General Shoe Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 12, 1951

97 N.L.R.B. 499 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

GENERAL SHOE. CORPORATION 499
the Union's organizational campaign and applicants for employment as to their
union affiliation; (2) practicing surveillance upon the union meeting attended by
its employees; and (3) threatening to close its plant if its employees affiliated
with or supported the Union. It will, therefore, be recommended that the
Respondent cease and desist from such activities and take certain affirmative
action designed to effectuate the policies of the Act.
The Respondent's infractions of the Act, herein found, disclose a fixed purpose
to defeat self-organization and its objectives. Because of the Respondent's un-
lawful conduct and its underlying purposes, I am persuaded that the unfair
labor practices found are related to the other unfair labor practices proscribed
by the Act and that the danger of their commission in the future is to be
anticipated from the course of the Respondent's conduct in the past. The pre-
ventive purpose of the Act will be thwarted unless the remedial order is coex-
tensive with the threat. In order, therefore, to make effective the interdependent
guarantees of Section 7, to prevent a recurrence of unfair labor practices, and
to minimize strife which burdens and obstructs commerce, and thus to effectuate
the policies of the Act, it will be recommended that the Respondent be ordered
to cease and desist from infringing in any manner upon the rights guaranteed
by Section 7 of the Act.
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and upon the entire record
in the case, I make the following :
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL,
is a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2 (5) of the Act.
2. By discriminating in regard to the hire and tenure of employment of Charles
P. Herd, thereby discouraging membership in the Union, the Respondent engaged
in and is engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8 (a)
(3) of the Act.
3. By interfering with, restraining, and coercing its employees in the ex-
ercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act, Respondent has engaged
in and is engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8
(a) (1) of the Act.
4. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting
commerce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
5. The Respondent's unfair labor practices interfered with the free choice
of the employees' bargaining representative in the election conducted on De-
cember 6, 1950.
[Recommended Order omitted from publication in this volume.]
GENERAL SHOE CORPORATION (MARMAN BAG PLANT ) and INTER-
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, DISTRICT LODGE, No. 155,
PETITIONER. Case No. 10-RC-1000. December 12, 1951
Supplemental Decision and Order
On November 28, 1950, pursuant to the Decision and Direction of
Election 1 issued by the Board herein on November 6, 1950, an election
1 Not published in printed volumes of Board decisions.
97 NLRB No. 71.
500 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
by secret ballot was conducted under the direction and supervision
of the Regional Director for the Tenth Region. The tally of ballots
issued after the election showed that of the 88 eligible voters in the
unit, 82 cast valid ballots, of which 21 were for and 61 were against
the Petitioner.
On December 4, 1950, the Petitioner filed objections to conduct af-
fecting results of the election. Thereupon in accordance with the
Board's Rules and Regulations, the Regional Director conducted an
investigation and on March 30, 1951, issued and duly served upon the
-parties a report on objections. The Regional Director upon the
facts recited in his report found merit in certain of the Petitioner's
objections, concluded that the Employer had interfered with the
conduct of the election, and recommended that the election be set aside.
On April 10, 1951, the Employer filed exceptions to the Regional Di-
rector's report. Thereafter on May 8,,1951, the Board issued an order
directing hearing on objections and exceptions and remanded the
case to the Regional Director for the purpose of conducting a hearing
on the issues raised by the aforesaid objections and exceptions.
The hearing was held on June 6 and 7, 1951, before Clarence D.
Musser, hearing officer. The Petitioner and Employer appeared
and participated. On September 5, 1951, the hearing officer issued
and served upon the parties his report on objections to election, a
copy of which is attached hereto, in which he recommended that
the election be set aside. The Employer filed timely exceptions
to the hearing officer's report on objection to election. The Employer's
request for oral argument is hereby denied because, in our opinion,
the record and the exceptions adequately present the issues and the
position of the parties.
The Board has reviewed the rulings made by the hearing officer at
the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The
rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the hearing
officer's report on objections to election, the exceptions filed by the
Employer, and the entire record in the case, and hereby adopts the
hearing officer's findings, conclusions, and recommendations to the
extent that they are consistent with- this Supplemental Decision
and Order.
The hearing officer found that in the course of 2 or 3 days before
the election, the Employer's personnel manager, Hooper, addressed
groups of from 10 to 12 employees who were called into his office
during working hours.
Hooper, in these talks which lasted for approximately 45 minutes,
began by saying that "he wanted to show pictures of what a union
had done." He thereupon displayed to the employees certain photo-
graphs of a violent strike, stating that "that was what the unions
GENERAL SHOE CORPORATION 50].
would do for the employees" and that the pictures would ^shoW the
"trouble unions caused in the past and what they might cause in
the future." He spoke of the strike pictures as "being the result
of a union strike and something we didn't want in our place of
business." In connection with the showing of these pictures Hooper
further stated, without explanation, that employment at that plant
in the strike had dropped from 6,000 to 500. He then read to each
group of employees a letter which on November 22, 1950, the Em-
ployer's chairman had sent to each employee which sought to refute
the alleged claim of the union that it could get wage increases and
other benefits for the employees. Hooper closed the meetings by
urging the employees to vote, distributing a sample ballot which
contained a statement, "B sure to vote No." 2
Before these meetings, for a period of 3 to 4 weeks preceding
the election, Hooper and Publow, general manager of the plant,
also called most of the employees involved in the election into their
office individually for periods of from 20 to 45 minutes. They
discussed company policies and, in substance, attempted to demonstrate
that the employees had already received more benefits than would
be obtained under any contracts proposed by the Petitioner. Ac-
cording to the credited testimony of employee Jessie Wright, Publow,
during the conference with her, asked her "what she knew about the
union." He also stated to her that if one of General Shoe's plants
went on strike, the other would have to join in a sympathy strike.
The record also establishes that Publow told Wright that if a union
came in they could no longer go directly to management with any
grievance but would have to see their union steward, and that they
would no longer be able to move from machine to machine, as is
their current custom, to make their production quotas.' We need
not pass upon the propriety of what was said.
We find, as did the hearing officer, that in the circumstances of
this case the technique of calling the employees into the Employer's
offices individually and in small groups and there urging that they
reject the Union was in itself conduct which warrants setting aside this
election. In an earlier case involving another plant of this same
Employer,3 the Board held that such conduct under similar circum-
stances was incompatible with those laboratory conditions under
2 The Regional Director found the letter of November 22, 1950 , the sample ballot,
and a similar letter of November 20, 1950, distributed to the employees coercive and
grounds for setting the election aside. The hearing officer found it unnecesary to pass
upon this finding. We do not set forth these documents, because after carefully examining
them we are of the opinion that none of them in themselves exceeded protected expression
of opinion under Section 8 (c). In this connection it should be noted that the sample
ballot distributed at these meetings and other occasions was clearly marked "Sample"
and contained no names of officials of the National Labor Relations Board.
3 General Shoe Corporation, 77 NLRB 124
986209-52r-vol 9 v---33
502 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
which Board elections should be conducted. Here the statements
made to the small groups of employees may have been more temperate
in tone than those involved in the earlier case. The fact remains,
however, that here, as in that case, the Employer communicated
his antiunion views to the employees in a manner the effect of
which was calculated to interfere with a free choice in the election.
When rank-and-file employees are brought to the company offices
in small groups, they do not deal in an "arms length" relationship
with the company officials they are directed to see. - Antiunion opin-
ions, and the suggestion that the employees reject the union, when
uttered in that locus of final authority in the plant, take on a meaning
and a significance they do not possess under other circumstances. The
coercive effect may be subtle, but it is nonetheless there. And it
is that much stronger when, as in this case, the employees are also
brought into the office individually. We therefore reaffirm our holding
in the earlier General Shoe case and conclude that, without regard
to precisely what was said at the meetings with employees, the manner
in which these meetings were conducted interfered with a free choice
by the employees and warrants setting aside the election.
In addition, and wholly apart from the above, we note that the
record shows that at the meeting between employee Wright and Gen-
eral Manager Publow, the latter interrogated Wright as to "what she
knew about the Union," and advised her that if the Union was selected
the employees would no longer be permitted to move from machine to
machine in order to make their production quotas. The record further
discloses that about 10 days before the election Harris, a supervisor,
asked employee Reeves if he were going to vote for the Union, and that
on the very morning of the election Superintendent Wells told
employee Hunt that if the Union came in they would shut down the
plant and that Mr. Jarman (the Employer's chairman) would not let
the Union in.
The interrogation of Wright and Reeves, and the threats made to
Wright and Hunt, constitute in themselves improper interference with
the election. It is immaterial that they involved a small number of
employees, for as this Board has said in the past, "an election serves its
purpose only if it affords an opportunity for all employees to register
a free and uncoerced choice of bargaining representative." 4 More-
over, where, as in one instance here, the threat is one to close the plant
which is almost certain to become known to other employees, the
Board 's determination to set the election aside cannot rest solely upon
the number of instances of such interference or the number of
employees directly involved.
4 O. H. Hess, Incorporated, 82 NLRB 463. See also U. S. Rubber Co., 86 NLRB 3.
COCA-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY OF POTTSVILLE 503
Accordingly, because the Employer's conduct interfered with the
employees' exercise of a free choice of bargaining representative, we
shall sustain the Petitioner's objections to the election and set the
election aside. Wheii the Regional Director advises the Board that
the circumstances permit the free choice of a bargaining represen-
tative, we shall direct that a new election be held among these
employees.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the election held on November 28, 1950,
among the employees of the General Shoe Company (Marman Bag
Plant), Nashville, Tennessee, be, and it hereby is, set aside.
MEMBER REYNOLDS, concurring :
I disagreed with the majority holding in the earlier General Shoe
case ' that the preelection activities of the employer warranted setting
aside the election. As the conduct of the Employer in the instant
case with respect to the manner in which meetings were held with
employees is indistinguishable from that of the employer in the earlier
decision I deem myself bound by the majority finding therein. I there-
fore concur in my colleagues' conclusion that the election in the present
case should be set aside. If I were not thus compelled to regard as
coercive the employer meetings, I would view the conversations with
Wright, Hunt, and Reeves as isolated incidents affording insufficient
basis for directing that a new election be held .6
MEMBER MURDOCK took no part in the consideration of the above
Supplemental Decision and Order.
"Footnote 3, supra.
e Wilson and Company, Inc., 95 NLRB 882 ; S d S Cori uga,ted Paper Machinery Co. Inc,
89 NLRB 1363; General Shoe Corporation , footnote 3, supra.
COCA-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY OF PoTTsviLLE and EMPLOYEES OF
COCA-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY OF POTTSVILLE , PETITIONER and
LOCAL 429, -INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS , CHAUF-
FEuRS, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELPERS OF AMERICA, AFL. Case No.
4-RD-64. December 1. ,1951 '
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Harold X. Summers,
hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing
are free from prejudicial error and are hereby aff'irmed'
'The hearing officer referred to the Board the union's motion to dismiss the petition
in this proceeding . For the reasons set forth in paragraph 3, infra, this motion is hereby
granted.
97 NLRB No. 73.