Emeryville Research Center, Shell Development Company, a Division of Shell Oil Co. v. National Labor Relations Board

Emeryville Research Center (the Company) petitions to review and set aside an order of the National Labor Relations Board. The Board found that the Company’s failure to furnish information requested by the Association of Industrial Scientists (the Union) was a “refusal to bargain collectively in good faith” in violation of section 8(a) (5) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158 (a) (5) and (1). The Board cross-petitions for enforcement of its order. We set the Board’s order aside.

The Board ordered the Company to cease and desist from refusing to bargain collectively by refusing to furnish the Union:

The items of information covered by the Board’s order are components of the salary administration system which the company uses to determine individual salaries of some 430 professional scientists and engineers in the bargaining unit, who are employed to do scientific research at the Company’s Emeryville, California center. According to the collective bargaining agreement, the Company retains the right unilaterally to determine individual merit salaries. The Company’s salary system is rather sophisticated. Each employee is assigned a subjective merit rating by…