The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision on 1/26/98, held that an NLRB standard, under which an employer must have a "good faith reasonable doubt" about a union’s majority support before conducting an internal polling of employee support for that union, is rational and consistent with the National Labor Relations Act. An employer who believes that an incumbent union no longer enjoys the support of a majority of its employees has three options: (i) to request a formal, Board-supervised election; (ii) to withdraw recognition from the union and to refuse to bargain; (iii) or to conduct an internal poll of employee support for the union. The Board has held that the latter two options constitute unfair labor practices, unless the employer can show that it had a "good faith reasonable doubt" about the union's majority support.
The employer in this case argued that it is irrational to require the "good faith reasonable doubt" showing to justify a poll because that same showing would justify an outright withdrawal of recognition. According to the employer, this would leave the employer with no legal incentive to poll. The Court rejected this argument, concluding that it falsely assumed that every employer would want to withdraw recognition once presented with enough evidence of lack of union support to defend against an unfair-labor-practice. On the specific facts, however, the Court reversed the Board's finding that Allentown lacked the required reasonable doubt as not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole.