The National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) seeks enforcement of its order requiring Cell Agricultural Manufacturing Company (“CAMCO”) to offer full reinstatement to three of its former employees, to pay back wages and benefits to laid off employees, and to bargain with the Sheet Metal Workers International Association (“Union”). We grant enforcement in part and deny enforcement in part.
I.
CAMCO makes agricultural machinery, specifically large potato planters and harvesters. Its two facilities are located within a quarter mile of each other in Braham, Minnesota. At its main facility (“assembly plant”), CAMCO fabricates parts and assembles them into machines. The machines are subsequently taken to its other facility (“rubber plant”) where certain parts are coated with rubber or are treated with fiberglass.
CAMCO was formed in January 1990 and is wholly owned by the Cell family. Gordon Cell is the president of CAMCO and his son Gary Cell is the vice-president for operations. Prior to 1990, virtually the same business operated at the CAMCO sites under the name Dahlman, Inc. (“Dahlman”). Gordon Cell was president of Dahlman from 1983 until it went bankrupt. While the Dahlman corporation operated the .business, its employees at both facilities were represented as a single bargaining unit by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. The relationship between management and the Teamsters was amicable. Since CAMCO was organized, its employees have not been represented by a union.
In April 1991, CAMCO employee Scott Witte contacted Michael LaFave, a representative of the Sheet Metal Workers Association. Nineteen of the thirty-three assembly plant employees met with LaFave on April 22. One company supervisor was also present. Seventeen employees signed union authorization cards. Within the next week, five additional employees signed authorization cards. 1
Gary Cell learned about the meeting through an unnamed source on either April 22 or April 23. On April 24, Cell laid off all of CAMCO’s employees without any prior notice. Cell informed the employees that the company was reorganizing and that anyone who wanted to be rehired would have to fill out a new employment application within the next two days and interview with their current supervisor. During previous layoffs, CAMCO had never required employees to submit new applications or to be reinter-viewed. Gary Cell testified that for about a month prior to the mass layoff there had been a work slowdown at CAMCO that was jeopardizing the company’s ability to meet its manufacturing deadlines.
Over the next few days, CAMCO rehired all but three of its employees: Gary Hackler, Alvin Thomas, and Witte. Prior to the layoff, all three had lobbied vigorously for increased pay and had discussed what they regarded as CAMCO’s unfair wage structure with other employees. Additionally, Thomas had served as union steward for the Dahlman company employees. CAMCO claimed, with supporting evidence, that Witte was not rehired because of chronic absenteeism and excessive socialization during working hours, that Thomas was not rehired because of excessive socialization and a refusal to weld any more frames until his pay was increased, and that Hackler was not rehired because he *393 refused reasonable work requests by Ms supervisor. All three were arguably instigating or engaging in a work slowdown.
In conjunction with CAMCO’s rehiring of its other employees, the company raised the wages of eleven assembly plant employees, nine of whom had signed union authorization cards. Prior to the mass layoff, CAMCO consistently had refused requests for wage increases. In a letter to hourly employees dated April 19,1991, Gordon Cell stated that “we have got to have several good months of shipments to make up the deficits and, unfortunately, until we are profitable, we simply cannot grant wage increases.” NLRB General Counsel’s Exhibit 4.
The Union filed charges against CAMCO on May 22, 1991, and filed amended charges and a complaint on June 20, 1991. The Union alleged that the mass layoff and refusal to rehire Hackler, Thomas, and Witte constituted unfair labor practices in violation of sections 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (3). 2 The Umon further alleged that the post-layoff wage increases violated section 8(a)(1). CAMCO answered the charges in a July 5, 1991, letter from Gordon Cell. On July 22, 1991, the Board ordered a hearing on the charges, and on August 5, 1991, CAMCO filed an amended and consolidated answer.
The hearing was held before an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) on October 1 and 2, 1991. The ALJ found that CAMCO laid off its work force, refused to rehire three employees, and granted wage increases to eleven rehired employees in response to union activities protected by the Act. The judge concluded that CAMCO’s mass layoff and refusal to rehire Hackler, Thomas, and Witte violated sections 8(a)(1) and (3) of the Act. The judge further concluded that the post-layoff wage increases violated section 8(a)(1). After determining that the assembly plant was an appropriate bargaining unit under the Act, the ALJ recommended that CAMCO be ordered to cease and desist from any further unfair labor practices, to offer reinstatement to Hackler, Thomas, and Witte, to pay any wages and benefits lost by CAMCO employees as a result of the mass lay-off, and to recognize and bargain with the Union as the agent for the assembly plant employees.
The Board affirmed the findings and conclusions of the ALJ and adopted his proposed order.
Cell Agricultural Mfg. Co.,
II.
In response to the Board’s petition for enforcement of its order, CAMCO challenges the Board’s findings that the mass layoff, the refusal to rehire three employees, and the post-layoff wage increases were unfair labor practices. We review the Board’s factual findings to determine whether they are supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole.
Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB,
A.
As to the mass layoff, the Board found that CAMCO laid off all of its employees because some employees were engaged in union activities. The Board specifically found that CAMCO hoped the mass layoff would discourage its employees from continuing to seek representation. The Board further found that CAMCO would have continued to employ Hackler, Thomas, and Witte if CAMCO had not engaged in the unlawfully motivated mass layoff, that the termination of their employment was a direct consequence of the unlawful conduct, and that the likely result of the action was “to reinforce the employees’ fear that they would lose employment if they persisted in union activity.”
Cell,
We have reviewed the administrative record. Although there is room for doubt, we cannot say that the Board’s findings are unsupported by substantial evidence when the record is reviewed as a whole. The mass layoff occurred only two days after a union organizing meeting, and the testimony of Gary Cell established that he was aware of the meeting prior to deciding that all of the assembly plant employees would be laid off. The layoff was announced without warning in the middle of the workday. Gary Cell testified that the layoff was the company’s response to a work slowdown by dissatisfied employees. The work slowdown, however, was not mentioned by any company official at the time of the layoff; CAMCO referred only to a lack of work to be performed and a corporate reorganization. The reorganization, if there was one, consisted of a direction to supervisors to exercise authority they already had been given. Additionally, employees were told in their rehiring interviews to be satisfied with the terms of their employment or work elsewhere. Given the circumstances, reasonable employees could interpret this message as an order to forget about getting a union at CAMCO.
Of the thirty-three assembly plant employees laid off on April 24, CAMCO refused to rehire only three: Hackler, Thomas and Witte. All three had signed union authorization cards, and all three had made direct complaints to management regarding employment terms. Witte was instrumental in setting up the initial meeting with the Union. Discharging prominent union supporters can effectively defeat a representation campaign. Taken in the context of a mass layoff within forty-eight hours of a union organizing meeting and the unplanned wage-rate increases granted to some of the subsequently rehired employees, discussed below, the Board found that CAMCO was motivated at least in part by anti-union sentiment. CAMCO, on the other hand, argues that these three employees would have been discharged in any event for absenteeism, low productivity, or insubordination. The three employees, however, never were told they were being discharged or why. Prior to being laid off, they were not reprimanded for, nor were they given an opportunity to correct, their alleged shortcomings.
We conclude that substantial evidence supports the Board’s findings that the mass layoff was designed to discourage employee support for the Union and that Hackler, Thomas, and Witte, would have retained their jobs but for the organizing campaign.
B.
CAMCO also argues that the finding that its post-layoff wage increases were motivated by anti-union animus is not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. We disagree.
Granting a wage increase is an effective method of defeating an effort to organize a union because it removes from the table a
*395
major issue around which an organizing effort is built. A wage increase, motivated by a desire to thwart a representation campaign, clearly violates the National Labor Relations Act.
See NLRB v. Exchange Parts Co.,
CAMCO argues that it was planning to revise its wage scale prior to the April 22 meeting with the Union’s representative. This uncommumcated and undocumented plan, however, does not vitiate the substantial evidence before the Board indicating that the wage increases were motivated by anti-union animus. We cannot say that the Board’s finding is unsupported by substantial evidence.
III.
We turn now to CAMCO’s contention that, even if the unfair labor practice charges are sustained, the Board’s finding that the as-
sembly plant employees constitute an appropriate bargaining unit is not supported by substantial evidence. • As a result, CAMCO argues, the Board lacked authority to issue a bargaining order because the Union never achieved majority support in an appropriate bargaining unit.
See NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co.,
Section 9(a) of the Act provides for the designation or selection of an exclusive bargaining representative “by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such
purposes_” 29 U.S.C. § 159(a). Section
9(b) of the Act requires the Board to decide whether a particular unit of employees is appropriate for exclusive representation.
Id.
§ 159(b). The Board must consider whether the employees share a “community of interests.”
Cedar Valley Corp. v. NLRB,
L.Ed.2d 246 (1993). The relevant factors in the community-of-interests analysis include “bargaining history, operational integration, geographic proximity, copimon supervisor, similarity in job function, and employee interchange.”
Id.,
The Board, adopting without comment the ALJ’s findings and conclusion, decided that the assembly plant employees constituted an appropriate bargaining unit and that the Union had achieved majority support because twenty-two of the thirty-three assembly plant employees had signed union authorization cards. After carefully reviewing the administrative record, we conclude that the ALJ misapplied the community-of-interests analysis 3 and that the ALJ’s find *396 ings on the relevant factors are not supported by substantial evidence.
First, the ALJ considered but confused the geographic proximity and the functional integration factors, stating that “[w]ith regard to functional integration, the record shows a close geographic proximity between the two plants.”
Cell,
With regard to geographic proximity, it is simply irrelevant that the two plants had separate addresses or were apparently divided by a fence; the plants were less than 1500 feet apart. While the ALJ correctly stated that geographic proximity “is not the determinative factor,” it is a factor. In this case, the substantial evidence shows that the close geographic proximity weighs in favor of a finding that the two plants share a community of interests.
The ALJ’s notion of “functional integration,” limited as it apparently was to geographic proximity, is clearly too narrow. The evidence shows that every product CAMCO sells requires work in both plants. During the manufacturing process, machines frequently move from the assembly plant to the rubber plant and back to the assembly plant again. Thus there is operational integration of the two plants.
See Mayflower Contract Services v. NLRB,
With regard to the factor of common supervision, the ALJ noted evidence of “centralized administration of operations” such as “polieies ... uniformly applicable to employees working at both plants” and “uniform wage ranges and benefits ... applied to employees at both plants.”
Cell,
The ALJ also considered, but did not give sufficient weight to, the bargaining history between Gordon Cell and CAMCO’s employees, calling it “relatively remote” and noting that a “different employer operates the facility.”
Cell,
The ALJ’s cursory consideration of the similarity in job function between assembly plant and rubber plant employees also misses the mark. The ALJ noted that the types of machines used in the two plants are substantially different, and then concluded that “[djistinct operations are performed in each of those plants_”
Cell,
With regard to employee interchange, we agree with the ALJ that the record in this case shows this factor weighing in favor of a single-plant bargaining unit. This factor alone, however, cannot constitute substantial evidence supporting the Board’s overall finding that a single-plant unit is appropriate. The overwhelming evidence put forward by CAMCO with regard to the other factors shows that a single-plant unit is an inappropriate bargaining unit in this ease. After a proper application of the community-of-interests test, the substantial evidence supports only one plausible conclusion: the appropriate bargaining unit for CAMCO’s employees must include both the assembly plant and the rubber plant. Thus we hold that the Board’s finding that the assembly plant employees formed an appropriate bargaining unit is not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole.
Our conclusion regarding the appropriate bargaining unit means that the Board’s bargaining order cannot stand. The Board has authority to issue a bargaining order in response to “less extraordinary” unfair labor practices
5
only “when there is also a showing that at one point the union had a majority.”
Gissel,
IV.
While our decision in this case does not require us to consider the propriety of the Board’s bargaining order had the Union attained majority support in an appropriate bargaining unit, we do want to comment on that part of the Board’s opinion declaring that “[ejvidence concerning employee turnover [after unfair labor practices have been committed] is an irrelevant consideration when assessing the propriety of a
Gissel
bargaining order.”
Cell,
For over two decades, the Board has maintained a running feud with the courts of appeals regarding whether changed
*398
circumstances after an employer’s unlawful conduct, such as employee turnover or the passage of time, which tend to erode majority support for a union, are relevant to the Board’s decision to impose a bargaining order.
See, e.g., NLRB v. American Cable Sys.,
that changes up to time of hearing are relevant);
but see NLRB v. Bakers of Paris,
In this case, it is apparent that the Board did not set aside its traditional view regarding the relevance of changed circumstances. Moreover, to the extent the Board gave any consideration to CAMCO’s changed circumstances, it did not carefully weigh the evidence of employee turnover. The Board’s opinion supports our assessment by erroneously connecting the cause of CAMCO’s high turnover rate to its violations of the Act. 7 The undisputed evidence shows that only one in three CAMCO employees stayed at CAM-CO more than a year even prior to CAMCO’s unfair labor practices. Additionally, at the hearing in this case the ALJ stated on the record that evidence of high turnover is “not an argument that’s going to have great force with me or the Board,” even though “it has sometimes with the circuit courts.” We hardly need point out that if an argument “has force” with the courts of appeals, it should “have force” with the Board and its ALJs as well.
*399
The Board also failed to consider post-layoff actions by CAMCO that helped to create the conditions necessary for a free and fair representation election. After unfair labor practice charges were filed, Gordon Cell met with employees from both plants and told them that he was personally neutral on whether the employees should vote for the Union and that CAMCO could work with a union. We cannot find anything in the record to indicate that the ALJ or the Board gave any weight to these statements. In fact, the ALJ’s opinion states that “[t]here has been no showing that [Gordon and Gary Cell] have experienced any change in the attitude that led them to authorize and implement the unlawfully motivated lay-offs [and other unfair labor practices].”
Cell,
In light of the changed circumstances at CAMCO since the commission of the unfair labor practices at issue in this case, it is not at all clear that the Board would have been within its discretion in issuing a bargaining order even had the Union obtained a card majority in an appropriate bargaining unit. We see in the record nothing approaching a persuasive showing that a free and fair representation election could not now be held at CAMCO. However, as our holding on the bargaining-unit issue renders the question of changed circumstances moot, we do not rest our decision on this ground.
V.
To sum up, we grant enforcement of that part of the Board’s order requiring CAMCO to cease and desist from any and all unfair labor practices, to offer to reinstate Hackler, Thomas, and Witte, and to make whole assembly plant employees, including Hackler, Thomas, and Witte, for any pay or benefits lost as a result of the unlawful layoff of April 24. We decline, however, to enforce the Board’s bargaining order.
Notes
. Of the five additional authorization cards, four were signed after the mass layoff, discussed below. Two were signed the day of the layoff, one was signed on April 27, and one final card was signed on April 29.
. Section 8 of the Act provides in relevant part as follows:
It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer — •
(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title;
iH í¡! sfc
(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization....
29 U.S.C. § 158. Section 7 of the Act guarantees the “right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations” and "to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining.” Id. § 157.
. The ALJ's misapplication of the community-of-interests analysis was compounded by a misplaced reliance on " 'a presumption that a single plant is an appropriate bargaining unit.’ "
Cell,
. The geographic proximity factor adequately considers the effect of physical separation on the employees' community of interests.
. The
Gissel
opinion divides the universe of bargaining order cases into three categories: (1) “exceptional cases marked by outrageous and pervasive unfair labor practices”; (2) "less extraordinary cases marked by less pervasive practices which nonetheless still have the tendency to undermine majority strength and impede the election processes"; and (3) cases of "minor or less extensive unfair labor practices” having a "minimal impact” on the election machinery.
Gissel,
. We also note that the Board further compounded its error when it stated that "[i]f ... employee turnover can be relevant ..., the burden must be on the employer to demonstrate why employee turnover should preclude the imposition of a bargaining order.”
Cell,
. "Indeed, were the Respondent law abiding, who is to say that turnover would not be substantially reduced?"
Cell,