Cite as: 532 U. S. 706 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
usual meaning of that term." See also, e. g., Duval Texas Sulphur Co., 53 N. L. R. B. 1387, 1390-1391 (1943) ("As to the chief electrician, motor mechanic, plant engineers, and drillers, . . . [t]he fact that they work with helpers, and perforce direct and guide the work of their helpers, does not, of itself, elevate them to such supervisory rank that they must be excluded from the broad production and maintenance unit").
When the Taft-Hartley Act added the term "supervisor" to the Act in 1947, it largely borrowed the Board's definition of the term, with one notable exception: Whereas the Board required a supervisor to direct the work of other employees and perform another listed function, the Act permitted direction alone to suffice. "The term 'supervisor' means any individual having authority . . . 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." Taft-Hartley Act § 2(11), as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 152(11) (emphasis added). Moreover, the Act assuredly did not incorporate the Board's current interpretation of the term "independent judgment" as applied to the function of responsible direction, since the Board had not yet developed that interpretation. It had had no reason to do so, because it had limited the category of supervisors more directly, by requiring functions in addition to responsible direction. It is the Act's alteration of precisely that aspect of the Board's jurisprudence that has pushed the Board into a running struggle to limit the impact of "responsibly to direct" on the number of employees qualifying for supervisory status—presumably driven by the policy concern that otherwise the proper balance of labor-management power will be disrupted.
It is upon that policy concern that the Board ultimately rests its defense of its interpretation of "independent judgment." In arguments that parallel those expressed by the dissent in Health Care, see 511 U. S., at 588-590 (Gins-
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