Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/698

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LECHMERE, INC. v. NLRB Opinion of the Court

26 (CA2 1967). Babcock’s exception was crafted precisely to protect the § 7 rights of those employees who, by virtue of their employment, are isolated from the ordinary flow of information that characterizes our society. The union’s burden of establishing such isolation is, as we have explained, “a heavy one,” Sears, supra, at 205, and one not satisfied by mere conjecture or the expression of doubts concerning the effectiveness of nontrespassory means of communication. The Board’s conclusion in this case that the union had no reasonable means short of trespass to make Lechmere’s employees aware of its organizational efforts is based on a misunderstanding of the limited scope of this exception. Because the employees do not reside on Lechmere’s property, they are presumptively not “beyond the reach,” Babcock, 351 U. S., at 113, of the union’s message. Although the employees live in a large metropolitan area (Greater Hartford), that fact does not in itself render them “inaccessible” in the sense contemplated by Babcock. See Monogram Models, Inc., 192 N. L. R. B. 705, 706 (1971). Their accessibility is suggested by the union’s success in contacting a substantial percentage of them directly, via mailings, phone calls, and home visits. Such direct contact, of course, is not a necessary element of “reasonably effective” communication; signs or advertising also may suffice. In this case, the union tried advertising in local newspapers; the Board said that this was not reasonably effective because it was expensive and might not reach the employees. 295 N. L. R. B., at 93. Whatever the merits of that conclusion, other alternative means of communication were readily available. Thus, signs (displayed, for example, from the public grassy strip adjoining Lechmere’s parking lot) would have informed the employees about the union’s organizational efforts. (Indeed, union organizers picketed the shopping center’s main entrance for months as employees came and went every day.) Access to employees, not success in winning them over, is the critical issue—although success, or lack thereof, may be relevant in determining