General Counsel refused to issue a complaint when plaintiff filed an unfair labor charge against former employer
How later courts described this case
- General Counsel refused to issue a complaint when plaintiff filed an unfair labor charge against former employer
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I should be in full agreement with the majority opinion except for my conviction that the respondent lacked jurisdiction because the complaining employees were “fronting” for a non-complying union which was engaged in an organizational campaign.
The respondent says the question whether the employees who filed charges were fronting for the non-complying union is a question of fact, “to be determined by consideration of all the facts to ascertain who is, in effect, the real par *773 ty in interest.” Thus respondent concedes the problem of fronting presents a question of ultimate fact. It involves evaluation and comparison of basic facts and the formulation of a conclusion therefrom.
The Board’s conclusion here that the complaining employees were not fronting does not stand in the same status as its findings of basic facts and, I suggest, is open to judicial scrutiny. The conclusion should not be upheld unless it follows rationally and logically from the basic facts found. I do not think it does.
The respondent said in its decision and order that, in considering the problem of fronting, it is concerned with “the accommodation of these two policies, the protection of the employee and the denial of the processes of this Board to a noncomplying labor organization * * With respect to that, the Board added:
“ * * * We now say only that where it is clear that the rights of an employee under the Act are involved, the protection of those rights is of such paramount importance that we will not deny it simply because a non-complying union may have assisted the individual, or may in some incidental or collateral fashion be aided by our action. * * * ”
The implication seems to be that it would be otherwise in a case where the Board’s action is of direct, immediate and substantial aid to a union not entitled to ask the Board’s aid because it had not complied with § 9(h) of the Act.
There seems to be no express holding here that the non-complying union may be aided by the Board’s- action only “in some incidental or collateral fashion,” but I suppose such a holding is implicit in the decision, since the Board says in its brief, “ * * * [A]ny benefit inuring to the Union was remote and incidental.” This is an expression of opinion, a conclusion as to an ultimate fact, which is unrealistic and without support in the record.
I am fully convinced from the basic facts that these complainants were acting, not really to obtain redress of personal grievances, but to further the interests of the non-complying union which could not itself invoke the processes of the Board. For this reason I dissent.