Whiting Manufacturing Company, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 30, 1981

258 N.L.R.B. 429 (N.L.R.B. 1981)

WHITING MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC.
Whiting Manufacturing Company, Inc. and Jean
Trent, Petitioner, and Chicago and Central
States Joint Board, Amalgamated Clothing and
Textile Workers Union, AFL-CIO. Case 9-
RD-986
September 30, 1981
DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION
OF SECOND ELECTION
BY MEMBERS FANNING, JENKINS, AND
ZIMMERMAN
Pursuant to authority granted it by the National
Labor Relations Board under Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a three-
member panel has considered objections to an elec-
tion held on December 11, 1980,1 and the Hearing
Officer's report recommending disposition of same.
The Board has reviewed the record in light of the
exceptions2 and briefs and has decided to adopt the
Hearing Officer's findings and recommendations to
the extent that they are consistent with the findings
below.
We agree with the Hearing Officer's finding the
Employer's promise of a new employee handbook
if the employees voted to decertify the Union con-
stituted objectionable conduct requiring the elec-
tion to be set aside. In addition, we find that the
following conduct also warrants the conclusion
that the election should be set aside.
The Hearing Officer found that at a meeting
with employees, the day before the election, the
Employer's president, C. Ross Whiting, stated that
a union shop would run him out of business. After
Whiting made this statement, his labor relations ad-
visor, Harold Craft, threw up his hands and told
Whiting he could not say that. Craft and Whiting
'The election was conducted pursuant to a Stipulation for Certifica-
tion Upon Consent Election. The tally was 102 for, and 154 against, the
Union; there were 7 challenged ballots, an insufficient number to affect
the results.
' The Employer has excepted to certain credibility resolutions made by
the Hearing Officer. It is the Board's established policy not to overrule a
hearing officer's credibility resolutions unless the clear preponderance of
all of the relevant evidence convinces us that the resolutions are incor-
rect. The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Memphis, 132 NLRB 481, 483
(1961). We have carefully examined the record and find no basis for re-
versing his findings.
then left the meeting for a brief caucus. When they
returned, Craft explained to the employees that
Whiting had meant to say that the Employer was
in competition with nonunion States of the South,
and was already paying the employees all it could
and remain competitive.
The Hearing Officer found that although Whit-
ing's statement that a union shop would run him
out of business was not based on objective fact and
would, therefore, be objectionable, its coercive
effect was dissipated by Craft's explanation of what
Whiting had meant to say. We disagree. While ob-
jectionable statements made by an employer in the
course of an election campaign can be neutralized
by a clear and unambiguous statement of repudi-
ation by an authoritative representative of the em-
ployer,3 the record in this case establishes that
Craft's statement, instead of repudiating the state-
ment of Whiting, actually reinforced it. Craft's "ex-
planation" merely rephrased Whiting's statement
and carried the clear implication that a union victo-
ry in the election would deprive the Employer of
its ability to compete. Under these circumstances,
and particularly where, as in this case, the Employ-
er has raised and emphasized the issue of a union-
shop agreement by telling the employees that it
had been requested by the Union in contract nego-
tiations, Whiting's statement that a union shop
would run him out of business was objectionable
conduct affecting the outcome of the election and
was not in any manner neutralized or repudiated
by the later statement of Craft. Accordingly, we
find that Whiting's statement that a union shop
would run him out of business constitutes an addi-
tional reason for setting aside the election.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the election held on
December 11, 1980, be, and it hereby is, set aside.
[Direction of Second Election and Excelsior foot-
note omitted from publication.]
3 Interlake. Inc., 218 NLRB 1043 (1975). Because we find that Whit-
ing's objectionable statement was not neutralized or repudiated by the
statement of Craft, we need not decide whether Craft was, in fact, an
authoritative spokesperson for the Employer.
258 NLRB No. 58
429