National Labor Relations Board v. Trinity Steel Co.
| Decision Date | 23 June 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 14764.,14764. |
| Citation | 214 F.2d 120 |
| Parties | NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. TRINITY STEEL CO., Inc. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
A. Norman Somers, Asst. Gen. Cnsl., N.L.R.B., David P. Findling, Assc. Gen. Cnsl., N.L.R.B., Frederick U. Reel, Atty., N.L.R.B., George J. Bott, General Counsel, Alan R. Waterstone, Attorneys, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C., for petitioner.
Carl B. Callaway, Dallas, Tex., for respondent.
Before BORAH and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges, and DAWKINS, District Judge.
This is a petition by National Labor Relations Board, filed pursuant to section 10(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e), seeking enforcement of the Board's order directing respondent Trinity Steel Company, Inc., to bargain with a designated union1 as the representative of respondent's production and maintenance employees. The respondent resists enforcement of the order upon the principal ground that the Board acted arbitrarily and abused its reasonable discretion in determining that the union was the exclusive representative of respondent's employees with which it was obliged to bargain collectively.
The material facts are undisputed. In the year 1950, and before the present labor dispute arose the employees of the respondent steel company were given two separate wage increases. In June of 1951, respondent was attempting to work out some way in which additional wage increases could be given to the employees but was confronted with difficulties under the existing wage stabilization regulations because of prior increases granted in 1950. In order to resolve these difficulties respondent filed on October 4, 1951, a petition in proper form with the appropriate authorities seeking permission for a general wage increase in its plant. This petition was duly acknowledged by the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Division of the U. S. Department of Labor on October 11, 1951, and the employees in respondent's plant were thereafter advised by the company executives that a petition for approval to raise their wages had been properly filed. This action on the respondent's part was not taken for the purpose of defeating the union and, in fact, there is no showing that it had anything to do with the union.
On August 17, 1951, and after the company had authorized its attorney to prepare and file an application for an increase in wages the union filed a petition with the Board alleging that it desired to be certified as representative of a substantial but unspecified number of respondent's employees for purposes of collective bargaining, pursuant to section 9(a) and (c) of the Act. Thereafter, a representation hearing was had and an agreement to the extent here pertinent was reached between respondent and the union as to the composition of an appropriate bargaining unit. However, respondent was unwilling to agree that the union was entitled to represent its employees and vigorously insisted that the union had made no showing of prima facie representative interest. The Board as part of its investigation to ascertain whether or not the union was an appropriate representative for the purpose of collective bargaining ordered that an election by secret ballot be conducted. Prior to the election, a special representative of the union named Cook learned that the employees had been advised by the executives of the company that an application for approval to raise the wages of the employees had been filed. In an effort to verify this advice Cook contacted the regional office of the Wage Stabilization Board in Dallas, Texas, but did not contact the office of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Division of the U. S. Department of Labor, which was the office acknowledging receipt of the application from the employer. Cook was advised by the regional office that no such application had been filed in that office and upon the sole basis of this information he immediately advised the employees that no such application had been filed by the company.
Thereafter, and on different occasions immediately preceding the election, Cook advised certain of the employees in attendance at the union meetings as well as individually, that the executives of the company had misrepresented the matter in question to them, that he had checked into the situation, and that an application for approval to raise their wages had not been filed. While there is no contention or evidence that Cook acted in bad faith in making these statements, it does affirmatively appear from the undisputed evidence that his investigation of the matter had not been complete and he did not have the correct information upon which to base the statements which he made. Prior to the election he never contacted any representative of the company in an effort to reconcile the discrepancy between what the company officials had told the employees...
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