National Labor Relations Board v. Stowe Spinning Co.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1947
• Docket Number: No. 5640.,5640.
• Citation: 165 F.2d 609
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. STOWE SPINNING CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

165 F.2d 609 (1947)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. STOWE SPINNING CO. et al.

No. 5640.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

December 22, 1947.

Mozart G. Ratner, Principal Atty., N. L. R. B., of Washington, D.C. (Robert N. Denham, General Counsel, David P. Findling, Associate General Counsel, A. Norman Somers, Asst. General Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Frederick D. Vincent, Jr., and Ida Klaus, Attorneys, National Labor Relations Board, all of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for petitioner.

P. C. Whitlock, of Charlotte, N. C. (Whitlock, Dockery & Moore, of Charlotte, N. C., George B. Mason, of Gastonia, N. C., Harley B. Gaston, of Belmont, N. C., and L. B. Hollowell, of Gastonia, N. C., on the brief), for respondents.

Before PARKER, SOPER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board has petitioned for enforcement of an order issued by it and directed in part to the respondent Stowe Spinning Company, and in part to the respondents Acme Spinning Company, Perfection Spinning Company and Linford Mills, Inc., jointly. After conventional proceedings the Board concluded that all the respondents had violated Section 8(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. by interfering with, restraining and coercing their employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the Act; and that respondent Stowe had also violated Section 8(3) of the Act by discharging four employees on account of their union membership or activity. The respondents oppose enforcement on the ground that the Board's findings of fact are not supported by sustantial evidence, that its conclusions of law are erroneous, and, on the further ground, that the Board's order in certain respects deprives them of rights secured by the Constitution of the United States. The most important issue in this case is whether the Board may compel the respondents to allow labor unions the use of a hall or auditorium in a building of respondents for the purposes of organization and collective bargaining.

Each of the four respondents operates a cotton mill in North Belmont, North Carolina. Most of the corporate officers of each respondent also hold offices in the others. North Belmont is an unincorporated village approximately two and a half miles north of the town of Belmont. It is largely, if not entirely, devoted to the business operations of the respondents and is, in fact, a company town. Each respondent owns a substantial number of houses in North Belmont which it rents to its employees and their families. These houses comprise the so-called mill villages, which in turn comprise North Belmont.

There are only three buildings in North Belmont of a more or less public nature, a public school house, owned by the state, a motion picture theatre, and a two-story building owned by the respondents jointly to which we must direct particular attention. The first floor is occupied by the United States Post Office and a grocery store. The second floor consists of a hall or auditorium, seating approximately 200 persons, and adapted to use for public meetings or other assemblies.

When this building was erected in 1937 the hall was added primarily to provide a meeting place for Patriotic Order Sons of America, a patriotic organization whose local chapter is composed largely, although not exclusively, of employees of the respondents. Since 1937 the hall has been regularly used by the Order for its weekly meetings and other business. On occasion the hall has been used for other purposes, such as church banquets, Ladies Aid Society meetings, a Christmas party for school children, and for several weeks a safety school for employees of the respondents was conducted there.

Some time in December, 1944, two representatives of the Textile Workers Union, C.I.O., came to North Belmont to investigate the possibility of organizing the employees of Stowe. They induced several employees to solicit the workers to join the union. In January, 1945, Robert Harris, a national representative of the union, came to North Belmont to arrange a mass meeting of the employees of Stowe. He requested Baxter Black, the president of the Order and an employee of Acme, to permit the union to use the hall for a meeting on the following Sunday and Black consented. Later, when knowledge of this event reached DeLambert P. Stowe, an officer of Acme and Perfection, and the agent of all the respondents charged with the management of the hall and the Post Office building, the permission was withdrawn. Harris then attempted, without success, to secure permission to hold the meeting either in the school or in the motion picture theatre. Ultimately the meeting was held on the street outside the Post Office building.

It is not immediately apparent from this recital of the facts that the refusal of the owners of the hall to allow the union to use it for a meeting of the employees of Stowe constituted a violation of the statute. The majority of the Board, however, reached its conclusion in the following manner. It made the finding that the owner's refusal "to permit use of the hall for purposes of self organization in a labor union under the circumstances constituted unlawful disparity of treatment and discrimination against the Union." It pointed out that foremost among the methods universally utilized by employees in self organization is the exercise of the constitutional right of peaceable assembly. It held that the sole purpose of the respondents' action was to impede, prevent and discourage the employees in the exercise of this basic right and that by refusing the union permission to use the only available meeting place in the community, the respondents in fact deprived the employees of Stowe of the right. Following this line of reasoning the Board stated its formal conclusion of law that by interfering with, restraining and coercing their employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act, the respondents engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8(1) of the Act.

We are unable to agree with this conclusion. There is no general provision of the Act which requires an employer to treat a labor union in the same manner as it treats other persons or organizations which are not concerned with the interests or activities of labor. Section 8(3) of the Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to encourage or discourage membership in a labor organization by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment; and Section 8(4) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to discharge or discriminate against an employee who files charges or gives testimony in cases arising under the Act. Furthermore, acts of discrimination on the part of an employer by which one labor organization or one employee is favored over another or discriminated against in the free exercise of rights under the statute may amount to unfair labor practices and violations of the Act. None of these practices, however, are involved in the use or non-use of the assembly hall.

It is equally clear that in the matter now before us the employer has not interfered with, restrained or coerced its employees in the exercise of their rights. Even though it was evident to the workers that the action of the owners of the hall was inspired by hostility to the union, the refusal did not amount to unlawful interference, restraint or coercion. An employer may express his views on labor policies or problems and take any side he chooses in a labor controversy provided that his conduct does not amount to coercion; National Labor Relations Board v. Virginia Electric & Power Co., 314 U.S. 469, 62 S.Ct. 344, 86 L.Ed. 348; and if an employer may exercise this freedom without violating the Act, he may surely decline to perform an affirmative act which will encourage and assist a union in its organizational efforts. Indeed the statute contemplates that an employer shall abstain not only from restraint or coercion, but also from all interference with its employees by preserving the strictest neutrality when they are engaged in any activities for or against the formation of a bargaining unit, and the cases so hold. See N. L. R. B. v. Laister-Kauffmann Aircraft Corp., 8 Cir., 144 F.2d 9; N. L. R. B. v. Security Warehouse & Cold Storage Co., 9 Cir., 136 F.2d 829; N. L. R. B. v. Faultless Caster Corporation, 7 Cir., 135 F.2d 559; N. L. R. B. v. William Davies Co., 7 Cir., 135 F.2d 179; N. L. R. B. v. Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co., 6 Cir., 133 F.2d 295. The Act seeks to guarantee employees complete freedom of choice in the selection of a bargaining representative; and it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to encourage or discourage his employees to join a bona fide union although it be the only labor organization on the scene. N. L. R. B. v. American Car & Foundry Co., 7 Cir., 161 F.2d 501.

The statute makes it very clear that the employer must not encourage or assist workmen in these activities. Section 8(2) declares that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to contribute financial or other support to any labor organization; and so it appears that if the owners had freely given the use of the hall to the union as it had been given in the past to the patriotic order and to other social gatherings, it might well have been argued that an infraction of the statute had occurred. It was because of considerations of this sort that the dissenting member of the Board refused to join in its decision. Pointing out that the Board for years has construed the statute as forbidding the most minute kind of financial support to labor organizations, he said:

"* * * It has frowned, for example, upon letting a union organization have the profits from vending machines, even though patronized exclusively by members of the bargaining unit;³¹ on the use of company office machines for preparing...