Allentown Mack Sales and Service, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board (522 U.S. 359)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 26, 1998 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 522 U.S. 359 · 118 S. Ct. 818
- Decided
- January 26, 1998
- Term
- October Term 1997
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Unions
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. Under longstanding precedent of the National Labor Relations Board, an employer who believes that an incumbent union no longer enjoys the support of a majority of its employees has three options: to request a formal, Board-supervised election, to withdraw recognition from the union and refuse to bargain, or to conduct an internal poll of employee support for the union. The Board has held that the latter two are unfair labor practices unless the employer can show that it had a “good-faith reasonable doubt” about the union’s majority support. We must decide whether the Board’s standard for employer polling is rational and consistent with the National Labor Relations Act, and whether the Board’s factual determinations in this ease are supported by substantial evidence in the record. I Mack Trucks, Inc., had a factory branch in Allentown, Pennsylvania, whose service and parts employees were represented by Local Lodge 724 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO (Local 724). Mack notified its Allentown managers in May 1990 that it intended to sell the branch, and several of those managers formed Allentown Mack Sales & Service, Inc., the petitioner here, which purchased the assets of the business on December 20, 1990, and began to operate it as an independent dealership. From December 21,1990,…
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