as well as supervisors, on the other. The House Report emphatically
stated:
"If management is to be free to manage American industry, as in
the past, and to produce the goods on which depends our strength in
war and our standard of living always, then
Congress must
exclude foremen from the operation of the Labor Act, not only when
they organize into unions of the rank and file and into unions
affiliated with those of the rank and file, but also when they
organize into unions that claim to be independent of the union of
the rank and file."
H.R.Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 15 (1947) (emphasis in
original.) The Senate Report displays equally careful consideration
and firm rejection of such a distinction:
"Before formulating this definition [in § 2(11)], the committee
considered a proposal, occasionally advanced, which would have
limited the protection of foremen to joining or organizing unions
whose membership was confined to supervisory personnel and not
affiliated with either of the major labor federations. After
considerable discussion, the committee decided that any such
compromise would be completely unrealistic. There is nothing in the
record developed before this committee to justify the conclusion
that there is such a thing as a really independent foremen's
organization."
S.Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1947).
[
Footnote 7]
Petitioners also argue that § 14(b) supports their contention.
That section provides that
"[n]othing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the
execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a
labor organization as a condition of employment in any State or
Territory in which such execution or application is prohibited by
State or Territorial law."
The section obviously has no relevancy to the provisions of §§
95-81 and 95-83. It is relevant primarily to § 95-79, which
declares illegal certain agreements making union membership a
condition of employment.
See Retail Clerks v.
Schermerhorn, 373 U. S. 746 and
375 U. S. 375 U.S.
96 (1963);
Algoma Plywood Co. v. Wisconsin Board,
336 U. S. 301
(1949).