NLRB v. Linda Jo Shoe Company

• Decision Date: 07 August 1962
• Docket Number: No. 18772.,18772.
• Citation: 307 F.2d 355
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. LINDA JO SHOE COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

307 F.2d 355 (1962)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. LINDA JO SHOE COMPANY, Respondent.

No. 18772.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

August 7, 1962.

Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, N. L. R. B., Dominick L. Manoli, Associate Gen. Counsel, Earle W. Putnam, Trial Atty., N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C., Stuart Rothman, Gen. Counsel, Samuel M. Singer, Abraham A. Dash, Attorneys, National Labor Relations Board, for petitioner.

Harold E. Mueller, Mueller & Mueller, Karl H. Mueller, Fort Worth, Tex., for respondent.

Before JONES, BROWN and GEWIN, Circuit Judges.

JONES, Circuit Judge.

The respondent, Linda Jo Shoe Company, is a manufacturer of shoes at Gainesville, Texas. It had, during the time here pertinent, about 550 employees of whom about 500 were production employees. In July of 1959 the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, AFL-CIO, on whose complaint this proceeding was initiated, began to organize the employees of Linda Jo. Some representatives of the union met on July 18th with a few of Linda Jo's employees to whom union application cards were given for distribution among the company's employees. A second meeting was held on July 22nd, attended by those who had participated in the first meeting, for the purpose of seeing how many cards had been procured and how the employees had reacted to the union effort. During this period Jack Silven, President of Linda Jo, called a meeting of the employees. One of the employees fixed the date as July 20th, Silven said it was during the last three or four days of July. The complaint, signed by the Regional Director of National Labor Relations Board, fixed the date as on or about July 29th, 1959. The exact date is probably immaterial. At the meeting Silven made a brief talk which he concluded by saying, according to his testimony, "that there was a company rule that no material of any kind would be distributed on company premises or inside the factory during working hours subject to dismissal." Other witnesses omitted the reference to "during working hours" in their testimony as to what Silven had said. Shortly thereafter the Company bulletin boards had posted upon them the following:

"NOTICE

"All employees are warned that it is against company rules to solicit or distribute literature of any kind upon these premises. Any person doing so will be subject to instant dismissal."

The Board found that the Company violated Section 8(a) (1) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. It entered an order, of which it here seeks enforcement, finding that the Company's rule violated the Act in so far as it prohibited union solicitation by employees during non-working time within the Company's premises, and directing the Company to cease and desist from:

"(a) Discouraging membership in Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, AFL-CIO, or any other labor organization of its employees, by discriminating in regard to the hire and tenure of their employment or any term or condition of employment;

"(b) Maintaining a rule broadly prohibiting its employees from engaging in solicitation and other union activities on company premises during their nonworking time;

"(c) In any other manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of the right of self-organization, to form labor organizations, to join or assist the above-named or any other labor organization, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in any other concerted activity for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection or to refrain from any and all such activities." Linda Jo Shoe Company, 129 N.L. R.B. 179.

Christine Arterburn was an employee of the...