## Facts

- The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) brought proceedings under NLRA § 10 against Virginia Electric & Power Company for alleged unfair labor practices.
- The NLRB found a history of employer hostility toward independent unionization and concluded the Company fostered and dominated an inside employee organization (“the Independent”) while discouraging affiliation with an outside union.
- The record included: anti-union statements by senior management; use of an employee to report labor activity; employee interrogation about union matters; and a posted bulletin urging employees to deal directly with the Company rather than through an outside union.
- After the bulletin and employee requests for improved wages and conditions, the Company delayed action and directed employees to select representatives for meetings at which company officials delivered prepared talks about the NLRA and the desirability of forming a bargaining agency.
- Based on these circumstances, the NLRB found violations of NLRA §§ 8(1) (interference, restraint, coercion) and 8(2) (employer domination/interference with a labor organization), and ordered remedial relief including disestablishment of the Independent.
- The Fourth Circuit set aside the Board’s order, reasoning that certain employer statements and bulletins could not lawfully be treated as unfair labor practices.
- The Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether the NLRA forbids or penalizes an employer’s expression of views on labor policy, and whether the NLRB may treat employer speech as evidence of coercion under § 8(1).
2. Whether, when the NLRB characterizes “spoken and posted utterances” as unfair labor practices, its finding of coercion must be clearly grounded in the employer’s whole course of conduct rather than isolated words.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit’s judgment and remanded to the NLRB for further proceedings.
- The Court held the NLRA does not, by itself, forbid or penalize an employer’s expression of views on labor policies.
- The Court also held that conduct may constitute coercion under the Act even if evidenced in part by speech, when considered with other surrounding circumstances.
- Because the Board’s opinion was ambiguous as to whether it treated employer utterances alone as violations (instead of as part of an overall pattern of coercive conduct), the Court required a remand for clarification and redetermination on an appropriate totality-of-conduct basis.

## Legal Principles

- The NLRA does not make employer advocacy or opinion on labor policy unlawful per se.
- Employer speech may be considered by the NLRB as evidence of unlawful interference, restraint, or coercion when it is intertwined with other conduct that, in context, tends to coerce employees in exercising NLRA § 7 rights.
- When the NLRB relies on speech in finding unfair labor practices, its reasoning must show that the conclusion rests on the whole course of conduct and context, not on isolated statements detached from their background.
- Reviewing courts may require remand where the Board’s findings and rationale do not clearly disclose the basis for treating speech as part of coercive conduct.

## Conclusion

The Court rejected the view that employer speech is automatically protected from scrutiny under the NLRA, but required the NLRB to demonstrate that any reliance on speech reflected a contextual finding of coercive conduct; because the Board’s analysis was unclear on that point, the case was remanded for further findings consistent with a totality-of-circumstances approach.


Nat’l Lab. Rels. Bd. v. Va. Elec. & Power Co., 314 U.S. 469 (1941)