## Facts

- Employees at Permanent Label Corporation began a union organizing effort in 1977 with Distributive Workers of America, District 65.
- In February 1977, employee Bernard Daly discussed unionization with coworkers; a supervisor warned Daly he could be fired for talking about the union at the plant, and Daly temporarily stopped.
- Organizing resumed in September 1977; employees recruited coworkers, held meetings, signed authorization cards, paid dues, and formed an organizing committee.
- Management learned of organizing rumors and questioned Daly about organizing activity.
- On November 1, 1977, the company discharged Daly, purportedly for excessive absenteeism.
- The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) found the employer committed multiple unfair labor practices during the campaign, including threats, coercive statements, discriminatory discipline and discharges, and promises of improved benefits to discourage union support.
- The ALJ found these practices impaired employees’ free choice and recommended a bargaining order based on the union’s card majority rather than a rerun election.
- The NLRB adopted the ALJ’s findings and reasoning and ordered cease-and-desist relief, reinstatement and backpay for certain employees, and recognition and bargaining with the union.
- The NLRB sought enforcement in the Third Circuit; the employer contested both the unfair labor practice findings and the bargaining order remedy.

## Issues

1. Whether substantial evidence on the record as a whole supported the NLRB’s findings that the employer committed unfair labor practices.
2. Whether the NLRB lawfully and adequately justified a card-based bargaining order, rather than a rerun election, under the governing standards for such remedies.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit, sitting en banc, granted enforcement of the NLRB’s order.
- The court held the Board’s unfair labor practice findings were supported by substantial evidence, relying on the ALJ’s credited testimony and detailed findings adopted by the Board.
- The court upheld the bargaining order, concluding the Board adequately explained why the employer’s serious and pervasive conduct made a fair election unlikely.
- The court enforced the full remedy, including cease-and-desist provisions, reinstatement and backpay, and the bargaining obligation.

## Legal Principles

- Under substantial-evidence review, a court upholds Board findings if the record contains relevant evidence a reasonable factfinder could accept as adequate; the court does not reweigh evidence or second-guess credited testimony when the Board adopts the ALJ’s findings.
- The NLRB may issue a bargaining order based on authorization cards when the union had a valid card majority and the employer’s unfair labor practices are sufficiently serious and pervasive to undermine election conditions and make a fair rerun election unlikely.
- The Board must justify a bargaining order with record-based findings explaining why traditional remedies and a rerun election would not adequately eliminate the effects of coercive conduct.
- The Board has broad remedial discretion under the NLRA; a reviewing court will sustain the chosen remedy when it reasonably effectuates the Act’s policies.

## Conclusion

The en banc Third Circuit enforced the NLRB’s order because substantial evidence supported findings of coercive, antiunion unfair labor practices, and the Board reasonably concluded—consistent with governing bargaining-order standards—that those violations made a fair election unlikely, warranting recognition and bargaining based on the union’s card majority.


NLRB v. Permanent Label Corp., 657 F.2d 512 (3d Cir. 1981) (en banc)