National Labor Rel. Bd. v. Broderick Wood Prod. Co.
| Decision Date | 12 November 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 5781.,5781. |
| Citation | 261 F.2d 548 |
| Parties | NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. BRODERICK WOOD PRODUCTS COMPANY and International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, Local No. 13, AFL-CIO, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Arnold Ordman, Washington, D. C. (Jerome D. Fenton, Thomas J. McDermott, Marcel Mallet-Prevost and William J. Avrutis, Washington, D. C., were with him on the brief), for petitioner.
Peter H. Holme, Jr., Denver, Colo. (Richard G. Wohlgenant and Holme, Roberts, More & Owen, Denver, Colo., were with him on the brief), for respondent, Broderick Wood Products Co.
Philip Hornbein, Jr., Denver, Colo. (Robert F. May, Denver, Colo., was with him on the brief), for respondent, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, Local No. 13, AFL-CIO.
Before BRATTON, Chief Judge, and PHILLIPS and LEWIS, Circuit Judges.
The National Labor Relations Board, pursuant to the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e), petitions this court for enforcement of a Board order issued against respondents restraining them from certain labor practices and making them jointly and severally liable to employees for pay losses and for refund of union initiation fees and dues.1
Respondents were charged with violations of the Taft-Hartley Law and an N.L.R.B. trial examiner, after extensive hearings, ruled that respondent Broderick Wood Products Company2 had engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of 29 U.S.C.A. § 158 (a) (1), (2) and (3) by executing, maintaining and enforcing contracts containing unlawful union-security agreements, by checking off union initiation fees thereunder, and discriminating with respect to hire and tenure of employees to encourage membership in respondent International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, Local No. 13, AFL-CIO.3 The examiner also found that respondent Teamsters had violated Section 158(b) (1) (A) and (2) of the Act by participating in the same unlawful union-security agreements, by causing the Company to discriminate against its employees and by restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of rights of self organization protected by Section 157 of the Act. The Board upon a review of the case affirmed the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the trial examiner and adopted his recommendations in issuing the order.
The detailed findings of the trial examiner may be summarized as follows:
Broderick Wood Products Company is a Colorado corporation with principal offices in Denver, Colorado, where it operates two plants for the production of telephone poles, fence posts and railroad ties. It processes these products by a system of pressure treatment for preservation against weather and insect attack and markets them primarily outside of Colorado.4 The respondent Teamsters is a labor organization which admitted to membership the employees of Plant 1, and on February 15, 1947, entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the Company covering those employees. The agreement contained a union-security clause requiring all new employees of the Company to join the Teamsters within ten days after commencing employment and to maintain membership thereafter in good standing during the life of the contract. It further provided that preference "shall be given in hiring new employees to members of the Union who are capable, in the opinion of the Employer, to perform the work in the Employer's plant." This 1947 agreement was annually renewed without modification except as to pay rates which the Company recorded by notation on the original copy of the agreement.
The National Labor Relations Act was amended in 1947 by outlawing the ten-day and the preference provisions as to future agreements. However, respondents did not alter these provisions in their agreement when subsequently renewing it and neither of them apprised employees that the security clause of the contract was no longer effective.
In November 1955, the Company General Manager, Tait, suggested to Teamsters President, Salter, that a new formal instrument be drawn embodying the parties' current agreement. Salter agreed and proceeded to prepare the new contract. The instrument specified a one-year agreement with automatic renewals and was back-dated to February 15, 1955, the last renewal date of the 1947 agreement. The new contract retained the illegal preferential hiring provisions of the former contract. However, Salter, without consulting the Company in advance, modified the ten-day clause to allow new employees thirty-one days within which to join the Union thereby conforming to the statutory amendment in that regard.
On August 1, 1955, the Company leased the plant of a competitor, Western Wood Preserving, Inc., which adjoined the location of their own Plant 1, and hired substantially all of the working force Western had discharged when it discontinued operations a few days earlier. These employees were installed as the working force of No. 2 plant. One of the employees so hired was Casey Simpson, President of the United Mine Workers local which had been representing Western's employees under a bargaining contract. On several occasions during early August, Simpson and one McCreedy called upon the Company as UMW representatives and, citing the UMW contract, demanded recognition of UMW as the bargaining representative of the Plant 2 employees. This the Company refused to do.
When Teamster President Salter learned of the UMW effort he demanded in writing that the Company recognize the Teamsters as representing Plant 2 employees on the theory that Plant 2 employees were merely an accretion to the existing complement of Plant 1 employees and were therefore covered by the Teamsters' collective bargaining agreement.5 Although the 1947 agreement containing the ten-day clause was still in effect at that time, Salter in the demand letter notified the Company that under the provisions of their agreement the Plant 2 employees were required to join the union within thirty days after beginning their employment. The Company acknowledged the Teamsters' position and distributed copies of the Teamsters' demand letter to the Plant 2 employees. The Teamsters thereafter obtained signed cards from virtually all of these employees authorizing the Company to deduct $30 from their wages as union initiation fees. The Company honored these cards and remitted $750 to the Teamsters.
In mid-November 1955, a petition was circulated among the Company employees to initiate a Board election to decertify the Teamsters as the bargaining representative. Almost all of the personnel of both plants (64 in number) signed the petition and on December 2, Simpson filed it with the Board's Regional Office. Teamsters President Salter and Company Manager Tait each received copies of the petition on Monday, December 5.6
On December 2, the Teamsters delivered a written demand upon the Company that fifty-four named employees of both plants be forthwith discharged. Eight more names were added by a subsequent letter. This unprecedented demand was premised upon the contract provisions requiring union members to remain in good standing through payment of dues. The Union asserted each of the named employees to be delinquent in such payment.7
Oakford, assistant to the Company president, protested against Teamsters demanding the wholesale discharge of the men and prevailed upon Salter to give the employees twenty-four hours to settle up their dues. Salter agreed, and Monday morning, during working hours, the Company management read off the names on the Union list to the employees and told them that their employment was suspended, that they had twenty-four hours to put themselves in good standing with the Union, and that if they did not do so they would be discharged. The men were allowed to finish their shifts that day and were assured that if they "straightened out" with the Union their jobs would be open for their return.
The following morning, December 6, the Company went into emergency operation by using the few employees not named on the list for necessary maintenance work. That same morning substantially all of the suspended employees reported to the union hall. A number of them approached the cashier's window, presented their dues books and offered to pay their dues. The Teamsters office secretary who customarily handles dues, pursuant to instructions from Salter, informed them that she was unable to accept their dues until they had seen President Salter. This refusal to accept dues was rapidly communicated to the other employees in the hall. Thereupon the Plant 1 committeemen Frank Lewis and Mike Trujillo entered President Salter's office. Salter equivocated that he couldn't accept the dues but that he wouldn't refuse them. The ensuing conversation continued in a somewhat ambiguous vein with both sides reluctant to openly state their positions. The trial examiner concluded that Salter inferred there were other matters to straighten out before dues could be accepted and that, although Salter did not clarify what this "other business" was, clarification was unnecessary because the context of the conversation made it clear that Salter wanted the decertification petition withdrawn without having to openly state so, and that he asked that Simpson be called in because "he was quite prominent in this whole situation. * * *" Simpson, after entering the room, asked whether or not, if the decertification petition were withdrawn, the men could have a written guarantee that they would not be discharged. Salter stated they would not be discharged and that his word was sufficient. The committeemen said they would consult with the others and let him know the decision. The employees assembled and voted not to withdraw the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
NLRB v. United States Steel Corp.(Amer. Bridge Div.)
...Tenth Circuit — The broad dues-reimbursement remedy is specifically approved as against both union and employer. N. L. R. B. v. Broderick Wood Products Co., 1958, 261 F.2d 548; N. L. R. B. v. General Drivers Local No. 886, 1959, 264 F.2d District of Columbia Circuit — In Local Lodge No. 142......
-
N.L.R.B. v. Vernitron Elec. Components, Inc., Beau Products Div.
...102, 264 F.2d 575, 582 (1959), rev'd on other grounds, 362 U.S. 411, 80 S.Ct. 822, 4 L.Ed.2d 832 (1960); NLRB v. Broderick Wood Products Co., 261 F.2d 548, 558-59 (10th Cir. 1958). See also Komatz Construction, Inc. v. NLRB, supra at 325. Here, however, the union was not named as a responde......
-
N.L.R.B. v. Hershey Foods Corp.
...System, Inc., 273 F.2d 272, 275-76 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 362 U.S. 962, 80 S.Ct. 878, 4 L.Ed.2d 877 (1960); NLRB v. Broderick Wood Prod. Co., 261 F.2d 548, 558 (10th Cir. 1958) (alternate holding); J. A. Utley Co. v. NLRB, 217 F.2d 885, 886 (6th Cir. 1954); NLRB v. Pape Broadcasting Co.,......
-
CONFECTIONERY & TOBACCO DRIVERS & WARE. U. v. NLRB
...(1) (A) of the Act.4 Radio Officers' Union v. N. L. R. B., 347 U.S. 17, 74 S.Ct. 323, 98 L.Ed. 455 (1954); N. L. R. B. v. Broderick Wood Products Co., 261 F.2d 548 (10 Cir. 1958); N. L. R. B. v. Syracuse Stamping Co., 208 F.2d 77 (2 Cir. We find no sufficient evidence in the record, however......