National Labor Relations Board v. Coats & Clark, Inc.

• Decision Date: 06 April 1956
• Docket Number: No. 15730.,15730.
• Citation: 231 F.2d 567
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. COATS & CLARK, INC. (Acworth Plant), Respondent.

231 F.2d 567 (1956)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. COATS & CLARK, INC. (Acworth Plant), Respondent.

No. 15730.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

April 6, 1956.

Arnold Ordman, Atty., Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Theophil C. Kammholz, Gen. Counsel, David P. Findling, Associate Gen. Counsel, Elizabeth W. Weston, Morris A. Solomon, Attys., National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Marion A. Prowell, Frank A. Constangy, Atlanta, Ga., for respondent.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and RIVES and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

RIVES, Circuit Judge.

The Board seeks enforcement of its order issued against Respondent, a Georgia thread and textile manufacturer, on April 14, 1955, and based upon findings that Respondent had engaged, through its supervisory officials, in coercive interrogation of its employees as to their union activity, in violation of § 8(a) (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(a) (1), and had further violated § 8(a) (3) of the Act in discharging an employee, Walker Glover, because of his active support of the union¹ during its 1953 organizational campaign at Respondent's Acworth, Georgia plant. The Board's decision and order are reported at 112 N.L.R.B. 27.²

The credited testimony supporting the Board's findings as to Respondent's employee interference and restraint, in violation of § 8(a) (1), reveals that almost from the inception of the union's organizational campaign in August, 1953, the employee, Walker Glover, and his wife, "Pat", became known by several of Respondent's supervisory officials as active union protagonists, and were warned that unionization would cause "nothing but trouble and confusion", as well as loss of employment.³

On October 19, 1953, after Walker Glover and his wife had attended a union meeting held over the weekend, a supervisory official, Gilbert, questioned Walker Glover as to what he had learned at the meeting, inquired whether he had been promised a job, and that same day also asked Glover's wife how many of Respondent's employees had attended the meeting. Overseer Brown later questioned "Pat" Glover as to "who all in the plant was for the union," stating that she should know "because the union man had been coming to (her) house so often." On another occasion during the next month, Overseer Brown showed "Pat" Glover "some machinery which had been shipped into the plant * * * from Pawtucket and (stated) that they had closed down there, that Clark wouldn't run under contract, and they were closing as fast as they could," after which he warned that she would be "laid off from the company" for "trying to bring in outsiders", if she was so engaged. Further credited testimony reveals that during this same period Overseer Brown warned another employee, Clifford Morris, that the union organizer "is not going to * * * doff these winders for you, (that) I have been good to you and paid you more than any of the rest of them are getting and if I find out you are lined up with Pat and Walker, to Hell with you." During early February of the following year, Overseer Brown warned a new employee, Betty Baker, that she had not been hired because of her ability to operate a certain machine, since Respondent had other girls "who can beat you all to pieces", and that she should not "listen to any * * * rumors" if she did not wish "to mess up (her) reputation by going against the company." Subsequently, during an inspection tour of the plant for the benefit of recently hired employees, Overseer Brown stated that "Mr. Clark had sworn and be damned that he wouldn't have an organized mill in the South," and that Walker and "Pat" Glover were "getting paid plenty for what they were doing for the CIO." Finally, on February 22, 1954, the Monday before Walker Glover's discharge on Friday, Brown asked him which of Respondent's employees had attended another weekend union meeting, and when Glover refused to reveal their names, Brown replied that he had that information anyway. On March 2, 1954, after all of the above incidents had transpired, the union was defeated in a Board conducted election held at Respondent's Clarksdale plant.

Admittedly, the above summarized findings of both the Trial Examiner and the Board are based in major part upon the credited testimony of Walker and "Pat" Glover, as well as upon the testimony of several other pro-union employees, and the Trial Examiner, in resolving conflicts in the testimony, necessarily made certain credibility resolutions requiring rejection of contrary testimony by Respondent's supervisory officials. However, even the dissenting Board member did not attack the majority's implied affirmance of the Trial Examiner's factual findings as to Respondent's 8(a) (1) violations, and Respondent in brief does not seriously challenge that portion of the Board's order based upon these findings, though it incidentally urges that the complained of interrogation was too isolated, innocuous, and noncoercive in character to justify a finding of any independent 8(a) (1) violations of the Act. We think, however, that the findings of interference, restraint and coercion, within the prohibition of § 8(a) (1) of the Act, are supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole, and that the cease and desist provisions of the Board's order based upon these findings should therefore be enforced. See Universal Camera Corp. v. N. L. R. B., 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456; N. L. R. B. v. Nashua Mfg. Corp. of Texas, 5 Cir., 218 F.2d 886; N. L. R. B. v. C. & J. Camp, Inc., 5 Cir., 216 F.2d 113.

Upon this record, however, a much closer question is presented on the issue of whether Walker Glover is entitled to reinstatement and lost back pay, under the finding that he was discriminatorily discharged for his union activities, in violation of § 8(a) (3) of the Act. Since the findings and ultimate conclusion of the Board majority as to Respondent's discriminatory motivation for Glover's discharge, as contrasted with the contrary view of the dissenting Board member that his discharge was for justifiable cause, fairly present in sharp focus the composite factual picture, their opposing versions are quoted in part in the margin.⁴ To these accurate and compact summarizations of the most cogent testimony supporting each view, we need add only a few additional comments.

Irrespective of any permissible inference of respondent's anti-union animus from its proven 8(a) (1) violations, from the showing of Walker Glover's extended period of apparently satisfactory service with Respondent prior to his union affiliation, and from the proof that he and his wife abruptly fell from grace with Respondent's supervisors when their active union advocacy became known, upon this record the unalterable facts remain that, on the very afternoon of his discharge, Plant Manager Hilley told Glover to "stay on the job * * * and get this twister started up," and that he had heard about Glover "leaving the job and being gone too long";⁵ that Hilley further gave specific orders to Overseer Brown to watch Glover the rest of the day and discharge him should he disobey Hilley's orders; that in spite of this warning Glover left his assigned duties in the twister room without permission and within a half hour to get supplies, and was observed by Brown en route to the supply room; that about an hour later, Glover received a message in the twister room that his pregnant wife wanted help in "doffing" her winder spindles,⁶ and he again left his assigned duties without permission and went to the warehouse, where he not only "doffed" spindles for his pregnant wife, but also accommodated her partner on the winder frame, Dorothy Benson, by "doffing" her spindles as well, in which latter activity he was admittedly engaged when observed for the second time by Brown since his earlier warning that same afternoon against leaving his assigned duties, and discharged. However understandable and commendable Glover's effort to help his pregnant wife may appear, and however leniently we might otherwise be disposed to view his temporary deviation in her behalf alone, the fact remains that at the time of his discharge Glover was not "doffing" his wife's frames, but was unnecessarily prolonging at her instance his second absence from his assigned duties without permission, in spite of Hilley's prior warning, by doing another employee's work, to whom he owed no obligation and who had neither sent for him nor solicited his aid as in distress. A hard-working, plant-roving, "Good Samaritan" may be popular with less diligent and productive employees, but we think it not unreasonable for management, except in unusual or emergency instances, to restrict and channel his activity toward his own assigned work in the interest of production and plant discipline, and that management is well within its rights in requiring each employee to make a reasonable effort to discharge on a priority basis that work for which he or she is paid.

Adopting the above view, which is based not so much upon our...