The U.S. Supreme Court case National Labor Relations Board v. A.J. Tower Co., 1946, centered on the issue of whether an employer's refusal to bargain with a union could be considered an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The A.J. Tower Company had refused to negotiate with a union that represented its employees because it believed that some members of the bargaining unit were supervisors and therefore not protected by NLRA provisions for collective bargaining rights. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled this as an unfair labor practice, but the Circuit Court reversed this decision arguing that NLRB did not have authority to include or exclude supervisors from unions without express statutory authorization from Congress. However, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that while NLRA does not explicitly define who can be included in or excluded from bargaining units, it grants broad discretion to NLRB in determining appropriate units for collective bargaining purposes based on empirical conditions and industry practices rather than rigid statutory definitions.

In the dissenting opinion for the National Labor Relations Board v. A.J. Tower Co., Justice Frankfurter disagreed with the majority's ruling that a company could not refuse to bargain with a union if it had doubts about its representative status, unless it filed an election petition within a reasonable time after receiving notice of such doubt from the employer. He argued that this decision placed an unfair burden on employers and was contrary to previous rulings which allowed companies to challenge unions' representative status at any time before bargaining began. Furthermore, he believed that this ruling would discourage voluntary recognition of unions by employers and undermine labor relations stability as it might lead to frequent challenges against established unions.