National Labor Rel. Board v. Peyton Packing Co.

Decision Date21 June 1944
Docket NumberNo. 10960.,10960.
PartiesNATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. PEYTON PACKING CO., Inc.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Alvin J. Rockwell, Gen. Counsel, Howard Lichtenstein, Asst. Gen. Counsel, and Joseph B. Robison, Atty., National Labor Relations Board, all of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Eugene T. Edwards, of El Paso, Tex., for respondent.

Before SIBLEY, HOLMES, and McCORD, Circuit Judges.

HOLMES, Circuit Judge.

This is a petition by the National Labor Relations Board for enforcement of its order entered pursuant to its findings that the Peyton Packing Company had violated Section 8 (1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act1 by acts and statements calculated to discourage union activity by the discriminatory promulgation and enforcement of a rule regulating the conduct of employees, and by discharging nine employees because of their union affiliation and activities. Enforcement is resisted upon the one ground that these findings are wholly unsupported by any substantial evidence.

The essential primary facts are free of serious dispute. The controversy centers upon the propriety of the inferences drawn from those facts by the Board, particularly in connection with the considerations which motivated the discharge of nine employees.

Respondent operated a meat-packing house in El Paso, Texas. In 1937, a labor organization called "Association of Peyton Packing Employees" was formed, in which Joseph Grandara, respondent's personnel manager, and Raul Aguilar, a billing clerk in the main office, played important roles. In previous proceedings, the Board determined that the union was supported and dominated by the company, and that the company entertained a hostile attitude toward an attempt to organize the employees for affiliation with a national union. 32 N.L.R.B. 595. Pursuant to the Board's order, the company union was dissolved in 1941.

Almost immediately thereafter, an organizer of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, an A. F. of L. affiliate, began an organizational campaign among the employees. These activities soon became known to the Company. Grandara and Aguilar thereupon began to contact various employees who joined the new union, to whom meaningful remarks were made disparaging the A. F. of L. and its practices. The men also were told that Grandara had means of learning what took place at the meetings of the unions, and the accuracy of his information gave credence to the statement. Later, three plant foremen joined in the effort to dissuade the employees from becoming union members, threatening that all union members would be discharged one by one.

On January 26, 1942, the Company promulgated a new rule, which was posted throughout the plant, forbidding the employees to "engage in solicitation of any kind" on company time or property, under penalty of discharge. During the month of May, 1942, the union organizer repeatedly...

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43 cases
  • NLRB v. Gotham Shoe Manufacturing Co.
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)
    • 14 Enero 1966
    ...the type of rule approved by the Board in Peyton Packing Co., 49 N. L. R. B. 828, 843-844 (1943), enforced, N. L. R. B. v. Peyton Packing Co., 142 F.2d 1009 (5 Cir. 1944), cert. denied, 323 U.S. 730, 65 S.Ct. 66, 89 L. Ed. 585 (1944), quoted with approval in Republic Aviation Corp. v. N. L.......
  • The Boeing Company and Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE Local 2001
    • United States
    • National Labor Relations Board
    • 14 Diciembre 2017
    ...outweighs the Sec. 7 right of employees to engage in solicitation during working time. Peyton Packing Co., 49 NLRB 828, 843 (1943), enfd. 142 F.2d 1009 (5th Cir. 1944), cert. denied 323 U.S. 730 (1944). See also text accompanying fn. 31, infra. [31] See Our Way, Inc., 268 NLRB 394 (1983); E......
  • Beth Israel Hospital v. National Labor Relations Board
    • United States
    • United States Supreme Court
    • 22 Junio 1978
    ...(1945), this Court approved the reasoning of the National Labor Relations Board in Peyton Packing Co., 49 N.L.R.B. 828 (1943), enf'd, 142 F.2d 1009 (CA5), cert. denied, 323 U.S. 730, 65 S.Ct. 66, 89 L.Ed. 585 (1944), and the balance it struck in adjusting the respective rights of industrial......
  • Caesars Entertainment Corp.
    • United States
    • National Labor Relations Board
    • 16 Diciembre 2019
    ...in original). [3] NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox, 351 U.S. 105, 112 (1956). [4] See, e.g., Peyton Packing Co., 49 NLRB 828, 843 (1943), enfd. 142 F.2d 1009 (5th Cir. 1944) (oral solicitation); Stoddard-Quirk Manufacturing Co., 138 NLRB 615, 620 (1962) (distribution of literature). [5] 324 U.S. 79......
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