Gourmet Foods, Inc. v. Warehouse Employees of St. Paul
National Labor Relations Board
270 N.L.R.B. 578 (1984)
- Written by Sarah Hoffman, JD
Facts
Gourmet Foods, Inc. (Gourmet) (defendant) learned that some of its employees intended to form a union. Over the next five months, Gourmet fought against the union using a number of tactics. Early in the five-month period, Gourmet’s president stated publicly that he “would do anything to keep a union out.” The Warehouse Employees of St. Paul (the union) (plaintiff) represented a group of employees, but it did not at any point represent a majority of Gourmet’s employees. The union filed a charge against Gourmet for unfair labor practices and requested a remedial bargaining order. The evidence did suggest that Gourmet had engaged in unfair labor practices during the five-month campaign, including discharging and disciplining employees in a discriminatory manner, threatening to discharge employees or close the plant, and imposing harsher working conditions as a retaliatory action. However, the judge declined to determine whether Gourmet’s misconduct warranted a bargaining-order remedy because the representation of a majority was a necessary prerequisite to such a remedy. The union sought review of the judge’s findings by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on the grounds that a bargaining order was a warranted remedy because Gourmet’s unfair labor practices were outrageous and pervasive.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Information not provided in casebook excerpt.)
Concurrence (Dennis, J.)
Dissent (Zimmerman, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 811,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
