National Labor Relations Bd. v. Swan Fastener Corp.

• Decision Date: 18 November 1952
• Docket Number: No. 4648.,4648.
• Citation: 199 F.2d 935
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. SWAN FASTENER CORP.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

199 F.2d 935 (1952)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. SWAN FASTENER CORP.

No. 4648.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard October 7, 1952.

Decided November 18, 1952.

T. Lowery Whittaker, Washington, D. C. (George J. Bott, Gen. Counsel, David P. Findling, Associate Gen. Counsel, A. Norman Somers, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Arnold Ordman, and William J. Avrutis, Attys., Washington, D. C., with him on the brief), for petitioner.

Bernard A. Riemer, Boston, Mass. (Cohn, Riemer & Pollack, Boston, Mass., with him on the brief), for respondent.

Before MAGRUDER, Chief Judge, and WOODBURY and HARTIGAN, Circuit Judges.

HARTIGAN, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board, pursuant to the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., has petitioned this court for enforcement of its order of July 24, 1951, under § 10(c) of the Act, against the respondent Swan Fastener Corporation.

The respondent is a Massachusetts corporation and is engaged in the manufacture of zippers in Cambridge. It concedes that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act.

A complaint and notice of hearing, dated June 29, 1950, was issued against the respondent, based on charges filed by Lodge 264 of District 38 of International Association of Machinists (IAM) that the respondent had engaged in certain unfair labor practices affecting commerce. The respondent filed its answer July 14, 1950 denying the alleged unfair labor practices and hearings were held before the trial examiner on 17 days in July and August, 1950.

The trial examiner issued his intermediate report on January 26, 1951, finding that respondent had engaged in certain unfair labor practices and recommended that it cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative action.

The Board considered the intermediate report and the entire record and concluded that the respondent violated § 8(a) (1) and (3) of the Act and issued the remedial order now before us which in substance ordered the respondent to cease and desist from certain unfair labor practices and to take certain affirmative action relative to offering eight employees, discriminatorily discharged, immediate and full reinstatement to their former or substantially equivalent positions without prejudice to their seniority or rights and privileges and to make said employees whole for any losses of pay they may have suffered by reason of the respondent's discrimination against them.

Testimony offered by the Board tends to show the following: During the noon hour on October 13, 1949, five employees of the respondent met with a representative of IAM near the respondent's plant and signed and delivered to him membership applications in IAM. They received additional application cards and at the end of the day began a campaign to enroll fellow workers. By the following week the IAM organizing group comprised eight employees, namely, Donald Blair, Stanley Doyle, Edward d'Entremont, Martin Moore, Frank Karavetsos, Lester Stevens, Stanley Barnette and Lois Blair, a sister of Donald. The men were employed as lacers and cutters and Lois as a machine operator.

The organizing committee met regularly at lunch near the plant's laundry section where they turned over application cards to either Moore or Blair and discussed employees to be solicited and the progress of the organizing campaign.

On October 18 to 20 these noon meetings were observed by William Cravatts a foreman in the assembly section and son of the general manager, Robert Cravatts, and Irving Gilman, production manager.

On October 19, an IAM representative went to the respondent's office and introduced himself to William Cravatts and told him that he represented a majority of the employees and asked for a bargaining conference. William replied that his father Robert, the general manager, who usually handles such matters, was absent from the plant. On October 19 the respondent was further advised by the Board's Regional Office that the IAM had filed a petition for certification as exclusive bargaining representative of the production and maintenance employees.

After the respondent learned of the union activities, Robert Cravatts asked Keith Whitham, who supervised sections in the assembly department, if he had seen any employees distributing membership applications in the plant during working hours and asked him to inquire among the employees in order to find out how many signed up with the IAM. Whitham made inquiries among employees under him and when one of them hesitated to answer whether he had signed an IAM card, Whitham told him "He knew all about it already." Whitham also warned employees it would be wiser not to take part in union activities because it might lead to trouble and respondent might move to New York if the IAM were successful.

After the union's request for a bargaining conference on October 19, Gilman arranged to see Doucette, Possick and Kelly who were the lead men in the chain room during the plant's three shifts and told them that he knew of the union's organizing efforts and Gilman tried to find out from them which employees were behind the campaign. Gilman asked Kelly whether he signed an IAM card and was informed that he had. Gilman asked him how it would benefit him and said Kelly was "paying union dues for nothing" and accused him of starting the IAM campaign in the plant. Gilman asked the three men to inquire from the employees with whom they worked whether they had signed IAM cards and if so, why. Gilman told these three men the employees would not benefit even if the IAM were successful because in that event the plant would have to move to New York to save transportation costs.

After Kelly returned to his work, foreman Arthur Quaregan discussed the IAM campaign with him and Kelly told Quaregan about the meeting in Gilman's office and asked Quaregan why the company thought he had started the organizational campaign. Quaregan pointed out that Kelly had been connected with a union during previous employment and Quaregan also stated that Gilman inquired as to who had given Kelly the IAM application card which he had signed and Kelly named Martin Moore, a chain room lacer and member of the IAM organizing group. Quaregan said that the company did not want the union in its plant and left Kelly and walked toward the office and about an hour later Moore told Kelly that he (Moore) had got a layoff slip.

At quitting time on the day Gilman talked to Doucette, Possick and Kelly, employees were told to remain in the plant for a meeting. Barnette and four other members of the IAM organizing committee, Blair, d'Entremont, Karavetsos and Stevens were among those who attended. William Cravatts told the assembled employees that they knew why they were at the meeting and that he knew all of them were in the union. He told the employees that the union could not do them any good because the respondent could not afford to give them any more paid holidays and vacation time and he added that if the IAM succeeded in organizing and should cause "trouble," the respondent would have to move to New York. He stated further that all the union wanted was the employees' "two bucks a month."

At this meeting Lillian Michelman, whom the Board found to be a supervisor in the cutting department, warned the employees that if the IAM drive...