National Labor Relations Board v. MacKay Radio & Telegraph Co.
The Supreme Court ruled that telegraph workers who went on strike remained "employees" under the National Labor Relations Act, and that the company committed an unfair labor practice when it singled out five active union members and kept them from returning to work while letting other strikers come back.
The decision confirms that a company can hire permanent replacements to keep running during a strike and need not fire them to make room for returning strikers, but it cannot use that process as cover to punish specific workers for their union activity.
How it got here: The National Labor Relations Board ordered reinstatement and back pay, but the Circuit Court of Appeals refused to enforce the order, prompting the Board to seek Supreme Court review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A telegraph company's San Francisco radio operators, members of a union local, went on strike in October 1935 after nationwide contract talks stalled. When the strike collapsed within days, most strikers were allowed back, but the company set aside eleven strikers for special screening, and five of them—active union members—were never rehired even after positions opened up.
The question before the Court
Could a company refuse to bring back some strikers because of their union activity, and did those strikers still count as employees while they were on strike?
Why it matters
Workers who strike over a labor dispute don't automatically lose their legal protections or their status as employees, so employers can't use a strike as an excuse to weed out union activists when strikers offer to return. At the same time, businesses facing a strike can keep hiring temporary or permanent replacements to stay open without being forced to displace them once the strike ends.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the Circuit Court of Appeals with instructions to enforce the Board's order requiring the company to reinstate the five discriminated-against workers with back pay and to post notices against further union discrimination. This is a final merits ruling on the legal questions, though the lower court still had to carry out enforcement consistent with the Supreme Court's opinion.
What this does not decide
The Court made clear it was not deciding that employers must displace permanent replacement workers to make room for returning strikers, nor that hiring replacements during a strike is itself unlawful. The ruling is limited to barring discrimination against specific strikers because of their union activity.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the National Labor Relations Act's definition of 'employee' to include anyone whose work stopped because of a current labor dispute, meaning the strikers had not given up their status as employees simply by walking out.
- Because the strike arose from unsatisfied contract negotiations, the Court found it counted as a 'current labor dispute' under the Act even though the record did not spell out exactly why the talks failed or who was to blame for the breakdown.
- The Court held that hiring replacement workers to keep the business running during a strike, and later declining to displace those replacements once the strike ended, is not itself an unfair labor practice — an employer is not required to fire people hired to fill vacant strikers' jobs.
- However, the Court held that once a company chooses to bring strikers back, using that process to single out and exclude specific workers because of their union activity is discrimination against employees for exercising their organizing rights, which the Act forbids.
- The Court found the Board's factual findings — that the company created a special list of eleven strikers, let six return without screening, and kept out five prominent union activists using a pretextual excuse — were supported by the evidence in the record.
- The Court rejected the argument that ordering reinstatement and back pay violated the Fifth Amendment, reasoning that Congress may impose reasonable regulations on employment relationships to protect commerce from labor strife, similar to reinstatement orders it had already upheld in an earlier steel-industry case.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (301 U. S. 1)
Relies on this earlier ruling to support Congress's power to require reinstatement of workers as a valid labor regulation.
Reaffirms National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines (303 U. S. 261)
Cites this case for the principle that the Board's relief should be tailored to fit the specific situation.