National Labor Rel. Bd. v. Lake Superior Lumber Corp.

• Decision Date: 05 April 1948
• Docket Number: No. 10410.,10410.
• Citation: 167 F.2d 147
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. LAKE SUPERIOR LUMBER CORPORATION.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

167 F.2d 147 (1948)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. LAKE SUPERIOR LUMBER CORPORATION.

No. 10410.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

April 5, 1948.

Mozart Ratner, of Washington, D. C. (Gerhard P. Van Arkel, of Washington, D. C., Morris P. Glushien, of New York City, A. Norman Somers, Dominick L. Manoli and Thomas B. Sweeney, all of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for petitioner.

William F. Pellow, of Bessemer, Mich. on the brief), for respondent.

Before SIMONS, ALLEN and MILLER, Circuit Judges.

MILLER, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board, pursuant to § 10(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., petitions for enforcement of its order issued against the respondent, Lake Superior Lumber Corporation, on August 21, 1946, following a hearing based upon charges, filed by International Woodworkers of America, C. I. O., Local 15, that the respondent had engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of § 8(1) of the Act. Respondent is a Michigan corporation, engaged in business in the State of Michigan where the alleged unfair labor practices occurred. It is conceded that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act; accordingly, no jurisdictional question is involved.

In the conduct of its business, respondent operates lumbering camps at convenient locations in its timber tract. The camps are temporary installations, housing in each instance approximately 80 woodsmen. After the immediately accessible area has been worked over the camp buildings are either moved, torn down or abandoned. Each camp has three or four bunkhouses, a combined kitchen and mess hall, storage buildings, a washhouse, an office, tractor sheds, a barn for the horses, a shop, warehouse, pump house and a recreation hall. Each bunkhouse houses from 32 to 40 men. There are no interior partitions. The men sleep in double deck cots arranged in two rows along either side of the bunkhouse. The only additional furnishings consist of benches at the foot of the cots. The respondent has maintained strict rules forbidding salesmen or other visitors transacting business in the bunkhouses. It has regularly enforced a "lights out at 8:00 p.m." rule. The camp buildings are situated on land controlled by the respondent. Access is over the respondent's logging railroads or by roads connecting with the main highways built as aids to the logging operations. At the time of the hearing the respondent's camps were 17 or 18 miles from Ontonagon, the nearest city. The woodsmen work in the woods from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. six days a week, and usually spend all their time, including Sundays, in the camps. They do not receive their meals and lodging as a part of their remuneration, but on each pay day deductions are made on the basis of a daily charge for these items. There is a heavy rate of turnover among the employees, reaching during a six months' period in 1945 nearly 345 percent. Some of this was due to war conditions, such as the draft and high wages in war plants.

On August 12, 1937, the Union filed charges against the respondent. Following conferences, participated in by the Board's agents, the Union and the respondent executed on September 14, 1938 a stipulation, which provided that the respondent would not interfere with its camp employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act. It further provided —

"Without admitting that denial or refusal of permission constitutes an unfair labor practice * * *, the Corporation none-the-less herewith grants permission until the matter shall have been determined by decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, to the organizers of the union, * * * to visit their members and other employees on its camp sites located in various places in the State of Michigan, upon conditions to be posted by the Corporation. * * *"

This stipulation of settlement was approved by the Board on September 27, 1938. The conditions referred to were contained in another stipulation executed by the Union and the respondent on October 3, 1938. It provided that only one representative of a union would be allowed to visit the respondent's property at one time; designated the time and place for such visit as one night per week in each camp; that while at the camp the union representative would discuss union problems with the employees at the recreation hall exclusively and would not enter the sleeping quarters of the men at any time or for any purpose; and that such representative should arrive at the camp not earlier than 5:30 of the afternoon of the day of such visit and should leave not later than half an hour after breakfast the following morning. No complaint was issued in this case which was closed on the Board's records on January 17, 1939.

On July 23, 1943, John Haney, one of respondent's woodsmen, solicited employees in a bunkhouse of Camp 14, in the evening after working hours, to join the union. Camp foreman Schlief observed this action and stopped him, telling him that any organizing must be done in the recreation hall. On June 7, 1945, the Union notified the respondent of its intention to withdraw from the stipulation of October 3, 1938, "because this stipulation restricts us and our members from taking advantage of our organizational rights under the National Labor Relations Act." The respondent requested a specific statement of the Union's criticism of the existing arrangements and expressed willingness to give further consideration to matters which the Union thought unfair. The Union objected to the limitation of visiting union agents to one representative and to the requirement that permission be secured before entering the camps and claimed that the recreation halls were too small for conducting union meetings. It contended that the respondent did not have the authority under the Act to designate the time and place to be used in conducting union business so long as it did not interfere with production. By a letter of July 17, 1945, the respondent offered to modify the rules and permit the weekly visit to its camps to be made by two union representatives and to enlarge its recreation halls on proof that they would not accommodate the meetings. It offered to consider such other modifications as the Union cared to suggest.

The union agents complied with the rules and regulations until early in July 1945, at which time two union officials visited camps on other nights of the week than those provided. They were not interfered with on these visits. However, on July 26, 1945, camp foreman, Felix Petka, at Camp 17, told the union representative that he had orders not to admit him unless it was the day provided by the stipulation and that he would have to leave immediately. On Friday, August 24, 1945, union officials went to Camp 14 to conduct routine union business. They knew that the established day for the visit for union representatives was not Friday. They arrived at supper time and ate with the employees in the mess hall. When they left the mess hall camp foreman Schlief advised them he was acting under orders and that they would have to leave the camp immediately. The charge in the present case was filed with the Board on August 25, 1945, in which the unfair labor practices were specified as the limitation by the respondent of the visits of union representatives to one day a week with permission to enter only the recreation hall for the purpose of carrying on union activity, and the prohibition by the respondent against union representatives entering a bunkhouse at any time to visit members of the union, the union contending that its representatives should be permitted to enter the Company's lumber camps, the recreation halls and visit with members in the bunkhouses at any time which did not interfere with the working schedule of the employees.

The Board found that the 1938 settlement agreement was not a bar to the proceedings; that the respondent had engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of § 8(1) of the Act; and ordered the respondent to (1) cease and desist from interfering with its employees in the exercise of the rights to self-organization by prohibiting its employees from engaging in union activity in bunkhouses during their non-working time and by denying union representatives reasonable access to its camps and bunkhouses; (2) rescind immediately its rules restricting the rights of its employees to engage in union activity on company property during their free time; subject to lawful and reasonable conditions admit representatives of labor organizations to its camps and bunkhouses for the purpose of consulting its employees in regard to their right under the Act to self-organization; and to post immediately appropriate notices to that effect at its plant and camps near Ontonagon, Michigan. In its answer to the present petition for enforcement the respondent contends that the evidence does not support the finding that the 1938 settlement agreement is not a bar to the present proceedings, that the Union could rescind such agreement, or that its pertinent provisions were no longer effective; that it had engaged in unfair labor practices as charged in the complaint; that it had interfered with the...