Standard Forge and Axle Company, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 27, 1968

170 N.L.R.B. 784 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

784 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Standard Forge and Axle Company , Inc. and United
Steelworkers of America , AFL-CIO. Cases
15-CA-2968, 15-CA-3034, and 15-RC-3556
March 27, 1968
DECISION AND ORDER
BY MEMBERS FANNING, JENKINS, AND ZAGORIA
On October 12, 1967, Trial Examiner William
Seagle issued his Decision in the above-entitled
proceeding, finding that the Respondent had en-
gaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor
practices and recommending that it cease and de-
sist therefrom and take certain affirmative action,
as set forth in the attached Trial Examiner's Deci-
sion. He also recommended that the election in
Case 15-RC-3556 be set aside. Thereafter, the
Respondent filed exceptions to his Decision and a
supporting brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial
Examiner made at the hearing and finds that no
prejudicial error was committed.' The rulings are
hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the
Trial Examiner's Decision, the exceptions and brief,
and the entire record in this case, and hereby
adopts the findings,' conclusions, and recommenda-
tions of the Trial Examiner.'
ORDER
Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor
Relations Board adopts as its Order the Recom-
mended Order of the Trial Examiner, as modified
' in view of the fact that the Trial Examiner granted leave to the Respon-
dent to renew its motion for a continuance at the close of the General
Counsel 's case if Respondent still thought it had not had an adequate op-
portunity to prepare for the hearing , and the fact that Respondent failed to
renew such motion , we find no merit in Respondent 's present contentions
that the Trial Examiner 's original denial of such motion deprived Respon-
dent of due process and a full and fair hearing
2 The Respondent excepts to the Trial Examiner 's credibility findings
Under the established policy not to overrule a Trial Examiner's credibility
findings unless a clear preponderance of all the relevant evidence con-
vinces us that they were incorrect , we find no basis for disturbing the credi-
bility findings made by the Trial Examiner in this case Standard Dry Wall
Products , Inc 91 NLRB 844, enfd 188 F 2d 362 (C A 3)
In adopting the Trial Examiner 's findings of Section 8 ( a)(3) violations,
we also rely on Respondent 's widespread violations of Section 8(a)(I)
9 Member Zagoria does not, however , rely on the letter of February 9,
1967, the circular , or the booklet , as bases for finding violations of Section
8(a)(I) or for setting aside the election
below, and hereby orders that the Respondent,
Standard Forge and Axle Company, Inc., Mont-
gomery, Alabama, its officers, agents, successors,
and assigns , shall take the action set forth in the
Trial Examiner's Recommended Order, as herein
modified.'
In the Remedy section, the Trial Examiner stated that, in view of the
serious nature of the unfair labor practices, he would recommend a broad
form of cease - and-desist order , restraining Respondent from infringing
upon any of the rights guaranteed to employees by Section 7 of the Act We
correct his apparent inadvertence in not doing so by deleting "like or re-
lated," and substituting therefor "other," in Section 1(c) of his Recom-
mended Order, and in the corresponding seventh substantive paragraph of
the Appendix
TRIAL EXAMINER'S DECISION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
WILLIAM SEAGLE, Trial Examiner : Pursuant to a
Decision and Direction of Election issued on Janu-
ary 24, 1967, by the Regional Director for Region
15 of the National Labor Relations Board , an elec-
tion was conducted on February 23, 1967, among
certain employees of Standard Forge and Axle
Company, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as Standard
Forge ), at its Montgomery, Alabama, plant in order
to determine whether they desired to be
represented for the purposes of collective bargain-
ing by the United Steelworkers of America,
AFL--CIO (hereinafter referred to as the Steel-
workers, or simply as the union ). Of the approxi-
mately 302 voters who were eligible to participate
in the election , 103 cast valid ballots in favor of the
union , and 187 cast valid ballots against it ( the bal-
lots of 9 voters were challenged but the challenged
ballots were insufficient in number to affect the
result of the election).
On March 1 , 1967, the union filed 10 objections
to the conduct of the election , the objections being
numbered alphabetically from A to J, and under
date of May 12, 1967, the Regional Director filed
his supplemental decision and report on the union's
objections to the election , overruling objections A,
C, G, I, and J , sustaining objection E , and recom-
mending that objections B, D, F, and H be set down
for hearing . In view of his finding with respect to
objection E , the Regional Director also directed
that the election of February 23, 1967, be set aside
and that a second election be conducted. Upon the
request of the employer for review of the Regional
Director 's decision , the Board , on June 14, 1967,
entered an order granting the request for review,
and directing that a hearing be held with respect to
the issues raised by objections B, D, E, F, and H,
and authorizing the Regional Director to con-
solidate the proceeding with Cases 15-CA-2968
and 3034 . The charge in Case 15-CA-2968 had
been filed by the union on November 23, 1966, the
charge in Case 15-CA-3034 had been filed by the
union on March 1, 1967, and pursuant to the
170 NLRB No. 82
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC. 785
Board's direction, the Regional Director, on May
16, 1967, issued an order consolidating the cases,
and issued a complaint in the consolidated cases.
The issues in the complaint case are whether the
respondent committed various acts of interference,
restraint, and coercion in the course of its cam-
paign against the union, and discharged three of its
employees, William E. Cannon, Clarence Robert
Litaker, and Roy A. Marston.'
Having been duly designated as the Trial Ex-
aminer, I held a hearing with respect to the issues in
the consolidated proceeding at Montgomery,
Alabama, on July 18, 19, and 20, 1967.2
Upon the evidence adduced at the hearing, the
posthearing briefs filed by counsel for the General
Counsel, the respondent, and the charging party,
and in view of my observation of the demeanor of
the witnesses, I hereby make the following findings
of fact:
1. THE RESPONDENT
The respondent, Standard Forge, is an Alabama
corporation, which maintains its principal office
and place of business at Hunter Station, Mont-
gomery, Alabama, where it is engaged in the
production of truck axles and related parts.
During the past 12 months, which is a representa-
tive period, the respondent, in the course and con-
duct of its business operations, purchased goods
and materials valued in excess of $50,000, and
these goods and materials were shipped to it
directly from points outside the State of Alabama.
non and who worked as a drill press operator, con-
tacted Jimmie Lee Williams, a staff representative
of the Steelworkers, with a view to interesting the
latter in organizing the Standard Forge employees.
Williams was on his way to a "convention of the
Steelworkers at Atlantic City, however, and nothing
was done until after he had returned in the latter
part of September when Cannon and some other
employees commenced the solicitation of signa-
tures to union authorization cards. Union meetings
also began to be held in the middle of October at
the union hall. The meetings were held at first on
Tuesdays, and later on Thursdays, except for one
meeting, which was held on Sunday, December 18,
1966. At the first union meeting, Cannon was
selected as chairman of the organizational drive,
and two of the other Standard Forge employees,
whose names are Clarence Robert Litaker and Roy
A. Marston, were selected as assistant chairmen.
The union notified the respondent on November
7, 1966, that it could make a showing of interest in
the plant, and on November 23 wrote a letter to the
respondent requesting recognition. Since this
request was declined, the union filed a representa-
tion petition on December 5, 1966, and the
Direction of Election issued on January 24, 1967,
scheduling the election of February 23, 1967, as al-
ready related.
2. The respondent 's covert antiunion campaign
a. The interrogations and threats
H. THE LABOR ORGANIZATION INVOLVED
United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO, is a
labor organization which has sought to organize the
production and maintenance employees of the
respondent'
IIL THE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES
A. Acts of Interference, Restraint, and Coercion
1. The union's organizing campaign
In early September 1966, one of the employees
of Standard Forge, whose name is William E. Can-
' Marston's surname appears erroneously in the transcript as "Mor-
nston " Monroe Clakeley, the supervisor of the respondent's shipping de-
partment, also appears in the transcript as "Marvin Clakeley " Upon mo-
tion of the General Counsel, these errors are hereby corrected Counsel of
the General Counsel also moves that the record be corrected to reflect that
respondent's Exh 2 was rejected Actually, this exhibit was admitted but
only as part of the respondent's offer of proof in connection with its motion
for an adjournment of the hearing
E At the hearing, counsel for the respondent moved for an adjournment
on the ground that after they had interviewed employees in preparation for
trial they had learned from one of the interviewed employees that'the
General Counsel had told one of the latter that he had been interviewed in
an illegal manner. The motion was denied on the grounds that it should
have been made to the Regional Director prior to the hearing and that to
Shortly after the respondent's managerial
hierarchy became aware of the union's efforts to
organize the Standard Forge employees, it took
measures to frustrate them. The top echelon of this
managerial hierarchy consisted of John G. Hagen,
who was president of the company; of H. R. Silver,
who was general manager; and of W. R. McBride,
who was the plant superintendent. The lower
echelon of the hierarchy consisted of the foremen
or leadmen in the five departments of the plant.
The assembly department, which had three as-
sembly lines, had three foremen, Lloyd Melvin Ca-
gle, Conrad E. Cook, and Gladney O. Whitmire.
The forge shop foremen was John Thomas Age;'
the foreman of the machine shop was Frazier Paul;
grant the motion would inhibit the General Counsel in investigating the
conduct of attorneys claimed to have been illegal However, although leave
was also granted to renew the motion at the close of the Genera, Counsel's
case if counsel for the respondent still thought that they had not had an
adequate opportunity to prepare for trial, no such motion was made
3 In his Decision and Direction of,Election, the Regional Director found
the appropriate unit to consist of all production and maintenance em-
ployees at the Montgomery, Alabama, plant of the respondent, including
the local truckdriver, inspectors, and plant clericals, but excluding office
clerical employees, professional employees, over-the-road truckdrivers,
guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.
" There was also a leadman on the night shift in the forge shop whose
name was Willis A Shumaker
350-999 0 - 71 - 51
786 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the foreman of the tool-and-die room was John R.
Morris; and what was variously known as the yard
or the shipping department had two leadmen, of
whom only one, Monroe Clakeley, played any role
at all in the respondent's antiunion campaign.
This campaign had two aspects: one covert and
the other overt. The covert campaign was con-
ducted almost entirely by the lower echelon of the
respondent's managerial hierarchy, who received
permission to talk to such of the employees as they
wished to approach.' The most important and per-
sistent of the foremen who interrogated the em-
ployees were Age, the foreman of the forge shop,
who, alone had 72 employees, "colored and white,"
as he put it, working under him, and Cagle, one of
the assembly department foremen. Age inter-
rogated no less than seven of the employees con-
cerning their union sympathies or activities, and he
interrogated two of these seven employees twice-,
making a total of nine interrogations. Cagle inter-
rogated similarly four other of the employees,6 and
McBride, Paul, Morris, Whitmire, and Cook each
interrogated an employee. Age interrogated Willie
Joe Rhodes twice, once a little before Thanksgiving
1966, and again a little after Thanksgiving; Joseph
McQueen, Jr., once a little after Christmas 1966;
Willie Wilson, Jr., once on or about January 23,
1967; Charles Edwards Mays, Sr., twice, once
about a week before the election, and again 2
weeks before the election; C. W. Beaty, once about
a week before the election; Lester Jurmon, once
during the week before the election; and Collin Un-
derwood, once about 2 weeks before Christmas
1966. Cagle interrogated Herschell Weldon about 3
weeks after the start of the union campaign, and
Cagle also participated in a triple interrogation of
Jessie O'Dell Pierce by himself, Whitmire, and
Cook on or about November 5. Shumaker inter-
rogated Eddie Lee Barlow a day or two before the
election; Paul interrogated Kinnard Gillespie on or
about December 15, 1966; and, finally, McBride in-
terrogated Ervin Missildine on or about November
10, 1966.
It would be unduly repetitious to set forth in
detail the precise circumstances and the dialogue in
the case of each of the interrogations , for the inter-
rogators seem to have followed as a rule a set pat-
tern . Except in a single instance , the supervisor in-
terrogating an employee would approach the latter
at his work station ,' and the opening gambit of the
supervisor would be to ask the employee what he
thought about the -union. Almost invariably the
reply of the interrogated employee to this question
was evasive.
For example, Willie Joe Rhodes told Morris and
Age that he had not yet "rendered a decision";
Joseph McQueen, Jr., told Age that he was unde-
cided; Charles Edwards Mays, Sr., when inter-
rogated by Age the first time told the latter that he
had not given the union any thought, and when in-
terrogated by Age the second time told the latter
that he would probably vote against the union; W.
C. Beaty told Age that he did not know what to
think, and asked for enlightenment; Lester Jurmon,
when questioned by Age, countered with: "Who
told you I wanted a union?" and Kinnard Gillespie,
although he confessed that he had signed a union
card, declared that he had not made up his mind as
to how he would vote.
In a few of the conversations between supervisor
and employee, to be sure, the interchange did not
go much beyond argument on the merits or
demerits of unionism but such arguments were not
between equals, and the employees were clearly'on
the defensive; they -were, moreover, specifically ad-
vised to vote against the union. Examples of such
conversations are perhaps those between Age and
Joseph McQueen and Charles Edwards Mays, Sr.,
and between Shumaker and Eddie Lee Barlow, and
perhaps the most significant were the conversations
between Age and Mays. In the first conversation,
Mays agreed with Age that the union was no good,
just to get Age "off his back," as he put it, but in
the second conversation, which was evidently a fol-
lowup to the first, Mays told age that, although he
had not made up his mind, he would probably vote
against the union. During some of the interroga-
tions, moreover, the interrogated employee was not
only urged to vote against the union but was
specifically asked whether he had been attending
union meetings or had signed a union card. For ex-
ample, Age asked Willie Joe Rhodes and Lester
Jurmon whether they had attended union meetings,
and in the case of Rhodes demanded to know why
he had not been told that Rhodes was attending
union meetings, which was clearly a reprimand.' An
example of an employee who was asked whether he
had signed a union card is Missildine, who was
asked this question by McBride himself.
Furthermore, a considerable number of the inter-
rogated employees, usually the bolder or more ob-
durate, had their job security or privileges directly
5 I base this finding not only on the circumstances surrounding the inter-
rogations of the employees but also on the following testimony of Shu-
maker, who was called as a witness by the respondent.
0 Did any of your superiors suggest that you have these conversa-
tions with your employees"
A. I was told that I was free to talk to them if I seen fit to talk to
them.
s Two of the four interrogated employees were Litaker and Cannon but
the interrogations of the discrimmatees are discussed infra, in connection
with their discharges.
I The exception is Willie Wilson who was summoned to Age's office by
another employee known as Preacher Robertson who told Willie that his
boss wanted to see him in his office Willie was then on his way to lunch
but, fortifying himself with a drink, proceeded to Age's office
8 Counsel for the respondent attack the testimony of Rhodes on the
ground that he said nothing in his prehearing affidavit about attendance at
union meetings, as well as nothing about talking to McBride in order to get
more than the union could offer them But such omissions do not in them-
seles establish a positive inconsistency What a prospective witness will tell
a prehearing investigator will often depend upon how searching the
questions of the investigator are
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC. 787
threatened during the interrogation. During his
second interrogation, Rhodes was told by Age that
if the union came in, the yearly raise, the Christmas
bonus, and step promotions would be eliminated,
and Age suggested to Rhodes that the employees
talk to McBride; in his interrogation of Beaty, Age
intimated that he had been able to keep the em-
ployees working because the company was nonun-
ion and. in his interrogation of Underwood, Age
was quite explicit in his threats, telling Underwood:
"You are having it pretty good -now--but-when the
union gets here you are not going to have it good. If
I were you, I would rule it out." By way of illustra-
tion, Age mentioned to Underwood that the em-
ployees would not be allowed to remain in the
men's room for long times or otherwise engage in
loafing: In his interrogation of Herschel] Weldon,
Cagle pointedly reminded the latter that he was the
newest man on the job, and in his interrogation of
Gillespie, Paul told the latter that McBride had
declared that "they would close the shop down be-
fore they would operate under a union."
The multiple interrogation of Jessie O'Dell Pierce
by Cagle, Whitmire, and Cook on the same day at
15 minute intervals is perhaps the best illustration
of the threatening character of the interrogations
conducted by the respondent's supervisors. In
Pierce they found one of the more candid em-
ployees who admitted that he was for the union and
that he had signed a union card and the three su-
pervisors threatened either that the plant would
close, or that -Pierce himself would be fired. Pier-
ce's testimony concerning his conversation with
Cook is particularly worth quoting. It was as fol-
lows:
Yes, sir, I won't ever forget the way he ap-
proached me. He came up to me and said,
"Jess, was your ears burning last night?" And I
said, "No, I don't guess, what?" He said, "Me
and my wife was talking about you." I said,
"You was?" He said, "Yes, I told her that you
had been misled and had signed a Union card."
I said, "Yes, I did, Cook." He said, "Well,
that's the wrong thing to do." I said, "It might
be, Cook, but I signed a card and I am going to
vote for the union." He said, "Well, Jess, I
think a lot of you and I hate to see you- lose
your job with the size family you have got."
I do have a large family. Anyway, he went on
to say that I would lose my job and they would
not operate the plant under the union.
The impact of such interrogations of the em-
ployees was not materially lessened by virtue of the
fact that in the case of the interrogation of one em-
ployee, Willie Wilson, Age gave him what seemed
to amount to an assurance against reprisals by
telling him that if he told the truth about his stand
with respect to the union neither their relationship
nor his job would be affected. How effective even
the mildest interrogations are in disturbing the
peace of mind of employees is illustrated by the
case of Missildine who did not wait to be inter-
rogated but sought out McBride of his own accord
as soon as he heard that McBride was under the im-
pression that Missildine was "pushing the union."
On or about November 10, Missildine, who had ac-
tually signed a union card, went to assure McBride
that his signing of the.union card did not necessari-
ly mean that he would vote for the union.
As is usually the case, the versions of the inter-
rogations given by the respondent's witnesses do
not agree with those given by the General Counsel's
witnesses but where they differ I credit -the
testimony of the latter, with a very minor excep-
tion.10 The only one of the respondent's supervisors
who almost told "nothing but the truth" was Shu-
maker who admitted taking the initiative in talking
to Barlow about the union. Indeed, Shumaker ad-
mitted to talking to other employees in the same
vein as to Barlow. Another supervisor who also ad-
mitted taking the initiative in talking to Gillespie
about the union was Paul but, although he denied
some aspects of Gillespie's testimony, the in-
terchange to which he admitted clearly constituted
an unfair labor practice, for he testified as follows:
All right, I said to Mr. Gillespie, "Are you
satisfied and happy with your job," and he
said, "Yes." I said, "Well, I have heard rumors
that you were taking part in the Union and
were not happy with your job. I feel like that if
you are not happy, I would like to know it and
would like to work it out with you." Mr. Gil-
lespie stated to me at that time that he had
signed a Union card but he did not know
whether he would go along with the Union or
not. That was about the extent of the conversa-
tion [Emphasis supplied].
As for the other supervisors of the respondent,
they admitted that they talked to the interrogated
employees about the union but, according to them,
these employees were always the ones who initiated
the conversation by asking them what they thought
about the union, and volunteering some such item
of information as that they had signed a union card.
To the extent that they did discuss the union with
the employees, it seems that they did no more than
9 Again this item of testimony is attacked by counsel for the respondent
on the ground that it is not contained in Gillespie's preheating affidavit But
in this instance the item is contained in a supplemental affidavit given by
Gillespie shortly after the original affidavit.
Si This is the testimony of C W Beaty, one of the Negro hands , that in
his conversation with Age on or about February 15, 1966, the latter told
him that the company from which Standard Forge bought its steel had al-
ready informed the latter that it would have to cut production if Standard
Forge went union This testimony was, of course, absurd but I do not be-
lieve that Beaty was fabricating when he gave it He was merely giving his
own garbled version of what the company had told the employees in a letter
dated February 9, 1967, which forms the basis of the union's objection E
This letter is fully discussed infra, but the point of the letter was that Stan-
dard Forge had been informed by some of its customers that it would not
continue to be their sole source of supply for axles if it were unionized
788 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
to express their honest opinions. "We differed on
opinions," declared Clakeley sadly and senten-
tiously. In other words, while they admitted having
conversations, it always turned out somehow that
they never said anything that could be construed as
coercive, or that went beyond the permissible
bounds of a supervisor's curiosity. This technique is
exemplified best perhaps in the testimony of Age,
the most frequent offender, who added to the
general technique a readiness to explain anything
that seemed suspicious. He admitted, for example,
that he had asked Preacher Robinson to tell Willie
Wilson to come to his office but explained that it
was to ask the latter to do a job 10 minutes before
lunch time, and that the conversation that they had
about the union was more or less incidental. But
Age also explained that he wanted to talk to Wilson
in his office because of "the extreme racket in the
forge shop." He had had no difficulty, however, in
talking about the union to any of the other em-
ployees under him in the forge shop, who were at
least six in number, while they were at their work
stations, despite the supposed racket in the forge
shop.
That Age in particular meant business in initiat-
ing conversations about the union with the em-
ployees under him is indicated by his attempt to ex-
plain his denial that he had talked to Mays about
the union. It seems that the explanation was that he
could not have talked to Mays about the union
because he knew that Mays was not even eligible to
vote in the election. In other words, there was no
point in wasting his valuable time in attempting to
persuade a nonvoter!
I find it impossible to believe that the respon-
dent's supervisors were merely engaged in conduct-
ing Socratic dialogues with the untutored factory
hands under them, and that these were always seek-
ing them out, moreover, and making them their
confidantes about their union activities. The
testimony of the respondent's supervisors is particu-
larly incredible in view of the fact that the respon-
dent's management was Fombarding its employees
at this time with a series of letters setting forth its
unfavorable views about the union , as hereinafter
related.
I must conclude that the interrogations were
coercive, except possibly in one or two instances,
and interfered with the Section 7 rights of the em-
ployees. In a considerable number of the interroga-
tions, threats were made of the loss of jobs or
privileges, and in other or the same interrogations,
questions were asked concerning attendance at
union meetings . It was also an unfair labor practice
for some of the respondent's supervisors to suggest
to the employees after the union campaign had
" See, for instance, Ballas Egg Products, Inc , 121 NLRB 873, footnote
1, Lincoln Bearing Company, 133 NLRB 1069, 1070, Marsh Supermarkets,
The, 140 NLRB 899, 901, Clark Printing Company, Inc, 146 NLRB 121,
122
started that they contact McBride with a view to
the removal of some of their grievances. As there
was an election pending, there was also no justifica-
tion for questioning any of the employees as to
whether they had signed union cards, or as to how
they intended to vote in the scheduled election.
The Board has often held that such conduct tends
to undermine the very purpose of a Board-con-
ducted election, which is to afford employees the
opportunity to express themselves by secret bal-
lot.",
b. The surveillance of the union meeting of
December 18, 1966
In addition to his interrogation of Gillespie, Paul
is charged with the surveillance of the union meet-
ing, which was held at the union hall in Pratville,
Alabama, the afternoon of Sunday, December 18,
and which was attended by 20 to 25 of the Stan-
dard Forge employees. Pratville, which is a town
located between 5 and 7 miles from the Standard
Forge plant, has a business district which consists of
a street that is only two blocks long. The union hall
is located on this street, and alongside of the union
hall is a building that houses the offices of the Prat-
ville Progress, a local newspaper. While the union
meeting was going on, some of the employees in at-
tendance saw Paul and one of the employees, who
worked under him in the machine shop and whose
name was Clarence E. Jenkins, sitting in a car
parked before the offices of the Pratville Progress.
Paul and Jenkins remained there while the union
meeting was going on for a period of at least half an
hour, and perhaps as much as three-quarters of an
hour. I'
The respondent contends that Paul and Jenkins
were parked at the Pratville Progress on a legiti-
mate errand, and that they had not gone there to
engage in the surveillance of the union meeting
which was in progress. Paul and Jenkins both
testified-and their testimony is in close agreement
in this respect-that they went to the Pratville
Progress to talk to one Richard Bond, who worked
there, and who had given Jenkins a bad check for
$90 in payment of his October rent. Paul was
evidently very friendly with Jenkins, and his interest
in the bad check also stemmed from the fact that
when the check had bounced he had loaned $100
to Jenkins. I accept the testimony of Paul and Jen-
kins, insofar as it explains their presence near the
union hall, but this does not necessarily exculpate
them from the charge of surveillance. If, despite the
legitimacy of their original errand, they lingered on
the scene for the purpose of spying on the em-
ployees who were attending the union meeting,
't Paul himself testified that he and Jenkins were there for three-quarters
of an hour
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC. 789
they were engaged in surveillance . Paul and Jenkins
attempted to justify their lingering on the scene as
necessary to the consummation of their errand, but
I am unable to summon up the requisite degree of
naivete to credit this part of their story. This story
was that when they arrived at the Pratville Progress
and Jenkins tried the front door of the shop, which
he found to be locked, they decided to go back to
their car and wait because they had heard noises in-
side the Pratville Progress, and believed that
someone must be there. If this were really true, it is
difficult, if not impossible, to understand why Jen-
kins did not try, to rouse someone immediately, and
was content to wait at least a half hour before he
tried again. if they waited, it could only have been
because they wished to keep the union hall under
observation. I have little doubt, indeed, that they
did so. Both Paul and Jenkins were obviously in-
terested in the union's activities, as was indeed the
whole of the Standard Forge management, and they
would hardly have neglected such a golden oppor-
tunity to learn who was attending union meetings.
Not only is Paul known to have engaged in the in-
terrogation of at least one employee, but Jenkins
was very active in a committee of antiunion em-
ployees known as "The Committee for the Em-
ployees Who Do Not Want a Union" or as "The
Committee Who Represents the Employees Who
Do Not Want a Union." There can be no doubt at
all that Jenkins at least knew that there was a union
meeting in progress while he and Paul were sitting
in the car, for Jenkins himself testified that he had
been invited to the December 18 meeting, and that
he saw four or five of the Standard Forge em-
ployees going into the building that housed the
union hall. There can also be no doubt that Jenkins
would hardly have failed to comment to Paul on
these developments while the two of them were
sitting in the car. Paul's own testimony that he
knew nothing about the antiunion committee and
Jenkins' role in the committee, and that they did
not talk about the union that day hardly enhances
his credibility as a witness. This testimony of Paul is
not only inherently incredible but directly in con-
flict with the testimony of Jenkins who proved a far
more candid witness, although the candor may have
been somewhat involuntary. Jenkins testified that
everyone',knew that he was against the union, and of
course everyone would include Paul. Moreover,
Jenkins admitted that he would talk to Paul about
the union, and that Paul knew that he was against
the union. In the end Paul himself really admitted
that, he knew that there was a union meeting in
progress that day, for when he was asked whether it
was not true that someone had taken the license
plate number of his car, while he was parked before
the Pratville Progress, he not only admitted that he
saw the person who took his license plate number
passing three cars below him but that he remarked
to this person that "if he would come by I would
autograph it for him." This piece of irony would
not be understandable except in the context of the
union situation and the union meeting. Further-
more, there is the testimony of Roy A, Marston,
one of the Standard Forge employees, who had
been discharged the previous day, 3 that he saw
Paul and Jenkins parked in the car before the Prat-
ville Progress, that he waved to them, and that they
both waved back to him. I accept this testimony, and
it established conclusively that Paul and Jenkins
knew that there was a union meeting in progress. I
conclude that Paul and Jenkins lingered on the
scene in order to keep the union meeting under sur-
veillance, and thus violated Section 8(a)(1) of the
Act.
3. The respondent's overt antiunion campaign and
the issue in the representation proceeding
The respondent's overt antiunion campaign was
waged by means of a series of letters and a circular
sent to its employees. There were five such letters,
each dated, respectively, December 8, 1966, and
January 12 and February 2, 9, and 20, 1967. Each
of these letters, except the letter of February 9,
1967, was signed by H. R. Silver, the respondent's
general manager , and made known to its employees
the respondent's opposition to the unionization of
its employees. The union's objection to the election
based on these letters was overruled by the Re-
gional Director, and the propriety of these letters is
no longer an issue in the representation proceeding.
The letter of February 9, 1967, which was signed
by J. A. Rumbley, the respondent's sales manager,
rather than by H. R. Silver, its general manager,
forms, however, the basis of the union's objection E
to the conduct of the election, and, although the
objection was sustained by the Regional Director
on the authority of Haynes Stellite Company, Divi-
sion of Union Carbide Corporation, 136 NLRB 95, it
was included in the issues to be heard in the present
consolidated proceeding. This was done, ap-
parently, so that the impact of the letter could be
considered in the context of the whole of the
respondent's conduct.
The theme of the letter of February 9 is the ef-
fect which the unionization of Standard Forge
would have on the sales of the company, and
Rumbley stressed the fact that he had been its sales
manager for about 20 years, and was thus,
presumably, in a good position to advise them. The
key paragraph of the letter of February 9 is its third
paragraph, which was as follows:
Customers buy products on the basis of prices,
delivery and dependability. The facts are that
in some cases we are the sole source of supply
for many of our customers. Our sales to
customers who are buying all of their axles
" This discharge is discussed infra
790 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
from us amounts to more than 70% of our total
volume of sales. We have been told by many of
these customers that we would not continue to
be the sole source of supply - if we became
unionized, because of the ever present possi-
bility of a work stoppage due to strikes or
walkouts [Emphasis supplied].
It is apparent that the respondent's sales manager
purported to speak to the employees not in the lan-
guage of prediction but of hard facts. His own
testimony establishes that he was not purveying
facts but misstating them and, therefore, misleading
the employees. In fact, 70 percent of the respon-
dent's customers, who were, supposedly, buying all
of their axles from the respondent, did so only nor-
mally, a word not found in Rumbley's letter. Ac-
tually, these supposedly exclusive customers from
time to time purchased axles from competitors of
Standard Forge. Although Rumbley also asserted
that he had been told by many of these customers
that Standard Forge would cease to be their sole
source of supply if the company became unionized,
he revealed as a witness that he had been told that
by only three of the respondent's customers'14 and
then only after he had informed them of the pen-
dency of the election. Moreover, not one of these
three customers threatened to drop Standard Forge
altogether if the respondent became unionized.
The situation in the instant case, so far as the
Rumbley letter is concerned, is not really distin-
guishable from that in Haynes Stellite in which the
employer's representatives had told the employees
in a prepared speech: "Customers are buying
products on the basis of prices, delivery, and de-
pendability. The facts are that in some cases we are
the sole source of supply at present for some of our
customers. We have been told that we would not con-
tinue to be the sole source of supply if we become
unionized, due to the ever present possibility of a
work stoppage due to strikes or walkouts." This
language is so close to that in Rumbley's letter that
it may well have served as a model for Rumbley's
composition. The Board, in holding the language
used in Haynes Stellite to constitute a violation of
Section 8(a)(1) of the Act, declared:
The statements involved herein indicate that
a loss of orders, and hence of jobs, would
result merely by -virtue of the employees'
designation of the Union, and were accom-
panied by constant references to the propabili-
ty of strikes if the Union won the election.
Further, we find, contrary to the Trial Ex-
aminer, that the Respondent materially
misrepresented the facts when it stated that
"some of [its] customers" would seek other
sources of supply,- whereas only one customer
had so informed the Respondent. It is also
highly significant that the Respondent failed to
name the customers involved or supply any
other information.
I am willing to concede the contention of counsel
for the respondent that the Board did not hold, or
intend to hold, that the language in Haynes Stellite
was per se a violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the-Act.
But this concession does not help them any, for the
record shows that Rumbley's letter of February 9
was issued in the context of many other unfair labor
practices, including not only those already
described but also the discharge of at least one of
the leaders of the union movement, as hereinafter
related. These unfair labor practices only under-
lined the threat clearly contained in Rumbley's
letter that unionization would lead to loss of em-
ployment. In view of this threat, I also set no point
in the contention of counsel for the respondent that
Rumbley's letter must be held to be harmless
because the union had 2 weeks before the election
in which to reply to it. Such a reply could have
done nothing to remove the fear engendered by the
threat contained in the letter.l5
I am aware that the Sixth 'Circuit denied enforce-
ment to the Board's order in Union Carbide Cor-
poration v. N.L.R.B., 310 F.2d 844. But the basis of
the court's decision seems to have been, as the
court stated, that the violation found in Haynes
Stellite "was the only violation found by the Board
in the entire election campaign which was
vigorously conducted by both sides." Inithe present
case, the violations are' both multiple and serious.
In any event, the Board has not abandoned its posi-
tion in Haynes Stellite,ls and I m bound, of course,
by the Board's decision. It is not necessary to find,
moreover, that Rumbley's letter constituted an un-
fair labor practice, so far as setting aside the elec-
tion is concerned. It suffices that it constituted an
unfair election tactic.17
In addition to the letters sent to its-employees,
the respondent distributed to them a lurid circular
which was printed on a sheet measuring 22 by 17
inches but folded in four parts.18 When folded, the
title was revealed, and this was "An Important
Message For You." The title was printed in black
and white letters on a red background, and the
same color scheme was- employed throughout the
circular, which purported to reproduce newspaper
stories about futile strikes and violence during
"' These three customers were Dorsey Trailers of Elba, Alabama, Great
Dane Trailer of Savannah, Georgia, and Trialco Manufacturing and Sales
Company of Hummels Wharf, Pennsylvania (the name of this Pennsylvania
town is mispelled in the transcript as "Hummelswherf," and it is hereby
corrected).
1$ It has been so held, for instance, in Oak Manufacturing Company, 141
NLRB 1323, 1324, and The Lord Baltimore Press, 142 NLRB 328, 329.
The cases cited by counsel for the respondent Motec Industries, Inc , 136
NLRB 711, and Trent Tube Company , 147 NLRB 538 , seem to me to be in-
apposite
16 See S N C Manufacturing Co, 147 NLRB 809, 819 ; The William J
Burns International Detective Agency , Inc, 148 NLRB 1267, 1287, Cald-
` hell Mfg. Co,Inc , 149 NLRB 112,115
" See, for instance , Aeronca Manufacturing Corporation, 118 NLRB 461,
466-467
11 This circular forms the basis of the union's objection F
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC. . 791
strikes. The stories were illustrated by photographs
of damaged automobiles, and a nurse adjusting a
pillow for a "human torch." The circular also had
imprinted upon it starbursts of white letters on red
backgrounds reading: "Innocent People Suffer
Most," "No Value On Human Lives," "Weeks
Without Pay," "Investigation," "Double Cross,"
and "Thousands Idled." In a box in the upper right-
hand corner of the circular, the moral of the
newspaper stories was summed up in bold black
and white letters on a red background as follows:
This is NOT the way people at Standard Forge
Do Business
Who wants violence, strikes, loss of income
and uncertain future?
VOTE NO FEB. 23
The respondent also distributed to its employees
a booklet entitled "What the Union Can Do For
You." When opened the pages of the booklet were
discovered to be blank.19
Taken together, Rumbley's letter, the circular,
and the booklet were intended to convey to the em-
ployees the message that unionization would not
only be futile but could only lead to strikes, loss of
income, and violence. The Board has repeatedly
held that propaganda stressing the futility of union
organization with consequent strikes and loss of
employment violated Section 8(a)(l) of the Act,
and formed a basis for setting aside an election.20
The respondent engaged, however, not only in
war of words with the union but indulged also in
the propaganda of the deed. Its deeds were the un-
fair labor practices which are described in this deci-
sion.21 To the extent that they were committed
between the date of the filing of the union's
representation petition and the date of the election,
they also form the basis for setting it aside.22 The
record shows that eight of the interrogations and
two of the three discriminatory discharges occurred
after the filing of the petition on December 5,
1966. These represented serious unfair labor prac-
tices that form an additional basis for setting aside
the election of February 23, 1967, and for affirming
the Regional Director's direction of a second elec-
tion, which I shall recommend.
B. The Discriminatory Discharges
1. McBride's disciplinary system
An unusual aspect of the operation of the Stan-
dard Forge plant was that none of the foremen had
authority to hire or discharge any of the employees
who worked under him. The power to hire or to
discharge an employee was vested solely in the
plant superintendent, McBride, who had com-
menced his career at Standard Forge in 1940 and
who had retired in the spring of 1967.
McBride had a system of administering discipline
that was all his own. When an employee did
something to displease McBride, the superintendent
would pull his timecard from the rack. When the
unfortunate employee came to work the next day,
he would note that his timecard was not in the rack,
and he would hie himself to McBride for an ex-
planation. McBride would tell him why he had
pulled his timecard, and tell him to "take off a cou-
ple of days." When the errant employee reported to
McBride again, the superintendent would talk to
him in order to determine whether he now had "the
right attitude." If McBride was convinced that his
attitude had changed for the better, he would put
the errant employee back to work. If McBride was
not convinced that the errant employee had truly
repented, he would tell him to come back in a few
more days. The record shows that eventually vir-
tually every errant but repentant employee who
kept coming back was restored to the payroll. As a
result of this system, McBride boasted, "we have
men out there who have been there for twenty or
twenty-five years. We did not fire men just for the
fun of it." Indeed, McBride explicitly testified: "I
don't recall a case where they reported, back and
had the right attitude, had been on the job so long,
that I did not put [sic] back, whether I sent him
back two or three times. Eventually, I would put
them back. I don't recall a case that I haven't done
it." McBride also testified that he could not recall a
case where the development of the ^ right attitude
had taken more than 2 weeks at most.
So far as specific cases are concerned, McBride
recalled the case of one employee, whose name was
Dave Sexton, whose timecard he had pulled 27
times in 27 years. McBride also recalled the cases
of two other employees named Watts and Sorrells
whose timecards he had pulled in 1965 or 1966 but
who were not restored to the payroll. It seems that
Watts' offense was that he started out to work one
morning but turned back when it began to -rain,
despite the fact that he had another employee with
him who was dependent on him for transporation.
It seems that when McBride talked to Watts, the
latter took "a no care attitude." It is not clear, how-
ever, whether Watts ever came back to talk to Mc-
Bride again. As for Sorrells, his offense was even
more serious. He reported for work one morning
although he was drunk; he punched his timecard
and disappeared; and late in the day after everyone
"This booklet forms the basis of the union's objection H
20 See The Trane Co., 137 NLRB 1506, 1510, Dal-Tex Optical Company,
Inc., 137 NLRB 1782, 1785, Texas Industries, Inc., etc , 139 NLRB 365,
368, The Little Rock Doi, nton ner, Inc., 143 NLRB 887, 890, Ideal Baking
Company of Tennessee, Inc, 143 NLRB 546, 547, General Industries Elec-
tronics Company, 146 NLRB 139, 1140-41, Federal Envelope Company,
etc, 147 NLRB 1030, 1080, Herman Wilson Lumber Company, 149 NLRB
673, 679
21 These unfair labor practices form the basis of the union's objections B
and A.
22 See The Ideal Electric and Manufacturing Company, 134 NLRB 1275,
1278.
792 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
had left he sneaked back into the plant, and
punched his timecard out as if he had worked all
day. Yet McBride did not fire him instanter! As
usual, he just pulled Sorrells' card, and when the
latter apologized and promised "he would never do
it again," he was put back to work. But a month or
two later Sorrells failed to report for work during a
whole week, and made no effort to notify anybody,
and McBride finally fired him when he showed up
with a phony doctor's certificate in an attempt to
excuse his absence without leave.
Even counsel for the respondent characterize
McBride's system as "a peculiar method of
discipline" and also as "strange." It certainly had
one serious drawback from the point of view of the
Standard Forge employees who were subjected to
it. The Standard Forge plant had no set of written
rules, and the employees were, therefore, not put
on notice in advance that certain conduct was
prohibited. In this respect, McBride was in the
same position as the judges of the common law
courts in the classical period of the common law.
They purported only to declare what the common
law was but they often made the law after the
event. Jeremy Bentham, the apostle of legislation
and codification, denounced this system as "dog
law." As Bentham explained this term: "When your
dog does anything you want to break him of, you
wait till he does it, and then beat him for it. This is
the way you make laws for your dog: and this is the
way the judges make law for you and me." Counsel
for the respondent seem to admire McBride's
system, for they seem to argue that in discharging
Litaker, Cannon, and Marston, the three leading
union proponents, he was doing no more than ap-
plying the McBride system, which he had been
practicing for some 27 years, and they conclude
that his decisions were, therefore, just and un-
reviewable. But actually there are restraints upon
even the most absolute despots, as has long been
recognized, and, while there was no set of written
rules in effect at Standard Forge, there were well-
recognized practices, just as there were well-recog-
nized precedents in the common law, and it is
against these practices that McBride's conduct
must be judged.
The McBride system must also be judged,
moreover, in the light of the result of the system
which was to produce a high degree of stability in
employment at the Standard Forge plant. McBride
himself conceded that discharges of employees
were uncommon at Standard Forge, for no matter
how serious the offense of an employee may have
been, there was always a locus poenitentiae. Yet in a
period of less than a month and a half towards the
end of 1966, he pulled the timecards of no less than
three employees on the flimsiest of pretexts and
failed to restore them to the payroll, although at
least two of them repeatedly applied for restoration
to their employment. He never found them to have
the right attitude, it seems. Moreover, in the case of
two of these employees, Cannon and Marston, he
departed from his usual practice by discharging
them outright, as hereinafter related. It is hard in-
deed to believe that it was no more than a mere
coincidence that the three employees of whom Mc-
Bride rid himself also happened to be the three
leaders of the union organizational campaign.
2. The employment records of the three
discriminatees
The three employees to be discharged were, in
the order in which they were discharged, Clarence
Robert Litaker, who was discharged on November
5, 1966; William E. Cannon, who was discharged
on December 15, 1966; and Roy A. Marston, who
was discharged on December 17, 1966. The record
shows that at least until the advent of the union
they had been regarded as entirely satisfactory em-
ployees. Indeed they were in fact exceptionally
valuable employees.
At the time of his discharge, Litaker had been
with the respondent for about 13 months. At the
time of his discharge he was working on Cook's
welding line, although on occasion, when he was
caught up in his work, he also worked under Cagle.
His skill as a welder is clearly indicated by the fact
that although he started to work at $1.50 an hour,
he was raised to $1.80 an hour after only a week of
employment. Within 4 months thereafter he was,
moreover, up to $2.20 an hour, which was the top
rate for welders other than maintenance welders.
When he also did piecework, he never made less
than $3 an hour. Indeed, Litaker was so good that
McBride once told him that he was one of the best
men he had ever hired. Moreover, after he had
been discharged he obtained a better job in Edge-
water, Florida, being employed there as an assistant
foreman in charge of 10 to 15 employees.
At the time of his discharge, Cannon had been
employed by Standard Forge for about 7-1/2 years,
except for a period of 8 months in 1961 when he
had been involved in a general layoff. As already
mentioned, he was the only drill press operator in
the assembly department and he had a combination
hourly and piecework rate. When first employed,
his rate had been $1.20 an hour but he received an
increase of 10 cents an hour during each year of his
employment. With the piecework, he was making at
the time of his discharge from $2 to $2.25 an hour.
Marston had had two different periods of em-
ployment at Standard Forge. The duration of his
first period of employment is not established but
the second period of his employment lasted from 3
to 3-1/2 years, during which he worked in the as-
sembly department under Whitmire, with whom he
sometimes lunched. Marston's starting rate of pay
was $1.50 an hour but he had received three
general increases of 10 cents an hour, which
brought his rate of pay up to $1.80 an hour.
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC.
3. The respondent's knowledge of the union
activities of the discriminatees
There can be no doubt that the respondent's
management had full knowledge of the union ac-
tivities of the three discharged employees. The
sources of this knowledge were both general and
particular. The respondent's supervisors made it
manifest in their interrogations of some of the em-
ployees that they knew who were attending union
meetings or who had signed union cards. 3 In a
plant in which the union and antiunion employees
were, apparently, separately organized in groups,
the union employees being opposed by the group
known as "The Employees Who Do Not Want a
Union," the side espoused by such prominent union
adherents as Cannon, Litaker, and Marston could
hardly remain a secret. It is also established that
John R. Morris, the foreman of the tool-and-die
room, had a son, Thomas, who attended the second
union meeting, and who on occasion, during his
father's absence, took his place as foreman. This
second union meeting was opened by Marston. It is
hardly necessary to note, however, such general
sources of knowledge when the evidence shown in
abundance particular sources of knowledge. The
three discriminatees were also among the em-
ployees who were interrogated by their foremen.
Several weeks after the union drive started, Cagle
came up to the assembly line on which Litaker was
working, and remarked to the latter: "I am going to
get your daddy to whip your ass" (it seems that the
Cagles and the Litakers lived close together, and
that Cagle was a friend of Litaker's father). Litaker
asked "why," and Cagle countered with: "Did you
sign a union card?" Litaker replied to this question
in the' affirmative, and informed Cagle that he was
for,organized labor. Cagle and Litaker had addi-
tional conversations during the month of October
1966, and these usually occurred on days when a
union meeting was scheduled. In these conversa-
tions, Cagle would tell Litaker that he should not
be going', to the union meetings, that he was just
cutting his own throat because he was making more
money.than he would if the plant were unionized.
Litaker would repeat his stand in favor of organized
labor.
On November 4, which was the day before his
discharge, Litaker, early in the morning, was read-
ing a newspaper which contained a story about a
strike at the Dorsey Trailer Works. It is not entirely
clear whether Litaker showed this story to Cagle, or
Cagle noticed it himself but in any event Cagle re-
marked to Litaker: "It looks like Dorsey's boys got
hungry and went back to work." Cagle went on to
tell Litaker that he did not know "a damn thing"
about unions other than what he read in the papers,
13 These intimations amounted to the creation of an impression of sur-
veillance, which is in itself an independent unfair labor practice, but I make
793
that there was nothing in the unions but Com-
munists and killings.
One afternoon , about the middle of October,
Litaker also had an encounter with Cook. It was a
Saturday when the employees would bring their
radios in to hear the broadcast of a football game.
As Litaker , whose table was caught up, was listen-
ing to the broadcast , Cook walked up to him and
remarked : " You are not going to be able to sit on
your behind like that if the union comes in here."
Litaker told Cook that his table was caught up, and
that he would appreciate it if Cook would not talk
to him like that . It is significant that Cook did not
altogether deny Litaker s testimony . He recalled an
occasion when the employees were listening to the
broadcast of a ball game on their radios , and, there
being work to be done, he remarked to them:
"Boys. ya' ll couldn 't do this if you worked for any-
body else except Standard Forge."
In the case of Cannon , the respondent 's manage-
ment knew from the very beginning that he was
pushing the union for the simple reason that he told
Cagle, his foreman , that he was for it 100 percent,
and Cagle passed this on to McBride. Thus, as
Cagle testified:
Q. What knowledge did you have about Mr.
Cannon being involved in the Union Business?
A. Well, he told me he was.
Q. What did he tell you?
A. He said that he was one hundred per cent
for it. -
Q. When did he tell you that?
A. Right after it started.
*
Who did you tell with the company? Did you
tell Mr.McBride what Mr. Cannon had told you
about being one hundred per cent for the com-
pany? -
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Union , I mean.
A. Yes, sir [emphasis supplied].
Cagle and McBride did not regard their
knowledge of Cannon's prounion sentiments,
moreover, simply as interesting information. Can-
non was a strong and assertive personality, and
Cagle and McBride obviously feared the effect of
his prounion activities. They had a particularly
good reason for this fear because the nature of his
job was such that he had a good deal of unoccupied
time. Cannon was the only drill press operator in
the assembly department-there were others in the
machine shop-and in the performance of his job
he drilled brake shoes. As there were different
types of brake shoes, these had to be selected from
the brake shoe shed before Cannon's work could
no such finding, since such an unfair labor practice is not alleged in the
complaint
794 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
proceed. It is crucial to understand that while in
theory it was part of Cagle's job to select the brake
shoes, in practice Cagle was not always available to
do so, and then Cannon would go to the brake shed
himself to select brake shoes. This would give him,
of course, an opportunity to move about the plant.
It also frequently happened that the desired type of
brake shoe was not immediately available, and that
Cannon, who worked on a combination of an
hourly and piecework rate, had spare time on his
hand between jobs than sometimes amounted to an
hour or two or even more. The fear of Cagle and
McBride was, of course, that Cannon would take
advantage of his mobility, especially during his
unoccupied time, to talk to the employees about
the union, and Cagle began to shadow him as he
moved about the plant. This shadowing must have
been conducted, moreover, in a manner that could
hardly be described as unobstrusive, and Cannon
was perfectly aware that Cagle was keeping him
under surveillance. As Cannon was not the sort of
person who would take this treatment without
angry protest, clashes between him and Cagle oc-
curred on a number of occasions.
Toward the end of October 1966, while Cannon
was in the brake shoe shed, Cagle observed the
latter,talking to Willie Means, the company janitor.
Cagle came up and asked Cannon what he was
doing there. Cannon replied that he was looking for
brake shoes but Cagle accused him of talking about
the union and threatened to have him fired if he did
not return to his work station. Cannon challenged
Cagle to go ahead and have him fired if he could.
About 2 weeks later Cagle again ragged Cannon
about the union while the latter was in the brake
shoe shed, accusing Cannon of turning against him,
and calling him a crook for getting mixed up in the
union mess . Cannon's rejoinder to this was: "If I am
a crook, you are a crook for fighting against
something that will help me." Cannon also told
Cagle to "get out of there" and "to stay off his
back," as well as to quit following him around like
a puppy, and watching him all the time. Cagle did
not deny these clashes but incredibly denied that
they had anything to do with the union, or that he
told Cannon to stop talking about the union, or
called him .a crook. Yet even Cagle admitted that
Cannon complained that he had been "on his
back" all the time, and that he had told Cannon
that he had turned against him , despite his helping
him in the past.
The job of keeping Cannon under surveillance
and of preventing him from pushing the union was
not delegated, moreover, entirely to Cagle. There
were occasions when McBride himself took Cannon
to task for the angry language which he used
towards Cagle, and threatened to discharge Cannon
if he did not stay on his job. Furthermore, McBride,
to prevent Cannon from moving about or standing
around idle, began to check in the evenings to see
that Cannon would have enough material on hand
to start work the following morning.
That Marston, whose nickname was "Yank," was
engaged in passing out union authorization cards
was also well known to the respondent's manage-
ment. Marston kept these cards behind the sun
visor of his automobile. He was in the habit of
lunching with Whitmire and Clakeley, and some-
times the three of them would ride in Marston's car
when they went to lunch. Anyone who looked up at
the sun visor would see the union authorization
cards. Moreover, one day the cards fell from the
sun visor on to the seat, while Clakeley was riding
with Marston. When Clakeley picked the cards up,
Marston said to him: "Monroe, this is just what we
need" but Clakeley replied: "No, we don't need
that." This sun visor incident was admitted by
Clakeley, who testified that Marston even asked
him to sign one of the cards, and that he refused to
do so.
During the week before Thanksgiving, Marston
also had a conversation with Morris, the foreman of
the tool-and-die room while he was there. The di-
alogue, as reported by Marston, was as follows:
MORRIS: Yank, I hear you are fooling
around with this union.
MARSTON: Yes, I am.
MORRIS: Well, instead of fooling around
with that union, why didn't four or five of you
get together and go and talk to Mr. McBride
and Mr. Silver.
MARSTON: Pappy [this apparently was Mor-
ris' nickname], there ain't no way that you can
stop Mr. Mac long enough going to the shop,
let alone trying to sit down and talk with him. I
think I am doing what is right.
Morris did not exactly deny this conversation. He
only claimed that Marston asked him how he felt
about the union, and that he then suggested that he
take the matter up with Superintendent McBride. It
is impossible, however, to believe Morris' version of
the conversation, since in attempting to give it, he
also revealed that he had accused Marston of fool-
ing around with the union! Thus, Morris testified:
Q. Mr. Morris, did you initiate the conversa-
tion with Mr. Marston about the Union?
A. That is about all we had to say about it.
Q. No, sir, did you start off the conversa-
tion?
A. Oh, no, he started it.
0. Did you say, "Yank, I hear you are fool-
ing with the Union?"
A. Yes, something like that, after it was all
over with [emphasis supplied].
According to Whitmire, his foreman, it seems,
furthermore, that Marston, like Cannon, exhibited
a proclivity for wandering about all over the plant,
and disappearing when he was most wanted. But in
the case of Marston, this, according to Whitmire,
had been going on for something like a year, which
would be long before the advent of the union.
Whitmire also testified, moreover, that in the
months of September, October, and November
1966, he had to look for Marston some seven or
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC. 795
eight times, and that he had reported these disap-
pearances to McBride . But, as is apparent , McBride
took no action during these 3 months. Whitmire of-
fered a bit of testimony that goes a long way
towards explaining how indulgent McBride nor-
mally could be. When Whitmire was asked whether
he was strict in enforcing work rules, he replied:
"Not without a guy got away out. Under normal
conditions of an average company, we have more
liberties, I would say, than any place I have ever
been" [emphasis supplied].
4. The pretexts for the discharges
a. In the case of Litaker
On November 5, 1966, which was a Saturday,
Litaker reported for work as usual at 7 a.m., and,
although he was not feeling too well, he was
planning to work all day. He worked until about
11:40 a.m. but by then he was feeling worse, and
decided that he would tell Cook or Cagle that he
would take off the remainder of the day. He made a
round of the shop, but he was unable to find either
Cook or Cagle, who often left early for lunch. See-
ing Harvey DeLoach, one of the timekeepers, he
told the latter of his intention to leave for the
remainder of the day because he was sick, but that
he, would make one more round of the shop to see
if he could locate Cook or Cagle. In the event that
he was unable to do so, Litaker asked DeLoach to
give them the message that he had had to leave.
Litaker punched out at noon, and went over to the
Plaza Cafe, a restaurant that was right across the
street from the Standard Forge plant. At the Plaza
Cafe, he had lunch with an acquaintance by the
name of Doug Sanford with whom he often had
lunch. After finishing his lunch about 12:35.p.m.,
Litaker went home, where he laid down on a couch
and watched the L. S. U.-Alabama football game
on TV during the remainder of the afternoon. He
did not again leave the house that day. The reason
for Litaker's indisposition was that he suffered from
a peptic ulcer for which he was receiving medical
treatment.
Litaker reported for, work, as usual, on Monday
morning, November 7, and found that his timecard
had been removed from the rack. Consequently, he
went in search of McBride, and when he found the
superintendent asked the latter why his timecard
had been pulled. McBride then told Litaker that he
was going to have to let him go. After talking a bit
further to McBride, the latter told Litaker to check
back with him in a day or two. Litaker came to the
plant to see McBride three or four times, but each
time McBride would tell Litaker that he was still
thinking the matter over.
Called as witness on behalf of the General Coun-
sel, DeLoach, the timekeeper, fully corroborated
Litaker's testimony concerning the message which
the latter had given him to convey to his foreman,
and testified further that he had duly delivered the
message to Cagle right after lunch but that Cagle
had then said nothing. DeLoach also testified that
on occasion other employees had told him that they
would not be back after lunch, and he could not say
that any of them had been suspended. Indeed,
DeLoach also testified that normally the practice
was for an employee who wanted to take time off to
contact his supervisor, but that if the latter were
not available to contact DeLoach. It is apparent,
therefore, that Litaker had conducted himself in ac-
cordance with the recognized practice. Moreover,
both Cook and Cagle testified that DeLoach had
given them the message from Litaker that he had
had to leave, although Cagle testified that DeLoach
told him that Litaker had had to leave to see to
some business.
McBride testified that he was looking for Litaker
after lunch, because he had let a welder off and
needed him, and when he could not find him asked
Cook where he was. According to McBride, the
latter did not mention the message that DeLoach
had given him, but told McBride that he was having
lunch in his car which was parked right next to
Litaker's car in the plant parking lot, and that
Litaker came out of the plant and drove off in his
car without saying anything to Cook. It was this,
contended McBride, that led him to pull Litaker's
card.
I do not credit McBride's testimony concerning
the discharge of Litaker, although it may be that his
testimony was not deliberately false. The retired su-
perintendent impressed me as having only the
vaguest recollection of the events in which he had
been involved. At one point in his testimony, his
own counsel felt called upon to exclaim in connec-
tion with another lapse of memory on McBride's
part: "I think the witness has lost' his recollec-
tion."24 In attempting to justify the pulling of
Litaker's card on the ground that he had deliberate-
ly passed Cook in his car without telling him that he
was leaving for the day, I believe that McBride was
repeating a story that Cook probably told much
later in the effort to rationalize the action taken in
the case of Litaker. The story could not possibly be
true, moreover, for Litaker would hardly have
taken his car to go across the street to the Plaza
Cafe, as he himself testified, and the respondent
does not challenge Litaker's testimony that he had
21 An even more interesting lapse of memory on McBride's part is to be
found in the following question and answer
0. Do I understand your answer to be-did anyone suggest to you
that it would help the company in this election if you discharged the
most active Union men in the plant?
A I don't fall any suggestion like that It aught have been made,
but I don't recall it. I did not pay any attention to it anyway [emphasis
supplied].
796 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
lunch in the Plaza Cafe. Furthermore, although Mc-
Bride testified that he did not learn of the message
that DeLoach had given Cook and Cagle concern-
ing Litaker's absence until a week or so after he
pulled Litaker's card, both Cook and Cagle testified
that they told McBride about the message they had
received from DeLoach. A week or so after the
event, when McBride learned the truth, was not too
late for him to restore Litaker to the payroll, but it
is significant that he failed to do so, despite the fact
that Litaker kept asking to be put back to work,
and, according to McBride himself, was a good em-
ployee with whom he had never had any trouble.
It is quite apparent that the respondent did not
put too much faith in the story that Litaker saw
Cook, in his car and passed him by, for another
basic weakness of the story is that Cook did not tes-
tify that Litaker actually saw him when he passed
within 6 to 8 feet of his car. The respondent
produced, however, another witness by the name of
George M. Hawk, another employee of the Stan-
dard Forge plant, who testified that it was he,
rather than Sanford, who had had lunch with
Litaker on Saturday, November 5. According to
Hawk, Litaker came over to his table, and over his
beer confided that the reason he did not feel so
good was that he had been drinking the night be-
fore and had had a quarrel with his girl friend. Also,
according to Hawk, Litaker returned to the Plaza
Cafe between 3:45 and 4 p.m. and watched the
football game while drinking another beer. The
respondent also produced another employee, W. O.
Robinson, who was also a welder but who did not
work in the same department as Litaker and who
testified that on the Thursday preceding the Satur-
day that Litaker was absent from work due to his
illness , he had had lunch with Litaker and two
other employees, Doug Sanford and Nelson Gil-
lespie, and that in the course of the conversation at
the lunch Litaker had confided that he intended to
take Saturday afternoon off to watch a ball game,
and had dared McBride to fire him. According to
Robinson, moreover, Litaker had made this defiant
announcement despite the fact that he warned
Litaker that another one of the welders, T. A. Cox,
might want to take off that Saturday afternoon. Cox
had in fact been excused by McBride about 10 a.m.
on Saturday. On the other hand,' counsel for the
General Counsel called as a witness Litaker's
mother, a quiet, soft-spoken lady, who confirmed
her son's testimony that he was ill the Saturady af-
ternoon in question, came home about 1 p.m., laid
down on the couch, and watched a football game
on television and remained at home during the
whole weekend. Counsel for the respondent are not
so ungallant as to accuse Litaker's mother of
deliberately lying under oath. They argue,
charitably, that in giving the testimony that she
gave, she must have been "mistaken." But Mrs.
Litaker's testimony was too positive to be explained
away in this manner; and if her testimony were not
true, she was indeed lying under oath. I prefer to
believe- that she was telling the truth, and that
Hawk and Robinson, whose demeanor did not sug-
gest to me that they were telling the truth, were
"mistaken." But, apart from demeanor, the
testimony of Hawk and Robinson is difficult to
credit. Hawk hardly knew Litaker and knew him
only by his nickname "Sonny," and he was not ac-
customed to lunch with the latter. It is not very
likely that Litaker would have unburdened himself
to Hawk about his most intimate affairs. Hawk also
has the demerit of having plainly contradicted him-
self as to whether he had signed a union authoriza-
tion card.25 As for Robinson, he did not seem to be
a witness whose memory was very good, for he
could not remember whether T. A. Cox actually
took off the Saturday afternoon ' in question, or
whether or to whom, if anyone in management, he
repeated what Litaker, supposedly, had told him.
The picture which he attempted to draw of Litaker
was, moreover, unreal, for Litaker, a quiet, soft-
spoken individual, did not impress me as given to
defiance.
But even if I had implicit faith in the respondent's
witnesses, including Hawk and Robinson, it could
make no difference, for the plain truth of the
matter is that the stories told by Hawk and Robin-
son about Litaker had nothing whatsoever to do
with his termination. McBride did not discharge
Litaker because he had lied about his being sick-
and had actually taken the afternoon off to watch a
football game on television. The rumors about
Litaker's alleged misconduct did not reach the ears
of McBride until long after Litaker had departed
from Standard Forge. Thus, McBride testified:
TRIAL EXAMINER : Did you know what he
[Litaker] had been doing Saturday afternoon
on the Saturday that he was absent?
THE WITNESS: Did I know when he was leav-
ing?
TRIAL EXAMINER: No, did you know what he
was actually doing that Saturday afternoon?
THE WITNESS: Only hearsay. I did hear that
he sat over across the road or highway in a
cafe and watched a football game.
TRIAL EXAMINER: And when did you get this
hearsay?
THE WITNESS: I did not get that hearsay until
weeks after Litaker failed to show up. That had
no bearing on it [emphasis supplied].
McBride discharged Litaker, therefore, simply
because he had taken off a Saturday afternoon
without directly telling his foreman, although this
was common practice. Even if it be assumed that
McBride really needed Litaker because another
15 Hawk so testified, but in his prehearing affidavit he deposed: " I did not
sign a union card for this union "
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC. 797
welder-presumably Cox-had taken the afternoon
off, Litaker did not know this and McBride did not
tell him, although he had advance notice that Cox
would take the afternoon off. He would hardly have
pulled the card of Litaker if he had not fallen into
disfavor because of his leadership in the union
drive. It would seem hardly necessary to add that
there was nothing malum in se in Litaker watching
a televised football game, although he was sick.
Many hospitals nowadays have a television set in
every sickroom.
b. In the case of Cannon
A rather singular aspect of the case of Cannon is
the wide area of disagreement that exists as to the
circumstances and causes of his discharge. There
are in fact three different accounts available in the
record: (1) Cannon's own account; (2) McBride's
account; and (3) the account of counsel for the
respondent. In the latter two accounts, it is neces-
sary also to distinguish between the remote and the
immediate causes that are advanced to justify Can-
non's discharge.
Cannon's own account of his discharge was that
at 3:15 p.m. on December 15, 1966, McBride
walked up to him and, handing him his vacation
check, told him: "Cannon, I want you to turn in
your piecework and your regular time because I am
going to have to let you go." When Cannon asked
for an explanation, McBride said: "I have heard
that you hit the machine with a hammer and also
you haven't been starting to work at 7:00 o'clock."
In his testimony, Cannon conceded that he had
been 30 minutes late for work that week but that
nobody had asked him to give any explanation of
his lateness . Cannon also pointed out that being
late for work was very unusual with him, and that
he had been late only once or twice in the previous
3 years. As for the hitting of the machine, he ex-
plained that this was his own drill press, and that he
had come to hit the handle of the machine when
the handle fell and hit him on the head, due to a de-
fect in the machine. Thus Cannon testified:
0. Would you explain to us how you came
to hit this machine?
A. I will.
I was drilling brake shoes and there is a
clevis lock that holds this handle. In order to
drill the brake shoe and make the holes in it,
you have to clip this handle back in order to
twist your jig. I had put the handle back and
reached down to twist my jig. When I did, the
handle hit me across the head, which is solid
steel. In return, by hurting me, I took the
hammer, the clevis hook which was held by
wire and a bolt through it, I hit it to knock it
back up and when I knocked it back up, the
handle section fell loose because the bolt
running through was broken.
0. Did you break that bolt?
A. I did not break the bolt, it was already
broken.
Q. This clevis that holds the handle up, what
was holding that? Does the bolt that was
broken go through the clevis hook?
A. It goes through the bar that holds the
clevis hook. The handle will stay up, but when
the bolt breaks the handle falls before the
clevis lock falls down.
0. And you said something about having
wire on this?
A. It was an old machine and you had wire
on the handle section that drilled. When the
bolt breaks, the wire gives and it drops that
clevis and it fell and hit me.26
The machine on which Cannon worked was in-
deed a very old one. It was at least a quarter of a
century old, and the handle of the machine had fal-
len before but it had never before hit Cannon on
the head. It is obvious that Cannon, as he further
explained, did not strike back at the handle in order
to damage or destroy the machine but in order to
keep the handle up, although he also did this in
anger because of the pain that he was suffering.
Nothing was said to Cannon about his striking the
machine at the time that the incident occurred, and
immediately after it-namely on the same day-the
machine was repaired by the maintenance man.
The incident was not mentioned until a few days
later when McBride discharged Cannon on
December 15.
In attempting to explain the discharge of Cannon,
McBride did not so much as mention the lateness of
Cannon a few days before his discharge, and Can-
non was not even asked the reason for his being
late that morning. McBride dwelt rather upon a se-
ries of accumulated incidents which stretched over
a period of months and went back to the com-
mencement of the union drive. As he put it, "it had
built up over several different things," and as he
continued in his testimony, he kept on saying "that
built it up a little more." What McBride dwelt on
first, and for the most part, was really the surveil-
lances of Cannon by Cagle and himself in the effort
to get him to remain at his work station, as already
related. "On top of that," as McBride put it, it had
been reported to him that Cannon had told Cagle
"to get out of the department." At this point, Mc-
Bride concluded, he told Cannon that "while he
was on his vacation to look for another job." Mc-
Bride, thus far, had not even mentioned that Can-
non had hit his machine, and had to be prodded by
a leading question, whereupon he finally mentioned
"A number of employees in the vicinity of Cannon's machine, who were
called as witnesses by the respondent , also testified about this incident In
the main, their testimony agrees with Cannon's but where there are dif-
ferences I credit the testimony of Cannon rather than that of the respon-
dent's witnesses
798 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
that it had been reported to him that Cannon "took
a hammer and broke his machine."
Counsel for the respondent give still different
reasons for Cannon 's discharge , and, according to
them , these were : ( 1) "laying down on the job";
(2) "ordering his supervisor out of the shop"; and
(3) hitting his drill press with a hammer and break-
ing it . Counsel assert , moreover , that Cannon him-
self testified that he had been told that his separa-
tion "was based on his ` loafing ' during work hours
and on his destruction of company property."
Counsel also assert that Cannon himself admitted
that "he had been late for work without explana-
tion " [ emphasis supplied] and "off the job talking
to other employees ." All this presents a rather
distorted view of the facts and Cannon's own
testimony . McBride never used the word " loafing,"
and while Cannon admitted that he talked to other
employees , which , obviously , was not forbidden, he
did not admit , as seems to be implied , that he was
talking to the other employees about the Union dur-
ing working time . It is also not true that he had
been late to work "without explanation ," since
there is no evidence that anybody asked him for an
explanation , either at the time of the event or at the
hearing . It is surely hyperbole , moreover , to speak
of the drill press incident in terms of "the destruc-
tion of company property ," or to say that when
Cannon asked Cagle "to get off his back ," he was
"ordering" him out of the shop or out of his depart-
ment.
Counsel for the respondent go a lot further than
any of their witnesses , moreover , in contending that
in the incident in which Cannon is accused of or-
dering Cagle out of the shop he "brandished a file
at Cagle." This contention is based, supposedly, on
the testimony of Cagle relating to the incident.
Cagle 's testimony was as follows:
I walked over there and I said , " William, where
have you been "? He just raised up--he was
butting a shoe in the jig to drill and he raised
up and grabbed the file off of the table that
was laying there. He said , " I wish you would
get out of here and stay off my back . You stay
on my back all the time ." I said, "William, I
am not staying on your back . I just want you to
stay on your job ." I said , " I am not on your
back what so ever . I just want you to stay on
your job."
Now, whether he was going to hit me with
that file or' not, I don 't know, he grabbed it up in
his hands [ emphasis supplied].
It is apparent that Cagle mentioned the file only
to make his story more vivid . He asserted only that
Cannon lifted the file from the table; he did not as-
sert that Cannon brandished the file at him. Indeed,
he confessed that he did not know what Cannon's
intention was, and there is nothing to show that
Cannon did not have a perfectly legitimate reason
for picking ' up the file, or that a file was not used in
his work . There is, therefore , no basis for saying
that Cannon brandished the file at Cagle. Even if he
had done so, however, the incident would have oc-
curred months before Cannon 's discharge, and he
was not discharged at the time, either for
brandishing the file or for ordering Cagle out of the
shop.
It hardly necessary to state that if Cannon had
really engaged in the destruction of company pro-
perty the respondent would have been entirely
justified in discharging him. In fact he had not en-
gaged in any such act of industrial lese majesty as
hitting a machine. He was really discharged
because of his alleged misconduct in not sticking to
his work station but this is only another way of say-
ing that he was discharged because of his union ac-
tivity. Cannon had long been subjected to persecu-
tion because of this activity , and while his reactions
to the surveillance to which he was subjected were
not always in accordance with the standards of
polite etiquette , it is readily understandable under
the circumstances . Perhaps the most revealing bit
of testimony given by Cagle was in answer to the
question " how long had Cannon not been perform-
ing his job?" Cagle 's answer to this question was: "I
would say it has been , well, at least ever since they
had started in the union ." It is a rather neat coin-
cidence that Cannon ceased to be a desirable em-
ployee from the very moment that he started the
union drive . By discharging him less than 2 weeks
before the election, the respondent provided an ob-
ject lesson to those employees who might be think-
ing of supporting the union.
c. In the case of Marston
Across the driveway from the Standard Forge
plant was another plant known as Arctic Traveler,
which was a division of American Manufacturing
Company. The Standard Forge plant had no vend-
ing machines but there were such machines at the
Arctic Traveler plant. During the morning of
December 17, 1966, Marston, needing some
cigarettes, went across to the Arctic Traveler plant
to get some there, but, in doing so, he did not clock
out. As he returned to the Standard Forge plant, he
encountered McBride, and the following conversa-
tion ensued between McBride and Marston:
McBRIDE: Yank, did you punch out the
clock to go overthere:
MARSTON: No, sir, I didn't.
McBRIDE: Well, you know when you leave
the premises you are supposed to punch out?
MARSTON: Well, I just went over there to
get a pack of cigarettes . I have done that most
anytime I have ever needed them.
McBRIDBE: I have been hearing some com-
plaints about you being over there bothering
the men.
MARSTON: No, sir,_I haven't been over there
bothering the men.
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE COMPANY, INC.
MCBRIDE : Well, I think you had better go
and punch out.
MARSTON : You mean you are firing me?
MCBRIDE: Yes
Despite the fact, however, that McBride told
Marston that he was fired, he also told Marston, as
he usually did, to come back and see him, and
Marston did so twice without being restored to the
payroll.
McBride's explanation of Marston 's discharge
was that he had received complaints , both from
people at Arctic Traveler and from Whitmire, that
Marston had been going over to Arctic Traveler
"very often," and that he started watching him, and
did so for several days until he finally caught him
coming back from Arctic Traveler . McBride set
great store, apparently , on catching Marston
flagrance delicto, so that it could not be said that he
was acting on the basis of hearsay , for he testified
in answer to the question : "Does anyone else go to
Arctic Traveler?" that he did not catch them on
these occasions or see them . McBride also claimed
that in going over to Arctic Traveler Marston had
been guilty of the violation of a plant rule , which, in
this case was in the form of a written notice on the
timeclock and had been posted at least a year be-
fore Marston 's discharge. But it was merely stated
in this notice in general terms that employees leav-
ing the premises were to punch their timecards.
The General Counsel produced witness after wit-
ness who testified that - it was common practice for
employees to go over to Arctic Traveler to make
use of its vending machines and even for other pur-
poses , and the evidence not only of witnesses for
the General Counsel but also of a witness for the
respondent establishes beyond a doubt that em-
ployees , were not required to clock out when
stepping across to Arctic Traveler to make use of
the vending machines there. The respondent's wit-
ness who corroborated this was none other than
Whitmire , Marston 's own foreman! Whitmire
claimed that Marston had been engaged in a disap-
pearing act for at least a year before his discharge
but if this was indeed so, it was Whitmire himself
who was responsible for his absences from the
plant . It should be recalled that Whitmire was the
foreman who testified that the work rules at Stan-
dard Forge were honored more in the breach than
in the observance , and it is easy to understand his
liberal attitude . In his testimony in connection with
Marston 's discharge , Whitmire admitted that he,
himself, would send Marston over to Arctic
Traveler to get cigarettes for him, as well as metal
and other supplies and that other employees would
also go over to Arctic Traveler to get cigarettes or
to get some material without punching out in any of
these instances . It seems that Whitmire was build-
ing himself ' a cabin , and in order to obtain the
needed material and supplies he was constantly
sending 'Marston to Arctic Traveler to get them for
him. It is obvious that the reason assigned for the
799
discharge of Marston represents the flimsiest of all
the pretexts seized upon by McBride to get rid of
the union leaders. The pretext in the case of
Marston was also hypocritical.
IV. THE REMEDY
In view of the serious nature of the respondent's
unfair labor practices , I shall recommend a broad
form of cease-and-desist order , restraining the
respondent from infringing upon any of the rights
guaranteed to employees by Section 7 of the Act.
To remedy the discharges of Clarence Robert
Litaker, William E. Cannon, and Roy A. Marston, I
shall also recommend , by way of affirmative relief,
that the respondent offer to them immediate and
full reinstatement to their former or substantially
equivalent positions , without prejudice to their
seniority or other rights and privileges previously
enjoyed by them, discharging, if necessary, any new
employees hired subsequent to the date of their
discharges in order to replace them . I shall also
recommend that the respondent make these three
employees whole for any loss of pay they may have
suffered by reason of their discharges by payment
to each of them of a sum of money equal to the
amount which he would normally have earned as
wages from the date of his discharge to the date of
the respondent 's offer of reinstatement , less his net
earnings during the said period . The amount of
backpay is to be determined in accordance with the
formula prescribed in F. W . Woolworth ' Company,
90 NLRB 289, and interest is to be computed on
the amount so determined in accordance with Isis
Plumbing & Heating Co., 138 NLRB 716.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. The respondent , Standard Forge and Axle
Company , Inc., is an employer engaged in com-
merce , or in an industry affecting commerce , within
the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
2. United Steel Workers of America, AFL-CIO,
is a labor organization within the meaning of Sec-
tion 2(5) of the Act.
3. By interrogating its employees coercively con-
cerning their union sympathies and activities, in-
cluding the signing of union authorization cards,
and attendance at union meetings ; by subjecting to
surveillance one of the union meetings of its em-
ployees; by inquiring into how its employees would
vote in a scheduled Board-conducted election; by
threatening its employees with loss of work oppor-
tunities and privileges ; and by suggesting to its em-
ployees that they could obtain the satisfaction of
their grievances by abandoning the union and tak-
ing up these grievances with a representative of the
respondent, the respondent has interfered with,
restrained , and coerced its employees in the exer-
cise of the rights guaranteed to them in Section 7 of
the Act, and has thereby committed unfair labor
800 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
practices affecting commerce within the meaning of
Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.
4. By discharging Clarence Robert Litaker, Wil-
liam E. Cannon, and Roy A. Marston, three of its
employees, on November 5, 1966, and February 15
and 17, 1967, respectively, and by subsequently
refusing to reinstate these three employees, because
of their union sympathies and activities, the respon-
dent has committed unfair labor practices affecting'
commerce within the meaning of Section 8(a)(3)
and (1) of the Act.
RECOMMENDED ORDER
Upon the entire record in this case, and pursuant
to Section 10(c) of the National Labor Relations
Act, as amended , I recommend that the respon-
dent , Standard Forge and Axle Company, Inc., its
officers, agents , successors , and assigns , shall:
1. Cease and desist from:
(a) Interrogating its employees coercively con-
cerning their union sympathies and activities, in-
cluding the signing of union authorization cards and
attendance at union meetings ; subjecting to surveil-
lance any union meeting of its employees ; inquiring
into how its employees intend to vote in any Board-
conducted election ; threatening its employees with
loss of work opportunities and privileges if they
continue to support the union ; or suggesting to its
employees that they abandon the union and obtain
the satisfaction of their grievances from the respon-
dent.
(b) Discouraging membership in United Steel
Workers of America , AFL-CIO, or any other labor
organization of its employees , by discharging any of
its employees , or in any other manner discriminat-
ing against them with respect to their hire or tenure
of employment or any term or condition of their
employment.
(c) In any like or related manner interfering
with , restraining , or coercing its employees in the
exercise of the rights guaranteed to them in Section
7 of the Act.
2. Take the following affirmative action in order
to effectuate the policies of the Act:
( a) Offer to Clarence Robert Litaker , William E.
Cannon , and Roy A. Marston immediate and full
reinstatement to their former or substantially
equivalent positions , without prejudice to their
seniority or other rights and privileges , and make
each of them whole for any loss of pay he may have
suffered by reason of the discrimination against him
in the manner and to the extent set forth in section
IV of this Decision entitled "The Remedy."
(b) Notify the above -named employees if
presently serving in the Armed Forces of the
United States of their right to full reinstatement
upon application in accordance with the Selective
Service Act and the Universal Military Training and
Service Act , as amended , after discharge from the
Armed Forces.
(c) Preserve and, upon request, make available
to the Board or its agents, for examination and
copying, all payroll records and other data necessa-
ry to give effect to the backpay requirement.
(d) Post at its plant in Montgomery, Alabama,
copies of the attached notice marked "Appen-
dix."27 Copies of said notice, on forms provided by
the Regional Director for Region 15, after having
been duly signed by respondent's representative,
shall be posted by the respondent immediately
upon receipt thereof, and be maintained by it for
60 consecutive days thereafter, in conspicuous
places, including all places where notices to em-
ployees are customarily posted. Reasonable steps
shall be taken by the respondent to assure that said
notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any
other material.
(e) Notify the said Regional Director, in writing,
within 20 days from the date of service of this Deci-
sion, what steps respondent has taken to comply
herewith.28
IT IS ALSO RECOMMENDED that the Regional
Director's Decision of May 12, 1967, directing a
second election be affirmed, and that he be
authorized to conduct such election as soon as, in
his judgment, the effects of the respondent's unfair
labor practices have been dissipated.
21 In the event that this Recommended Order is adopted by the Board,
the words "a Decision and Order" shall be substituted for the words "the
Recommended Order of a Trial Examiner " in the notice In the further
event that the Board's Order is enforced by a decree of a United States
Court of Appeals, the words "a Decree of the United States Court of Ap-
peals Enforcing an Order" shall be substituted for the words "a Decision
and Order "
a In the event that this Recommended Order is adopted by the Board,
this provision shall be modified to read "Notify the Regional Director for
Region 15, in writing, within 10 days from the date of this Order, what
steps Respondent had taken to comply herewith "
APPENDIX
NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES
Pursuant to the Recommended Order of a Trial
Examiner of the National Labor Relations Board
and in order to effectuate the policies of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act, as amended, we hereby
notify our employees that:
WE WILL NOT interrogate our employees
coercively concerning their union sympathies
and activities, including the signing of union
authorization cards and attendance at union
meetings.
WE WILL NOT subject to surveillance any
union meeting of our employees.
WE WILL NOT inquire how our employees in-
tend to vote in any Board-conducted election.
WE WILL NOT threaten our employees with
loss of work opportunities or privileges if they
continue to support the union.
STANDARD FORGE & AXLE
- WE WILL NOT suggest to our employees that
they abandon the union and obtain the
satisfaction of their grievances through us.
WE WILL NOT discourage membership in
United Steel Workers of America, AFL-CIO,
or any other labor organization of our em-
ployees, by discriminating with respect to the
hire or tenure of their employment or any term
or condition of their employment.
WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner,
interfere with, restrain, or coerce our em-
ployees in the exercise of the right to self-or-
ganization, to4orm labor organizations, to join
or assist the above-named or any other labor
organization, to bargain collectively through
representatives of their own choosing, and to
engage in any other concerted activities for the
purpose of collective bargaining or other mu-
tual aid or protection, or to refrain from any
and all such activities.
WE WILL offer to Clarence Robert Litaker,
William E Cannon, and Roy A. Marston im-
mediate and full reinstatement to their former
or substantially equivalent positions, without
prejudice to their seniority or other rights and
privileges, and make them whole for any loss
of pay they may have suffered by reason of our
discrimination against them.
COMPANY, INC. 801
All our employees are free to become or remain,
or to refrain from becoming or remaining, members
of any labor organization.
STANDARD FORGE AND
AXLE COMPANY, INC.
(Employer)
Dated By
(Representative) (Title)
Note: We will notify the above-named em-
ployees if presently serving in the Armed Forces of
the United States of their right to full reinstatement
upon application in accordance with the Selective
Service Act and the Universal Military Training and
Service Act, as amended, after discharge from the
Armed Forces.
This notice must remain posted for 60 consecu-
tive days from the date of posting and must not be
altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
If employees have any question concerning this
notice or compliance with-its provisions, they may
communicate directly with the Board's Regional
Office, T6024 Federal Building (Loyola), 701
Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70113,
Telephone 527-6361.
350-999 0 - 71 - 52