NLRB v. Pan American Grain

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 05-1274
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,
Petitioner/Cross-Respondent,
v.
PAN AMERICAN GRAIN CO., INC. and
PAN AMERICAN GRAIN MANUFACTURING CO., INC.,
Respondent/Cross-Petitioner.
ON APPLICATION FOR ENFORCEMENT AND CROSS-PETITION FOR
REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Selya, Circuit Judge,
and Stahl, Senior Circuit Judge.
Ruperto J. Robles and Rafael J. Lopez on brief for
petitioner/cross-respondent.
Arthur F. Rosenfeld, Acting General Counsel, John E. Higgins,
Jr., Deputy General Counsel, Margery E. Lieber, Acting Associate
General Counsel, Aileen A. Armstrong, Deputy Associate General
Counsel, Meredith L. Jason and Christopher W. Young on brief for
respondent/cross-petitioner.
December 22, 2005
BOUDIN, Chief Judge. We have before us an application by
the National Labor Relations Board ("the Board" or "NLRB") for
enforcement of the order it issued against a grain processing
company, Pan American.1 Pan American cross-petitions to set aside
portions of the Board's order.
Pan American is a Puerto Rican company that manufactures
animal feed and processes rice for human consumption. Congresso de
Uniones Industriales de Puerto Rico ("the Union") has been the
collective-bargaining representative of Pan American's production
and maintenance employees for many years, but the last collective-
bargaining agreement between the Union and Pan American expired in
2000 for two Pan American facilities (the Amelia and Corujo
facilities) and 2002 for the other (the Arroz Rico facility).
From 1996 to 2002, Pan American undertook a long-term
project designed to modernize and automate some of its facilities;
it initiated this project to help offset the cost of complying with
an Environmental Protection Agency consent decree. These upgrades
caused the company's staffing needs gradually to decline, and Pan
1
Pan American is two corporate entities, Pan American Grain
Co., Inc. and Pan American Grain Mfg. Co., Inc., whose brief states
that they are "affiliated business enterprises with common
officers, directors, management and supervision, formulating and
administering a common policy affecting operations."
-2-
American laid off one or two employees each year during the
modernization.
In January 2002, employees at the Amelia and Corujo
facilities went on strike. The strike caused a decline in sales.
The following month, the company president met with two managers
and the group decided that, because of the decline in sales and the
increased efficiency resulting from the modernization, fifteen
employees should be permanently laid off. On February 27, 2002,
Pan American told fifteen of the striking employees that their
positions had been permanently eliminated. Pan American was later
charged with committing various unfair labor practices in violation
of the National Labor Relations Act ("the Act" or "NLRA"), 29
U.S.C. §§ 151 et seq. (2000).
In the proceedings that followed, the NLRB found that Pan
American had engaged in numerous unfair labor practices, but the
only such finding challenged on petition to this court was that Pan
American had violated section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.
§ 158(a)(5), (1), by failing to give the Union notice and an
opportunity to bargain as to the layoff decision and its effects
before laying off these fifteen employees.2 To remedy this
2
As Pan American did not contest the other findings by the
Board, the Board is entitled to summary enforcement of those
portions of its order related to these findings. See E.C. Waste,
Inc. v. NLRB, 359 F.3d 36, 41 (1st Cir. 2004).
-3-
violation, the Board ordered Pan American to reinstate the fifteen
employees and compensate them with back pay.
Pan American challenges the Board's finding as to the
section 8(a)(5) and (1) violation and the remedy imposed in
connection with this violation. It argues first that it was not
required to bargain with the dismissed employees regarding the
decision to dismiss them, conceding that it was required to bargain
regarding the effects of the layoff decision. Second, Pan American
asserts that in light of its limited bargaining duty, the remedy of
reinstatement and full back pay was improper, and under Board
precedent in Transmarine Navigation Corp., 170 N.L.R.B. 389 (1968),
only limited back pay could be required.
The Board asserts that Pan American is precluded from
making its first argument on this petition because it did not
present it to the Board in the proceedings below. As for Pan
American's second argument, the Board urges that we should dispose
of it by finding that the facts of this case do not warrant the
limited remedy Pan American seeks. We conclude that Pan American's
arguments are interrelated, were presented to the Board, and cannot
be resolved without further explanation by the Board.
To understand both the waiver argument and the merits of
the case requires a brief explanation of the background law. Under
section 8(a)(5) of the NLRA, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(5), an employer's
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"refus[al] to bargain collectively with the representatives of his
employees" constitutes an "unfair labor practice"; section 8(d) of
the Act, id. § 158(d), specifies that the duty "to bargain
collectively" includes the obligation to "confer in good faith with
respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of
employment." Absent contrary provisions in a collective bargaining
agreement, there are thus some decisions as to which a unionized
employer must bargain with the union (e.g., wages and hours);
others as to which it normally need not, "such as choice of
advertising and promotion, product type and design, and financing
arrangements," which "have only an indirect and attenuated impact
on the employment relationship," First Nat'l Maint. Corp. v. NLRB,
452 U.S. 666, 676-77 (1981); and yet others entailing obligations
that fall somewhere in between.
The present case may or may not fall in this "in between"
category. In certain situations, a decision to order layoffs may
be the prerogative of management but an obligation may still exist
to bargain with the union as to "effects" of the layoffs; in other
words, management may have to bargain about whether and to what
extent to provide severance to the laid-off employees even though
it may not have to discuss whether to make the layoffs. Both the
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courts (e.g., Providence Hospital)3 and the Board (notably in
Transmarine)4 have endorsed such a qualified duty in certain
circumstances.
Before the Board, Pan American argued that it did not
have to bargain with the Union at all so no relief was proper; but
in the alternative it argued that at most its bargaining obligation
was limited to the "effects" of the layoffs and therefore back pay
for a limited period would be the most that should be awarded. The
latter argument depends upon two elements: that only effects
bargaining was required in this case, and that where only effects
bargaining is required, the limited back pay remedy prescribed in
Transmarine is appropriate for a breach of the bargaining duty
(because reinstatement would defeat the layoff prerogative).
Pan American made this alternative two-part argument both
in its exceptions to the findings of the administrative law judge
3
See Providence Hosp. v. NLRB, 93 F.3d 1012, 1018 (1st Cir.
1996) ("[U]nions generally enjoy the right to bargain over the
effects of decisions which are not themselves mandatory subjects of
collective bargaining."); NLRB v. New England Newspapers, Inc., 856
F.2d 409, 413 (1st Cir. 1988) ("Although the employer is not
obligated to bargain regarding the decision to sell its business,
the effects of that sale are . . . a mandatory subject of
bargaining . . . .").
4
Transmarine, 170 N.L.R.B. at 390 (requiring employer to
bargain over effects of shutdown, and imposing "a limited backpay
requirement"); see also Melody Toyota, 325 N.L.R.B. 846, 846 (1998)
(noting that the ALJ's order "provides, inter alia, for the Board's
standard backpay remedy in effects bargaining cases as modeled
after the remedy set forth in Transmarine Navigation Corp.").
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("ALJ") and in its request for rehearing before the Board. In its
exceptions, for example, Pan American sought to qualify its
bargaining obligation, focusing on the difference between a layoff
decision for "economic reasons" and a layoff decision resulting
from a successful modernization program. Pan American then
concluded its argument against the ALJ's remedy by stating:
[W]e contend that inasmuch as the record does
show that the layoffs were an effect of an
employer's decision, based primarily on
operational reasons as well as staffing needs,
the determination was related to the scope and
direction of business and accordingly the
proper remedy would be that of a limited back
pay. See Transmarine Navigation Corp., 170
NLRB 389 (1968).
A petitioner is barred from making in court arguments not
presented to the Board. NLRB v. Saint-Gobain Abrasives, Inc., 426
F.3d 455 (1st Cir. 2005), explained that under section 10(e) of the
Act, 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), the reviewing court has jurisdiction to
decide an issue on a petition to set aside an NLRB order only if an
objection made below, "fairly read, apprises the Board that the
objector intended to pursue the issue later presented to the
court." Saint-Gobain, 426 F.3d at 459 (citing Marshall Field & Co.
v. NLRB, 318 U.S. 253, 255 (1943) (per curiam)).
However, we cannot agree with the Board's brief that Pan
American failed to make its argument to the Board. The "scope and
direction of business" language and the attempted distinction
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between "economic" and "modernization" reasons for discharge bear
directly on the extent of the employer's duty to bargain. Indeed,
the scope-and-direction phrase resembles language in Justice
Stewart's oft-cited concurrence in Fibreboard Paper Prods. Corp. v.
NLRB, 379 U.S. 203, 223 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring), dealing
with just such line-drawing as to the extent of the duty to
bargain.
Furthermore, Transmarine is the common citation for the
view that a limited back pay remedy is the proper answer where the
employer breached only a duty to bargain about effects. E.g.,
Melody Toyota, 325 N.L.R.B. 846, 846 (1998); see also NLRB v.
Emsing's Supermarket, Inc., 872 F.2d 1279, 1289-91 (7th Cir. 1989).
To rely on Transmarine, as Pan American did, for the view that "the
proper remedy would be that of a limited back pay" makes sense only
if the predicate is the employer's claim that its duty to bargain
was limited (i.e., because the layoffs were assertedly a management
prerogative). The two elements are parts of an embracing claim
that there was only a limited duty warranting only a limited
remedy.
We agree that Pan American could have done a better job
at the Board level in clarifying its position. In part, Pan
American invited confusion by arguing (permissibly--but perhaps not
with perfect lucidity) that it had no duty to bargain at all but,
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if it did, it was a limited duty justifying only the Transmarine
remedy. Yet contributing to the confusion is the fact that the
Board has not made clear where the full duty to bargain leaves off
and the limited "effects" duty supercedes it. Anyway, enough was
said to alert the Board to the employer objection that only a
limited duty and the Transmarine remedy applied in this case.
No answer to the objection is provided in the Board's
decision. In rejecting a claim of retaliatory firings under
section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3), (1), the
ALJ had explicitly credited Pan American's claim that the layoff of
the fifteen employees was motivated (at least in part) by the
modernization and automation project dating from 1996. In
summarizing his factual findings on this question, the ALJ stated:
The evidence substantiating [Pan American's]
position that an ongoing modernization and
automation project had reduced staffing needs
was detailed, plausible, and uncontroverted;
it outweighs the evidence casting doubt on the
veracity of [Pan American's] explanation.
[Pan American] has shown that it more likely
than not would have decided to implement its
February 2002 layoff because its staffing
needs decreased, even absent the employees'
protected activities.
The ALJ also found that another possible motivation for the layoffs
was a "dip in sales."
Yet when the ALJ discussed the failure to bargain
charges, he simply said that "layoff decisions are a mandatory
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subject of bargaining," failure to bargain violates the Act, and
"the traditional and appropriate Board remedy for an unlawful
unilateral layoff based on legitimate economic concerns" includes
reinstatement and full back pay. He did not so much as mention the
issue of the possible motivation of the layoffs as pertinent to
whether full reinstatement or only the limited back pay remedy
should be adopted.
Pan American responded, as described and quoted above, by
arguing to the Board that Pan American's rationale for the layoffs-
-accepted by the ALJ himself–warranted at most only the Transmarine
remedy of limited back pay. The Board, faced with Pan American's
objection, explained the difference between the full and limited
back pay remedies and then continued with two sentences that
explain very little:
Here, we have found that [Pan American's]
decision to lay off employees was a mandatory
subject of bargaining, and that [Pan American]
violated Section 8(a)(5) and (1) by failing to
satisfy its obligation to bargain both over
the decision and its effects. Accordingly, we
find that the full backpay and reinstatement
remedy is appropriate.
In substance the Board treats a breached obligation to
bargain over the decision as well as its effects as warranting the
"full" (as opposed to the Transmarine) remedy. What is missing is
any explanation why, in light of the ALJ's own factual findings,
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Pan American's "decision to lay off employees was a mandatory
subject of [full scale] bargaining" rather than bargaining solely
about effects. Yet some explanation is needed precisely because
where the line should be drawn is far from clear.
Justice Stewart's concurrence in Fibreboard eschewed
mandatory bargaining for decisions that "lie at the core of
entrepreneurial control," such as "[d]ecisions concerning the
commitment of investment capital and the basic scope of the
enterprise." Fibreboard, 379 U.S. at 223 (Stewart, J.,
concurring). It was followed by First Nat'l, a case involving a
partial shutdown of an employer's business, which offered three
separate categories of managerial decisions and a balancing test,
noting that "other types of management decisions"--including
"automation"--"are to be considered on their particular facts."
First Nat'l, 452 U.S. at 667, 676-79, 686 n.22.
We do not know whether the NLRB now views layoff
decisions prompted by modernization to be mandatory subjects of
bargaining, resolving the issue seemingly left open in First Nat'l,
and, if so, why, or whether it decided this case on its "particular
facts," and, if so, what those facts were. Possibly, the Board
attributed importance to the fact that the layoffs owed something
to the loss of business due to the strike but, if so, this too is
-11-
unexplained, nor do we know how multiple motives for layoffs should
be analyzed.
The issue appears to be one of considerable importance.
To say that an employer must bargain about whether to make layoffs
caused by modernization does not seem far from saying, in
substance, that it must bargain about whether to modernize.
Perhaps there is some reason to distinguish between the two, but it
is easy to see how the two steps are linked in practice. Often
enough, an employer who cannot recoup costs of modernizing by
reducing employment will have little reason to invest.
In all events, we do not understand the Board's rationale
for classifying this case as one where the employer had (in the
Board's words) an "obligation to bargain both over the decision
[the layoffs] and its effects." The result may or may not be
sound, but until we understand its basis, we cannot effectively
review it. See NLRB v. Auciello Iron Works, Inc., 980 F.2d 804,
812-13 (1st Cir. 1992). And if there is an obvious explanation, it
has not been supplied by the Board's brief on appeal.
The application of the Board for enforcement of its order
is granted in part, as to paragraphs (1)(a), (b), (d), (e) (except
as it applies to the employees laid off on February 27, 2002), (f),
and (g), and paragraphs (2)(a), (b), (e) (except as it applies to
the employees laid off on February 27, 2002), (f) (except as it
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applies to the employees laid off on February 27, 2002), (g), (h),
(i) (except for paragraphs in the notice pledging to bargain with
the Union as to the February 27, 2002, layoffs, and to reinstate
and make whole the employees laid off on that day), and (j).
As to paragraphs (1)(c) and (e) (insofar as it applies to
the employees laid off on February 27, 2002), and paragraphs
(2)(c), (d), (e) (insofar as it applies to the employees laid off
on February 27, 2002), (f) (insofar as it applies to the employees
laid off on February 27, 2002), and those portions of (2)(i)
requiring the posted notice to include a pledge to bargain with the
Union as to the February 27, 2002, layoffs, and to reinstate and
make whole the employees laid off on that day, the order is vacated
and the case remanded to the Board for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion. Each side to bear its own costs on
appeal.
It is so ordered.
Dissent follows.
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STAHL, Senior Circuit Judge, dissenting. I do not
agree with the majority that Pan American's objections before the
Board were sufficient to apprise the Board that the company would
later argue, on appeal, that it had no duty to bargain about the
layoffs in the first place. I would hold that Pan American
waived the bargainability issue by not raising it below, and that
Section 10(e) of the NLRA precludes our entertaining the question
whether the February 2002 decision to lay off fifteen striking
employees was a mandatory subject of bargaining. I therefore
respectfully dissent.
We very recently confirmed that the "statutory mandate"
set out in Section 10(e) "is clear: if a particular objection has
not been raised before the Board, a reviewing court, in the
absence of extraordinary circumstances, is without jurisdiction
to consider the issue in a subsequent enforcement proceeding."
NLRB v. Saint-Gobain Abrasives, Inc., 426 F.3d 455, 459 (1st Cir.
2005). When it is not immediately apparent whether the objection
a party made below is the same as the issue it now seeks to raise
on appeal, the critical inquiry "is whether the objection, fairly
read, apprises the Board that the objector intended to pursue the
issue later presented to the court." Id. (citing Marshall Field
& Co. v. NLRB, 318 U.S. 253, 255 (1943) (per curiam)). In the
present case, Pan American argues on appeal that it had no duty
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to bargain about the layoffs of fifteen employees in February
2002, but it did not make this objection below in so many words.
In cases such as this one, "where a party asserts that
it has objected to the Board, but the objection is not
unmistakable," our review "must be guided by the purposes of
section 10(e) and necessarily will be highly fact specific."
Local 900, Int'l Union of Elec., Radio & Mach. Workers (IUE) v.
NLRB, 727 F.2d 1184, 1193 (D.C. Cir. 1984). The purposes served
by Section 10(e) are twofold. First, the section "has a notice
function that ensures that the Board has the opportunity to
resolve all issues properly within its jurisdiction." Id. at
1191. Second, the section "insures against repetitive appeals to
the courts" by requiring aggrieved parties to present all
objections to the Board in the first instance. Id.Here, Pan American presented two primary objections to
the Board.5 First, Pan American contended that the ALJ erred in
finding an unfair labor practice, because the company had, in
fact, given proper notice to the Union and showed its willingness
to bargain, and it was the Union's recalcitrance, rather than any
misbehavior on Pan American's part, that prevented bargaining
5
The company also objected to a particular factual finding the
ALJ made: that certain former strikers made an offer to return to
work. This point is not at issue on appeal.
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from taking place. This objection, far from intimating that the
company had no duty to bargain, assumes that there was such a
duty. Second, Pan American objected that the ALJ should not have
recommended a remedy of reinstatement and full back pay for the
fifteen terminated employees. I simply cannot agree with the
majority when it states, "Before the Board, Pan American argued
that it did not have to bargain with the Union at all so no
relief was proper, but in the alternative it argued that at most
its bargaining obligation was limited to the 'effects' of the
layoffs." Slip Op. at 6. This statement not only
mischaracterizes Pan American's arguments before the Board6 but
assumes as plain fact what is actually a fervently contested
issue in this case.
The majority finds that Pan American's second
objection, its challenge to the remedy, was sufficient to apprise
6
In its first exception, Pan American stated, "Not only did
Respondent give proper notice of the future layoffs to the Union,
but the latter failed to timely bargain over said issue, thus
waiving its right to do so." In its second exception, the company
stated, "[I]nasmuch as the record does show that the layoffs were
[the result] of an employer's decision, based primarily on
operational reasons as well as staffing needs, the determination
was related to the scope and direction of business and accordingly
the proper remedy would be that of a limited back pay." At best,
this second exception could be interpreted as raising the
bargainability issue in a roundabout manner, and that is the
argument the majority makes. But it is simply not correct to
imply, as the majority does, that Pan American raised this
objection directly and explicitly, for it did not.
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the Board that the company would later argue that there was no
duty to bargain about the layoffs in the first place. I
disagree. As the majority recognizes, it is undoubtedly possible
to infer a connection between the question of what kind of remedy
is appropriate after an employer's failure to engage in
statutorily required bargaining and the question of the extent of
the employer's original duty to bargain. The connection arises
from the fact that when an employer violates the Act by
terminating employees without engaging in mandatory bargaining,
the Board's customary remedy is reinstatement and back pay for
the terminated employees. See Saint-Gobain, 426 F.3d at 461. In
contrast, when an employer is not required to bargain about
terminating an employee, but must bargain only about the effects
of that termination (such as severance packages), the Board
generally imposes a more limited remedy, consisting of back pay
dating only from the date of the Board's order, without
reinstatement. See Transmarine Navigation Corp., 170 N.L.R.B.
389, 390 (1968). See also Bridon Cordage, Inc., 329 N.L.R.B.
258, 259 n. 11 (1999) (explaining distinction).
Thus, the argument goes that a person versed in the
tenets of labor law could infer that, because Pan American sought
a limited back pay remedy, the company believed such a remedy was
appropriate because it had no duty to bargain about its
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underlying decision to terminate the employees. I believe,
however, that this court should not have to infer the possible
legal arguments on which a party's complaints before the Board
might be based. For one thing, the Board will be better able to
administer its work if parties are required to make explicit to
the Board the reasons for their objections. This is because,
without such a "clear statement rule," the disposition of a
particular case will depend on the depths to which a particular
appellate panel is willing to dig in order to uncover a plausible
connection between the language used in an objection before the
Board and a theory on which the court might disturb the Board's
order. What is more, to allow parties to raise imprecise
objections in the hopes of later striking gold with the appeals
court "would be to set the Board up for one ambush after
another," Quazite v. NLRB, 87 F.3d 493, 497 (D.C. Cir. 1996),
with the ambushing party's rate of success varying with the level
of labor law expertise held by the circuit court panel to which
the appeal is assigned.7
7
Of course, a party need not use an impossibly precise
formulation of words. For example, in IUE, the court found that
the union had adequately raised the question of whether a remedy
applied retroactively, even though the union's objections did not
mention the word "retroactive." See 727 F.2d at 1193.
Nevertheless, the court's benchmark remained whether the objection
provided sufficient notice to the Board as to the contested issue.
The court found that "in light of the union's objection to the
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In this case, it is hardly certain that Pan American
challenged the ALJ's recommended remedy of reinstatement and back
pay out of the conviction that the company had no duty to bargain
over the underlying management decision (although that is one
possible interpretation). Another interpretation, at least
equally plausible, is that Pan American thought the order of
reinstatement was improper because it no longer had the need for
fifteen additional employees. In fact, Pan American's notice of
exceptions to the Board confirms that this was precisely the
company's position:
[A] full back pay and reinstatement remedy is
not proper in this case inasmuch as it has
been proven that Respondent's operations does
not harbor the need for the 15 positions that
were eliminated as per the modernization and
automation of the plant, which resulted in
the employees' layoffs.
Just as a general objection to "the remedies set forth in the
[ALJ's] decision" does not suffice to raise a later appeal on the
grounds that the remedy was unduly punitive, see Saint-Gobain,
remedy [and the context thereof]. . . it is inconceivable that the
Board did not understand that the union objected on retroactivity
grounds and that the union would raise the issue on appeal." Id.
at 1193 (emphasis added). In contrast, in this case, it is far
from inconceivable that the Board could have failed to discern from
Pan American's exceptions that the company intended to raise the
bargaining issue on appeal. Rather, it is quite possible that Pan
American did not, in fact, have any such intention at the time of
its objections before the Board.
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426 F.3d at 459,8 Pan American's objection to the remedy imposed
in this case, which could be interpreted in various ways, should
not suffice to preserve its current argument on appeal that the
remedy was inappropriate because the company had no duty to
bargain.
I note that this is not a case "[w]here a party
explicitly excepts to a remedy, and offers some explanation for
its objection in its brief" such that we might hold "that there
is sufficient notice to the Board to satisfy section 10(e)."
Alwin Mfg. Co. v. NLRB, 192 F.3d 133, 144 (D.C. Cir. 1999). To
the contrary, in its brief replying to the NLRB General Counsel's
answer to its objections, Pan American merely reiterated its
argument that the ALJ's remedy was unduly burdensome, stating,
"[T]he record stands to the fact that the operations at [the
animal feed production plant] currently do not need 15 additional
employees in order to operate. Therefore, an order to reinstate
the 15 laid off employees . . . is . . . an undue burden on this
party's operations." This is further evidence that Pan American
was not even attempting to raise the bargainability issue before
the Board.9
8
As we noted in Saint-Gobain, "[t]here is no shortage of other
cases to the same effect." See id. at 460 (collecting cases).
9
Moreover, the Board's opinion below is entirely consistent
with the reasonable view that Pan American's objections were
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Our review might be different if resolution of the
duty-to-bargain question were straightforward. But here, the
question is complicated and difficult to resolve, and the Board
would have been justified in concluding, as it evidently did,
that a party intending to raise the issue would have provided the
Board with developed argumentation in support of its position.
As the Supreme Court has said, an employer generally cannot take
unilateral action regarding mandatory subjects of bargaining, but
must first bargain over them with the union. NLRB v. Katz, 369
U.S. 736, 738-39 (1962). Mandatory bargaining subjects include
"terms and conditions of employment." 29 U.S.C. § 158(d). Thus,
limited to (a) an assertion that the company met its duty to
bargain and that it was the Union who refused to cooperate, and (b)
a complaint that the company should not have to reinstate workers
whose labor Pan American felt it no longer needed. The Board's
Decision and Order, in addition to adopting the ALJ's
recommendations, contained two holdings. First, the Board rejected
Pan American's contention that it complied with the Act by
providing the Union an opportunity to bargain. Second, the Board
held that, given that Pan American's decision to lay off employees
was a mandatory subject of bargaining, the remedy of full back pay
and reinstatement was appropriate, rather than the limited remedy
Pan American had requested. Although the Board's failure to
discuss an issue does not necessarily indicate that a party has not
adequately objected, see IUE, 727 F.2d at 1191, the fact that the
Board did not even mention a dispute about whether the layoffs were
bargainable supports my conclusion that the issue, which is a
complicated one, was not raised. In fact, Pan American's imprecise
objection "may well account for the Board's failure to consider
this question in its decision and to make findings with respect to
it," Marshall Field, 318 U.S. at 255, which the majority now
instructs the Board to do on remand.
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an employer cannot unilaterally change employees' working hours
or pay rate, for example, without first bargaining with the
union. Employer decisions such as layoffs, relocations of jobs,
and plant closings, in contrast, are sometimes mandatory subjects
of bargaining and sometimes not, depending on the reasons for the
decision and whether the issues raised by the decision are
amenable to resolution through the bargaining process. See First
Nat'l Maint. Corp. v. NLRB, 452, U.S. 666, 678 (1981). The exact
location of the line separating these two categories of employer
decisions is indistinct. Compare, e.g., United Food & Commercial
Workers Int'l Union, Local 150-A v. NLRB, 1 F.3d 24, 31-32, 35
(D.C. Cir. 1993) (endorsing three-part test for exempting certain
"entrepreneurial control" decisions from duty to bargain) with
Dorsey Trailers, Inc. v. NLRB, 233 F.3d 831, 842-43 (4th Cir.
2000) (holding that as long as employer decision requires capital
expenditure, decision is outside duty to bargain).
In short, the issue of mandatory bargaining is not as
inextricably tied to the question of remedy as the majority
believes. If Pan American wished to challenge the ALJ's finding
that it was required to bargain about the layoffs, it should have
said so clearly. The Board — and this Court — should not be
required to connect the dots without aid from the parties.
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I would grant enforcement of the Board's order in its
entirety.
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