National Labor Relations Board v. Fant Milling Company/Opinion of the Court

The National Labor Relations Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to bargain in good faith with the representative of his employees. The question presented by this case is the extent to which the Labor Board may, in formulating a complaint and in finding a violation of this section of the Act, take cognizance of events occurring subsequent to the filing of the charge upon which the complaint is based.

Pursuant to an election a union was certified in June 1953 as the exclusive bargaining representative for an appropriate unit of the respondent's employees at its plant in Sherman, Texas. During the ensuing months agents of the union and of the respondent met on several occasions for the supposed purpose of working out a collective bargaining contract. By May 20, 1954, several such meetings had taken place, but no agreement had been reached.

On that date the union filed a charge with the Regional Director of the Board, alleging that the respondent had violated s 8(a)(5) of the Act by refusing to bargain collectively with the union. Two months later the Regional Director advised the union that he was refusing to issue a complaint on the ground that 'it does not appear that there is sufficient evidence of violations to warrant further proceedings at this time.' The union requested the General Counsel of the Board to review this refusal.

In the meantime and until October 1954 more than a dozen further meetings were held between representatives of the union and of the respondent. No real progress towards reaching an agreement was made. In October, while negotiations were still going on, the respondent unilaterally put into effect a general wage increase without prior notice to the union. A few weeks later the respondent advised the union that it was withdrawing recognition and that it would refuse any further bargaining conferences.

Thereafter, in January 1955, the Regional Director informed the union that 'upon reconsideration of the facts and circumstances, and additional evidence furnished us in connection with our investigation in the above matter, we have decided to and are hereby withdrawing our refusal to issue Complaint with respect to the 8(a)(5) allegation of refusal to bargain. * *  * We shall proceed with our investigation in due course.' Later the Board's General Counsel advised the union as follows: 'With respect to the 8(a)(5) allegation of refusal to bargain; the Regional Director advised the parties by letter dated January 24, 1955, that he was withdrawing his dismissal of the 8(a)(5) portion of the charge and was continuing with the investigation thereof. All further inquiries with respect to the 8(a)(5) allegation should be addressed to the Regional Director.' Five days afterwards the Regional Director issued a complaint, alleging that 'on or about November 21, 1953, and at all times thereafter, Respondent did refuse and continues to refuse to bargain collectively * *  * '; that 'On or about October 7, 1954, Respondent, without notice to the Union, put into effect a general wage icre ase *  *  * '; and that by those acts 'Respondent did engage in and is hereby engaging in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of Section 8(a), subsection (5) of the Act.'

The Board, agreeing with its Trial Examiner, held that the respondent had refused to bargain collectively with the union within the meaning of the Act, finding that 'after November 21, 1953, * *  * the Respondent was merely going through the motions of collective bargaining without a genuine intention of trying to negotiate an agreement with the Union as required by the provisions of the Act.' An appropriate order was accordingly issued. 117 N.L.R.B. 1277. The Board expressly held that the respondent's unilateral grant of a general wage increase in October of 1954, although occurring subsequent to the original charge and not the subject of an amended charge, was properly included as a subject of the complaint. Moreover, its finding of a refusal to bargain was largely influenced by this specific conduct on the part of the respondent. One member of the Board dissented upon the ground that the October wage increase could not lawfully be made the basis of a finding that the respondent had violated the Act.

The Court of Appeals denied the Board's petition for enforcement. 258 F.2d 851, 855. Substantially agreeing with the reasoning of the dissenting Board member, the court held that § 10 (b) of the Act requires 'that a charge must set up facts showing an unfair labor practice * *  *, and the facts must be predicated on actions which have already been taken.' (Emphasis in original.) It further held that 'the complaint must faithfully reflect the facts constituting the unfair labor practices as presented in the charge.'

To attribute so tightly restricted a function to a Board complaint is, as this Court pointed out in National Licorice Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 309 U.S. 350, 60 S.Ct. 569, 84 L.Ed. 799, not consonant with the basic scheme of the Act. One of the issues in that case was substantially identical to the issue presented here-'whether the jurisdiction of the Board is limited to such unfair labor practices as are set up in the charge presented to the Board so as to preclude its determination that (certain actions on the part of the employer) involved unfair labor practices, since both occurred after the charge was lodged with the Board * *  * .' 309 U.S. at page 357, 60 S.Ct. at page 574. The Court's resolution of the issue was unambiguous:

'It is unnecessary for us to consider now how far the     statutory requirement of a charge as a condition precedent to      a complaint excludes from the subsequent proceedings matters      existing when the charge was filed, but not included in it. Whatever restrictions the requirements of a charge may be     thought to place upon subsequent proceedings by the Board, we      can find no warrant in the language or purposes of the Act for saying that it precludes the Board from      dealing adequately with unfair labor practices which are      related to those alleged in the charge and which grow out of      them while the proceeding is pending before the Board. The     violations alleged in the complaint and found by the Board      were but a prolongation of the attempt to form the company      union and to secure the contracts alleged in the charge. All     are of the same class of violations as those set up in the      charge and were continuations of them in pursuance of the      same objects. The Board's jurisdiction having been invoked to     deal with the first steps, it had authority to deal with      those which followed as a consequence of those already taken. We think the court below correctly held that 'the Board was     within its power in treating the whole sequence as one." 309      U.S. 350, at page 369, 60 S.Ct. 569, at page 579.

In the present case, as in National Licorice, the unilateral wage increase was 'of the same class of violations as those set up in the charge * *  * .' The wage increase was 'related to' the conduct alleged in the charge and developed as one aspect of that conduct 'while the proceeding (was) pending before the Board.'

A charge filed with the Labor Board is not to be measured by the standards applicable to a pleading in a private lawsuit. Its purpose is merely to set in motion the machinery of an inquiry. National Labor Relations Board v. Indiana & Michigan Electric Co., 318 U.S. 9, 18, 63 S.Ct. 394, 400, 87 L.Ed. 579. The responsibility of making that inquiry, and of framing the issues in the case is one that Congress has imposed upon the Board, not the charging party. To confine the Board in its inquiry and in framing the complaint to the specific matters alleged in the charge would reduce the statutory machinery to a vehicle for the vindication of private rights. Thi wo uld be alien to the basic purpose of the Act. The Board was created not to adjudicate private controversies but to advance the public interest in eliminating obstructions to interstate commerce, as this Court has recognized from the beginning. National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893.

Once its jurisdiction is invoked the Board must be left free to make full inquiry under its broad investigatory power in order properly to discharge the duty of protecting public rights which Congress has imposed upon it. There can be no justification for confining such an inquiry to the precise particularizations of a charge. For these reasons we adhere to the views expressed in National Licorice Co. v. National Labor Relations Board.

What has been said is not to imply that the Board is, in the words of the Court of Appeals, to be left 'carte blanche to expand the charge as they might please, or to ignore it altogether.' 258 F.2d at page 856. Here we hold only that the Board is not precluded from 'dealing adequately with unfair labor practices which are related to those alleged in the charge and which grow out of them while the prceeding is pending before the Board.' National Licorice Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 309 U.S. 350, at page 369, 60 S.Ct. 569, at page 579, 84 L.Ed. 799. It follows in the present case that the October wage increase was a proper subject of the Board's complaint and was properly considered by the Board in reaching its decision.

Reversed.