584
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
the Board's interpretation of "in the interest of the employer" is for the most part confined to nurse cases, our decision will have almost no effect outside that context. Any parade of horribles about the meaning of this decision for employees in other industries is thus quite misplaced; indeed, the Board does not make that argument.
In sum, the Board's test for determining the supervisory status of nurses is inconsistent with the statute and our precedents. The Board did not petition this Court to uphold its order in this case under any other theory. See Brief for Respondent 21, n. 25. If the case presented the question whether these nurses were supervisors under the proper test, we would have given a lengthy exposition and analysis of the facts in the record. But as we have indicated, the Board made and defended its decision by relying on the particular test it has applied to nurses. Our conclusion that the Court of Appeals was correct to find the Board's test inconsistent with the statute therefore suffices to resolve the case. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Blackmun, Justice Stevens, and Justice Souter join, dissenting.
The National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., guarantees organizational, representational, and bargaining rights to "employees," but expressly excludes "supervisors" from that protected class. See §§ 157, 152(3). Section 2(11) of the Act defines the term "supervisor" by, first, enumerating 12 supervisory actions (including, for example, hiring, firing, disciplining, assigning, and "responsibly" directing) and, further, prescribing that "any individual" who has "authority, in the interest of the employer," to perform or "effectively to recommend" any of these actions is a supervisor, provided that the exercise of such authority requires "independent judgment" rather than "merely routine or clerical" action. § 152(11).
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