Cite as: 535 U. S. 137 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
not unlimited, see, e. g., NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U. S. 240, 257-258 (1939); Southern S. S. Co. v. NLRB, 316 U. S. 31, 46-47 (1942); NLRB v. Bildisco & Bildisco, 465 U. S. 513, 532-534 (1984); Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, supra, at 902-904. Since the Board's inception, we have consistently set aside awards of reinstatement or backpay to employees found guilty of serious illegal conduct in connection with their employment. In Fansteel, the Board awarded reinstatement with backpay to employees who engaged in a "sit down strike" that led to confrontation with local law enforcement officials. We set aside the award, saying:
"We are unable to conclude that Congress intended to compel employers to retain persons in their employ regardless of their unlawful conduct,—to invest those who go on strike with an immunity from discharge for acts of trespass or violence against the employer's property, which they would not have enjoyed had they remained at work." 306 U. S., at 255.
Though we found that the employer had committed serious violations of the NLRA, the Board had no discretion to remedy those violations by awarding reinstatement with back-pay to employees who themselves had committed serious criminal acts. Two years later, in Southern S. S. Co., supra, the Board awarded reinstatement with backpay to five employees whose strike on shipboard had amounted to a mutiny in violation of federal law. We set aside the award, saying:
"It is sufficient for this case to observe that the Board has not been commissioned to effectuate the policies of the Labor Relations Act so single-mindedly that it may wholly ignore other and equally important [c]ongressional objectives." 316 U. S., at 47.
Although the Board had argued that the employees' conduct did not in fact violate the federal mutiny statute, we rejected this view, finding the Board's interpretation of a statute so
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