NLRB v. Cousins Associates, Inc.
| Decision Date | 03 October 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 21,Docket 26109.,21 |
| Citation | 283 F.2d 242 |
| Parties | NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. COUSINS ASSOCIATES, INC., Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Allison W. Brown, Jr., National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C. (Stuart Rothman, General Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Associate General Counsel, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. General Counsel and Donald J. Bardell, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for petitioner.
Charles R. Katz, New York City (Katz & Wolchok, New York City, on the brief), for respondent.
Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and TUTTLE* and FRIENDLY, Circuit Judges.
This is a petition brought under 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e) to enforce an order of the National Labor Relations Board, 125 N.L.R.B. No. 15, arising from alleged unfair labor practices committed by the respondent in violation of §§ 8(a) (1) and 8(a) (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended (29 U.S.C.A. §§ 158(a) (1), 158(a) (3)). The Board ordered the respondent, a lessee of two automobile service stations on the New York State Thruway, to cease and desist from discouraging membership in a union, coercively interrogating employees regarding union activities, and otherwise interfering with the right to self-organization. As one of several affirmative steps, it also commanded the respondent to rehire with back pay two shift managers and two attendants who, the Board held, had been dismissed as a result of their union activities.
The evidence introduced with respect to the allegedly discriminatory dismissals was more than adequate to meet the test set down by the Supreme Court in Universal Camera Corp. v. N. L. R. B., 1951, 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456. Statements made by the respondent's secretary-treasurer before the dismissals raised an inference of anti-union bias; remarks uttered by supervisory personnel after the dismissal of three of the employees buttressed the suggestion. The warnings given to the fourth employee after the dismissal of the first three, together with the improbability that he would be summarily dismissed for failing to call in when he was unable to report for work (while another employee guilty of the same misconduct was not disciplined at all) amply suggest that the cause for dismissal was anti-union bias. We cannot, therefore, reverse the Board's findings that the dismissals violated §§ 8(a) (1) and 8(a) (3).
The interrogation of individual employees as to their views concerning the union which was then being organized was conducted by the respondent's secretary-treasurer, one Wilson, over coffee at a shop near the stations. Although honest interrogation without any promise of benefit or threat of reprisal is not a violation of § 8(a) (1), and is, in fact, protected by § 8(c) of the Act, N. L. R. B. v. England Bros., Inc., 1 Cir., 1953, 201 F.2d 395, all the circumstances surrounding the interrogation must be considered in determining whether it had a coercive flavor. N. L. R. B. v. Syracuse Color Press, 2 Cir., 1954...
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