440 Pa. 448 | Pa. | 1970
Opinion by
This equity action was brought by Local 252 of the Building Service Employees International Union (Union) against the operators of 19 private nursing and convalescent homes in the Philadelphia area (the Employers)
The agreement which the Union sought to enforce was executed January 23, 1962 and was, in effect, an extension of a prior collective bargaining agreement entered into in 1959. The Employers contend that at the time this original agreement was executed by them, the Union did not represent a majority of the employees of each nursing home. From this they conclude that the execution of the 1959 agreement, which recognized the Union as exclusive bargaining agent for the employees of all the nursing homes, constituted an unfair labor practice under Section 6 of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act, Act of June 1, 1937, P. L. 1168, §6, as amended, 43 P.S. §211.6, and that the 1962 agreement, as an extension of the earlier one, is invalid and unenforceable because it violates the public policy of the Commonwealth as expressed in the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act.
The Employers emphasize that they are not seeking redress of an unfair labor practice, but only judicial cognizance that the execution of the 1959 agreements, and, by the same token, the execution of the 1962 agreement, were unfair practices and that such unfair practices constitute a complete defense to enforcement of the agreement. We hold that this defense is not available, because exclusive jurisdiction to find and prevent unfair labor practices rests with the federal or state labor relations board, as the case may be. See the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act, supra, 43 P.S. 211.8, and the National Labor Relations Act, §10(a), 48 Stat. 926, as amended, 29 U.S.C. §160(a). The Pennsylvania act expressly provides that the power of the Board to prevent any person from engaging in any unfair labor practice “shall be exclusive and shall not be affected by any other means of adjustment or prevention that have been or may be established by agreement, law, or otherwise.” 'While this provision speaks directly to preventing, as distinguished from determining the occurrence of, an unfair labor practice, we think the latter function is implicitly embraced in the former. While the federal statute is not so explicit as to exclusivity, the United States Supreme Court has construed it to mean that the NLRB has “. . . exclusive power to decide whether unfair labor practices have been committed and to determine the action the employer must take to remove or avoid the consequences of his unfair labor practice.” National Licorice Co. v. NLRB, 309 U.S. 350, 365 (1940).
Similar reasoning no doubt led the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the identical contention raised by the Employers here. Pennington v. United Mine Workers of America, 325 F. 2d 804, 819 (6th Cir. 1963), reversed on other grounds, 381 U.S. 657 (1965). After stating the holding in the Bernhard-Altmann case, supra, that court reasoned: “The Court [in Bernhard-Altmann] did not have before it the question of the validity of the contract in a common law action to enforce it. The issue which it was passing upon was whether the execution of the contract constituted an unfair labor practice, and, if so, what was the proper remedy. The remedy was to direct the parties to cease and desist from operating under it. Because of the unfair labor practices the agreement failed to be bind
Since the determination of the occurrence of an unfair labor practice does not lie within the jurisdiction of the courts, no grounds have been presented in this case upon which the collective bargaining agreement could be held invalid. The learned Chancellor was therefore correct in finding it valid and ordering compliance therewith.
In his decree the Chancellor retained jurisdiction over the matter so that the damages suffered by the Union might be ascertained and awarded. This part of the decree was in error. Once the validity of the agreement had been established, the correct disposition
Decree affirmed as modified. Each side to bear its own costs.
All of the 19 Employers were members of the Philadelphia Nursing Association, which negotiated the agreement on their behalf as a multi-employer bargaining unit.
The court below made no finding of fact as to whether the Union did have majority status at the time of the execution of the initial agreement; nor did it make any conclusion of law as to whether the execution of the agreement constituted an unfair labor practice. The court found only that at the time of entering into the agreement the Union claimed to represent a majority of the employees of all the nursing homes and that the Employers, by entering into the agreement, acknowledged such representation. While resolution of this factual question is not essential to our decision, we note that the record would have supported a finding by the lower court that while the Union may not have represented a majority of the employees in each of the 19 nursing homes in 1959, it did represent a majority of the total number of employees em
This rule is subject to an exception not here material, viz., a suit for breach of contract in which the breach is also an unfair
It is irrelevant to the determination of this case, and we do not decide, which board would have had jurisdiction to determine in the first instance whether an unfair labor practice was committed in this case.
In light of this disposition, we need not discuss the other ground upon which the court below based its decision, viz., that the Employers, having accepted and complied with the labor agreements in question from 1959 to 1962, and having been privy to the alleged unfair labor practice, are now estopped to assert the invalidity of the agreement which they entered into with advice of counsel.