[The National Labor Relations Board found that Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation had discharged 10 employees at its Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, plant because of their union activity and for the purpose of discouraging membership in the union. The Board ordered these employees reinstated with full back pay and ordered that the employer cease and desist from such conduct. When the employer failed to comply with the Board's order, the Board petitioned the court of appeals to enforce the order.
The court of appeals denied the petition, holding that the Board's order lay beyond the range of federal power. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.] HUGHES, C. J.... Effects of the unfair labor practice in respondent's enterprise.-Giving full weight to respondent's contention with respect to a break in the complete continuity of the "stream of commerce" by reason of respondents' manufacturing operations, the fact remains that the stoppage of those operations by industrial strife would have a most serious effect upon interstate commerce. In view of respondent's far-flung activities, it is idle to say that the effect would be indirect or remote.
It is obvious that it would be immediate and might be catastrophic.... When industries organize themselves on a national scale, making their relation to interstate commerce the dominant factor in their activities, how can it be maintained that their industrial labor relations constitute a forbidden field into which Congress may not enter when it is necessary to protect interstate commerce from the paralyzing consequences of industrial war? We have often said that interstate commerce itself is a practical conception. It is equally true that interference with that commerce must be appraised by a judgment that does not ignore actual experience....
The Act does not compel agreements between employers and employees. It does not compel any agreement whatever. It does not prevent the employer "from refusing to make a collective contract and hiring individuals on whatever terms" the employer "may by unilateral action determine." The Act expressly provides in Section 9(a) that any individual employee or a group of employees shall have the right at any time to present grievances to their employer. The theory of the Act is that free opportunity for negotiation with accredited representatives of employees is likely to promote industrial peace and may bring about the adjustments and agreements which the Act in itself does not attempt to compel....
The Act does not interfere with the normal exercise of the right of the employer to select its employees or to discharge them. The employer may not, under cover of that right, intimidate or coerce its employees with respect to their self-organization and representation, and, on the other hand, the Board is not entitled to make its authority a pretext for interference with the right of discharge when that right is exercised for other reasons than such intimidation and coercion. The true purpose is the subject of investigation with full opportunity to show the facts.
It would seem that when employers freely recognize the right of their employees to their own organizations and their unrestricted right of representation there will be much less occasion for controversy in respect to the free and appropriate exercise of the right of selection and discharge.... The order of the Board required the reinstatement of the employees who were found to have been discharged because of their "union activity" and for the purpose of "discouraging membership in the union." That requirement was authorized by the Act. Section 10(c), 29 U.S.C.A. Section 160(c). In Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Railway & S.S. Clerks, supra, a similar order for restoration to service was made by the court in contempt proceedings for the violation of an injunction issued by the court to restrain an interference with the right of employees as guaranteed by the Railway Labor Act of 1926.
The requirement of restoration to service of employees discharged in violation of the provisions of the Act was thus a sanction imposed in the enforcement of a judicial decree. We do not doubt that Congress could impose a like sanction for the enforcement of its valid regulation. The fact that in the one case it was a judicial sanction, and in the other a legislative one, is not an essential difference in determining its propriety. Our conclusion is that the order of the Board was within its competency and that the Act is valid as here applied. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion. Reversed.
Case Questions
1. What action did the Board take after investigation of the charges?
2. Did the court of appeals uphold the Board? On what ground?
3. Does the NLRA compel agreements between employers and employees?