## Facts

- Elk Lumber Company employed loading crews of two workers to load lumber onto railroad cars.
- The loaders were initially compensated on a piece-rate basis, under which crews typically loaded multiple cars per day under normal conditions.
- After operational improvements increased potential productivity, the company unilaterally changed compensation from piece-rate to an hourly wage of about $1.52, which reduced the employees’ earnings compared to prior piece-rate pay.
- In response, the loaders agreed among themselves to deliberately reduce their pace so that each two-person crew would load only one car per day.
- The employees conditioned any increase in output on the employer restoring or increasing their pay.
- The employer treated the coordinated restriction of output as deliberate insubordination and discharged the participating employees for cause.
- The discharged employees filed unfair labor practice charges, alleging the discharges unlawfully interfered with protected concerted activity.

## Issues

1. Whether employees’ concerted, intentional slowdown to protest reduced earnings constitutes protected concerted activity under NLRA § 7.
2. Whether discharging employees for participating in such a slowdown violates NLRA § 8(a)(1) or § 8(a)(3).

## Decision

- The NLRB held that the organized, deliberate slowdown was not protected activity under § 7.
- Because the conduct was unprotected, the employer did not commit an unfair labor practice by discharging the employees for participating in the slowdown.
- The Board treated the discharges as permissible discipline “for cause,” rather than retaliation for protected activity.

## Legal Principles

- Section 7 protects concerted activity for mutual aid or protection, but not all concerted economic pressure tactics are protected.
- A deliberate, coordinated restriction of output while employees remain on the job (a partial strike or “strike on the job”) is outside § 7’s protection.
- An employer may lawfully discipline or discharge employees for an intentional slowdown, even if the slowdown is concerted and undertaken to obtain higher wages.
- When the underlying conduct is unprotected, discipline imposed for that conduct does not, without more, establish a violation of § 8(a)(1) or § 8(a)(3).

## Conclusion

The NLRB concluded that a concerted, intentional slowdown designed to pressure an employer to raise wages is unprotected by NLRA § 7, and that an employer may discharge employees for participating in such a slowdown without violating the Act.


Elk Lumber Co., 91 N.L.R.B. 333 (1950)