An employer entered into a contract with the Brotherhood of
Carpenters to employ members of the union and to abide by the rules
and regulations of the union applicable to the locality where work
was done. Upon undertaking work in a certain locality, the employer
agreed to hire workers on referral from petitioner local union. Two
applicants from another local union were denied employment because
they could not get referral from petitioner local union. The
National Labor Relations Board found that the unions had violated §
8(b)(1)(A) and § 8(b)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act, as
amended, by maintaining and enforcing an agreement which
established closed shop preferential hiring conditions and by
causing the employer to refuse to hire the two applicants. There
was no evidence, however, that they had coerced any employee to
become or remain a member.
Held: on the record in this case, the Board was not
authorized under § 10(c) to require the unions to refund dues and
fees paid to them by their members.
Virginia Electric Co. v.
Labor Board, 319 U. S. 533,
distinguished. Pp.
365 U. S.
652-656.
273 F.2d 699, reversed.
Page 365 U. S. 652
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, United Brotherhood, entered into a contract with
Mechanical Handling Systems, Inc. (which we will call the Company),
whereby the Company agreed to work the hours, pay the wages, abide
by the rules and regulations of the union applicable to the
locality where the work is done, and employ members of the
union.
The Company, undertaking work at Indianapolis, agreed to hire
workers on referral from a local union, one of the petitioners in
this case. Two applicants from another local union were denied
employment by the Company because they could not get referral from
petitioner local union.
The Board found that petitioners had violated § 8(b)(1)(A) and §
8(b)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the
Taft-Hartley Act, 61 Stat. 136, 141, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 158,
in maintaining and enforcing an agreement which established closed
shop preferential hiring conditions and in causing the Company to
refuse to hire the two applicants. 122 N.L.R.B. 396.
After granting other relief the Board said:
"[A]s we find that dues, nonmembership dues, assessments, and
work permit fees [
Footnote 1]
were collected under the illegal contract as the price employees
paid in order to obtain or retain their jobs, we do not believe it
would effectuate the policies of the Act to permit the retention of
the payments which have been unlawfully exacted from the employees.
"
Page 365 U. S. 653
It added that the remedial provisions "are appropriate and
necessary to expunge the coercive effect" of petitioners' unfair
labor practices.
On application of the Board, the Court of Appeals enforced the
order. 273 F.2d 699. The case is here on a writ of certiorari, 363
U.S. 837, in which petitioners challenge no part of the Board's
order except the refund provision.
The provision for refund in this case is the product of a rule
announced by the Board in the
Brown-Olds case, 115
N.L.R.B. 594, which involved the use of a closed shop agreement
despite the ban in the Taft-Hartley Act. In that case, a panel of
three members of the five-member Board found a violation of the
closed shop provision of the Act. Two of the three agreed to an
order of reimbursement to all employees for any assessments
collected by the union within the period starting from six months
prior to the date of the filing of the charge. One member, Ivar H.
Peterson, dissented, saying that the reimbursement was
inappropriate, since there was an absence of "specific evidence of
coercion and evidence that payments were required as a condition of
employment."
Id., 606. Later, that remedy was extended to
hiring arrangements, which, though not operating in connection with
a closed shop, were felt by the Board to have a coercive influence
on applicants for work to join the union.
Los Angeles-Seattle
Motor Express, Inc., 121 N.L.R.B. 1629.
In neither of those cases nor in the present case was there any
evidence that the union membership, fees, or dues were coerced. The
Board, as well as the Court of Appeals, held that fact to be
immaterial. Both said that the case was governed by
Virginia
Electric & Power Co. v. Labor Board, 319 U.
S. 533, and the Court of Appeals added that coercion was
to be inferred, as "there was present an implicit threat of loss of
job if those fees were not paid." 273 F.2d at 703. The Board
argues, in support of
Page 365 U. S. 654
that position, that reimbursement of dues where hiring
arrangements have been abused is protective of rights vindicated by
the Act and authorized by § 10(c). [
Footnote 2]
We do not think this case is governed by
Virginia Electric
& Power Co. v. Labor Board, supra. That case involved a
company union whose very existence was unlawful. There were,
indeed, findings that the union "was not the result of the
employees' free choice" (319 U.S. at
319 U. S.
537), and that the employees had to remain members of
the union to retain their jobs.
Id., 319 U. S. 540.
Return of dues was one of the means for disestablishing an unlawful
union.
Id., 319 U. S. 541.
Cf. Labor Board v. Mine Workers, 355 U.
S. 453,
355 U. S.
458-459.
The unions in the present case were not unlawfully created. On
the record before us, they have engaged in prohibited activity. But
there is no evidence that any of them coerced a single employee to
join the union ranks or to remain as members. All of the employees
affected by the present order were union members when employed on
the job in question. So far as we know, they may have been members
for years on end. No evidence was offered to show that even a
single person joined the union with the view of obtaining work on
this project. Nor was there any evidence that any who had
voluntarily joined the union was kept from resigning for fear of
retaliatory measures against him. This case is therefore quite
different from
Radio Officers v. Labor
Board, 347 U.S.
Page 365 U. S. 655
17,
347 U. S. 48,
where, discrimination having been shown, the inferences to be drawn
were left largely to the Board.
The Board has broad discretion to adapt its remedies to the
needs of particular situations so that "the victims of
discrimination" may be treated fairly.
See Phelps Dodge Corp.
v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177,
313 U. S. 194.
But the power of the Board
"to command affirmative action is remedial, not punitive, and is
to be exercised in aid of the Board's authority to restrain
violations and as a means of removing or avoiding the consequences
of violation where those consequences are of a kind to thwart the
purposes of the Act."
Consolidated Edison Co. v. Labor Board, 305 U.
S. 197,
305 U. S. 236.
Where no membership in the union was shown to be influenced or
compelled by reason of any unfair practice, no "consequences of
violation" are removed by the order compelling the union to return
all dues and fees collected from the members, and no "dissipation"
of the effects of the prohibited action is achieved.
Labor
Board v. Mine Workers, supra, 355 U. S. 463.
The order in those circumstances becomes punitive, and beyond the
power of the Board. [
Footnote
3]
Cf. Republic Steel Corp. v. Labor Board,
311 U. S. 7,
311 U. S. 10. As
judge Pope said in
Morrison-Knudsen Co. v. Labor Board,
276 F.2d 63, 76, "reimbursing a lot of old-time union men" by
refunding their dues is not a remedial measure in the competence of
the Board of impose unless there is support
Page 365 U. S. 656
in the evidence that their membership was induced, obtained, or
retained in violation of the Act. It would be difficult, even with
hostile eyes, to read the history of trade unionism except in terms
of voluntary associations formed to meet pressing needs in a
complex society. [
Footnote
4]
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
The monthly dues payable to the local union were $3.50, and the
initiation fee $125. Dues and fees in lesser amounts were payable
by apprentices. A member who is working within the jurisdiction of
a district council who has not transferred his membership to a
local union of the council pays for a working permit that is not
less than 75 cents a month nor more than the local monthly
dues.
[
Footnote 2]
Section 10(c) provides in relevant part:
". . . If, upon the preponderance of the testimony taken, the
Board shall be of the opinion that any person named in the
complaint has engaged in or is engaging in any such unfair labor
practice, then the Board shall state its findings of fact and shall
issue and cause to be served on such person an order requiring such
person to cease and desist from such unfair labor practice, and to
take such affirmative action including reinstatement of employees
with or without back pay, as will effectuate the policies of this
Act. . . ."
[
Footnote 3]
Accord: Morrison-Knudsen Co. v. Labor Board, 275 F.2d
914;
Labor Board v. United States Steel Corp., 278 F.2d
896;
Labor Board v. Local Union No. 85, 274 F.2d 344;
Labor Board v. International Union, 279 F.2d 951;
Morrison-Knudsen Co. v. Labor Board, 276 F.2d 63 (C.A.,
9th Cir.);
Local 357 v. Labor Board, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 188,
275 F.2d 646.
Cf. Labor Board v. Carpenters Local, 276
F.2d 583;
Perry Coal Co. v. Labor Board, 284 F.2d 910.
[
Footnote 4]
See Millis and Montgomery, Organized Labor, Vol. III
(1945), c. VIII.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins,
concurring.
While I agree with the Court that
Virginia Electric &
Power Co. v. Labor Board, 319 U. S. 533,
does not justify the Board's "
Brown-Olds" remedy as it has
been applied in this and other cases, I think the Board is entitled
to be informed more fully why that should be so, since it may
fairly be said that
Virginia Electric could be taken as
having invited the course the Board has been following. In joining
the Court's opinion, I shall therefore add some further views.
The
Brown-Olds remedy is an order made under § 10(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act which authorizes the Board, after
finding an unfair labor practice, not only to issue a cease and
desist order, but also "to take such affirmative action . . . as
will effectuate the policies of this Act. . . ." The remedy, which
seems only to be applied if the unfair labor practice amounts
either to employer domination of a union [§ 8(a)(2)] or
discrimination in favor of union membership by an agreement between
employer and union [§ 8(a) (3); § 8(b)(2)], typically requires that
either the union or the employer reimburse all employees in the
amount of
Page 365 U. S. 657
all moneys paid in dues, assessments, etc., since six months
before the unfair labor practice charge was filed. The Board does
not admit defensive evidence that some employees voluntarily made
such payments. An illegal closed shop or discriminatory hiring
practices create an irrebuttable presumption of coercion.
See,
e.g., Brown-Olds Plumbing & Heating Corp., 115 N.L.R.B.
594;
Saltsman Construction Co., 123 N.L.R.B. 1176;
Nassau & Suffolk Contractors' Assn., 123 N.L.R.B.
1393;
Lummus Corp., 125 N.L.R.B. 1161.
The provision that the Board was to be allowed "to take such
affirmative action . . . as will effectuate the policies of this
Act . . . " did not pass the Wagner Act Congress without objection
to the uncontrolled breadth of this power.
See Hearings
before Senate Committee on Education and Labor on S. 1958, 74th
Cong., 1st Sess. 448-449. This Court's construction of the scope of
the power has reflected a similar concern. The Board has been told
that it is without power to "effectuate the policies of this Act"
by assessing punishments upon those who commit unfair labor
practices.
Republic Steel Corp. v. Labor Board,
311 U. S. 7,
311 U. S. 11,
311 U. S. 12. The
primary purpose of the provision for other affirmative relief has
been held to be to enable the Board to take measures designed to
recreate the conditions and relationships that would have been had
there been no unfair labor practice.
Consolidated Edison Co. v.
Labor Board, 305 U. S. 197,
305 U. S. 236.
Thus, in
Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U.
S. 177, this Court reversed the Board for refusing to
allow an employer to show in mitigation of a back-pay order that
the employee unjustifiably refused to take desirable new employment
during the period. In
Republic Steel, supra, the Court
refused to enforce an order requiring the employer to pay the full
amount of back pay to an employee who had been paid to work for the
Work Projects Administration in the meantime. In
Labor
Page 365 U. S. 658
Board v. Seven-Up Bottling Co., 344 U.
S. 344, the Court indicated that even an otherwise
sensible procedure for computing back pay of an employee
discriminatorily discharged must provide exceptions where the
scheme would more than compensate the employee because of the
seasonal nature of the employer's business.
The Board now emphasizes that its
Brown-Olds remedy has
a substantial tendency to deter employer-union encouragement of
union membership in violation of §§ 8(a)(3) and 8(b)(2). But it
also correctly recognizes that, in light of the
Republic
Steel case,
supra, it must show more than that the
remedy will tend to deter unfair labor practices. The Board must
establish that the remedy is a reasonable attempt to put aright
matters the unfair labor practice set awry. As I understand its
contentions, the Board attempts to make this showing by arguing
that, wherever there has been a not insignificant unlawful
encouragement to union membership, all members should be taken to
have been under the influence of coercion, whether or not they were
aware of this influence or would have acted differently without it.
The employees are said to have been coerced in much the same sense
that a man contentedly sitting in the living room of his house may
be said to be imprisoned by the barring of the doors, whether or
not he wants to leave. [
Footnote
2/1] Accordingly, the Board has considered unnecessary an
Page 365 U. S. 659
actual showing of employee unwillingness to belong to the
union.
What we must decide, then, is whether it is within the power of
the Board to provide dues reimbursement relief for this type of
imputed coercion, or, as the Board alternatively states its case,
for the employee's loss of his statutory right to decide freely
whether or not he shall be a union member. This issue is not
satisfactorily resolved by simply pointing out that there has been
no showing of forced payment of dues an employee was unwilling to
pay, for, unless I misunderstand the Board, it is arguing that even
a willing union member loses something when there is a violation §
8(b)(2), namely the freedom of choice which the statute assures
him. Nor, once we have recognized that a tendency to deter unfair
labor practices is not alone sufficient justification for a Board
order of affirmative relief, does the concept of punitiveness
really advance a solution. Deterrence is certainly a desirable,
even though not, in itself, a sufficiently justifying effect of a
Board order.
I think the Board should be denied the use of its
Brown-Olds remedy in situations where, as here, it is not
unlikely that a substantial number of employees were willing to pay
dues for union membership, because, as I see it, the amount of dues
or other exactions paid is not a tenable way of estimating the
value a willing union member would place on his right to choose
freely whether or not he would be or remain a union member -- as it
were, on his right to change his mind. The amount of dues paid does
perhaps provide a means of estimating the value of benefits
received from the union. Or the amount of dues paid does perhaps
measure the cost coercion imposes upon an employee who, if free to
choose, would be unwilling to join the union (although, even in
this case, a proper adjustment might have to take some account of
the union
Page 365 U. S. 660
benefits the employee would not have received had he been merely
a nonunion employee in a unionized bargaining unit). But I can find
no rational relationship at all between the amount of dues paid and
the value an employee who is willing to join a union would place on
his freedom to change his mind. [
Footnote 2/2] In the absence of a showing of such a
relationship, the Board's
Brown-Olds order can no more be
sustained than could its orders in the
Phelps Dodge or
Republic Steel cases.
A different result might follow in this case if
Virginia
Electric had held that such a relationship exists. But I think
that case held only that, as a matter of statutory policy, an
employee could not ever be deemed a willing member of a
company-dominated union,
cf. Matter of the Carpenter Steel
Co., 76 N.L.R.B. 670, and that, on considerations of
practicality, the employer who had violated the Act should bear the
unapportionable costs of sustaining a union that served the
employer's forbidden purposes at least as much as it served the
employee's legitimate ones.
[
Footnote 2/1]
It is but another formulation of the same argument when the
Board, in its brief, states that actual coercion is not required,
so long as the dues are collected pursuant to an illegal
system:
"[T]he validity of a reimbursement order is not contingent upon
a showing that the employees paid monies to the union unwillingly.
If the money were paid pursuant to an arrangement which violated
the statute, it can be ordered refunded provided this would best
effectuate the statutory policies. . . . That the money may have
been collected anyhow by a legal means does not privilege the use
of an illegal procedure to obtain it."
[
Footnote 2/2]
For example, an employee may be more willing to join a union
which charges high dues and provides substantial benefits than a
union which charges little and gives little. But the Board formula
declares that, in the case where the dues are higher, the value of
the loss of freedom of choice is greater.
MR. JUSTICE WHITTAKER, dissenting.
The contract involved here not only required persons seeking
employment in the unit to be members of the union, but also
required each of them to obtain from the "Council" and present to
the "union steward" on the job a "work permit" before going to
work. That this closed shop hiring arrangement "coerce[d] employees
in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7," and
"cuase[d] [the] employer to discriminate against . . . employee[s]
in violation of subsection (a)(3)" of the
Page 365 U. S. 661
Act, contrary to the explicit provisions of §§ 8(b)(1)(A) and
8(b)(2) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158, is not here denied.
To assure protection and enforcement of the rights it had
guaranteed to employees by the Act, Congress provided in § 10(c)
that, upon the finding of an "unfair labor practice,"
"the Board shall state its findings of fact and shall issue . .
. an order requiring such person to cease and desist from such
unfair labor practice, and to take such affirmative action . . . as
will effectuate the policies"
of the Act.
Finding that the closed shop hiring arrangement involved here
violated §§ 8(b)(1)(A) and 8(b)(2) of the Act, and thus constituted
an unfair labor practice, the Board, in fashioning a remedy which
it deemed "necessary to expunge the coercive effect" of the
violations and to "effectuate the policies of the Act," ordered the
unions not only to cease the violations, but also "to refund to the
employees involved the dues . . . and work permit fees, paid by the
employees as a price for their employment." The only question here
is whether that remedy was within the Board's power. Like the Court
of Appeals, I think it was.
Congress knew, of course, that it could not foresee the nature
of all possible violations of the Act, and accordingly did not
undertake to specify the precise remedy to be visited upon
offenders for particular violations.
"[I]n the nature of things, Congress could not catalogue all the
devices and stratagems for circumventing the policies of the Act.
Nor could it define the whole gamut of remedies to effectuate these
policies in an infinite variety of specific situations. Congress
met these difficulties by leaving the adaptation of means to end to
the empiric process of administration. The exercise of the process
was committed to the Board, subject to limited judicial review.
Because
Page 365 U. S. 662
the relation of remedy to policy is peculiarly a matter for
administrative competence, courts must not enter the allowable area
of the Board's discretion. . . ."
"The Act does not create rights for individuals which must be
vindicated according to a rigid scheme of remedies. It entrusts to
an expert agency the maintenance and promotion of industrial
peace."
Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U.
S. 177,
313 U. S.
194.
To hold that the Board is without power to do more than order
the unions not to violate the Act in the future would be to deny
any remedy whatever for violations. It is certain that Congress did
not intend by the Act "to hold out to [employees] an illusory right
for which it was denying them a remedy."
Graham v. Brotherhood
of Locomotive Firemen, 338 U. S. 232,
338 U. S. 240.
In directing the Board to order "such affirmative action . . . as
will effectuate the policies of this Act," Congress seems clearly
to have directed the Board to fashion and enforce a remedy "which
it . . . deem[s] adequate to that end."
Republic Steel Corp. v.
Labor Board, 311 U. S. 7,
311 U. S. 12. In
"fashioning remedies to undo the effects of violations of the Act,
the Board must draw on enlightenment gained from experience."
Labor Board v. Seven-Up Bottling Co., 344 U.
S. 344,
344 U. S. 346.
And see Radio Officers' Union v. Labor Board, 347 U. S.
17,
347 U. S. 49.
Based on its long experience up to 1956, that, despite the ban
which the Taft-Hartley Amendments had imposed nine years earlier,
closed shop practices were still being followed in some industries,
[
Footnote 3/1] the Board concluded
that a remedy more
Page 365 U. S. 663
effective than a cease and desist order was required. And,
following the teaching of this Court's opinion in
Virginia
Electric & Power Co. v. Labor Board, 319 U.
S. 533, the Board decided that an appropriate additional
remedy would be to require that the monies paid to the union under
the illegal arrangement be refunded to the employees, and it
accordingly so held in 1956 in
United Association of
Journeymen, etc., and
Brown-Olds Plumbing & Heating
Corp., 115 N.L.R.B. 594. [
Footnote
3/2]
Page 365 U. S. 664
In
Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. Labor Board,
supra, this Court had upheld an identical remedy as within the
Board's power. There, an employer had committed an unfair labor
practice by dominating a plant union in violation of § 8(1), (2)
and (3) of the Act. In fashioning a remedy that it deemed necessary
to effectuate the policies of the Act, the Board ordered the
employer not only to cease the practice, but also to reimburse its
employees for the dues withheld from their wages, pursuant to their
signed authorizations, and paid to the union. Rejecting the
employer's contention that this remedy was in excess of the Board's
power, this Court said:
"[T]he Board has wide discretion in ordering affirmative action;
its power is not limited to the illustrative example of one type of
permissible affirmative order, namely, reinstatement with or
without back pay.
Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board,
313 U. S.
177,
313 U. S. 187-189. The
particular means by which the effects of unfair labor practices are
to be expunged are matters 'for the Board, not the courts, to
determine.'
I. A. of M. v. Labor Board, supra, 311 U.S.
311 U. S. 82;
Labor Board
v. Link-Belt Co., supra, at
311 U. S.
600. Here the Board, in the exercise of its informed
discretion, has expressly determined that reimbursement in full of
the checked-off dues is necessary to effectuate the policies of the
Act. We give considerable weight to that administrative
determination. It should stand unless it can be shown that the
order is a patent attempt to achieve ends other than those which
can fairly be said to effectuate the policies of the Act. There is
no such showing here."
319 U.S. at
319 U. S.
539-540.
Page 365 U. S. 665
Such an order, said the Court, "returns to the employees what
has been taken from them," and restores to them "that truly
unfettered freedom of choice which the Act demands." 319 U.S. at
319 U. S. 541.
Surely, it is as correct to say here, as it was there, that
"An order such as this, which deprives [a union] of advantages
accruing from a particular method of subverting the Act, is a
permissible method of effectuating the statutory policy,"
ibid., and that is all the order here purports to
do.
It is argued that the
Virginia case is distinguishable
on the ground that it dealt with an employer-dominated union. But
the question is one of power. The fact that the unfair labor
practice there was by the employer, rather than by the union, as
here, is not a distinguishing difference. Nor does the fact that
employees' rights were there infringed by a violation of § 8(a)(1),
(2) and (3) of the Act, whereas they are here infringed by a
violation of §§ 8(b)(1)(A) and 8(b)(2) of the Act, make any
difference. In each instance, the violation constituted an unfair
labor practice, and the question is whether, in fashioning a remedy
to effectuate the policies of the Act, the Board has power, in its
informed discretion, to order reimbursement of the dues paid under
the illegal arrangement. It would seem that, if the Board had power
so to order in the
Virginia case, as this Court held, it
similarly has power so to order in this case. Nothing in the
Virginia case appears to limit the Board's power of
restitution to cases involving employer-dominated unions or to any
other particular type of violation, but the power seems clearly
enough to be invocable in any appropriate case, in the informed
discretion of the Board, and such has been the understanding of the
courts. [
Footnote 3/3]
Page 365 U. S. 666
The contentions that such an order of restitution is beyond the
Board's power because the employees received some benefits from the
union, despite the illegal hiring arrangement, and that to allow
restitution of the dues collected by the union under the illegal
arrangement would be to enforce a "penalty" which the Board has no
power to assess, were fully answered to the contrary in the
Virginia case, 319 U.S. at
319 U. S.
542-543.
To require specific proof of individual injury to all employees
"would impose impossible administrative burdens,"
Labor Board
v. Revere Metal Art Co., supra, 280 F.2d at 101, and prevent
effective enforcement of the Act. Hence, that character and
fullness of proof is not required.
See Radio Officers' Union v.
Labor Board, 347 U. S. 17,
347 U. S. 48-52.
And inasmuch as the General Counsel of the Board may issue
complaints only upon charges filed with him,
id. at
347 U. S. 53,
and the Board's experience seems to have proved that only a few
employees will be sufficiently daring and determined overtly to
complain regardless of the nature of the violation, it would seem
that the Board, in the exercise of its informed discretion, may
reasonably conclude, even in the absence of specific proof of
injury to all the employees, that full restitution of the dues
collected by the union under an illegal arrangement is necessary to
effectuate the policies of the Act.
For these reasons, I think the Board acted within its power in
ordering restitution of the dues collected under the admittedly
illegal arrangement here, that the Court of Appeals correctly
enforced the order, and that its judgment should be affirmed.
[
Footnote 3/1]
As two apparently disinterested authorities have noted:
"[By 1945], the closed shop had become one of the basic features
of industrial relations in the building industry. This situation
had largely remained true in practice up to the present time,
despite the passage of legislation in 1947 prohibiting this type of
provision from being included in collective agreements."
"
* * * *"
". . . In all of the strongly unionized areas studied during the
summer of 1952, employment arrangements equivalent to those under a
closed shop were in effect. Membership in the union was almost
universally regarded as a prerequisite for obtaining employment; in
most instances, men were employed directly or indirectly through
the union itself.
Both parties viewed this as standard
practice, and showed little or no concern for the illegality of the
arrangement."
Haber and Levinson, Labor Relations and Productivity in the
Building Trades (Univ. of Michigan, 1956), pp. 62, 71. (Emphasis
added.)
[
Footnote 3/2]
The Board there stated:
". . . [T]he Taft-Hartley amendments have made unlawful all
closed shop contracts as contrary to public policy, proscribing
such conduct by unions as unfair labor practices. The dues required
and collected under such a contract . . . contravene that public
policy. It is no longer required by the Act that the union be
company-dominated in order for collection of dues to be unlawful
under a closed shop contract. Here, the dues and the assessments
were required and collected pursuant to a contract which clearly
contravened the public policy of the Act. Dues and assessments here
collected constituted the price these employees paid in order to
retain their jobs. We therefore conclude that the remedy of
reimbursement of all such monies is appropriate and necessary to
expunge the illegal effects of the unfair labor practices found
here."
"
* * * *"
"It is our view that, where payment of dues is required under a
closed shop contract, as where assessments are required under an
otherwise valid agreement, reimbursement of such monies actually
collected will best effectuate the policies of the Act. Otherwise,
the very fruits of the unfair labor practice itself will remain in
the hands of the respondent. . . ."
115 N.L.R.B. at 600-601.
[
Footnote 3/3]
Labor Board v. Revere Metal Art Co., 280 F.2d 96, 101;
Labor Board v. Local 294, International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, 279 F.2d 83, 86-88;
O'Neill Intl. Detective
Agency v. Labor Board, 46 L.R.R.M. 2503 (C.A.3d Cir.);
Dixie Bedding Mfg. Co. v. Labor Board, 268 F.2d 901,
907.