|
|
First Nat’l Maintenance Corp. v. Nlrb, 452 U.S. 666 (1981)
Contents:
Show Summary
Hide Summary
General SummaryThis case is from a collection containing the full text of over 16,000 Supreme Court cases from 1793 to the present. The body of Supreme Court decisions are, effectively, the final interpretation of the Constitution. Only an amendment to the Constitution can permanently overturn an interpretation and this has happened only four times in American history.
First Nat’l Maintenance Corp. v. Nlrb, 452 U.S. 666 (1981)
First National Maintenance Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board No. 80-544 Argued April 21, 1981 Decided June 22, 1981 452 U.S. 666
CERTIORARI TO TE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
Syllabus
Petitioner, a company engaged in the business of providing housekeeping, cleaning, maintenance, and related services for commercial customers, had a contract to do maintenance work for a nursing home. As a result of a dispute with the home over the size of the management fee, petitioner terminated the contract, and petitioner’s employees who worked at the nursing home were discharged. While the contract was still in effect, a labor union was certified as the bargaining representative for petitioner’s employees at the nursing home. The union, upon learning of petitioner’s intention to discharge these employees, requested a delay from petitioner for the purpose of bargaining, but petitioner refused to bargain. The union then filed an unfair labor practice charge against petitioner, alleging violation of its duty to bargain in good faith "with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment" under §§ 8(d) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board upheld the charge and ordered petitioner, if it agreed to resume the nursing home operations, to reinstate the discharged employees or, if agreement was not reached, to offer the employees equivalent jobs at its other operations. The Court of Appeals enforced the Board’s order, holding that, while no per se rule could be formulated to govern an employer’s decision to close part of its business, § 8(d) creates a presumption in favor of mandatory bargaining over such a decision, which presumption is rebuttable by showing that the purposes of the NLRA would not be furthered by imposing a duty to bargain.
Held: Although required to bargain about the effects of such a decision, petitioner had no duty to bargain over its decision to terminate the nursing home contract. The facts of Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U.S. 203, distinguished. Pp. 674-688.
(a) In view of an employer’s need for unencumbered decisionmaking in the conduct of its business, bargaining over management decisions that have a substantial impact on the continued availability of employment should be required only if the benefit, for labor-management relations and the collective bargaining process, outweighs the burden placed on the conduct of the business. Pp. 674-680.
(b) The harm likely to be done to an employer’s need to operate freely in deciding whether to shut down part of its business purely for economic reasons outweighs the incremental benefit that might be gained through the union’s participation in making that decision. The decision itself is not part of § 8(d)’s "terms and conditions of employment" over which Congress has mandated bargaining. Pp. 680-686.
627 F.2d 596, reversed and remanded.
BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and STEWART, WHITE, POWELL, REHNQUIST, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 688.
Contents:
Chicago: U.S. Supreme Court, "Syllabus," First Nat’l Maintenance Corp. v. Nlrb, 452 U.S. 666 (1981) in 452 U.S. 666 452 U.S. 667. Original Sources, accessed November 24, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H9IL9CN9YWXYFUY.
MLA: U.S. Supreme Court. "Syllabus." First Nat’l Maintenance Corp. v. Nlrb, 452 U.S. 666 (1981), in 452 U.S. 666, page 452 U.S. 667. Original Sources. 24 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H9IL9CN9YWXYFUY.
Harvard: U.S. Supreme Court, 'Syllabus' in First Nat’l Maintenance Corp. v. Nlrb, 452 U.S. 666 (1981). cited in 1981, 452 U.S. 666, pp.452 U.S. 667. Original Sources, retrieved 24 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=H9IL9CN9YWXYFUY.
|