Nat'l Labor Relations Bd. v. Town & Country Elec.

• Decision Date: 28 November 1995
• Docket Number: 94947
• Citation: 516 U.S. 85,133 L.Ed.2d 371,116 S.Ct. 450
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. TOWN & COUNTRY ELECTRIC, INC., and Ameristaff Personnel Contractors, Ltd
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

516 U.S. 85

116 S.Ct. 450

133 L.Ed.2d 371

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner,

v TOWN & COUNTRY ELECTRIC, INC., and Ameristaff Personnel Contractors, Ltd.

No. 94-947.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Oct. 10, 1995.

Decided Nov. 28, 1995.

Syllabus^*

In the course of holding that respondent company committed "unfair labor practices" when it refused to interview or retain 11 job applicants because of their union membership, the National Labor Relations Board determined that all of the applicants were protected "employee[s]" as that word is defined in the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152(3), even though they intended to try to organize the company if they were hired and would have been paid by the union while they set about their organizing. The Eighth Circuit reversed, holding that the statutory word "employee" does not cover (and therefore the Act does not protect from antiunion discrimination) those who work for a company while a union simultaneously pays them to organize that company.

Held: A worker may be a company's "employee," within the terms of the National Labor Relations Act, even if, at the same time, a union pays that worker to help the union organize the company. Pp. 453-457.

(a) The Board may lawfully interpret § 152(3)'s language i.e., "[t]he term 'employee' shall include any employee, and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless this subchapter explicitly states otherwise"—to include company workers who are also paid union organizers. The Board's broad, literal reading of "employee" is entitled to considerable deference as the interpretation of the agency created by Congress to administer the Act. See, e.g., Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, 891, 104 S.Ct. 2803, 2808, 81 L.Ed.2d 732. Moreover, several strong general arguments favor the Board's position. First, the Board's decision is consistent with the Act's language, particularly the "any employee" phrase, which is broad enough to include, under the ordinary dictionary definitions of "employee," those company workers whom a union also pays for organizing. Second, the Board's interpretation is consistent with several of the Act's purposes—such as protecting employees' right to organize for mutual aid without employer interference and encouraging and protecting the collective-bargaining process—and with the legislative history. Third, the Board's reading is consistent with this Court's decisions. See, e.g., ibid. Finally, § 186(c)(1) also seems specifically to contemplate the possibility that a company's employee might also work for a union. Pp. 453-455.

(b) Respondent company's agency law argument—that a paid union organizer is controlled by the union and therefore must be considered the servant (i.e. the "employee") of the union alone fails because the Board's interpretation of "employee" is consistent with the common law of agency, which recognizes that a person may be the servant of two masters at one time as to one act. The company's practical argument—that Congress could not have meant to include paid union organizers as "employees" under the Act in light of the potential for harm to an employer that such workers might pose—suffers from several serious problems and is thus unconvincing. Pp. 455-457.

34 F.3d 625 (CA 8 1994), vacated and remanded.

BREYER, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Lawrence G. Wallace, Washington, DC, for petitioner.

James K. Pease, Jr., Madison, WI, for respondent.

Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.

Can a worker be a company's "employee," within the terms of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., if, at the same time, a union pays that worker to help the union organize the company? We agree with the National Labor Relations Board that the answer is "yes."

I

The relevant background is the following: Town & Country Electric, Inc., a nonunion electrical contractor, wanted to hire several licensed Minnesota electricians for construction work in Minnesota. Town & Country (through an employment agency) advertised for job applicants, but, it refused to interview 10 of 11 union applicants (including two professional union staff) who responded to the advertisement. Its employment agency hired the one union applicant whom Town & Country interviewed, but he was dismissed after only a few days on the job.

The members of the Union (the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Locals 292 and 343) filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming that Town & Country and the employment agency had refused to interview (or retain) them because of their union membership. See National Labor Relations Act (Act) §§ 8(a)(1) and (3), 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(1) and (3) (1988 ed.). An administrative law judge ruled in favor of the Union members, and the Board affirmed that ruling. Town & Country Elec., Inc., 309 N.L.R.B. 1250, 1258, 1992 WL 390106 (1992).

In the course of its decision, the Board determined that all 11 job applicants (including the two Union officials and the one member briefly hired) were "employees" as the Act defines that word. Ibid. The Board recognized that under well-established law, it made no difference that the 10 members who were simply applicants were never hired. See Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U.S. 177, 185-186, 61 S.Ct. 845, 848-849, 85 L.Ed. 1271 (1941) (statutory word "employee" includes job applicants, for otherwise the Act's prohibition of " 'discrimination in regard to hire' " would "serve no function"). Neither, in the Board's view, did it matter (with respect to the meaning of the word "employee") that the Union members intended to try to organize the company if they secured the advertised jobs, nor that the Union would pay them while they set about their organizing. The Board then rejected the company's fact-based explanations for its refusals to interview or to retain these 11 "employees" and held that the company had committed "unfair labor practices" by discriminating on the basis of union membership. Town & Country Elec., supra, at 1250, n. 3, 1256, 1258.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the Board. It held that the Board had incorrectly interpreted the statutory word "employee." In the court's view, that key word does not cover (and therefore the Act does not protect from antiunion discrimination) those who work for a company while a union simultaneously pays them to organize that company. 34 F.3d 625, 629 (1994). See also H.B. Zachry Co. v. NLRB, 886 F.2d 70, 75 (C.A.4 1989). For this threshold reason the court refused to enforce the Board's order.

Because other Circuits have interpreted the word "employee" differently, see, e.g., Willmar Elec. Service, Inc. v. NLRB, 968 F.2d 1327, 1330-1331 (C.A.D.C.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 909, 113 S.Ct. 1252, 122 L.Ed.2d 651 (1993) (paid union organizers can be "employees" protected by the Act); NLRB v. Henlopen Mfg. Co., 599 F.2d 26, 30 (C.A.2 1979) (same), we granted certiorari. We now resolve the conflict in the Board's favor.

II

The National Labor Relations Act seeks to improve labor relations ("eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce," 29 U.S.C. § 151 (1988 ed.)) in large part by granting specific sets of rights to employers and to employees. This case grows out of a controversy about rights that the Act grants to "employees," namely, rights "to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively . . . and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." § 157. We granted certiorari to decide only that part of the controversy that focuses upon the meaning of the word "employee," a key term in the statute, since these rights belong only to those workers who qualify as "employees" as that term is defined in the Act. See, e.g., § 158(a)(1) ("unfair labor practice" to "interfere with . . . employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title") (emphasis added).

The relevant statutory language is the following:

"The term 'employee' shall include any employee, and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless this subchapter explicitly states otherwise, and shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment, but shall not include any individual employed as an agricultural laborer, or in the domestic service of any family or person at his home, or any individual employed by his parent or spouse, or any individual having the status of an independent contractor, or any individual employed as a supervisor, or any individual employed by an employer subject to the Railway Labor Act, as amended from time to time, or by any other person who is not an employer as herein defined." § 152(3) (emphasis added).

We must specifically decide whether the Board may lawfully interpret this language to include company workers who are also paid union organizers.

We put the question in terms of the Board's lawful authority because this Court's decisions recognize that the Board often possesses a degree of legal leeway when it interprets its governing statute, particularly where Congress likely intended an understanding of labor relations to guide the Act's application. See, e.g., Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, 891, 104 S.Ct. 2803, 2808, 81 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984) (interpretations of the Board, the agency that Congress " 'created . . . to administer the Act,' " will be upheld if "reasonably defensible") (internal citation omitted); NLRB v. Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., 494 U.S. 775, 786, 110 S.Ct. 1542, 1549, 108 L.Ed.2d 801 (1990) (Congress delegated to the Board ...