Standard Oil Company of California, WO, Inc. v. NLRB
| Decision Date | 20 August 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 21953.,21953. |
| Citation | 399 F.2d 639 |
| Parties | STANDARD OIL COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA, WESTERN OPERATIONS, INC., Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Noble K. Gregory (argued), Charles E. Voltz, C. F. Prael, John C. Cook, of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, San Francisco, Cal., for appellant.
Solomon I. Hirsh (argued), Janet Kohn, N.L.R.B. attys., Robert B. Hoffman, Director, N.L.R.B., Levy, DeRoy, Geffner & Van Bourg, San Francisco, Cal., Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., for appellee.
Before MADDEN, Judge of the United States Court of Claims; HAMLEY, Circuit Judge, and BOLDT, District Judge.
This is a proceeding brought by the petitioner, hereinafter called the Company, to review an order of the National Labor Relations Board which held that the Company had violated the National Labor Relations Act. The important violation found by the Board was the Company's refusal to furnish to a labor union, Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, Richmond, California, Local 1-561, AFL-CIO, hereinafter called the Union, which was the statutory bargaining agent of a unit of the Company's employees, the home addresses of the employees in the unit. The refusal was asserted by the Board, in its complaint against the Company, to be a violation of section 8(a) (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, hereinafter called the NLRA, or the Act, 29 USC § 158(a) (5), which section imposes upon an employer the statutory duty to bargain collectively with the representative of its employees. The Board also asserted a violation by the Company of § 8(a) (1) of the NLRA, but we shall have no further occasion to refer to that assertion until near the end of this opinion.
The case presents no problem relating to the jurisdiction of the Board, or of this court.
The Company operates an oil refinery at Richmond, California, where it employs some 2600 persons. The Union represents a unit consisting of the production and maintenance workers of the refinery. There are some 1500 employees in the unit. A small majority of the 1500 are, presumably, members of the Union, and some 700 of them are not members. The Union has been the collective bargaining representative of all the employees in the unit, since about 1950, and during the time involved in this case there was a collective bargaining agreement between the Company and the Union, which was amended, and, as amended, was renewed for another year. The agreement did not provide for a "union shop" under which every employee would be obliged to join the Union, or at least pay dues to the Union. It did provide for "maintenance of membership" under which an employee who joined the Union was obliged to maintain that membership during his employment by the Company.
The Union, as the statutory exclusive bargaining agent for all the employees in the unit, was obliged by the Act to fairly represent the interests of all the employees in the unit, the non-members of the Union of whom there were some 700, as well as the members, of whom there were some 800. To perform this statutory duty adequately, it was necessary that the Union be able to communicate with those whom it represented, i.e., with all 1500 of the employees in the unit. The Company's duty to bargain collectively with the Union as the representative of 1500 employees was not fulfilled by bargaining with the Union if the Union had no means of communication with some 700 of the 1500 employees represented by it, and it was readily within the power of the Company to make it possible for the Union to communicate with the members of the unit who were not members of the Union. In that situation the Union might poll its 800 members as to a term of a proposed contract, and learn that 500 of its members were favorable and 300 opposed. It might then agree, in collective bargaining with the Company, to that term, although all of the 700 non-members of the Union, as well as 300 members, i.e., 1000 employees of the 1500 in the unit might be opposed to the provision.
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