NLRB v. ROBERT MEYER HOTEL COMPANY
| Decision Date | 28 December 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 24055.,24055. |
| Citation | 387 F.2d 603 |
| Parties | NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. ROBERT MEYER HOTEL COMPANY, Inc., d/b/a Robert Meyer Hotel, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Stanley Lubin, Atty., NLRB, Washington, D. C., for petitioner.
O. R. T. Bowden, Jacksonville, Fla., for respondent.
Before TUTTLE and WISDOM, Circuit Judges, and HEEBE, District Judge.
The National Labor Relations Board petitions for enforcement of its order against respondent issued on August 17, 1965. The Board's decision and order are reported at 154 N.L.R.B. 38.
The Board, accepting the trial examiner's findings and conclusions, found that respondent violated Section 8(a) (1) of the Act by coercively interrogating employees concerning union activities of themselves and fellow employees, by threatening reprisals against employees for union adherence, by creating the impression that union activities were under surveillance, by granting a wage increase for the purpose of discouraging union activity, and by instructing employees not to sign union cards.
The Board also found, accepting the findings and conclusions of the trial examiner, that respondent violated Sections 8(a) (3) and (1), by discriminatorily discharging three maids. Moreover, it also found, overruling the findings and conclusions of the trial examiner, that respondent violated Section 8(a) (3) and (1), by discriminatorily discharging nine bus girls, two kitchen helpers and one waiter.
This is a case that was decided almost completely by the resolution by the trial examiner and/or the Board of conflicts in sharply conflicting testimony. If the testimony of the employer Hotel company had been accepted throughout the Board could have found neither a Section 8(a) (1) nor a Section 8(a) (3) violation, because the employer's witnesses simply denied the occurrences upon which the general counsel's entire case was built, other than the fact that in late August, 1964, the union began an organizational campaign among respondent Negro employees, including maids, bus girls and kitchen helpers.
A careful reading of the joint appendix makes it clear that some of the credibility choices made by the trial examiner leave an objective reader of the cold record with some degree of skepticism. Nevertheless, it is just not within the competence of this court to weigh the testimony, given on the one hand by the former manager, who by the time of testifying was no longer employed by the respondent and was thus claimed to be impartial, and on the other hand by employee witnesses, some of whom testified at a time when there was no opportunity for their evidence to be challenged by the employer's witnesses, and who swore to occurrences that were completely denied by respondent's testimony.
The trial examiner credited the general counsel's witnesses with respect to the coercive questioning by the representatives of the respondent, and, by so doing, provided the basis for the Board's determining that there had been a violation of Section 8(a) (1) of the Act. On the basis of the crediting of the testimony believed by the trial examiner and the Board, we conclude that there was substantial evidence on the record as a whole to require the affirmance of this determination.
The same credited testimony led the trial examiner and the Board to find the requisite knowledge on the part of the respondent that the organization effort was under way and that the three maids had signed union cards prior to their being discharged in late September. Here, again, although the credibility choice was a close one, we cannot say that the Board's acceptance of the trial examiner's findings that these three maids and other witnesses spoke the truth of the matter is not supported on the record taken as a whole.
With respect to the discharge of the nine bus girls and...
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NLRB v. Borden Company
...management presentation.6 We refer to inoffensive company conduct to underline our view that in this case, as in N.L.R.B. v. R. Meyer Hotel Co., 5 Cir. 1967, 387 F.2d 603, "A careful reading of the joint appendix makes it clear that some of the credibility choices made by the trial examiner......