Hoffman Plastic Compounds (Rehnquist w/ O

1
Hoffman Plastic Compounds(Rehnquist w/ OConnor,
Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas)

• Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of
  1986, among other things, makes it unlawful for
  individual to obtain employment through
  fraudulent documents
• Employee laid off in violation of Section 8(a)(3)
  but not legally entitled to work in the United
  States and who gained employment by fraudulent
  means not entitled to back pay under NLRA where
  employer unaware of employees illegal status
• Board remedies may not conflict with other
  statutes
• Back pay to illegally employed individual would
• conflict with IRCA
• pay employee for work employee not entitled to
  perform
• when employee did not perform it
• condone future violations of IRCA by employees be
  rewarding illegal employees for escaping detection

2
Dissent (Breyer w/ Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg)

• Back pay to the point at which employer learned
  that employee was illegally employed deters
  violations of NLRA without compromising IRCA
• Denial of back pay may encourage employers to
  hire illegals knowing that illegal status may
  immunize employer from a back pay remedy
• An NLRA advantage to ers for hiring illegals
• No conflict between IRCA and NLRA
• Reads legislative history of IRCA as not limiting
  discretion of NLRB to enforce NLRA
• Sit-down strike and mutiny cases not relevant
  because employees in those cases were lawfully
  discharged