National Labor Relations Bd. v. West Point Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 10 June 1957
• Docket Number: No. 16301.,16301.
• Citation: 245 F.2d 783
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY (Lanett Mill), Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

245 F.2d 783 (1957)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY (Lanett Mill), Respondent.

No. 16301.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

June 10, 1957.

Irwin M. Herman, Atty., N.L.R.B., Washington, D. C., Stephen Leonard, Asst. Atty. Gen. N.L.R.B., Kenneth C. McGuiness, General Counsel, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. General Counsel, Frederick U. Reel, Atty., N.L.R.B., Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Frank A. Constangy, M. A. Prowell, Mildred McClelland, Atlanta, Ga., for respondent.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and BORAH and TUTTLE, Circuit Judges.

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.

This is a petition for the enforcement of an order of the National Labor Relations Board¹ which would require respondent to cease and desist from certain unfair labor practices in violation of section 8(a) (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(a) (1) and to reinstate with back pay a number of employees allegedly discharged in violation of section 8(a) (3) of the Act. The only issue is whether the findings of the Board regarding these unfair labor practices are "supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole."² Respondent operates several textile mills in and around Langsdale, Alabama, including the Lanett Mill employing about 2500 workers to which this proceeding relates. It appears that from the beginning of 1955, and extending throughout the entire period here under consideration, the company was engaged in a major effort to increase the efficiency and quality of its production and to recover, through increased pressure put on its employees and supervisors, from a considerable slump in its operations. In apparently its first effort to organize the plant, the Textile Workers Union of America, CIO, in February 1955 sent a descriptive pamphlet to many residents of Langsdale, including employees and supervisors of the mill. On receiving requests for further information and help an organizer was sent later in the month and a number of small meetings with employees took place. This activity was evidently known to officials and supervisors of the respondent for as early as March 1st an employee was questioned about the activities of the union. On March 5th a mass meeting was held at which a 46 man "organizing committee" was selected and thereafter large scale solicitation of members was started.

On March 10th the respondent posted on its bulletin board an order forbidding all solicitations, excepting only those for charity or individual hardship if written permission of the supervisor was first obtained.³ In his pay envelope each employee also received a letter from the Executive Vice President of the respondent which stated the position of the company to be:

"We believe that the unionization of our plants would be against your interest, our interest, and the interest of our community."

and after reciting at length the difficulties of the New England textile industry allegedly due to unionization, and suggesting that if the union came to the plant the result would be strikes, shutdowns, eventual removal of the mill, and unemployment and ruin for its workers, it concluded:

"If you don\'t want to run the risk of laying yourselves open to the same sort of results that hundreds of employed cotton mill employees in New England have been subjected to as a result of this union\'s activity, you, as well as I, will express the sentiments set forth in this letter — that there is no place for the CIO in Lanett or elsewhere in the Valley."

On the same day Mrs. Danford, a member of the organizing committee and known to the respondent's supervisors to be a union member, was fired, allegedly for repeatedly violating an order regarding the method of performing her work.

On March 11th a letter was sent to the President of the respondent (with a copy to the N. L. R. B.), signed by all the members of the organizing committee, which merely recited the formation of the committee and expressed a desire that the union be able to establish fruitful and harmonious relations with the company. On the same day another member of the committee was discharged for reading a newspaper on his job. The solicitation campaign thereafter continued for some time, though in general apparently not in violation of the company rule — but during the same period an increasing number of employees withdrew their authorization cards from the union; at the high-water marks perhaps 700 employees had assented to union representation. After some more discharges had occurred, including that of several more members of the committee, the leader of the group visited the President of the respondent to seek reinstatement for them; the only satisfaction he received was to be told that though none would be reinstated all could reapply with a clean slate. Thereupon, on March 24th, he wrote a letter to the company to the effect that these discharges reinforced the determination of the employees to organize a union which would protect them from similar dismissals. The following day unfair labor practice charges were filed with the Board, reciting nine of the discharges. However, during the remainder of the month several more took place. On March 31st a newspaper article was posted on several company bulletin boards, entitled "The Uniontown Story" by the Reverend Bob Nelson, which graphically described the alleged miseries resulting from an attempt to organize a mill in a neighboring small town. On April 5th the charges filed with the Board were amended to include a total of twelve alleged discriminatory discharges.

The trial examiner, after hearing 74 witnesses and examining 40 exhibits, filed a lengthy report finding the respondent guilty of numerous violations of section 8(a) (1) of the Act through unlawful interrogations, threats, promises, and other pressures directed against the employees, and of eight discriminatory discharges in violation of section 8(a) (3); as to three other discharges he dismissed the charges because no evidence was introduced to support them and as to one he found in favor of the respondent as the General Counsel had failed to carry the burden of proof. The Board affirmed all the principal findings of the examiner and accepted his recommended order, requiring, inter alia, the reinstatement with back pay of the eight employees and the posting of appropriate notice in the plant.

The trial examiner found evidence of numerous acts of interference, restraint, and coercion on the part of the respondent in derogation of its employees' right to organize or join a union. Employees had been questioned as to their union membership and activities, whether, when, why, and at whose inducement they had joined, and what the union was doing. There were direct and implied threats of discrimination and of firing, and particularly of a shut-down and the consequent hardships if unionization should be accomplished, and when employees who feared discrimination approached their supervisors to ask whether it would indeed be safe for them to resign their membership they were not reassured but instead were merely advised on how to expedite their withdrawal. Finally, several supervisors actively solicited employees to resign from the union by urging them to repossess and destroy their authorization card, to remove their union buttons, and by referring employees who were thus induced to cut their ties with the union to other employees or to a local lawyer who prepared letters of resignation for their signature. Altogether 34 acts of interference are catalogued over a period of six weeks, involving 13 supervisors and 21 employees.

Respondent makes several broad and a few specific attacks on these findings. Many of these go merely to the weight of the evidence, pointing out that some of the cited instances were denied or explained away by the supervisors involved, and that others were established by the testimony of employees found otherwise untrustworthy; these are essentially matters of credibility which form no proper basis for attacking the Board's findings. N. L. R. B. v. Newton, 5 Cir., 236 F.2d 438, 443-444. Many other instances are cited which are said to be inconsistent with the theory of a systematic anti-union policy on the part of respondent: consideration was allegedly shown to the leader of the local when he requested a leave of absence to look for another job (though temporarily re-employed he was advised to, and soon did leave town); an employee was reinstated while actually wearing a union button and many known unionists are still employed; some employees who asked their supervisors for help in getting out of the union were merely told that they were on their own. Finally it is asserted that the supervisors had been instructed not to discourage unionization by threats — though apparently the prohibition did not include promises and coercive interrogations, nor were the employees informed that any threats by supervisors were made contrary to company policy.

In view of the respondent's admitted anti-union attitude and the very widespread pattern of miscellaneous acts by many supervisors which perhaps individually might be explained away but which collectively amount at the very least to an uncoordinated pattern of coercion, we must affirm the Board's findings of the 8(a) (1) violations as supported by substantial evidence on the record taken as a whole and order enforcement of the appropriate parts of the remedial order. N. L. R. B. v. Fox Manufacturing Co., 5 Cir., 238 F.2d 211, 214.

As usual the findings regarding the discriminatory discharges are harder to evaluate. As the trial examiner points out, this is not a case of a mass discharge or layoff in which it is easy to draw some general conclusions based perhaps largely on the statistical evidence; each of the eight dismissals found discriminatory by the Board was a separate incident whose circumstances must be individually...