Extract
Rochester Telephone Corp., 30 (2001)
Rochester Telephone Corp.1 and Local 1170 of the Communications Workers of America. Case 3- CA-20004-2
January 19, 2001 DECISION AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN TRUESDALE AND MEMBERS LIEBMAN AND HURTGENOn October 30, 1998, Administrative Law Judge Robert T. Snyder issued the attached decision. The General Counsel and the Union have filed exceptions and supporting briefs. The Respondent has filed cross-exceptions and an answering brief. The National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the decision and record in light of the exceptions and briefs and has decided to af-firm the judge's rulings, findings,2 and conclusions3 and to adopt the recommended Order. 1 We grant the Respondent's motion to change the caption reference from "Rochester Telephone Corporation" to "Rochester Telephone Corp." 2 The parties have excepted to some of the judge's credibility findings. The Board's established policy is not to overrule an administrative law judge's credibility resolutions unless the clear preponderance of all the relevant evidence convinces us that they are incorrect. Standard Dry Wall Products, 91 NLRB 544 (1950), enfd. 188 F.2d 362 (3d Cir. 1951). We have carefully examined the record and find no basis for reversing the findings. 3 Although we adopt the judge's conclusion that the parties reached a bargaining impasse, we disavow his suggestion that the "central inquiry" in determining the existence of an impasse is "whether the Union made sufficient progress in meeting the Company's perceived needs and goals" by its counterproposals and by other actions. It is well settled that: A genuine impasse . . . exists only where the parties have exhausted all avenues for reaching agreement and there "is no realistic possibility that continuation of discussion at that time would have been fruitful." There is no impasse where one of the parties makes concessions that are not "trivial or meaningless . . ." for a concession by either party "on a significant issue in dispute precludes a finding of impasse even if a wide gap between the parties remains because under such circumstances there is reason to believe that further bargaining might produce additional movement." . . . The essential question is whether there has been movement sufficient "to open a ray of hope with a real potentiality for agreement if explored in good faith in bargaining sessions." Hayward Dodge, 292 NLRB 434, 468 (1989), and authorities cited therein (internal citations omitted). We adopt the judge's conclusion that the parties here had reached impasse because we agree that the Union's counterproposal of April 8, 1996, under all the circumstances, did not create a "reason to believe that further bargaining might produce additional movement" by either party. We agree with the administrative law judge that Serramonte Oldsmobile, 318 NLRB 80 (1995), enf. denied in part 86 F.3d 227 (D.C. Cir. 1996), is distinguishable from this case. We do not rely on the judge's analysis and application of the circuit court's decision in Serramonte to the facts here. In addition, contrary to the judge, we do not rely on the fact that the Union was engaged in a campaign to gener- ate public support for its bargaining positions as evidence that the parties were at impasse. ORDER The recommended Order of the administrative law judge is adopted and the complaint is dismissed.Doren G. Goldstone, Esq., for the General Counsel.Jeremy P. Sherman, Esq. and Kenneth D. Schwartz, Esq. (Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, Esqs.), of Chicago, Illinois, and Robert V. Heftka, Esq., of Rochester, New York, for the Respondent.David A., Mintz, Esq. (Weissman & Mintz, Esqs.), of New York, New York, for the Charging Party. DECISION STATEMENT OF THE CASE ROBERT T. SNYDER, Administrative Law Judge. This case was tried before me in Henrietta and Rochester, New York, on May 19 through 23, and June 16 through 18, 1997. The complaint alleges that after commencing negotiations in October 1995 for a successor collective-bargaining agreement with Local 1170 of the Communications Workers of America (Local 1170 or the Union), and the Charging Party herein, on behalf of an appropriate unit, the Rochester Telephone Corporation (RTC), the Company or Respondent, in April 1996 prematurely declared that its negotiations with the Union had reached an impasse, and unilaterally implemented its last bar-gaining proposal, and, as a consequence, Respondent has failed and refused to bargain in violation of Section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the Act. The alleged unilateral implementation included changes in such subjects as wages, prepension leave benefits, employee health care, pension benefits, and retire health care for current employees upon retirement, each of which ...See the full content of this document
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