NLRB v. Standard Forge and Axle Company

• Decision Date: 22 October 1969
• Docket Number: No. 27161 Summary Calendar.,27161 Summary Calendar.
• Citation: 420 F.2d 508
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. STANDARD FORGE AND AXLE COMPANY, Inc., Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

420 F.2d 508 (1969)

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. STANDARD FORGE AND AXLE COMPANY, Inc., Respondent.

No. 27161 Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

October 22, 1969.

Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C., John F. LeBus, Director, N. L. R. B., New Orleans, La., Arnold Ordman, Gen. Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Associate Gen. Counsel, Nancy M. Sherman, Seth D. Rosen, Attys., N. L. R. B., for petitioner.

John C. Bacheller, Jr., C. Lash Harrison, William W. Alexander, Jr., Atty., Fisher & Phillips, Atlanta, Ga., for respondent.

Before THORNBERRY, MORGAN and CARSWELL, Circuit Judges.

CARSWELL, Circuit Judge:

Pursuant to Rule 18 of the Rules of this Court, we have concluded on the merits that this case is of such character as not to justify oral argument and have directed the Clerk to place the case on the Summary Calendar and to notify the parties in writing. See Murphy v. Houma Well Service, 409 F.2d 804, Part I (5th Cir. 1969).

This is an Application for Enforcement of a Board Order directing the respondent Company to cease and desist, to post appropriate notices and to offer discharged employees reinstatement. We enforce.

The Board found that the Company violated Section 8(a) (1) of the Act by interrogating employees concerning their Union activities and voting intentions, by threatening its employees with loss of work opportunities and privileges in reprisal for Union activities, by suggesting to its employees that they could obtain satisfaction of their grievances by abandoning the Union and dealing directly with the Company, and by keeping a Union meeting under surveillance. The Board further found that the Company violated Section 8(a) (3) and (1) of the Act by discharging employees William E. Cannon, Clarence R. Litaker and Roy A. Marston because of their Union activities.

It is well settled that the findings and conclusions of the Board, when supported by the record as a whole, will not be disturbed on appeal. 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). The primary function of this Court in reviewing Board decisions is a determination of whether the Board has exercised a "reasonable" discretion in light of the circumstances of the individual case. See Pepperell Manufacturing Co. v. N. L. R. B., 403 F.2d 520, 522 (5th Cir. 1968).

The record herein reveals that Company supervisors interrogated numerous employees concerning their Union activities and sentiments, specifically asking whether they favored the Union, planned to vote for it, signed Union authorization cards or attended Union meetings. These inquiries are the type of "pointed questions" found coercive in N. L. R. B. v. Camco, Inc., 340 F.2d 803, 804-807 (5th Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 926, 86 S.Ct. 313, 15 L.Ed.2d 1339. These interrogations were frequently accompanied by thinly veiled inducements or threats: thus, one foreman after his questioning had revealed that one Gillespie had signed a Union card, told him that a Superintendent had said "they would close down before they would operate under a union." Such threats and inducements plainly violated Section 8(a) (1) of the Act. N. L. R. B. v. Coats & Clark, Inc., 231 F.2d 567, 569-570 (5th Cir. 1956); N. L. R. B. v. Camco, Inc., supra. As to the Company's contention that the Examiner and Board should have believed its supervisors' denials that these statements were made, it is well settled that credibility resolutions are peculiarly within the province of the Trial Examiner and the Board and entitled to affirmance unless inherently unreasonable or self-contradictory. N. L. R. B. v. Finesilver Mfg. Co., 400 F.2d 644, 645 (5th Cir. 1968).

It is equally well settled that surveillance of a Union meeting by a company supervisor constitutes a violation of Section 8(a) (1) of the Act. N. L. R. B. v. Bonham Cotton Mills, Inc., 289 F.2d 903 (5th Cir. 1961); N. L. R. B. v. Dan River Mills, Inc., 274 F.2d 381 (5th Cir. 1960); N. L. R. B. v. Comfort, Inc., 365 F.2d 867 (8th Cir. 1966); N. L. R. B. v. A. R. Gieringer Tool Corp., 314 F.2d 359 (7th Cir. 1963). See generally, Hendrix Mfg. Company v. N. L. R. B., 321 F.2d 100 (5th Cir. 1963). It is uncontroverted that Frazier Paul, a company supervisor, and Clarence Jenkins, a company employee actively opposed to the Union, sat in an automobile parked near the Union Hall for at least 30 minutes while a meeting of company employees was in progress. Both men credibly testified that they came to Prattville on a personal errand — to collect a debt from Richard Bond, an employee working that day at Prattville Press, located near the Union Hall. However, this testimony leaves wholly unexplained the reason why, after Jenkins knocked at the newspaper's door and heard noises, Jenkins and Paul made no immediate attempt to attract the attention of anyone working at the office but, rather, were content to remain in the car for approximately 45 minutes before making any additional effort to see Bond.

Under these circumstances it was not unreasonable for the Board to find that Paul and Jenkins knew there was a Union meeting in progress and that they "lingered there in order to keep the meeting under surveillance and thus violated Section 8(a) (1) of the Act." See N. L. R. B. v. Bonham Cotton Mills, Inc., supra.

In a pre-election letter the Company asserted that 70 percent of its business came from customers who purchased all their axles from Standard Forge and that many of these customers had informed the Company that, if the plant became unionized, Standard Forge would no longer be their sole source of supply "because of the ever present possibility of a work stoppage due to strikes or walkouts." However, in his testimony at the hearing after the Union had lost the election, the Sales Manager conceded that these customers did not purchase from the Company exclusively but sometimes purchased from competition. He also conceded that only three customers stated that they would purchase from competitors if the Union won. Thus the letter based assertion of job insecurity on conscious overstatements, half truths, and overt misrepresentations. Such pre-election propaganda, to which the Union could not properly respond due to lack of adequate knowledge of the correct facts, violates the principles announced in N. L. R. B. v. Houston Chronicle Publishing Co., 300 F.2d 273, 277 (5th Cir. 1962) and National Cash Register Company v. N. L. R. B., 415 F.2d 1012 5th Cir., slip opinion...