Cite as: 511 U. S. 571 (1994)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
stating that the language of the Act allowed no other interpretation. Packard Motor Car Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S. 485 (1947).
Congress responded by excluding supervisors in the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947.3 The Senate Committee Report noted that the Senate's definition of "supervisor" 4 had been framed with a view to assuring that "the employees . . . excluded from the coverage of the act [would] be truly supervisory." S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 19 (1947) (hereinafter Senate Report), Legislative History 425; see also H. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 35 (1947), Legislative History 539 ("supervisor" limited "to individuals generally regarded as foremen and persons of like or higher rank"). As the Senate Report explains:
"[T]he committee has not been unmindful of the fact that certain employees with minor supervisory duties have problems which may justify their inclusion [within the protections of the Act]. It has therefore distinguished between straw bosses, leadmen, set-up men, and other minor supervisory employees, on the one hand, and the supervisor vested with such genuine management prerogatives as the right to hire or fire, discipline, or make
3 Section 2(11) of the Act defines a "supervisor" as "any individual having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment." 29 U. S. C. § 152(11). Section 2(3) provides, in part, that "[t]he term 'employee' . . . shall not include . . . any individual employed as a supervisor." § 152(3).
4 The House and Senate bills defined the term "supervisor" differently; the Conference Committee adopted the Senate version. See H. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 35 (1947), reprinted in 1 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, p. 539 (1948) (hereinafter Legislative History).
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