396
Opinion of Breyer, J.
specifics provides some support for the possibility that Mohr was overstating a conclusion, say, in a job-preserving effort to curry favor with Mack's new managers. More importantly, since the absence of detail or support brings Mohr's statement well within the Board's pre-existing cautionary evidentiary principle (about employee statements regarding the views of other employees), it diminishes the reasonableness of any employer reliance.
The majority discusses a further reason, namely, that Mohr was referring to a group of 32 employees of whom Allentown hired only 23, and "the composition of the complement of employees hired would bear on whether this group did or did not support the Union." 316 N. L. R. B., at 1208. The majority considers this reason "wholly irrational," because, in its view, the Board cannot "rationally" assume that
"the work force of a successor company has the same disposition regarding the union as did the work force of the predecessor company, if the majority of the new work force came from the old one," ante, at 370,
while adopting an opposite assumption
"for purposes of determining what evidence tends to establish a reasonable doubt regarding union support," ibid.
The irrationality of these assumptions, however, is not obvious. The primary objective of the National Labor Relations Act is to secure labor peace. Fall River Dyeing & Finishing Corp. v. NLRB, 482 U. S., at 38. To preserve the status quo ante may help to preserve labor peace; the first presumption may help to do so by assuming (in the absence of contrary evidence) that workers wish to preserve that status quo, see id., at 38-40; the second, by requiring detailed evidence before dislodging the status quo, may help to do the same. Regardless, no one has argued that these presumptions are contradictory or illogical.
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