In an attempt to settle a labor dispute at the plant of petitioner company, an agreement approved by the Board was signed by a C.I.O. union, an Independent union, and the company. At a consent election held pursuant to this agreement, Independent won a majority of the votes cast, and was certified by the Board as bargaining representative. The company then signed a union shop contract with Independent, with knowledge-so the Board has found that Independent intended, by refusing membership to C.I.O. employees, to oust them from their jobs. Independent refused to admit C.I.O. men to membership and the company discharged them.
In a subsequent unfair labor practice proceeding the Board found that (1) Independent had been set up, maintained, and used by the petitioner to frustrate the threatened unionization of its plant by the C.I.O., and (2), the union shop contract was made by the company with knowledge that Independent intended to use the contract as a means of bringing about the discharge of former C.I.O. employees by denying them membership in Independent. The Board held that the conduct of the company in both these instances constituted unfair labor practices. It entered an order requiring petitioner to disestablish Independent, denominated by it a 'company union'; to cease and desist from giving effect to the union shop contract between it and Independent; and to reinstate with back pay forty-three employees, found to have been discharged because of their affiliation with the C.I.O., and because of their failure to belong to Independent, as required by the union shop contract. The Circuit Court of Appeals ordered enforcement of the Order. We granted certiorari because of the importance to the administration of the Act of the questions involved. 322 U.S. 721, 64 S.Ct. 1262.
The Board's findings if valid support the entire order. This is so because Section 8(3) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(3) does not permit such a contract to be made between a company and a labor organization which it has 'established, maintained, or assisted.' The Board therefore is authorized by the Act to order disestablishment of such unions and to order an employer to renounce such contracts. Nor can the company, if the Board's findings are well-grounded, defend its discharge of the C.I.O. employees on the ground that the contract with Independent required it to do so. It is contended that the Board's findings are not supported by substantial evidence. As shown by its analysis, the Board gave careful consideration to the evidence before it relating to the unfair labor practices which occurred both before and after the settlement agreement and the certification. The Circuit Court of Appeals unreservedly affirmed the Board's findings, and we find ample substantiating evidence in the record to justify that affirmance. We need therefore but briefly refer to the circumstances leading to the Board's order.
The findings of the Board establish the fact of an abiding hostility on the part of the company to any recognition of a C.I.O. union. This hostility we must take it extended to any employee who did or who might affiliate himself with the C.I.O. union. The company apparently preferred to close down this one of its two plants rather than to bargain collectively with the C.I.O. It publicly proclaimed through one of its foremen that '* * * the ones that did not sign up with the C.I.O. didn't have anything to worry about * * * the company would see that they was taken care of.' The settlement agreement plainly implied that the old employees could retain their jobs with the company simply by becoming members of whichever union would win the election. Nevertheless, the company entered into an agreement with Independent which inevitably resulted in bringing about the discharge of a large bloc of C.I.O. men and their president.
The contract was executed after notice to the company by the business manager of Independent that Independent must have the right to refuse membership to old C.I.O. employees who might jeopardize its majority. This business manager, who had himself originally been recommended to Independent by a company employee, wrote the company, prior to the making of the contract, that Independent insisted upon a closed shop agreement because it wanted a 'legal means of disposing of any present employees' who might affect its majority, and 'who are unfavorable to our interests.' The contract further significantly provided that the company would be released from the clause requiring it to retain in its employ union men only, if Independent should lose its majority and the C.I.O. win it.