Cite as: 511 U. S. 571 (1994)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
late and execute labor policies for the shop; correspondingly, the persons charged with superintending management policy regarding labor are the "supervisors" who, in the Board's view, act "in the interest of the employer."
Maintaining professional standards of course serves the interest of an enterprise, and the NLRB is hardly blind to that obvious point. See Northcrest Nursing Home, 313 N. L. R. B., at 494 (interest of employer and employees not likely to diverge on charge nurse decisions concerning methods of attending to patients' needs). But "the interest of the employer" may well tug against that of employees, on matters such as "hiring, firing, discharging, and fixing pay"; "in the interest of the employer," persons with authority regarding "things of that sort" are properly ranked "supervisor." 14
"interest of the employer," in nurses' cases. When asked whether "[i]t is uniquely nurses" who do not act "in the interest of the employer" when attending to "the needs of the customer," counsel replied, "No, it is not uniquely nurses." Tr. of Oral Arg. 52. While counsel continued, when pressed, to say that "[t]he Board has not applied a theory that's phrased in the same terms to other categories of professionals," ibid., counsel appears to have been referring to the precisely particularized, "patient care" version of the inquiry. Counsel added: "What the Board has done is draw an analogy between . . . what nurses do and what other minor supervisory employees do. . . . [T]he Board's rule in this case is fully consistent with the traditional rule that it has applied." Id., at 53.
14 See 92 Cong. Rec. 5930 (1946), containing the statement of Representative Case on a forerunner of present § 2(11), included as part of the Case bill, passed by Congress, but vetoed by President Truman in 1946. Representative Case stated of the bill's provision, nearly identical to the present § 2(11): " 'In the interest of the employer'—that is the key phrase to keep in mind. . . . All that the section on supervisory employees does is to say that if 'in the interest of the employer,' [a] person has a primary responsibility in hiring, firing, discharging, and fixing pay, and things of that sort, then at the bargaining table he shall not sit on the side of the employee, but shall sit on the side of the employer. . . . No man can serve two masters. If you are negotiating a contract, a lawyer does not represent both clients. That is all that is involved here."
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