National Labor Relations Board v. Swift & Co.

• Decision Date: 10 July 1942
• Docket Number: No. 12202.,12202.
• Citation: 129 F.2d 222
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. SWIFT & CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

129 F.2d 222 (1942)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. SWIFT & CO.

No. 12202.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

July 10, 1942.

Colonel C. Sawyer, Atty., National Labor Relations Board, of Washington, D. C. (Robert B. Watts, Gen. Counsel, Ernest A. Gross, Associate Gen. Counsel, Gerhard P. Van Arkel, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Louis Libbin and Robert N. Cook, Attys., National Labor Relations Board, all of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for petitioner.

William N. Strack, of Chicago, Ill., for respondent.

Before SANBORN, THOMAS, and RIDDICK, Circuit Judges.

THOMAS, Circuit Judge.

Pursuant to the usual proceedings under the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., the National Labor Relations Board on March 25, 1941, issued its findings of fact, conclusions of law and order (30 N.L.R.B. No. 86) directed to the respondent Swift and Company, affecting operations at its Dairy and Poultry Plant in Springfield, Missouri. The Board seeks a decree enforcing so much of the order as relates to the labor relations referred to below and requiring Swift and Company, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns to comply therewith.

So far as material to this controversy the order, based upon appropriate findings, directs Swift and Company: 1. To cease and desist from (a) in any manner dominating, etc., an independent organization of its employees, (b) discouraging membership in the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, Local 172, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, herein called Amalgamated, and (c) in any other manner interfering with its employees in the exercise of their rights under § 7 of the Act; and 2. Affirmatively, (a) offer Rosemary Rogers immediate employment and (b) make her whole for loss of pay; (c) offer Elnora Tippitt immediate reinstatement and (d) make her whole for loss of pay; (e) disestablish the independent, and (f) post appropriate notices.

Swift and Company resists enforcement only of paragraphs 1(c), 2(a), (b), (c), and (d) of the order.

Enforcement of the affirmative provisions of the order is resisted on the grounds (1) that the findings of fact upon which the order is based are not supported by the evidence; and (2) that if discrimination occurred as found, it was the act of Black, a minor supervisor, who had no authority to represent the respondent.

That part of the order relating to Rosemary Rogers is based upon the finding that the respondent refused to employ her because she failed and refused to join the Independent, thereby discriminating against her in regard to the terms and conditions of her employment and her hire and tenure of employment, and encouraging membership in the Independent and discouraging membership in the Amalgamated; and that by such discrimination the respondent interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed under § 7 of the Act.

The circumstantial facts found by the Board support the foregoing finding. In brief, Rosemary Rogers began to work for respondent in July, 1938, and worked intermittently until March, 1939, when she quit. Her work was substantially all in the picking department under Sam Black, the supervisor of that department.

On May 4, 1939, Evans, the general foreman of the plant, gave Black the names of three or four girls, including that of Rogers, and told him to offer them employment in the picking department. That evening Black offered Rogers employment at her former job on condition that she join the Independent, giving her until the next morning to decide. The next morning she went to the office and told Black that she did not wish to join the Independent, whereupon Black replied that "he could not use her unless she joined the company union."

The evidence to support these findings of fact is in conflict, but the testimony in support of them is substantial. The finding of the Board, therefore, that the respondent's motive for refusing to employ Rogers was to discourage membership in a labor union is binding upon the court. National Labor Relations Board v. Nevada Consolidated Copper Corporation, 62 S. Ct. 960, 86 L.Ed. ___; National Labor Relations Board v. Bradley Lumber Company, 8 Cir., 128 F.2d 768; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 313 U.S. 177, 61 S.Ct. 845, 85 L.Ed. 1271, 133 A.L.R. 1217.

It is insisted that respondent is not responsible for Black's conduct in imposing a discriminatory condition upon the offer of employment to Rogers; that he was without power to hire and fire in general, and that in this particular instance his specific authority did not confer the power to make the offer to Rogers on condition. The Board found that Black was customarily invested with the duty of conveying the respondent's orders to employees regarding employment and that having committed that duty to him the respondent is liable for his acts. The Board found further that Evans, the general foreman, affirmed the transaction by failing to repudiate it when he learned of Black's conduct only a few minutes afterwards. On direct examination, after fixing the time and place of the conversation, Evans was asked: "Did anyone report to you that Rosemary Rogers had been told by Sam Black that she would have to join the Independent Union or she could not work at the...