NLRB v. Peterson Brothers, Inc., 21412.
| Decision Date | 11 March 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 21412.,21412. |
| Citation | 342 F.2d 221 |
| Parties | NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. PETERSON BROTHERS, INC., including its division, Diversified Products Company, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Stephen B. Goldberg, Atty. N. L. R. B., Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, N. L. R. B., Domonick L. Manoli, Associate Gen. Counsel, N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C., Arnold Ordman, General Counsel, for petitioner.
Daniel R. Coffmann, Jr., and Hamilton, Bowden & Coffman, Jacksonville, Fla., for respondent.
Before TUTTLE, Chief Judge, and GROOMS and McRAE, District Judges.
The principal issue in this petition of the N. L. R. B. for enforcement of its order is the correctness of its determination that the charging union represented for collective bargaining purposes a majority of the employees in an appropriate bargaining unit, and that the respondent was not acting in good faith in declining to recognize the union as representing such majority. There is no substantial issue drawn with respect to the alleged Section 8(a) (1) violations by the respondent.
The principal issue arises in the following manner: The union requested recognition from respondent on April 5, 1962, at which time there were 51 production and maintenance employees in respondent's two plants, both of which are in Jacksonville, Florida, at points approximately six miles apart. On that date, the union had in its possession thirty authorization cards collected from employees. These cards were headed, "Authorization for Representation," and contained the following language immediately above the signature blank:
"I, the undersigned employee, * * * hereby select the above named union as my collective bargaining agent."
There then followed spaces for information and then the following printed legend at the bottom of the card:
(Emphasis added.)
On this critical date the union wrote the respondent demanding recognition based upon the claim that 1
In the letter signed by its counsel, the respondent replied as follows:
"Please be advised that we do not believe that you represent a majority of our employees in an appropriate unit, and we therefore decline to recognize you as the bargaining representative until you have been certified by the N. L. R. B. for this purpose."
This was followed by a consent agreement signed by the respondent and the charging union agreeing to two elections, one to be held with respect to each of the separate employing units. Then, however, two days before the date set for the election the charging union filed its unfair labor charges with the Board based on the refusal of the respondent to recognize its bargaining status without an election. This, of course, aborted the election.
The Board found that of the 30 cards held by the charging union, 29 were to be considered as designations of the union as the employees' bargaining representative and that this constituted three more than the majority required to compel recognition. The respondent challenged the cards as unequivocally selecting the union as the bargaining representative, contending that many of them had been signed by the employees upon either a representation by the union representatives or upon an understanding, or both, derived from the language of the card, that their signature merely authorized the holding of an election. Respondent also contended that even if the Board correctly ascertained that a majority of the employees had chosen the union, it acted in good faith in refusing to recognize the existence of a majority, both because of its doubt as to the number of employees who had designated the union and as to the propriety of the bargaining unit.
Upon the hearing, the examiner found 26, or a bare majority, of the cards to be valid authorizations for union representation. The Board found 29 to be valid; one member dissented to the extent of finding that, in his opinion, only 28 were valid. It is not disputed that as to more than 5 of the disputed cards union representatives discussed with the signers that an election would be held. As to employee McElveen, the Board said, ...
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National Labor Relations Board v. Gissel Packing Co Food Store Employees Union, Local No 347, Amalgamated NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co.
...supra. Where the cards are ambiguous on their face, the Fifth Circuit, joined by the Eighth Circuit (see, e.g., NLRB v. Peterson Bros., 342 F.2d 221 (C.A.5th Cir. 1965), and Bauer Welding & Metal Fabricators, Inc. v. NLRB, 358 F.2d 766 (C.A.8th Cir. 1966)), departs still further from the Bo......
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Schwarzenbach-Huber Company v. NLRB
...decide whether or not the Union should be the bargaining representative of the employees in the unit. See N. L. R. B. v. Peterson Brothers, Inc., 342 F. 2d 221, 224 (5th Cir. 1965). Without such proof the cards subject to such infirmities must be discarded as The cases indicate that the car......
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Bokat v. Tidewater Equipment Company, 23446.
...Association of Machinists, AFL-CIO. 3 Tidewater Equipment Company. 4 In support of its contention the Employer cited NLRB v. Peterson Bros., 5 Cir., 1965, 342 F.2d 221, where we held that the ambiguity of the language of the authorization cards together with the circumstances surrounding th......
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NLRB v. Southland Paint Company
...as a means of achieving representational status. See NLRB v. Dan River Mills, Inc., 5 Cir. 1960, 274 F.2d 381. In NLRB v. Peterson Bros., Inc., 5 Cir. 1965, 342 F.2d 221, the union claimed majority status on the basis of authorization cards which designated the union as bargaining represent......