DARLINGTON POINTS

1. DARLINGTONPOINTS • Corporate Structure • Darlington controlled by R. Milliken, part of a “single employer” • Employer has absolute right to totally close business for any reason • Partial closing may be unlawful: criteria • interest: person closing must have an interest in or relationship to other facilities such that person can obtain benefits from discouraging unionization in those facilities • intent: person must have closed facility with intent or purpose of reaping benefits in other facilities • effect: partial closing would likely have effect of chilling unionization in other facilities

2. Discussion of Limits of Balancing Principle • Balancing principle first established in Republic Aviation • “A violation of 8(a)(1) alone therefore presupposes an act which is unlawful even absent a discriminatory motive. Whatever may be the limits of . . . 8(a)(1), some employer decisions are so peculiarly matters of management prerogative they they would never constitute violations of . . . 8(a)(1), whether or not they involved sound business judgment, unless they also violated . . . 8(a)(3)” (quoted by OHA at 309).

3. Textile Workers Union v. DarlingtonU.S. Sup. Ct, 1965, 380 U.S. 263 • “Although employees may be prohibited from engaging in a strike under certain conditions, no one would consider it a violation of the Act for the same employees to quit their employment en masse, even if motivated by a desire to ruin the employer. The very permanence of such action would negate any future economic benefit to the employees” (380 U.S. at 272). • Major League umpires in 1999.