interpreting similar statutory provision in PERA and concluding that supervisors were the “employer” because the supervisors were “individuaos] having authority in the interests of the employer to hire, transfer, suspend, layoff, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward or discipline other employes” or “to a substantial degree effectively recommend such action ....”
How later courts described this case
- interpreting similar statutory provision in PERA and concluding that supervisors were the “employer” because the supervisors were “individuaos] having authority in the interests of the employer to hire, transfer, suspend, layoff, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward or discipline other employes” or “to a substantial degree effectively recommend such action ....”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Chief Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
I concur in the result but have differences with the majority’s rationale.
Primarily, I believe that the majority opinion deals too loosely with the knowledge element of the litmus for the finding of an unfair labor practice based upon anti-union animus, as reflected in St. Joseph’s Hospital v. PLRB, 473 Pa. 101 , 373 A.2d 1069 (1977). In this regard, the majority appears to largely bifurcate the elements of knowledge of protected union activity and of motive. See, e.g., Majority Opinion, at 1287-88. For example, the majority accepts as sufficient to establish the knowledge-of-protected-activity criterion information known to supervisors lie., Mr. Arnold and Ms. Delgado) other than the one who made the decision to terminate Messrs. Epps and Medina lie., Mr. Fred-ericks). See id. at 1287-88. St. Joseph’s Hospital itself, however, confirms that the knowledge and motive elements are materially interrelated. See, e.g., St. Joseph’s Hosp., 473 Pa. at 107 , 373 A.2d at 1072 (discussing the PLRB’s salient findings that a supervisor knew of the union activities of discharged employees and “that her anti-union attitude combined with this knowledge to motivate the discharges” (emphasis added)). Furthermore, the decision in PLRB v. Cadman, 370 Pa. 1 , 87 *1294 A.2d 643 (1952), also cited by the majority, stands for the proposition that a supervisor’s anti-union expressions could be attributed to the employer, see id. at 3-4 , 87 A.2d at 644 ,- not that knowledge of union activities can be imputed loosely among supervisors.
Obviously, the conventional scenario embodying an unfair labor practice predicated upon anti-union animus occurs when a supervisor with knowledge of union activity on an employee’s part acts in a discriminatory or otherwise improper fashion relative to the employee. See, e.g., St. Joseph’s, 473 Pa. at 107-08 , 373 A.2d at 1072 . This is not to say that the supervisor who takes action must have knowledge, for example, in a scenario in which other employer representatives with knowledge act in a way which materially affects the supervisor’s conduct. Neither the majority. nor the PLRB, however-, has made a meaningful demonstration that this sort of subversion occurred in the present case. 1 Thus, as I read the proposed decision of the hearing examiner, as adopted by the Board, knowledge and anti-union animus' on the part of the supervisor who made the decision to terminate was inferred. Accord Majority Opinion, at 1289-90 (observing that the hearing examiner and the Board rejected as incredible that supervisor’s explanations for the discharge decision). In this regard, and applying the required deference, I find the evidence sufficient to support the Board’s findings.