1. Hoffman Plastic Compounds (Rehnquist w/ O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas)
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, among other things, makes it unlawful for individual to obtain employment through fraudulent documents
Employee laid off in violation of Section 8(a)(3) but not legally entitled to work in the United States and who gained employment by fraudulent means not entitled to back pay under NLRA where employer unaware of employee’s illegal status
Board remedies may not conflict with other statutes
Back pay to illegally employed individual would
conflict with IRCA
pay employee for work employee not entitled to perform
when employee did not perform it
condone future violations of IRCA by employees be rewarding illegal employees for escaping detection

2. Dissent (Breyer w/ Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg)
Back pay to the point at which employer learned that employee was illegally employed deters violations of NLRA without compromising IRCA
Denial of back pay may encourage employers to hire illegals knowing that illegal status may immunize employer from a back pay remedy
An NLRA “advantage” to ers for hiring illegals
No conflict between IRCA and NLRA
Reads legislative history of IRCA as not limiting discretion of NLRB to enforce NLRA
Sit-down strike and mutiny cases not relevant because employees in those cases were lawfully discharged