NLRB v. Croscill Curtain Co. & Durham Drapery Co.

• Decision Date: 20 December 1961
• Docket Number: No. 8366.,8366.
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. CROSCILL CURTAIN COMPANY AND DURHAM DRAPERY COMPANY, Inc., Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

297 F.2d 294 (1961)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. CROSCILL CURTAIN COMPANY AND DURHAM DRAPERY COMPANY, Inc., Respondent.

No. 8366.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued October 11, 1961.

Decided December 20, 1961.

Lee M. Modjeska, Atty., National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C. (Stuart Rothman, Gen. Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Asso. Gen. Counsel, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, and Melvin J. Welles, Atty., National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C., on brief), for petitioner.

E. C. Brooks, Jr., Durham, N. C., (Brooks & Brooks, Durham, N. C., on brief), for respondent.

Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, and SOPER and BRYAN, Circuit Judges.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board petitions for the enforcement of an order in which it directed Croscill Curtain Company and Durham Drapery Company, Inc. (1) to cease and desist in various ways from unlawfully interfering with its employees in the exercise of their right to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and (2) to offer reinstatement with compensation to its former employees, Ardie Britt and W. G. Pleasant, whom the Board found to have been discriminatorily discharged in violation of Section 8(a) (3) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act. The Company accepts the directions contained in the first part of the order but resists the direction to reinstate the discharged employees with compensation for back pay.

The Company manufactures and sells curtains at its plant in Durham, North Carolina. The operations of the plant are seasonal, the spring season running from January to March and the fall season from July to October. Employment in the plant varies from approximately 300 workers during the periods of peak activity to about 180 employees during slack periods.

In March 1960 the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, AFL-CIO, made efforts to organize the employees which were strongly opposed by the plant manager, Herbert Schwartz, and the general manager, Al Rosen. A number of employees, including Pleasant, who was subsequently laid off, engaged in a sit-down strike on March 11 in the plant which led to discussions with the management wherein the employees demanded more pay and union organization, and the management promised an increase in pay of an undetermined amount but threatened to close the plant if it was organized. The next day, Saturday, March 12, Ardie Britt and Lessie Goodwin, another employee, distributed union literature and solicited members outside but near to the plant and they were ordered to desist in their actions but refused to do so. The same day Rosen announced the amount of the increase in wages but renewed the threats to close the plant if the Union came in.

On Monday, March 14, Britt notified the Company that she had joined the Union and during the next three weeks became a leader in various activities designed to promote the Union cause and took part in a number of conferences with the managers who endeavored, without success, to persuade her to stop the formation of the Union. On the next day, Tuesday, March 15, the managers had a meeting with a committee of nine employees, including Britt and Pleasant, at which Rosen announced increases in wages, holidays and vacations with pay, insurance and other benefits, to take effect immediately; and on March 16 these and other benefits were announced at a meeting of all of the employees and the employees were cautioned to disregard the promises of the Union and to accept the benefits promised by the management without the necessity of paying Union dues.

During the next two weeks there was a lull in the Union activities of the plant. On March 31 the Company called another meeting of employees at the plant and announced an increase in the authority of a number of supervisors who would have the power to discharge employees. One of these supervisors was Marie Dameron and the undisputed evidence shows that before and after the meeting on March 31st she warned Britt that she must not engage in talking about the Union in the plant upon penalty of being discharged.

On April 4th Britt was elected the spokesman for the employees' committee. She made an unsuccessful attempt to arrange a meeting between the committee and the management. On April 5 the committee, including Britt, approached Schwartz in the plant during working hours and attempted to lodge complaints about working conditions but Schwartz refused to recognize the committee, ordered them to return to their jobs and threatened them with discharge if they failed to do so. All of them obeyed the order, including Britt except that she returned to her machine only after she had finished what she had to say.

Two days later Britt was discharged under the following circumstances. During the morning some discussion concerning the Union took place between Britt and a co-worker, Nellie Godwin, a non-union member working at a machine which faced that of Britt. Godwin complained to Dameron that Britt was interfering with her work and Dameron reported the incident to Schwartz who came to Britt's machine and told her that she had been directed not to talk of Union matters in the plant and discharged her. Later Schwartz explained to inquiring members of the Union that he had discharged Britt because she had interfered with the business of the plant and was obliged to make a martyr of someone and Britt was the most logical person.

The Trial Examiner who heard the testimony and recommended the reinstatement of Britt and Pleasant, which was approved by the majority of the three member board, one member dissenting, attributed her discharge to her leadership in the Union's campaign and her militancy in presenting the protests of the employees to the management. He described the discharge and stated his conclusions and recommendations in the following terms:

"She was summarily discharged on the morning of April 7, by Schwartz, on what credible evidence shows was a trumpted up charge that Britt was interfering with the work of others. That morning, for the first time, an antiunion employee was placed at

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