Royal Packing Co. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd.

• Decision Date: 04 February 1980
• Docket Number: AFL-CI,R
• Citation: 101 Cal.App.3d 826,161 Cal.Rptr. 870
• Parties: , 90 Lab.Cas. P 55,279 ROYAL PACKING CO., Petitioner, v. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent, and UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA,eal Party in Interest. Civ. 18956.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 870

161 Cal.Rptr. 870

101 Cal.App.3d 826, 90 Lab.Cas. P 55,279

ROYAL PACKING CO., Petitioner, v. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent and UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Real Party in Interest.

Civ. 18956.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1, California.

Feb. 4, 1980.

Dressler, Stoll, Hersh & Quesenbery and Marion I. Quesenbery, Newport Beach, for petitioner.

Dennis M. Sullivan, Deputy Gen. Counsel and Manuel M. Medeiros, Staff Counsel, Sacramento, for respondent.

Marco E. Lopez, Keene, Carlos M. Alcala, Francis E. Fernandez, San Francisco, Carmen S. Flores, Salinas, Jerome Cohen, Keene, William H. Carder, San Francisco, Ellen Greenstone Keene, Tom Dalzell, Salinas, Sanford N. Nathan, Keene, for real party in interest.

GERALD BROWN, Presiding Justice.

Royal Packing Company (Royal), an agricultural employer subject to the provisions of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (Act) (Labor Code, §§ 1140 et seq.), seeks review of an order of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (Board) finding Royal has committed unfair labor practices under the Act and decreeing remedies for those practices.

Royal is an Arizona corporation with principal California office in Salinas. It employs about 240 persons to grow, pack and ship lettuce. Its principal shareholders and officers are Jack and Don Hart, brothers. It principally markets "naked pack" lettuce, that is, unwrapped heads of lettuce packed into cartons for sale in the field. However, during the events in question, it also operated two lettuce wrap machines under the respective supervision of foreman Manuel Alcantar (Alcantar) and Tony Ayala (Ayala). Each machine is operated by a crew of wrappers who stand at specified stations and with mechanical assistance wrap the heads of lettuce for packing as they are cut.

The United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW) brought unfair labor practice charges following the multi-union organizational campaign among Royal employees during the Imperial County winter lettuce season, December 1976 through February 1977. Royal was then a party to a pre-Act collective bargaining agreement with the Western Conference of Teamsters (Teamsters) covering the period July 16, 1975, through July 15, 1978. After the effective date of the Act, UFW filed a petition for certification at Royal on September 5, 1975, in which the Teamsters intervened. Thus began a period of struggle among at least five separate labor organizations to be certified as the bargaining representative of Royal employees, during which period the Board set aside several union elections. The competing unions included the Teamsters, UFW, an employee group which called itself "Trabajadores de la Royal Packing Company," another group called the "Independent Union of Agricultural Workers" (IUAW) formed by two former Teamster organizers (Cano and Gonzales), and a worker group called "Agrupacion de Trabajadores Independientes and Royal Packing Company" (Agrupacion). This period of intense union competition at Royal, interrupted only by the Board's closing its doors due to lack of funding from February to December 1976, culminated for our purposes with an election held March 3, 1977, won by Agrupacion, which the Board order here sets aside on a number of grounds, including preferential access rights granted the Teamsters by Royal.

We review the final Board order by authority of Labor Code section 1160.8, according to the standard of whether it is supported by substantial evidence on the whole record. Tex-Cal Land Management, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., 24 Cal.3d 335, 156 Cal.Rptr. 1, 595 P.2d 579; Universal Camera Corp. v. N.L.R.B., 340 U.S. 474, 491, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456.) On review Royal raises the following issues:

1. The Board found Royal discharged employee Manuel Camacho because of his protected activity in asserting the union rights of fellow employees, but Royal contends Camacho was discharged for use of profanity and insubordination. Royal seeks to annul the portion of the Board order decreeing Camacho's reinstatement with back pay, and to strike the references to Camacho's discharge from the list of unfair labor practices to be included in the retraction notice which Royal must post, read and mail under the Board order. (Notice.)

2. Royal claims substantial evidence does not support the following findings of unfair labor practices and asks us to delete references to these incidents from the Notice:

(a) Royal supervisor Manuel Alcantar created an impression of surveillance of Royal employees' protected union activity by reading aloud a list of supposed UFW supporters under coercive circumstances;

(b) Royal gave the Teamster organizers preferential access to its employees by permitting them to solicit signatures on the lettuce wrap machines during work hours while restricting UFW organizers to regulation access, outside working hours;

(c) Royal's inauguration of a new and improved employee medical benefits plan in February 1977 was an impermissible attempt to influence the election.

3. Royal claims Board abuse of discretion in requiring posting of the Notice for a 12-month period. The Board here states the 12-month requirement is a typographical error and should read 2 months, and asks us to modify the order accordingly.

We have concluded the finding Camacho's discharge was an unfair labor practice is not supported by any evidence linking his protected union activity to his discharge, hence that finding must be annulled. (Waterbury Community Antenna, Inc. V. N.L.R.B. (2d Cir. 1978) 587 F.2d 90, 98-99.) There is substantial evidence to support the other challenged Board findings. The duration of the posting period will be modified as the Board requests. The remainder of the Board order, including the setting aside of the election, is not here challenged and is entitled to enforcement.

I. Discharge of Camacho

Manuel Camacho worked for Royal from May 1976 until the day of his discharge on November 11, 1976. He was a member of the thinning crew of Esteban Duran, a volatile supervisor given to sporadic outbursts of temper sometimes resulting in his writing out masses of warning notices on many or most of his crew members, which notices did not produce any punishment or discharge. Camacho, according to his own admissions as well as the testimony of other witnesses, was also a volatile person who frequently expressed anger in bursts of shouting or profanity. Teamster organizer Martha Cano appointed Camacho Teamster shop steward of the Duran crew because she believed the crew members needed a strongly vocal, fearless representative to counteract Duran's erratic and sometimes oppressive behavior. The evidence shows a number of incidents where Duran and Camacho exchanged angry words. For example, on one occasion Camacho went to the Teamster office against Duran's wishes, to speak for the crew members about a pay raise that had not been paid on time, and Duran followed him there and told the union official not to pay attention to Camacho, who was "crazy." On another occasion, Camacho apparently spoke up on behalf of a 16-year-old boy who had been forced to sit idle in the bus for half a day without working, in violation of what Camacho believed were the boy's rights. Dave Hart, son of Don Hart, testified to a history of clashes between Duran and Camacho, and regardless of the lack of formal warning notices produced at trial, the Board does not seriously dispute the existence of these difficulties between supervisor Duran and shop steward Camacho. The clearest evidence of the conflict is Camacho's frank admissions on the stand he, on occasion, disagreed with Duran's instructions about such matters as how to thin the lettuce, and refused on those occasions to follow Duran's instructions. When asked if he sometimes yelled at Duran he responded, "Yes, just the way that I speak." He resented Duran's telling him or other employees how to do their work, and admits intervening on behalf of another employee saying, "He's doing the work well. Leave him alone." On another occasion he told workers on the bus "to ignore whatever Esteban Duran told him." The testimony of Camacho, of Duran, of Dave Hart and of members of the Duran crew all indicates, regardless of whether Duran or Camacho had the better judgment, Camacho was often loud, angry and disobedient, tending to undermine Duran's authority with his crew and precipitate disruptive confrontations. The day of Camacho's discharge such a confrontation took place. Apparently a dispute developed between Duran, on the one side, and some members of the Jacobo family in the crew, on the other. Duran may have criticized the work of a young boy in the family. Dave Hart testified he observed, from a distance, the young Jacobo boy brandishing a hoe at Duran and Camacho nearby egging on the boy with his gestures. Hart was not close enough to hear what was said, nor does he understand much Spanish, but he thought the scene appeared to be a violent confrontation which endangered Duran's life. He intervened, called off work for the day, and sent the crew members on to the bus ahead of Hart and Duran. When Hart reached the bus he observed the taillights were smashed. He thought it necessary to follow the bus all the way to the Royal pickup point in Calexico in order to protect Duran. It is not clear whether Duran or Hart made the decision to discharge Camacho, but Hart did do so that day.

The Board found Camacho was discharged because he was a union supporter. The hearing officer, however, found Camacho was fired not because he was a union activist, but because he was insubordinate and offensive. Specifically, the hearing officer stated, "I am persuaded that an irreparable personality conflict between Duran and Camacho made Camacho's ultimate discharge or voluntary termination inevitable." Undisputed evidence amply supports this finding. Camacho was a Teamster shop steward. Royal...