NLRB V. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co. - Decision

Decision

Associate Justice Owen Roberts wrote the decision for a unanimous court. Justice Reed and Justice Cardozo did not participate in the oral argument or decision of the Court.

Half of Justice Roberts' opinion provides, in great detail, the facts of the case in question, covering the contract talks, the strike, the strike's collapse, the offer to return to work, and the various proceedings before the Court of Appeals.

Roberts began the substantive part of the Court's ruling by asserting the Court's jurisdiction without comment and dismissing Mackay Radio's claim that the appeal had violated federal rules of civil procedure.

Roberts next drew two conclusions. First, he found that a current labor dispute had existed as required under Section 2(3). Mackay Radio had argued that it was not at fault for the failed contract talks, but Justice Roberts concluded that was irrelevant. "The wisdom or unwisdom" of the union's decision to strike did not matter; all that mattered was that a current labor dispute existed. Second, Justice Roberts implicitly refused to involve the court in assessing whether Section 2(3) constitutionally made striking workers employees. Roberts quoted the relevant section of the NLRA, and concluded the workers were still employees under the plain meaning of the Act.

Next, Justice Roberts addressed the employer's claim that it was not guilty of an unfair labor practice (ULP). Mackay Radio had asserted that the Board had jurisdiction only over ULP cases, and this was not a ULP case. Justice Roberts agreed that no ULP had been committed in connection with the negotiations. But, in the ruling's most-quoted section, Justice Roberts addressed the question of whether Mackay Radio had committed a ULP for hiring the strikebreakers:

Although section 13 f the act, 29 U.S.C.A. 163, provides, 'Nothing in this Act (chapter) shall be construed so as to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike,' it does not follow that an employer, guilty of no act denounced by the statute, has lost the right to protect and continue his business by supplying places left vacant by strikers. And he is not bound to discharge those hired to fill the places of strikers, upon the election of the latter to resume their employment, in order to create places for them.

The Court cited as authoritative National Labor Relations Board v. Bell Oil & Gas Co., 91 F.2d 509 (5 Cir. 1937). If Mackay Radio had refused to rehire the workers because of anti-union animus, then that would be an unfair labor practice, the court held. Reviewing briefly the evidence generated by the Board during the hearings, Justice Roberts concluded that anti-union animus had motivated the employer and thus reinstatement was proper.

While the employer had claimed that the Board's action violated the due process requirements of the Fifth Amendment. Justice Roberts, citing NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel, concluded that Congress could infringe on property rights for reasonable purposes, including the suppression of labor strife. Hence, the Board's order was not a violation of the Fifth Amendment.

The Court's ruling concluded with a lengthy discussion of the nature of the Board's order. The employer had claimed that the Board's order was arbitrary and capricious. Justice Roberts reviewed at length the Board's evidentiary hearings, the language of the order, and the nature of the charges against Mackay Radio. Mackay Radio's claim, Roberts said, largely turned on whether the Board had failed to define a current labor dispute. But having already dismissed that argument earlier, Roberts concluded that the Board's order was appropriate.

The ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was reversed and remanded.