National Labor Relations Board v. Superior Roofing Company, and United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local No. 751, Afl-Cio

The National Labor Relations Board petitions for enforcement of its Supplemental Decision and Order directing respondents to pay $5,470 plus interest as back pay to Orland Cooley. (186 N.L. R.B. No,. 150.)

The Board held that Cooley was entitled to back pay from November 17, 1964 to December 22, 1966. Allowance was made for interim earnings and for a period when Cooley was injured and unable to work. At the time of his discharge he was Superior’s second senior roofer. The Board held that from November 17, 1964 to March 17, 1965 an appropriate measure of the hours Cooley would have worked was the weekly hours worked by the Company’s second senior roofer. On March 17, the second senior roofer replaced the senior roofer, remaining in that position for the rest of the period in question. The Board computed the hours Cooley would have worked during this time on the basis of the senior roofer’s weekly hours.

The back pay formula used by the Board was based on the concept that even though the Company did not hire or terminate employees on a seniority basis, in the absence of other objective criteria, the use of a seniority formula to compute the earnings of a “representative employee”…