Celanese Corp. of America

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 6, 1958

121 N.L.R.B. 303 (N.L.R.B. 1958)

CELANESE CORPORATION OF AMERICA 303
Superior voted 2 to 1 against union organization in their Punxsutawney plant
recently.
Think of the benefits you have had here over the period of five years. The fact
that on many of our assembly lines today we are building stock meters to keep
your pay checks rolling in and the fact that with our own Rockwell organization,
DuBois has the reputation of being tops among our plants . This includes the union-
ized plants as well as the others At the present time plans are to move dies into
this plant from Canton, Ohio, for making punch press stampings for the parking
meters.
CONCLUSION
We actually brought you together today to inform you of the rate adjustment, but
I did feel that since some of our people have been entertaining the idea of a Union,
we wanted to make sure that these people as well as all of you other people including
the old timers know that REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT A UNION IS
IN THE PICTURE, WHAT WE CAN AND WILL DO FOR OUR EMPLOYEES
WILL NOT BE GOVERNED BY PRESSURE FROM ANY SUCH GROUP.
Again I say look at the record that has been built up by the loyal cooperation
of you people and your management over the years in DuBois without a Union.
Look at your benefits you and your families receive in a year's time. CAN YOU
BEAT IT?
Celanese Corporation of America and Textile Workers Union of
America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 9-RC-3313. August 6,
1958
DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
Pursuant to a stipulation for certification upon consent election,
approved by the Regional Director for the Ninth Region on March 5,
1958, an election was conducted on March 12, 11958, under the direction
and supervision of the Regional Director, among the employees at the
Employer's Gallipolis Ferry, West Virginia, plant. At the conclusion
of the election, the parties were furnished a tally of ballots which
showed that of approximately 50 eligible voters, 47 cast ballots, of
which 25 were for the Petitioner and 22 against. There were no chal-
lenged ballots.
On March 19, 1958, the Employer filed timely objections to conduct
affecting the results of the election. On April 7, 1958, the Regional
Director issued and duly served upon the parties his report on objec-
tions, in which he recommended that the objections be overruled and
that the Board issue an appropriate certification of representatives.
The Employer filed timely exceptions to the Regional Director's
recommendations and a supporting brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
'panel [Chairman Leedom and Members Rodgers and Jenkins].
The Employer's request for oral argument is hereby denied, because
the record, including the exceptions and brief, adequately presents the
issues and the positions of the parties. The Employer's request for a
hearing on its objections is likewise denied, because the Employer
raises no issue as to material facts. _
121 NLRB No. 42.
304 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Upon the entire record in this case , the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to-represent employees
of the Employer . ......
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. In agreement with the stipulation of the parties , we find that the
following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9 (b) of the Act: -
All production and maintenance employees , including utility em-
ployees, employed by the Employer at its Gallipolis Ferry , West Vir-
ginia , plant , excluding all office clerical employees , plant clerical
employees , janitors, and all guards , professional employees , and super-
visors as defined in the Act.
5. The Employer bases its first objection to the election on a letter
written by the Petitioner to the employees . The Employer alleges
that this letter was mailed to and received by the employees the day
before the election , which began at 6:30 a. m . on March 12 , 1958. The
Employer contends that the following statement in that letter is "false,
misleading, and erroneous" and warrants setting the election ' aside:
He [the manager of the plant involved here ] says that all of
the fine fringe benefits show the company 's interest in your con-
cern. This could be something less than the truth , for the fact is
that Celanese fringes, as well as other plant conditions, were won
through collective bargaining , and in many instances over the
initial opposition of the Company.
The letter of which the Employer complains was sent after the Em-
ployer had written a series of letters to the employees , drawing to
their attention a number of benefits available to the employees under
the Employer's present employment policy, and urging the employees
to vote against the Petitioner.' The Employer states in its brief
that certain benefits referred to in its preelection letters to the em-
1 The letters referred to the Employer 's practice of insuring full employment for its
work force by subcontracting work between business dips, its disciplinary procedure, its
contributions to an employee recreational club, its medical and life insurance program,
its retirement plan , certain improvements in the construction of the plant , its start on
the construction of an employee lunchroom , its arrangements for permitting employees to
split overtime and vacations , its plans for establishing a recreational park area, its
practice of avoiding layoffs by assigning employees to work they do not ordinarily per-
form, its seniority and promotion policy, recent wage increases , full pay for jury duty,
funeral leave, vacation benefits, holidays and holiday pay, shift differentials , absence of
time clocks , washroom facilities, free coveralls, refrigerators for lunches , and contribu-
tions toward cost of safety shoes . The Employer also asserted that the wages paid to
its employees at this plant exceeded those paid at plants in the area where the Petitioner
represented the employees.
CELANESE CORPORATION OF AMERICA 305
ployees,a as well as other benefits not adverted to therein,' have
never been contained in any union contract with the Employer at any
of its plants. The Employer further states that it originally pro-
vided, and through the years improved, still other benefits referred
to in its preelection letters ,' that these benefits are accorded all of
its employees throughout the United States, that in no instance were
they ever the results of any demand of the Petitioner, and that in
each instance where these benefits were put into effect in plants
whose employees are represented by the Petitioner, the Petitioner
merely accepted them- without any bargaining.5
We agree with the Regional Director that the letter from the Peti-
tioner of which the Employer complains does not warrant setting
aside the election . The Employer makes no claim , and the evidence
which it tenders falls far short of establishing, that none of the bene-
fits adverted to in the Employer's preelection letters was obtained
for the Employer's employees through collective bargaining., The
Employer's contention that the Petitioner's letter misrepresented the
facts must, therefore, rest on the assumption that the Petitioner was
claiming to have obtained, through collective bargaining with the
Employer, all of the benefits, or at least all of the "fringe benefits,"
referred to, in the Employer's preelection letters. Furthermore, the
Employer contends in its brief to the Board that the Petitioner's
letter claimed credit for certain employee benefits not in fact ob-
tained by collective bargaining but never referred to in the Em-
ployer's praelection letters.' However, in our view the letter does
not justify the interpretation put upon it by the Employer., The
letter appears even on its face to claim only that some, unspecified,
benefits referred to in the Employer's preelection letters were obtained
by collective bargaining. When the Petitioner's letter is read in the
8I. e., full pay for jury duty.
8I. e., free tools, pay for time spent in preinduction physical examination for military
service, free lunches for employees working overtime, and payment of certain wages to
employees suffering compensable injuries while on the job.
* Specifically , its medical and life insurance program and its retirement plan.
6In contrast to its allegations regarding the benefits set out in footnotes 2 and 3,
supra, the Employer makes no contention in its exceptions or brief that the insurance and
retirement benefits described in footnote 4, supra, are not included in any union con-
tract with the Employer. However, the Employer filed no exceptions to that part of the
Regional Director 's report stating that the Employer had "submitted evidence that its
pension plan , group insurance program and certain other fringes have not been subjects
of collective bargaining and are not covered in the contracts which it has with the Peti-
tioner at other plants."
6 Cf. footnotes 1, 2, and 4, supra.
See footnote 3, supra.
8 The Employer contends that the election should be set aside because the Petitioner
allegedly intended its letter to mislead the employees. The Petitioner 's undisclosed
motives in writing the letter are plainly immaterial to the issue here, which is whether the
statements therein tended to mislead the employees who read them . See American Tool
Works of Hartford, Incorporated , 102 NLRB 1143, 1149.
487926-59-vol. 121-21
306 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
light of the Employer's letters to the employees, the limited charac-
ter of its claim becomes even clearer . Some of the benefits to which
the Employer's letters referred were of such a nature that the em-
ployees could not reasonably have believed that the Petitioner was
claiming credit for them .9 'Moreover, the employees would be un-
likely to infer from the Petitioner's letter that the Petitioner was
claiming credit for obtaining benefits which neither the Petitioner's
letter nor any of the Employer's:- letters had ever specifically de-
scribed.
Accordingly, because the Employer has failed to tender evidence
that the Petitioner's letter to the employees contained any misrepre-
sentations, we shall overrule the Employer's objections based thereon.'°
In any event, we would not set aside the election even assuming the
Employer's interpretation of the Petitioner's letter to be correct.. The
Board will not police ordinary campaign representations for their
truth or falsehood but will allow the good sense of the employees to
determine which are true and which are false insofar as they may
affect the validity of the election.ll Employees who vote in such elec-
tions are well aware that the parties in hotly contested representation
elections, like those in hotly contested political elections, frequently
make allegations during the campaign which would not be made by a
disinterested historian.'a Accordingly, the Board has repeatedly re-
fused to set aside an election on the basis of campaign misrepresenta-
tion, by one of the parties, comparable to that ascribed to the
Petitioner here.13 f
Furthermore, the Petitioner's letter, even as interpreted by the
Employer, constituted at worst a half-truth. The Employer's excep-
tions and brief do not dispute that the Petitioner was factually cor-
rect in its alleged assertion that it was responsible for a number of the
9 Thus, the employees could hardly suppose that the Petitioner claimed credit for initiat-
ing' a disciplinary procedure handled entirely by management , or improvements in the
physical facilities of a plant whose employees it did not represent , particularly in view
of the Employer 's avowed opposition to the Petitioner.
io Montrose Hanger Company, 120 NLRB 88.
n Herder's , Incorporated, 114 NLRB 751, 753
12 One of the Employer 's preelection letters urged the employees , "Do not let rumors,
misinformation and unfounded promises sway your judgment nor be misled by prop-
aganda calculated to make you fearful."
' See, e g ., Barber Colman Company, 116 NLRB 24, 26-27 ( employer 's untrue allega-
tions that union had engaged in certain strikes) ; The De Vilbiss Company, 115 NLRB
1164, 1166-1167 (employer 's misrepresentation of the amount of the union 's dues, the
contracts and wages it had obtained at other plants , and its views on strikes ) ; Allis-
Chalmers Manufacturing Co., 117 NLRB 744, 746-749 (union's alleged misrepresenta-
tion that it had obtained certain benefits for employees outside the voting group which
was thereafter accorded employees in the voting group) ; Verson Manufacturing Co.,
114 NLRB 1297 ( employer 's misrepresentation of the contents of a contract between
the union and another employer ) ; Comfort Slipper Corporation , 112 NLRB 183, 184-
185 (union ' s alleged misrepresentation of the number of pledge cards it had obtained
and the size of the employer 's profits ) ; Audubon Cabenet Company, Inc , 119 NLRB
349 (union ' s alleged misrepresentation of the hours , wages, and working conditions at
the employer 's other plants).
CELANESE CORPORATION OF AMERICA 307
benefits referred to in the Employer's preelection letters '14 - including
some benefits which, according to specific statements in the Employer's
letters to the, employees, the Employer, had given the employees with-
out union intervention.15 The Board has refused to set aside an elec-
tion on the ground that some campaign statements were not entirely
true." The Board has set aside elections because of material mis-
representations of fact where (1) the employees would tend to give
particular weight to the misrepresentation because it came from a
'party that had special' knowledge of, or was in an authoritative posi-
tion to know, the true facts, and (2) no other party had sufficient
opportunity to correct the misrepresentation before the election.17
However, no such situation is presented here. 'It is not likely that the
employees would have attached special weight to the Petitioner's ver-
sion of the facts, as against the Employer's version, on the assumption
that the Petitioner was better informed about them than the Em-
ployer, since the Employer, as the employees necessarily knew, was a
party to the negotiations and the contract in question.18 In fact, if
the employees had interpreted the Petitioner's letter as claiming credit
for all of the benefits recited in the Employer's letters, they must have
been put on their guard as to its complete veracity by the fact that the
Petitioner obviously could not have been responsible for some of
them 19
Moreover, we_think that under the circumstances of this case the
Employer's version of the facts was adequately presented to the em-
ployees,before the election. The Employer's preelection letters to the
employees in effect attributed to the Employer alone the many em-
ployee benefits for which the Petitioner allegedly claimed credit. The
fact that the Employer's denial preceded the, Petitioner's claim is im-
material , since the Employer was not'entitled to the last word as a
matter of right?6 In any event, the Petitioner's letter to the em-
ployees itself reiterated the Employer's claim that the Employer
should be given credit for such benefits.
14 E g , wages above average in the area , holidays , vacations , premium pay for certain
shifts and for holidays worked, free coveralls ;'and employer contributions toward safety
shoes.
115 I e , recent wage increases and improvements in holiday pay, and insuring full
employment for the Employer 's employees by subcontracting work between business dips.
The Employer 's letters to the employees also attributed its policy permitting employees
to split overtime and vacations to requests made by "individuals " or "some of. our
people "
]s Horder's , Incorporated, 114 NLRB 751 , see also Avon Products, Inc, 116 NLRB
1729, 1731.
17 See Kawneer Company, 119 NLRB 1460 , and cases cited in footnote 2 thereof
1A See Kennametal, Inc, 119 NLRB 1236 , in which we said that a misstatement suffi-
cient to invalidate an election must involve facts "peculiarly within the knowledge of
the utterer of the statement and not readily available to the employees or other parties."
Cf. The Gummed Products Company , 112 NLRB 1092 , in' which the Board set aside an
election because of the union 's misrepresentation of the terms of a contract between it
and another employer
19 Cf. General Electric Company ( Clock and Timer Department ), 119 NLRB 944.
10 See All,s -Chalmers 4Ianufacturing Co., 117 NLRB 744, 745.
308 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
6. Because no exceptions have been filed to the Regional Director's
recommendation that the Employer's objection Number 2 be over-
ruled, we shall adopt that recommendation.
As we have overruled the objections to the election, and as the tally
of ballots shows that the Petitioner received a majority of the valid
ballots cast, we shall certify the Petitioner as the collective-bargaining
representative of the employees in the appropriate unit.
[The Board certified Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO,
as the designated collective-bargaining representative of the employees
of the Employer in the appropriate unit.]
Local 169, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of
America, AFL-CIO, and Carpenters District Council of Tri-
Counties, Illinois and W. H. Condo, Brick Contractor, and
Mason Contractors ' Association of East St. Louis . Case No.
14-CD-65. August 7, 1958
DECISION AND ORDER
On April 16,1958, Trial Examiner Eugene F. Frey issued his Inter-
mediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the
Respondents had engaged in and were engaging in certain unfair
labor practices and recommending that they cease and desist therefrom
and take certain, affirmative action, as set forth in the copy of the
Intermediate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Respondents
filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel [Members Rodgers, Jenkins, and Fanning].
The Board has, reviewed-the rulings made by the Trial Examiner
at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed.
The rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the
Intermediate Report, the exceptions, and the entire record in this
case and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recommendations
of the Trial Examiner.
ORDER
Upon the entire record in this case and pursuant to Section 10 (c)
of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor
Relations Board hereby orders that the Respondents, Local 169, United
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, AFL-CIO, and
Carpenters District Council of Tri-Counties, Illinois, and their re-
spective officers, representatives, agents, successors, and assigns, shall:
121 NLRB No. 56.