National Labor Relations Board v. Eaton Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 June 1949
• Docket Number: No. 10654.,10654.
• Citation: 175 F.2d 292
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. EATON MFG. CO., WILCOX-RICH DIVISION.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

175 F.2d 292 (1949)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. EATON MFG. CO., WILCOX-RICH DIVISION.

No. 10654.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

June 16, 1949.

Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Washington, D. C. (David P. Findling, A. Norman Somers, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Washington, D. C., and Samuel M. Kaynard, on the brief), for petitioner.

Richard Inglis, Jr., Cleveland, Ohio (Hauxhurst, Inglis, Sharp & Cull, Frank X. Cull, Cleveland, Ohio, Crane, Crane & Kessel, Lloyd T. Crane, Saginaw, Mich., on the brief), for respondent.

Padway, Goldberg & Previant, Milwaukee, Wis., amicus curiae, for International Union, U. A. W. of Am. A. F. of L. and Local No. 433.

Before SIMONS, ALLEN and MARTIN, Circuit Judges.

ALLEN, Circuit Judge.

The principal question presented by this petition for enforcement is whether an employer, not hostile to unions, who renews a maintenance of membership contract with a union then the bargaining representative, with knowledge that the union is pressing for the discharge of employees who have endeavored to bring in another union as bargaining representative, and later discharges employees in accordance with the terms of the closed-shop contract, because of their expulsion in regular order by the union, is guilty of an unfair labor practice. The Board held that the respondent had violated § 8(1) and § 8(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C., § 158(1) and § 158 (3), 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(1, 3), and ordered the reinstatement of John Boyd, Murvin Stoner, Lenore Harris, and Francis Harvey, who had been discharged under the closed-shop contract because they had ceased to be members in good standing of the union.

The case arises out of the following facts:

The respondent makes automotive engine parts, and operates plants in several states, the two here involved being located in Saginaw, Michigan. In its various plants respondent deals with all the principal metal-working unions, the C. I. O., the M. E. S. A., and the A. F. L. At the Saginaw plants the C. I. O., without any opposition from respondent, organized the plants in 1937. In 1939 the Local C. I. O. president, Homer Martin, led the organization to the A. F. L. In late 1940 a jurisdictional dispute arose between the A. F. L. and C. I. O., in the course of which the Saginaw plants were picketed by C. I. O. sympathizers, and violence and rioting occurred, with consequent injury to numerous persons. After the strike was over respondent desired to return all of the strikers to work, but the A. F. L. union would not permit this. Respondent sent out notices and telegrams, recalling all former employees, but they were compelled to receive approval of the A. F. L. union before re-employment, and some 85 of the 300 strikers were not returned to work. The A. F. L. remained bargaining agent without opposition from January, 1941, until April, 1946, under written contracts in force for two-year periods. The contract effective May 16, 1944, contained a closed-shop provision. On April 6, 1946, the C. I. O. demanded bargaining rights, and filed a petition for certification as bargaining representative. On April 17 the C. I. O. filed with the Board charges that respondent had called employees into the front office in order to discourage them from joining the C. I. O., and had threatened to discharge employees for joining the C. I. O. At the trial before the examiner, the C. I. O. international representative stated that he knew that the filing of the unfair labor charges would delay an election. The Board found the charges to be "groundless" and held that by filing them the C. I. O. had prevented a prompt determination of the representation question.

On April 17, 1946, the A. F. L. union began to press respondent with demands, written and oral, that Boyd, former president of the A. F. L. Local, and Knapp, at whose house on April 7, 1946, a C. I. O. meeting was held, be suspended. Grievances were also filed against Stoner, Harris and Harvey, who had been active in procuring C. I. O. signers. On inquiry by respondent as to the nature of the charges against its employees, the A. F. L. refused to detail the reasons underlying their demands, on the ground that the matters were union business. Boyd, Knapp and Stoner secured a temporary injunction against respondent and the A. F. L. in the Michigan Circuit Court, on the ground that they were about to be illegally expelled from membership in the A. F. L. On April 30 the preliminary injunction was dissolved as to respondent and modified as to the A. F. L., to provide that the A. F. L. should not interfere with the status of the plaintiffs as members of its organization except in accord with the provisions of the constitution of the international union U. A. W.-A. F. L.

The A. F. L. informed respondent that there would be no work after May 15 without a new contract, and on May 13 it was agreed between respondent and the union that the contract should be renewed without change for the usual two-year period. A proviso was added that as to the Saginaw plants the contract should be from day to day only, and subject to the determination of the Board pending the petition for election and disposition of the unfair labor practice charges. Meanwhile the grievance committee of the A. F. L. had been pressing charges against Boyd, Knapp, Stoner, Harris and Harvey, and demanding that the respondent discharge them on the ground that they were not union members in good standing. All of these employees were charged with violation of union rules and constitution, in accordance with Art. 32, § 4, of the constitution of the international union U. A. W.-A. F. L., which includes, among other provisions not pertinent here, as the basis of charges, the following:

"(a) Violation of a specific provision of the Constitution.

"(b) Violation of the oath of loyalty to the Local and the International.

"(c) Violation of the oath of office.

"(d) Gross disloyalty or conduct unbecoming a member.

* * * * * *

"(g) Secession, or fostering the same.

"(h) Abuse of fellow members or officers by written or oral communication.

"(i) Abuse of fellow members or officers in the meeting hall.

"(j) Activities which tend to bring the Local or International into disrepute.

"(k) Disobedience to the rules, regulations, mandates, and decrees of the Local or of the officers of the International.

"(l) Destruction, alteration, mutilation of Union books, bills, receipts, vouchers or other property.

"(m) Such other acts and conduct which are inconsistent with the duties and obligations of a member of a Labor Union, and for violation of sound Labor Union principles."

It is to be observed that the above list of charges includes many offenses in no way protected by the National Labor Relations Act.

On May 6 a union trial committee of seven members heard the charges against Boyd and Knapp. Knapp, who was charged with making false and slanderous statements concerning the union and its officials and causing dissension, was found not guilty, and is still employed at respondent's plant. Boyd was found guilty by a vote of five to two, which was later ratified by the great majority of the union members.

Boyd had been employed by respondent for some 14 years, including his re-employment upon his return from service in the Carribbean with the United States Navy. He had previously been president of the A. F. L. Local, and in 1940 was very hard on the C. I. O. adherents. He ran for president of the A. F. L. Local in late 1940, and was roundly beaten. He at once instituted a course of abusive conduct calculated to arouse enmity in the union. He himself stated at the hearing herein that he had been making complaints all along through and after November, 1940, and to the question, "You had been complaining all the time?" he answered as follows: "Sending men up on complaints and telling them to jump the Bargaining Committee on this or that.

"Q. That was part of the tactics you had worked out to embarrass the Bargaining Committee? A. Yes. CIO.

"Q. That was the way you were helping the CIO? A. Yes.

"Q. You criticized the job evaluation worked out by the committee and the Company? A. I did.

"Q. You referred to the Bargaining Committee as being stooges for the Company? A. Yes. I told them they were a bunch of Company men."

Boyd was suspended for thirty days in January, 1946, by the respondent, for drunk and disorderly conduct. He was charged with being drunk in the plant, violating plant rules, and using obscene language toward a woman steward. Boyd in effect admitted the charge of drunkenness, saying, "I had a drink." To the question, "You had so many you can not remember?" he finally answered, "Yes, I might have had or I might have had a couple." He admitted going into the hydraulic department where a woman steward worked and having an argument with her. Another employee testified to Boyd's use of obscene language in a union meeting. At the union trial he was found guilty of abuse of fellow-members or officers by written or oral communication and suspended for 99 years. Thus Boyd was tried on a charge covered by union rules, tried in accordance with those rules, and found guilty upon substantial evidence.

Similar demands for discharge were made by the A. F. L. as to Stoner, Harris and Harvey. These three employees did not have trials before a union trial committee. They were expelled from the local union by the president of the international union, in accordance with the international constitution. This document gives the international president the right summarily to expel or suspend a member of a local union, subject to the right of appeal to the international executive board before which such employees are entitled to a trial. The removal letter sent by the international president to Harvey, Harris and Stoner, charged each of them with violation of oath, conduct unbecoming union members, fostering secession, causing unrest and dissension, and...