National Labor Relations Board v. Coats & Clark, Inc.
| Decision Date | 13 February 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 16017.,16017. |
| Citation | 241 F.2d 556 |
| Parties | NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. COATS & CLARK, Inc. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Louis Schwartz, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, David P. Findling, Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Washington, D. C., Theophil C. Kammholz, General Counsel, Samuel M. Singer, Attorneys, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Frank A. Constangy, M. A. Prowell, Atlanta, Ga., for appellee.
Before RIVES, TUTTLE and BROWN, Circuit Judges.
This is a petition for the enforcement of an order of the National Labor Relations Board requiring respondent to offer to restore to employment, without back pay, one Marie Smith Barron, and to cease from engaging in various activities in violation of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., designed to prevent the unionization of respondent's plant.
The pertinent facts are not seriously disputed. The Textile Workers Union of America, CIO, started an organizing campaign among the employees at respondent's Clarksdale plant at the beginning of January 1953. The drive continued with varying intensity until March 2, 1954, when the union lost a Board-conducted election by a vote of 276-303, to which no objection was made.
Late in 1953 several of respondent's supervisors apparently initiated a campaign to prevent the unionization of the plant. The trial examiner found and the Board agreed that there was evidence of over a score of incidents involving at least eight supervisors and over a dozen employees in which direct and indirect attempts were made to induce the workers to turn against the union. Many of the incidents involved the interrogation of employees about the activities of the union and about their own affiliation or that of other workers, and these were frequently coupled with requests or demands that the employee withdraw from the union by asking for a return of his authorization card. There were threats that if the union was certified the plant would be shut down or operated only part time, and there were thinly veiled threats to fire and to blacklist. Occasionally ridicule was employed. Except for those incidents relating to Mrs. Barron it is unnecessary to detail these occurrences any further since respondent itself does not seriously controvert them, suggesting only that there may be questions of credibility, and arguing that the workers involved were all tough-minded enough to withstand this sort of talk. These, however, are matters to be determined by the Board as the trier of facts.
Respondent suggests that many of the supervisors' remarks were protected by section 8(c) of the Act as mere expressions of opinion. But too frequently they appeared coupled with threats that are expressly excepted from the license of that section, and where, as here, there is substantial evidence on the record taken as a whole to support the Board's finding that these comments showed a purpose to interfere with the employees' rights in violation of section 8(a) (1), this Court will not substitute its judgment for that of the Board. N. L. R. B. v. Fox Manufacturing Co., 5 Cir., 238 F.2d 211, at page 214 and cases there cited.
It is now necessary to consider the principal events that led to the separation from employment of Mrs. Barron. She began working for the respondent in 1947, and since 1950 had worked in the night shift of the spinning department. She was one of the first employees to join the union and to sign a card, and soon became one of its most active supporters. She successfully solicited a number of workers to join up, contacting them at their home at her own house, at the factory during pauses, and even sometimes during work periods. Respondent's supervisors apparently became aware of her activity in the fall of 1953 and from that time her immediate superiors concentrated a good deal of effort to make her change her mind about the union or at least to suppress her activity in its behalf. Early in November overseer Bowen and "second hand" Jordon talked to Mrs. Barron about her union activity: "You don't think it is any secret, do you, the way you have been sneaking around down there?" and after stating that in other cities the respondent had closed down factories rather than yield to union demands, Bowen said: Some time later Bowen asked Mrs. Barron to reveal the names of other union members among the employees and upon her refusal said: "Marie, you know before they will get a union in here they will shut this mill down, and the Union, the CIO, the Government and nobody else won't open it up." In December she was told that she would have to stop talking while at work, a discipline not formerly imposed on any worker, and evidently insisted on because she was thought to be soliciting workers rather than for the ostensible reason that her talk was interfering with her work; this order was coupled with a threat to fire and later emphasized with some profanity. In February 1954 Jordon told her to "get on the band wagon and go with the rest of them and get her card back." Bowen often made disparaging remarks about the union, its activities, and its entertainments, and when Mrs. Barron once planned to wear a union T-shirt he suggested "you had better get you a tail and pin on it sic because you are going to look like a jackass." On the very morning of the election Bowen confronted Mrs. Barron with another employee and accused her of falsely telling the latter that he would be fired; again she was accused of too much talking and a major quarrel ensued.
Mrs. Barron's job since 1950 had been to operate several spinning frames; she was assigned to work 14 at a time, which was apparently the normal quota, though some girls worked 16. It appears that her job was no more difficult than that of other employees, nor was she given any discriminatory assignments. Apparently she was reasonably competent and performed her work satisfactorily, though she, like others, experienced days in which there were more than the usual number of breaks or snarls in the thread; these difficulties had apparently increased since April 1952 at all the frames at the plant since certain automatic cleaning equipment had been installed. Four days after the election Mrs. Barron arrived at work to find her frames so tangled and dirty that they could not be run. She had considerable trouble getting the frames to run and keeping them free from dirt and snarls. After a few hours she requested the help of the instructor, Mrs. Smith, who thereupon started to work a few frames for her. Soon Mrs. Barron told her she was quitting, that she could not "take this any more." Smith urged her to stay. Mrs. Barron disagreed, saying this job would not get any better, and "they won't never lay off me after this is all over, I might as well quit now, I can't stay here any longer." Barron cleaned her frames once more and then told Jordon she was going home. Jordon first laughed but when Mrs. Barron walked back to her frame to get her belongings Jordon followed and said "Marie, if you walk out you know what this means, it means you are through." She replied: "Well, if I hadn't been through, I wouldn't be walking out." Bowen walked up at that moment and asked her what was wrong. She said: Bowen answered: "I am sorry, but we haven't got anything else for you to run," whereupon Mrs. Barron left the plant, without apparently even shutting off the machines she had been operating.
Next morning her employment was formally terminated, and up to the time of the hearing she had never applied for reinstatement.
In testifying about her reason for quitting, Mrs. Barron answered at the hearing:
On the basis of the above facts the trial examiner found that although superficially it might appear that Mrs. Barron had "had so much trouble with her frames that she quit in disgust, and that dissatisfaction with her job was the motivating reason" and therefore "she refused to handle her work properly, was criticized for it, and finally quit voluntarily rather than cooperate" he was convinced that:
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