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Parties Involved:
Allegheny Ludlum Corporation
Petitioner
National Labor Relations Board
Respondent
United Steelworkers of America
Intervenor for Respondent

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 28, 1996 Decided January 17, 1997

No. 96-1040

ALLEGHENY LUDLUM CORPORATION,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO-CLC,

INTERVENOR FOR RESPONDENT

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application for

Enforcement of an Order of the

National Labor Relations Board

Donald T. O'Connor argued the cause for petitioner, with whom Paul J. Corrado and Patrick L.

Abramowich were on the briefs. Ralph H. Moore entered an appearance.

Vincent J. Falvo, Jr., Attorney, National Labor Relations Board, argued the cause for respondent,

with whom Linda R. Sher, Associate General Counsel, Aileen A. Armstrong, Deputy Associate

General Counsel, and Peter D. Winkler, Supervisory Attorney, were on the brief.

Richard J. Brean, Assistant General Counsel, argued the cause and filed the brief for intervenor

United Steelworkers of America.

Before: WALD, HENDERSON and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALD.

Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

WALD, Circuit Judge: Allegheny Ludlum Corporation ("the Company") manufactures

specialty steel products at several sites in Western Pennsylvania. The United Steelworkers of

America, AFL-CIO-CLC ("the Union") represents the Company's production employees, but no

union represents the Company's salaried employees. In the summer of 1994, following a strike by

the production employees, the Union initiated a drive to represent the salaried employees, and in early

October the Union filed a petitionwith the NationalLaborRelationsBoard ("theBoard") to represent

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these employees.

The company campaigned vigorously against the Union, hiring consultantsto help it conduct

an anti-unionization campaign. This campaign included a video presentation which the salaried

employees were required to watch during work hours, and which contained footage of several of

these employees in their workplaces smiling and waving at the camera. The Company also mailed

an anti-union newsletter called "Your Choice" to employees at their homes.

In the representation election held on December 2, 1994, the salaried employees rejected

union representation by a vote of 237 to 225. On January 17, 1995, the Company fired James

Borgan, a long-time salaried employee who had been heavily involved in the campaign for union

representation. The Union filed complaints with the Board alleging that certain aspects of the

videotaping project and the second edition of the "Your Choice" newsletter violated § 8(a)(1) of the

National Labor Relations Act ("the Act"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 151-69, and that Borgan's termination,

because motivated by his union activity, was in violation of § 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act. The

Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ") on July 28, 1995 found that the Company (1) by asking its

employees whether they would permit the Company to use videotaped footage of them in an

anti-union presentation had "polled" these employees regarding their union sentiment, without

affording them the protections required under Board precedent to accompany such "polls"; (2) by

sending them the second edition of the "Your Choice" newsletter had threatened to retaliate against

them if they elected to be represented by the Union; and (3) had fired Borgan because of his union

activity. On December 22, 1995, the Board affirmed the ALJ's decision and adopted the ALJ's

recommended order on all three counts. Allegheny Ludlum Corp., 320 N.L.R.B. 484 (1995).

The Company now petitions this court for review and denial of enforcement of the Board's

decision, claiming that the Board's holding unreasonably restrains the Company's free speech rights

under § 8(c) of the Act by effectively prohibiting the Company from including employees in

videotapes used in a representation election campaign, and that the findings that the Company

violated the Act through the second edition of the "Your Choice" newsletter and the firing of James

Borgan were not supported by substantial evidence. The Board cross-applies for enforcement of its

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order in full.

With regard to the videotaping procedure and the Board's "polling" finding, we conclude that

the Board's precedents dealing with "polling," videotaping, and the free speech rights of employers

create conflicting mandates, and that the Board has yet to articulate a clear standard to guide

employers, employees, and its own administrative law judges in reconciling these mandates.

Accordingly, we remand the case to the Board with instructions to develop a standard that is

comprehensible to employers and that it will consistently apply to what appears to be a recurrent

problem involving employer communications during an organizational campaign. As to the Board's

findings that the second edition of the Company's "Your Choice" newsletter and the firing of James

Borgan violated the Act, we find these elements oftheBoard's decision to be supported by substantial

evidence, and accordingly we deny the Company's petition for review and grant the Board's petition

for enforcement of the relevant portions of its order.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Videotaping of Employees

A few weeks before the representation election, the Company began filming a videotape to

be used as part of its campaign to persuade the salaried workers to vote against the Union. Mark

Ziemianski, the Company's Manager of Communication Services, personally supervised the filming,

which was conducted by an outside video crew. On November 14, 1994, Ziemianski and the video

crew approached several employees in their workplaces and asked, without explaining the purpose

of the filming, for their consent to be filmed. If the employees agreed to be filmed, they were

instructed to sit at their desks and, upon hearing a cue, turn to face the camera, smile, and wave. The

filming process took about two minutes for each employee.

OnNovember 15, Ziemianski prepared two written noticesstating that videotaping was being

conducted "for an upcoming video presentation that the company will use to present the facts about

your current election campaign," and advising employees who preferred not to appear in the

presentation what they should do; one notice instructed objecting employees to notify either of two

Company executives of their unwillingnessto appear in the video, the second told them to notify the

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video crew. Ziemianski handed the notices to those employees whose workplaces he visited with the

video crew on the 15th; he also sent notices through interoffice mail to a separate facility that he and

the video crew planned to visit the next day.

James Goralka, one of the employees who had already been filmed on the 14th, saw one of

the notices and called Joyce Kurcina, an executive named in the notice, to say that he and several of

his co-workers preferred not to appear in the videotape. Kurcina told him to call Ziemianski, which

he did, and Ziemianski agreed to honor Goralka'srequest if Goralka would put it in writing. Goralka

sent Ziemianski a written notice listing the employees who had informed Goralka that they preferred

not to appear in the videotape. Approximately thirty other employees also sent Ziemianski written

notice of their desire not to be included in the video. Many employees complained to Union

representative Peter Passarelli about the videotaping, and Passarelli in turn complained to Company

Vice President Bruce McGillivray that the procedures surrounding the preparation of the videotape

constituted unlawful "polling" of the employees regarding their union sentiments. The Company

neither terminated nor altered the videotaping procedure, despite Passarelli's complaint.

B. Edition # 2 of "Your Choice" Newsletter

The Company's campaign against unionization also featured an anti-union newsletter called

"Your Choice," which the Company prepared and mailed to the homes of salaried employees. The

second edition of this newsletter contained the statement that, despite very difficult circumstancesin

the past, "the Company found ways to manage the situation without resorting to layoffs of salaried

employees." This edition also featured several passages suggesting that unionization would lead to

a reduction in job security, including an interview in which a former union member was quoted as

saying "if it came to a layoff due to a lack of work, the first people to be laid off would be those in

the Union," and a cartoon in which a rat on a leash held by an arm emblazoned with the Union's

acronym pulls a blanket labeled "Secure Job at AL" off of a sleeping employee.

C. The Termination of James Borgan

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1 The Act exempts from its coverage agricultural laborers, domestic services workers, people

employed by parents and spouses, independent contractors, supervisors, and workers subject to

the Railway Labor Act. See 29 U.S.C. § 152(3) (1994). 

James Borgan, a sixteen-year veteran of the Company's salaried nonexempt1 workforce, was

a leader in the Union's organizing drive leading up to the representation election. Borgan joined the

Union's organizing committee, openly declared his support for the Union, attended union meetings,

solicited fellow employeesto sign union authorization cards, appeared in the Union's campaign video,

was pictured in the Union's newsletters, and signed union letters and organizing literature. Borgan

questioned management aggressively during meetings the Company held to discuss unionization

issues, and one of the ALJ's findings which the Company does not challenge on appeal was that the

Company violated the Act by disparaging and threatening comments a Company executive made to

Borgan in one of their verbal exchanges about the forthcoming election. Id. at 487-88.

Within a few weeks of the election, Company executives decided to fire Borgan despite his

consistently positive overall performance evaluations in the three prior years. Pursuant to this

decision, Borgan's supervisor added two new criteria (labeled "Key Result Areas" or "KRAs") to

Borgan's performance evaluation form for that year, and assigned Borgan "Unacceptable" ratings on

both of these newly-added criteria. After a company witness testified before the ALJ that adding

KRAs in mid-year was not unusual, the Company stipulated to a survey of its management showing

that this midyear "add-on" practice was virtually unheard of. Borgan's supervisor, who had rated his

performance in the preexisting criterion of "Development" as "Needs Improvement," also admitted,

in her testimony before the ALJ, that she could not recall any particular shortfall in Borgan's

performance in this area. Borgan's 1995 performance evaluation form also included an "Attendance"

criterion. In this category, the supervisor rated Borgan's performance as "Needs Improvement," and

wrote in the margin "missing from desk in November." Testifying before the ALJ, Borgan's

supervisor admitted that Borgan's overall attendance record was "[a]lmost flawless," and that the low

rating was due solely to the referenced incident, when Borgan was away from his desk for

approximately an hour one afternoon in November, 1994. On cross-examination, the supervisor

could not explain why, on this one occasion, she thought it appropriate to alert the controller of the

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Company after Mr. Borgan had been away from his desk for about thirty minutes ("At the time it

struck me as an important thing"); nor could she reconcile Borgan's poor rating on this score with

his actualpattern of overall attendance ("[Question]: So the flawless attendance record accounts [sic]

for nothing, in rating attendance if you're away for one hour from your desk. Is that your testimony?

[Answer]: I guess it is, yes.").

II. DISCUSSION

We set aside the Board's decision only when the Board has "acted arbitrarily or otherwise

erred in applying established law to the facts," International Union of Elec., Elec., Salaried, Mach.

and Furniture Workers v. N.L.R.B., 41 F.3d 1532, 1537 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (citations and internal

quotation marks omitted), or when its findings of fact are not supported by "substantial evidence" in

the record considered as a whole. See 29 U.S.C. § 160(e) (1994); see also Universal Camera Corp.

v. N.L.R.B., 340 U.S. 474 (1951).

A. The Videotaping of Employees

The Board affirmed the ALJ's finding in this case that the Company's "actions with respect

to its videotaping of employees constitute[d] unlawfulpolling of employees" in violation of § 8(a)(1).

Allegheny Ludlum Corp., 320 N.L.R.B. at 490. The most critical part of that finding is that the

Company, through the actions ofZiemianski in distributing the notices and orally advising employees

that they must submit written notices to be excluded from the Company's anti-union video, had in

effect "polled" the employees regarding their union sentiments. Id. at 484. Although this part of the

Board's decision drew support from prior Board decisions regarding unlawful "polling," it raises in

stark form the fundamental question of whether employers can ever legally include visual images of

employeesin campaign materials without running a heavy risk of later being found in violation of the

Act for illegally "polling" their employees. For, as we explain in greater detail below, another recent

Board decision explicating the employer's obligation to obtain the consent of all employees featured

in anti-union videotapes may have put the Board's "polling" doctrine on a collision course with the

free speech rights of employers under § 8(c).

1. Employer "Polling" of Employees and Section 8(a)(1)

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Section 7 of the Act gives all nonexempt employees "the right to self-organization, to form,

join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own

choosing, and to engage in other concerted activitiesfor the purpose of collective bargaining or other

mutual aid or protection...." 29 U.S.C. § 157 (1994). Section 8(a)(1) of the Act makes it an illegal

"unfair labor practice" for an employer "to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employeesin the exercise

of the rights guaranteed in [Section 7]." 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1) (1994).

In its 1967 Struksnes decision, the Board observed that an employer's "polling" of its

employees regarding their pro-union or anti-union sentiment was usually both a violation of the

employees' § 7 rights in itself, and a likely prelude to further and more severe such violations. See

Struksnes Construction Co., 165 N.L.R.B. 1062 (1967). An employer "poll" may in itself interfere

with employees' exercise of their § 7 rights because "any attempt by an employer to ascertain

employee views and sympathies regarding unionism generally tends to cause fear of reprisal in the

mind ofthe employee if he repliesin favor of unionismand, therefore, tendsto impinge on his Section

7 rights." Id. at 1062; see also Cannon Electric Co., 151 N.L.R.B. 1465, 1470 (1965) ("Coercion

by interrogation is one of the "subtler' forms of management's interference with labor's protected

rights." (quoting N.L.R.B. v. Camco, 340 F.2d 803, 804 (5th Cir. 1965))); overruled on other

grounds by Resistance Technology, 280 N.L.R.B. 1004 (1986). An employer "poll" also may lay the

groundwork for further violations of § 7 rights because "[a]n employer cannot discriminate against

union adherents without first determining who they are." Id. (quoting Cannon Electric Co., 151

N.L.R.B. at 1468). The Board observed that in "innumerable cases" employer "polling" had been the

"prelude" to employer discrimination against union sympathizers, and thus concluded that employer

"polling" was not only a necessary precursor to discrimination but also an affirmative signal that

discrimination would follow. Id; see also Cannon Electric Co., 151 N.L.R.B. at 1468 ("The

frequency of a pattern of employer conduct associating discrimination against union adherents with

employer's effortsto learn the names of union activistssupportsthe conclusion that there is a "danger

inherent' in such conduct: a tendency toward interference with the exercise by employees of their

organizational rights." (citations omitted)).

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2

See Standard-Coosa-Thatcher, 85 N.L.R.B. 1358, 1360 (1949) ("Whenever an employer

directly or indirectly attempts to secure information concerning the manner in which or the extent

to which his employees have chosen to engage in union organization or other concerted activity,

he invades an area guaranteed to be exclusively the business and concern of his employees."). 

Prior to Struksnesthe Board had originallyheld that employer "polling" was a perse violation

of § 8(a)(1),2but later modified its position to permit employer "polling" provided that "proper

safeguards" attended the "polling" to ensure that it did not interfere with, restrain, or coerce

employees in the exercise of their § 7 rights. Blue Flash Express, 109 N.L.R.B. 591, 593 (1954).

InBlue Flash Expressthe Board held that employer interrogation of employeesregarding their union

sentiments does not violate the Act unless, "under all the circumstances, the interrogation reasonably

tends to restrain or interfere with the employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Act." Id.

at 593. But this somewhat abstract standard soon proved too diffuse to give the Board's subsequent

"polling" cases consistency or to discourage the intimidation of employees by employer polls, and in

International Union of Operating Engineers v. N.L.R.B., 353 F.2d 852 (D.C. Cir. 1965), this court

remanded a "polling" case to the Board with instructions to "come to grips with this constantly

recurring problem for the protection of the employees as to their section 7 rights and for that of an

employer acting in good faith." Id. at 856 (citations omitted). In Struksnes the Board attempted to

carry out this court's mandate by holding that "polling" does not violate the Act if it satisfies a

five-part standard:

Absent unusual circumstances, the polling of employees by an employer will be

violative of Section 8(a)(1) ofthe [Act] unlessthe following safeguards are observed:

(1) the purpose of the poll is to determine the truth of a union's claim of majority, (2)

this purpose is communicated to the employees, (3) assurances against reprisal are

given, (4) the employees are polled by secret ballot, and (5) the employer has not

engaged in unfair labor practices or otherwise created a coercive atmosphere.

Struksnes, 165 N.L.R.B. at 1063.

The more general Blue Flash Express approach to employer inquiries survived outside the

"polling" context, however, although it has not always been possible to see where or why the Board

draws the line between "polling" and other types of "interrogation" in individual fact scenarios. In

general,suspicious employer actions are addressed under the rubric of "interrogation" when they are

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3

See, e.g., Rossmore House, 269 N.L.R.B. 1176 (1984) (applying "interrogation" analysis to

the allegation that an employer had twice asked the same employee about the employee's support

for the union). 

4

See, e.g., Crest Industries Corp., 276 N.L.R.B. 490 (1985) (applying "interrogation" analysis

to the allegation that an employer's representative had approached a group which included union

representatives and four employees and, after one of the union representatives told him that a

majority of the employees supported the union, turned to the four employees and asked "Is this

what you want?"). 

5

See, e.g., Douglas Div., Scott & Fetzer Co., 228 N.L.R.B. 1016 (1977) (applying

"interrogation" analysis to allegations based on several casual conversations between employees

and representatives of the employer), rev'd by N.L.R.B. v. Douglas Div., Scott & Fetzer Co., 570

F.2d 742 (8th Cir. 1978) (holding that the employer "interrogations" were too "isolated and

insubstantial" to justify the remedy invoked by the Board). 

6Compare N.L.R.B. v. Harry F. Berggren & Sons, 406 F.2d 239, 244-45 (8th Cir. 1969)

(enforcing the Board's finding that an employer violated § 8(a)(1) by conducting a formal "poll"

which took place in a non-coercive atmosphere, but which met only four of the five components

of the Struksnes standard) with Reliance Insurance v. N.L.R.B., 415 F.2d 1, 4-6 (8th Cir. 1969)

(refusing to extend Harry F. Berggren & Sons, which dealt with "systematic polling," to a case

involving "an isolated and casual question"); see generally 1 PATRICK HARDIN, THE DEVELOPING

LABOR LAW 119-26 (3rd ed. 1992) (summarizing cases involving "polling," and those involving

"[i]ndividual or isolated questioning," in separate subsections); Annotation, Employer's right,

under § 8(a)(1) of National Labor Relations Act (29 USCS § 158(a)(1)), to ask employee

whether employee intends to participate in strike, 72 A.L.R. FED. 818, 827-41 (1985)

(summarizing cases involving "polls" and those involving "[q]uestioning individual employees,"

and "[q]uestioning particular groups of employees" in separate sections). 

7

In Rossmore House, supra note 3, the allegedly coercive employer inquiries involved only one

employee. But the next year, the Board affirmed an ALJ's rejection of both "interrogation" and

"polling" allegations premised on an employer's agent having personally asked four employees

whether they favored union representation. See Crest Industries Corp., supra note 4. The ALJ in

Crest Industries cited and applied Rossmore House, but also referred to the inquiry as a "poll"; he

acknowledged that it had not been conducted in accordance with the standards set forth in

Struksnes, but he did not identify "unusual circumstances" that would excuse the "poll" from the

Struksnes requirements. See id. at 494. And in a 1992 case the Board affirmed the findings of an

ALJ who applied the Rossmore House standard, without using the term "polling" or citing

Struksnes, in evaluating the legality under the Act of a formal survey that an employer had

distributed to all of its employees. See Pro/Tech Security Network, 308 N.L.R.B. 655 (1992).

directed at individual employees,3and when they involve isolated incidents4or spontaneous casual

interactions between employees and agents of the employer5; "polling" analysis, on the other hand,

is reserved for situations where the employer's actions have a broader, more systematic and more

deliberate character.6 We reiterate, however, that the Board has rarely articulated its rationale for

choosing "polling" analysis over "interrogation" analysis in particular decisions, and some of its

choices between the two defy classification.7

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Although the dispositive inquiry in determining whether an employer's actions constitute a

violation of § 8(a)(1) is their probable effect on reasonable employees, rather than the employer's

intent in engaging in the actions, see Teamsters Local Union No. 171 v. N.L.R.B., 863 F.2d 946,

954 (D.C. Cir. 1988), it has sometimes been suggested that Struksnes is implicated only when the

employer's intent was in fact to determine whether a majority of employees supported the union. 

See, e.g., Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers, Local 633 of New Hampshire v. N.L.R.B., 509

F.2d 490, 494 n.17 (D.C. Cir. 1974); American Steel Building Co., 270 N.L.R.B. 11, 11 n.2

(1984). 

It is of course obvious that an employer can effectively "poll" its employees through means

other than formalsurveys or conventional voting-preference "polls." What kind of employer actions

constitute a "poll" does not depend on their formal nomenclature; the key is their practical effect of

tending to instill in employees a reasonable beliefthat the employer is trying to find out whether they

support or oppose the union. Thus, this circuit has itself applied Struksnes criteria in the context of

an employer-organized vote over whether temporaryemployees belonged in a bargaining unit, on the

rationale that this vote wasreally a vote on union representation since the employer and the union had

openly advocated contrary positions on the scope of the bargaining unit. See Midwest Reg'l Joint

Bd. v. N.L.R.B., 564 F.2d 434, 444-45 (D.C. Cir. 1977). The Board, too, has found that an employer

engaged in unlawful "polling" when its agents organized a betting poolfor employees on the outcome

of an upcoming representation election, Wellstream Corp., 313 N.L.R.B. 698, 698 n.2, 704 (1994),

personally passed out hats bearing the message "Vote No" to employees, Laidlaw Transit, 310

N.L.R.B. 15, 17 (1993), or personally asked employees to let themselves be photographed holding

anti-union signs, Florida Steel Corp., 224 N.L.R.B. 587, 588-89 (1976). By the same token, the

Board has held that merely making "Vote No" stickers available upon the employees' request does

not constitute "polling." See Holsum Bakers of Puerto Rico, 320 N.L.R.B. 834, 839 (1996). In all

of these cases, the Board has declared the determinative issue to be whether the employer's actions

would tend to give employeesthe reasonable impression that the employer was attempting to discern

their union sentiments. The Laidlaw Transit and Holsum Bakers of Puerto Rico decisions illustrate

the contrast most dramatically. Although the formal character of the employer's actions (distributing

"Vote No" paraphernalia to employees) was similar in both cases, only in Laidlaw were the actions

held to constitute "polling" because by personally tendering "Vote No" hatsto individual employees,

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8

See Paul D. Snitzer, Employer Free SpeechThe Emergence of a Conflict Between the

Board and the Circuits, 11 LAB. LAW. 247, 247-50 (1995). 

9Pub. L. No. 80-101, 61 Stat. 136. 

the employer's agents put these employees "in the position of disclosing their preference for or against

the Union by the acceptance or rejection of the hats," Laidlaw Transit, 310 N.L.R.B. at 17, whereas

by "[m]erely making the "Vote No' stickers available, or honoring employee requests for them," the

employer's agents in the latter case did not "pressur[e] employees into making an observable choice

or open acknowledgment" concerning their union sentiments. Holsum Bakers of Puerto Rico, 320

N.L.R.B. at 839 (quoting Schwartz Mfg. Co., 289 N.L.R.B. 874, 879 (1988)).

2. Employer Free Speech and Section 8(c)

Responding to the charge that aggressive enforcement of § 8(a)(1) had made it excessively

difficult for employers to engage in any form of non-coercive communications with employees

regarding the merits of unionization,8 Congress in the 1947 Taft-Hartley Amendments

9

to the Act

added § 8(c), which provides that "[t]he expressing of any views, argument, or opinion, or the

dissemination thereof, whether in written, printed, graphic, or visual form, shall not constitute or be

evidence of an unfair labor practice ... if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or

promise of benefit." 29 U.S.C. § 158(c) (1994). In N.L.R.B. v. Gissel Packaging Co., 395 U.S. 575

(1969), the Supreme Court noted that § 8(c) "merely implements the First Amendment" by

establishing "an employer'sfree speech right to communicate his viewsto his employees." Id. at 617.

The Court also observed, however, that "[a]ny assessment of the precise scope of employer

expression ... must be made in the context ofitslabor relationssetting," and that "an employer'srights

cannot outweigh the equal rights of the employees to associate freely." Id.

In its "polling" cases, the Board has consistently and firmly rejected the argument that

employer "polling" is expression protected by § 8(c). See Struksnes, 165 N.L.R.B. at 1062 n.8 ("It

is well established that an employer, in questioning his employees asto their union sympathies, is not

expressing views, argument, or opinion within the meaning of Section 8(c) of the Act, asthe purpose

of an inquiry is not to express views but to ascertain those of the person questioned" (citing Martin

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Sprocket & Gear Co. v. N.L.R.B., 329 F.2d 417 (5th Cir. 1964) and N.L.R.B. v. Minnesota Mining

&Mfg. Co., 179 F.2d 323 (8th Cir. 1950)); Cannon Electric, 151 N.L.R.B. at 1469 ("Interrogation,

particularly systematic polling of employees as to their union sympathies, is not an expression of

"views, argument, or opinion' within the meaning of Section 8(c). The purpose of interrogation is

not to express views, but to ascertain those of the person interrogated." (citation omitted));

Standard-Coosa-Thatcher, 85 N.L.R.B. at 1363 ("[W]e againreject the contention that interrogation

is protected by Section 8(c) of the amended Act.... [T]he purpose of [§ 8(c) ] is to permit an

employer to express his views, not to license him to extract those of his employees. The employer

is explicitly accorded a right to "influence' his employees by verbal appealsto reason, but not to fear."

(citations omitted)).

3. Employer Videotaping of Employees and Section 8(a)(1)

In SonyCorp. of America, 313 N.L.R.B. 420 (1993), the Board affirmed anALJ'sfinding that

an employer had violated § 8(a)(1) by videotaping its employees, and using the footage in an

anti-union presentation, without obtaining their consent. See id. at 428-29. The ALJ held that this

unconsented use oftheir videotaped imagesinterfered with the employees'right "to assist and support

the Union if they so desired," because "employees who might wish to speak out in support of the

Union would be hesitant to do so after seeing their pictures in an antiunion presentation," whether

fromsheer humiliation and embarrassment or froma feared inability to explain the videotape'simplied

message that they opposed the union. Id. at 428.

4. Post-Sony Videotaping of Employees, Section 8(c), and "Polling"

An employer seeking to use filmed images of employees in its campaign against unionization

now faces a wide array of potentially conflicting standards. On the one hand it is undisputed that §

8(c) protects an employer's pure right to express an anti-union message to its employees, subject to

certain limitations described in Gissel as necessary in order to prevent encroachment on employees'

§ 7 rights. Thus, an employer might conclude that under § 8(c) it has the right to make an anti-union

videotape including footage of contented employees, as a necessary component of the message it

wishes to express. But should the employer prepare such a videotape, an obligation may well attach

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10Because the employer's attempt to locate individuals from among its workforce who would

consent to appear in its video presentation will most often be conducted in a structured, deliberate

manner, the "polling" charge seems more likely to be attributed to these actions than any charge

of coercive "interrogation." See supra notes 3-6 and accompanying text. 

under the Sony decision that the employer obtain the consent of the employees included in the tape

before displaying it to other employees. Therein lies the rub: the Board's "polling" cases suggest that

by soliciting its employees' consent to be included in the anti-union videotape, the employer may be

in effect "polling" them as to their union sentiments, in violation of § 8(a)(1).10

We note that whether this consent solicitation would constitute an unlawful interference with

§ 7 rights does not turn on the malevolence or innocence of the employer's intent in seeking the

employees' consent; rather, the relevant question is whether the solicitations would tend to create

among the employees a reasonable impression that the employer was trying to discern their union

sentiments. See Teamster Local Union No. 171 v. N.L.R.B., 863 F.2d 946, 954 (D.C. Cir. 1988)

(noting that the "proper question" in determining whether an employer has violated § 8(a)(1) by

interfering with employees' exercise of their § 7 rights is "whether the employer engaged in conduct

which may reasonably be said to tend to interfere with the free exercise of employee rights under the

Act" (quoting Southwest Regional Joint Bd. v. N.L.R.B., 441 F.2d 1027, 1031 (D.C. Cir. 1970)

(quoting Joy Silk Mills v. N.L.R.B., 185 F.2d 732, 740 (D.C. Cir. 1950))); see also Struksnes, 165

N.L.R.B. at 1062 ("[A]ny attempt by an employer to ascertain employee views and sympathies

regarding unionism generally tends to cause fear of reprisal in the mind of the employee if he replies

in favor of unionism and, therefore, tends to impinge on his Section 7 rights."); Derek C. Bok, The

Regulation of Campaign Tactics in Representation Elections Under the National Labor Relations

Act, 78 HARV. L. REV. 38, 106 (1964) ("By indicating through his questions that he desires to learn

about the sympathies and activities ofindividual employees, the employer may convey an impression,

rightly or wrongly, that he is considering reprisals against union supporters.").

The possibility that an employer's intent in making these consent requestsis entirely innocent

of any desire to determine individuals' attitudes toward the union does, however, demonstrate the

inadequacy of the Board's earlier assurancesthat "polling" cannot involve protected expression. See

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11As of this writing, the Board has not yet issued a final ruling as to this portion of the ALJ's

opinion. The Board severed this portion of the proceeding pending further consideration. See id.

at *3 n.3. On June 12, 1996, the Board issued a Notice of Hearing scheduling oral argument for

August 7, 1996, and directing the parties to prepare to argue these five questions: (1) how, and

at what point, may an employer solicit employees' consent to appear in campaign videotapes or

photos without violating employees' Section 7 rights?; (2) how can the Board ensure that a

party's interest in using videotapes as campaign propaganda does not intrude upon the Section 7

rights of employees?; (3) what standard should the Board apply to determine whether

photographing or videotaping of employees is an unfair labor practice and/or objectionable

conduct?; (4) what weight, if any, should the Board give to evidence that the purpose of the

photographing or videotaping was explained to employees?; and (5) are there other factors that

the Board should consider in determining whether photographing or videotaping is coercive

and/or objectionable conduct? Notice of Hearing, Case 32-CA-14378 and Case 28-RC-5274

(June 12, 1996). 

Struksnes, 165 N.L.R.B. at 1062 n.8; Cannon Electric, 151 N.L.R.B. at 1469; Standard-CoosaThatcher, 85 N.L.R.B. at 1363. When it issued its earlier pre-Sony decisions declaring that § 8(c)

may not successfully be invoked in defense of a "polling" allegation, the Board may not have foreseen

that employer expression involving anti-union filmed presentations would trigger the obligation to

seek employee consents, which in turn would raise the specter of employer "polling."

That failure of prescience notwithstanding, we are confused and troubled by the sharply

inconsistent approaches that the Board's ALJs have taken to the convergence of issues presented by

post-Sony videotaping of employees. That inconsistency compels this court to again call upon the

Board, as we did in International Union of Operating Engineers, to "come to grips with [a]

constantly recurring problem for the protection of the employees as to their section 7 rights and for

that of an employer acting in good faith." International Union of Operating Eng'rs, 353 F.2d at 856.

In the case at bar, the ALJ held that the employer's solicitation of its employees' consent to appear

in the videotape constituted unlawful "polling." In so holding, the ALJ made no mention of the § 8(c)

rights of the employer. Allegheny Ludlum Corp., 320 N.L.R.B. at 489-90. In another recent case

involving employer videotaping of employees, Flamingo Hilton-Reno, 321 N.L.R.B. No. 53, 1996

WL 293527 (1996), however, a different ALJ held that videotaping employees and afterwards

requesting their consent to be featured in an anti-union presentation did not violate the Act.11 The

ALJin Flamingo Hilton-Reno noted that "there [was] no contention that the [employer] did not have

a right to produce the video," and assumed, without explanation, that the employer's § 8(c) right

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included the "right to produce campaign videos that portray employees performing their work or

otherwise appearing to enjoy the camaraderie of their coworkers." Id. at *15-16. The ALJ did not

expressly address the "polling" concerns raised by the consent solicitations, nor did he attempt to

balance the § 8(c) freedom of expression right of the employer against the § 7 associational rights of

employees, in evaluating the consent protocol.

The Board has a duty to provide conscientious employees, employers, unions, and

adjudicators striving to stay within the strictures of the Act with some clear guidelines as to how to

proceed in regard to company videotaping of employees. As long as administrative law judges may

resolve the potentially conflicting mandates of § 8(a)(1) and § 8(c) implicated in such situations either

by deferring to the employer's free speech right and ignoring the employees' right to be free of

unlawful "polling," or by citing "polling" concerns and ignoring the employer's free speech right,

employers will have no clear notice of what the Act prohibits in this context. Clearly some methods

of soliciting employees to appear in anti-union video presentations would not raise significant

"polling" concerns; for example, the company might seek to include only those employees who have

on their own initiative clearly expressed opposition to union representation. But once we leave that

safe harbor the water gets rough; if a post-filming request for permission always amounts to

"polling," does the Struksnes standard for "polling" still apply? An affirmative answer would surely

condemn most such videotaping. And even within the safe harbor, how far employers may go in

making inquiriesto locate those who are overtly against the union will depend on how likely it isthat

such inquiries would tend to give other employees the reasonable impression that the employer is

attempting to discern their sentiments. Such determinations are well suited to the Board's expertise

and experience, and we call upon them now to exercise it in this recurrent situation of employer

videotaping of employees. Accordingly we set aside this portion of the Board's order and remand

this case for further consideration and the articulation of a clearer Board policy as to how the

employers may lawfully proceed.

B. Edition # 2 of the "Your Choice" Newsletter

The ALJ found that the Company had additionally violated § 8(a)(1) through a combination

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of items it published in the second edition of its "Your Choice" newsletter distributed to salaried

employees. In the Board's view the items in effect threatened layoffs of salaried employees if they

voted in favor of unionization. Allegheny Ludlum, 320 N.L.R.B. at 484, 490-92. First, there was

an interview of a former union member who stated that "if it came to a layoff due to a lack of work,

the first people to be laid off would be those in the Union." Second was the cartoon of a Union rat

pulling the job security blanket off a sleeping employee. Finally, there was an ominous reference to

the Company's past attempts to keep the salaried employees' jobs intact. After describing past poor

business conditions, layoffs of union employees, and a recent strike, the newsletter noted that "[i]n

all of these cases, the Company found ways to manage the situation without resorting to layoffs of

salaried employees." The message was clearit would not look so hard in the future, if the Union

won.

In Gissel, the Supreme Court reviewed the Board's holding that an employer had violated §

8(a)(1) by two speeches in which the company's president told the employees that the Union's only

economic weapon was its ability to call for a strike, and warned that a strike could lead to plant

closings and layoffs, and by two pamphletssent to employeesin which the employer claimed that the

Union was "strike-happy," and listed local companies that had gone out of business because of

unreasonable Union demands. See Gissel, 395 U.S. at 587-89. The Court, while acknowledging the

employer's freedom of expression protected by § 8(c), held that these communications constituted

unfair labor practices in violation of § 8(a)(1) because associating unionization with adverse

consequencesfor employeesis protected only ifit is merely a "prediction asto the precise effects[the

employer] believes unionization will have on his company," and not an "implication that an employer

may or may not take action solely on his own initiative for reasons unrelated to economic necessities

and known only to him." The latter type of statement is an unlawful threat of retaliation for employee

unionization, id. at 618, and this is how the ALJ and the Board treated the communications in this

case.

In reviewing the Board's finding, we "must recognize the Board's competence in the first

instance to judge the impact of utterances made in the context of the employer-employee

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12We disagree with our colleague's assertion that by a "fair reading" this statement refers only

to "what [Gallagher's] previous employer had done." Concurring and dissenting opinion at 5.

Gallagher's statement is clearly proffered in the newsletter as the expression of someone currently

employed by Allegheny Ludlum, describing her current situation. Our colleague refers to

Gallagher's testimony explaining her comments, see id., presumably to support this "fair reading." 

Of course, employees reading the "Your Choice" newsletter in the time leading up to a

representation election could not supplement the statements printed in the newsletter with

relationship." Gissel, 395 U.S. at 620 (quoting NLRB v. Virginia Elec. &Power Co., 314 U.S. 469,

479 (1941)). Under this standard, and applying the criteria distinguishing permissible from

impermissible employer communications set out in Gissel, we agree with the Board's finding that

"Your Choice, Edition # 2" violated the Act because three elements of that newsletterthe Karen

Gallagher interview, the cartoon, and the statement that salaried employees had retained their jobs

in the past because the Company had "found ways" to keep them on the rollscombined to create

an unlawful threat that the Company would retaliate against salaried employees if they elected to be

represented by the Union.

As our colleague observes in her partial dissent, judges must be sensitive to the context in

which employerstatements are made, when determining whether theyinclude "threats" or "promises"

that violate the Act. See concurring and dissenting opinion at 2; but see id. at 4-5 n.2 ("Having

conceded [that the Karen Gallagher interview did not violate the Act by itsinclusion in the video, the

Board] cannot also argue that the same statements violate the Act if included in a newsletter."). This

insight is helpful insofar as the newsletter's "threat of reprisal" arose from the combination of three

elements of the newsletter; that is, each element must be considered in the context of the others,

rather than in vacuo. But see id. at 3-5 (analyzing each of the three elements of the newsletter in

vacuo). The general context in which "Your Choice, Edition # 2" was distributed was a unionization

campaign in which job security was foremost among the salaried employees' concerns, and in which

the Union had campaigned on the ground that it could increase job security for the salaried

employees. In this context a salaried employee would no doubt be troubled by the statement, spoken

by an employee but quoted in a Company newsletter and thus demonstrably concurred in by the

employer, that "if it came to a layoff due to lack of work, the first people to be laid off would be those

in the Union."12 A reader considering joining the Union would presumably want to know why being

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testimony given at a deposition that would not take place until months after the election had taken

place. 

13We note that neither we nor the Board found objectionable those portions of the newsletter

that describe the Company's record of protecting job security in the past, such as those quoted by

our colleague at pages 2-3, and we are thus confused as to how our holding could be thought to

prevent employers from defending their past record. Cf. concurring and dissenting opinion at 4. 

in the Union makes one more likely to face the ax; if this tendency on the part of the employer is

motivated by the bare fact of Union membership,such a reader will have a powerful incentive to vote

against Union representation which the Union is helpless to counteract. Add to this the cartoon in

which a Union rat pulls the "Secure Job" blanket off of a sleeping employee, which our colleague

interprets as a "statement, albeit a blunt one, that AL employees currently enjoy job security."

Concurring and dissenting opinion at 5. We think the more natural interpretation is that the election

of Union representation would lead to a decline in job securitythe Union rat is, after all, pulling

off the "Secure Job" blanket. The Gallagher quote and the cartoon thus reinforce each other in

conveying the employer's threat that if the salaried employees elected Union representation the

employer would react by increasing layoffs, and the newsletter includes no statement or information

to counteract the threatening implication that such a result would be the product of the employer's

unilateral actionthat it would be, in other words, the employer's retaliation against the employees

for bringing in the Union. The newsletter's only hint of an explanation as to why the Company treats

unionized employees differentlyfromnon-unionized employees with regard to layoffs actually served

to intensify the threatening character of the employer's message: the Company explained that in the

past it had "found ways" to keep the non-unionized salaried employees on board. Thus the Company

conveyed the following message to the salaried employees: the Company "found ways" to avoid

laying you off when you were not represented by the Union, but is more inclined to lay off workers

who are represented by the Union, and byelecting Union representation you willbe letting yourselves

in for a decline in job security.13

Applying the analysis articulated by the Supreme Court in Gissel to these employer

communications, it is clear that we have even greater support for upholding the Board's finding of

an unlawful "threat of retaliation" than did the Gissel Court. In Gissel, the Court upheld the Board's

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finding of a "threat of reprisal" based on an employer's speeches, pamphlets, leaflets, and letters

combining to convey the message "that the company wasin a precariousfinancial condition; that the

"strike-happy' union would in all likelihood have to obtain its potentially unreasonable demands by

striking, the probable result of which would be a plant shutdown, asthe past history of labor relations

in the area indicated; and that the employees in such a case would have great difficulty finding

employment elsewhere." Gissel, 395 U.S. at 619. Because the employer conveyed this message

without having any support for its "basic assumption" that the union would have to strike to be heard,

or for its assertion that local plant closings were attributable to unionism, and because the Board had

often found that employees "take such hints as coercive threats rather than honest forecasts," the

Court upheld the Board'sfinding that this message was a "threat of reprisal" and therefore a violation

of the Act. Id. at 619-20. The Gissel Court thus upheld the Board's finding of a violation even

though the employer's proffered link between unionization and layoffs was explicitly premised on an

intervening causal factor within the union's controlthe decision to strike. In that case the union at

least had some recourse to parrythe employer'sthrust,since the union could respond by asserting that

it would not strike if it thought that doing so would force the company to lay off its members. In the

case at bar, no such defense was available to the Union. Even if the Union could have convinced the

salaried employees that it would act responsibly, with a view to economic circumstances and the

workers' best interests, it could not dull the impact of the Company's threat to lay off salaried

employees in retaliation for their having elected Union representation.

The Company argues on appeal that this ruling contradicted this circuit's recent treatment of

similar employer communicationsinCrown Cork &Seal v. N.L.R.B., 36 F.3d 1130 (D.C. Cir. 1994),

and Somerset Welding & Steel v. N.L.R.B., 987 F.2d 777 (D.C. Cir. 1993). But we find that the

absolved communications in those two cases were significantly different from the threatening

combination of messages contained in the second edition of the "Your Choice" newsletter.

The employer communications in Crown Cork & Seal featured assertionsthat the Union had

a bad record in protecting job security, and thisstatement: "WE WILL NOT BRING WORK INTO

THIS PLANTAND OUR CUSTOMER WILL SEEK OTHER ALTERNATIVESIF THAT

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WORK CAN'T BE DONE AT A REASONABLE COST, a cost that allows both of usto make a fair

return on our investment." Crown Cork & Seal, 36 F.3d at 1133. We disagreed with the Board's

holding that this statement was a "threat of retaliation" for unionization, and observed that by

referring to the pressure of economic necessity and the probable effects that wage increases would

have, the company was simply identifying circumstances beyond its control, rather than connecting

post-unionization layoffs to "discretionary" decisions it might make solely on the basis of its

opposition to unionization. Id. at 1137. Specifically, the company's dour prediction was based on

the facts that the company and the union had entered into a "Master Agreement" which triggered

automatic wage increases for newly-unionized employees, and that the market for the company's

product was very tight, which meant that wage-related cost increases could well make it impossible

for the company to compete. Id. at 1132-33.

The employer communications addressed inSomerset Welding&Steel involved a supervisor's

showing employees a financial report indicating that the company's profit margin was quite narrow

and his telling the employees "there'd be no way that the shop could continue to go" in the event of

wage increases, along with a chairman's statements that unionization at other companies in the area

had led to plant closings, and that any increases in employee wages could threaten the company's

ability to compete and might necessitate a restructuring of employee benefits. Somerset Welding &

Steel, 987 F.2d at 780; Somerset Welding & Steel, 314 N.L.R.B. 829, 830-31 (1994). Finding

insufficient record evidence to support the ALJ'sfindingsthat these communications violated the Act,

we remanded them to the Board. (The Board had not originally passed on these findings, having

concluded that a remedial bargaining order was required by other violations in any event.) On

remand, the Board itself held that they did not violate the Act. See Somerset Welding & Steel, 314

N.L.R.B. at 830-31.

CrownCork &Seal and Somerset Welding &Steel addressed employerstatementsthat linked

unionization to the loss of job security by referring expressly to factors outside of the employer's

controlunion pressure to increase wages and market conditions. The employers in those two cases

were communicating to employees their prediction that if the employees voted to unionize, the

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14In light of our colleague's assertion that the Board applied the wrong "strand" of Gissel, see

concurring and dissenting opinion at 7-9 (citing Crown Cork & Seal, 36 F.3d at 1134), we

reiterate that our holding affirms the Board's finding that the newsletter expressed an unlawful

"threat of reprisal." Allegheny Ludlum, 320 N.L.R.B. at 492 ("An employer violates [the Act]

when, during a union organizing campaign, it threatens employees by making predictions of

adverse economic consequences if the employees designate the Union as their

collective-bargaining representative." (emphasis added)). Although in Crown Cork & Seal we

distinguished two "strands" of threatening statements identified in Gissel, we have never held that

these two "strands" represent entirely distinct spheres subject to discrete analytical factors, nor

would any such holding comport with the clear language of Gissel itself. The Supreme Court in

Gissel declared that an employer's "prediction as to the precise effects he believes unionization

will have on his company" which is not "phrased on the basis of objective fact" violates the Act

because it is a "threat of retaliation." Gissel, 395 U.S. at 618. And the Court referred to the "line

between" predictions and threats, id. at 620, further demonstrating that a uniform set of analytical

factors is to be applied in evaluating employee communications under the Acti.e., in

determining on which side of the "line" a given set of statements falls. It could hardly be

otherwise, since any threat could conceivably be characterized as a "prediction" regarding the

"precise effect" that a specified action will have. 

companies would be obliged to increase wages for the newly-unionized employees, and this in turn

would damage the employers' abilityto attract businessin light ofmarket conditions. See Bok,supra,

at 77 ("When the employer declares that he will have to move or close down if a union comes in and

obtains higher wages, union organizers can reply that their negotiators will take account of the

company's position and endeavor not to induce its departure from the area.... [M]uch may turn on

whether the employees understand that the employer will close down onlyif economic considerations

impel him to do so....").

In contrast to such predictive communications, the second edition of "Your Choice" in effect

told salaried employeesthat unionization would lead to layoffs and a loss ofjob securitybecause once

the salaried employees chose union representation theCompanywould no longer "findways" to avoid

laying them off in hard times.14 This implied threat distinguishes the case from Crown Cork & Seal

and Somerset Welding &Steel, and justifiesthe ALJin holding that this employer communication fell

on the "threat of retaliation" side of the Gissel dividing line.

C. The Termination of James Borgan

Section 8(a)(3) of the Act makes it unlawful for an employer "by discrimination in regard to

hire or tenure of employment ... to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization."

29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3) (1994). An employer that discharges an employee because that employee

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engaged in union activities thereby violates § 8(a)(3) and (1). See Teamsters Local 171, 863 F.2d

at 955. In N.L.R.B. v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U.S. 393 (1983), overruled on other

grounds by Dep't of Labor v. Greenwich Collieries, 512 U.S. 267 (1994), the Supreme Court

established that the procedure for evaluating an allegation of unlawfullymotivated termination isfirst

to require the employee to show that the employer's opposition to protected union activity was a

motivating factor in the employer's termination decision, and then to permit the employer to present

the affirmative defense that it would have taken the same action had the employee not engaged in

protected union activity. See id. at 397, 401-03; see also Southwire Co. v. N.L.R.B., 820 F.2d 453,

459 (D.C. Cir. 1987).

The ALJ found that the Company's termination of James Borgan violated § 8(a)(3) and (1)

of the Act because it was motivated by Borgan's extensive union activity, and because the employer

could not make a credible showing that it would have fired Borgan regardless of his union activities;

the Board affirmed this finding. See Allegheny Ludlum, 320 N.L.R.B. at 484, 506-07. This finding

is amply supported in the record, which includes evidence that the Company departed from its

established evaluation proceduresto manufacture pretextual, approaching the bizarre, reasonsto fire

Borgan. The Company, on the other hand, cited no compelling evidence that Borgan had given the

Company reason to fire him aside from his union activity; Borgan had received an overall evaluation

of "Met Expectations" for each of the three years prior to his discharge. Given Borgan's outspoken

and aggressive support for the Union, the fact that this behaviorset himapart from most of hisfellow

salaried employees, and the generally implausible, defensive, and self-contradictory nature of the

testimony offered by the Company's witnesses, the inference that his union activity motivated his

termination is entirely reasonable.

For the foregoing reasons, the Company's petition for review is denied and the Board's

cross-application for enforcement of its order is granted except asto the portion of the order dealing

with the Company's "polling" of its employees related to the preparation of an anti-union videotape;

we set aside the "polling" portion ofthe order, and remand it to the Board for a more comprehensible

articulation of the relationship between the employer's § 8(c) free speech rights, the requests of

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consent for employee videotaping, and the procedures that must be followed by employers in

obtaining employee consent to such filming.

So ordered.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:

Today we vacate a finding of the National Labor Relations Board (Board) that Allegheny

Ludlum(ALor Company) violated the NationalLaborRelations Act (Act) byconducting an unlawful

"poll" in its attempt to include only consenting employeesin a pro-company videotape. We reach this

conclusion because the Board failed to accord weight to AL'sspeech rights under section 8(c) of the

Act. Running throughout our analysis of AL's videotape is the recognition that neither employees'

organizational rights under section 7 of the Act nor an employer's speech rights under section 8(c)

ofthe Act operate to the complete exclusion ofthe other. Although the two rights may often conflict,

we must give equal respect to both. Accordingly, we have instructed the Board on remand to

articulate criteria that will strike a fair balance between employee and employer rights. I am in full

agreement with my colleagues on the decision to remand and concur in that portion of the opinion.

Unfortunately, my colleagues' sensitivity to the need to balance the competing rights of the

employer and its employees is missing from their analysis of AL's newsletter Your Choice, Edition

# 2 (Your Choice) and for that reason I do not join that portion of the opinion. The Supreme Court

has stated, "Any assessment of the precise scope of employer expression, of course, must be made

in the context of its labor relations setting." NLRB v. Gissel Packaging Co., 395 U.S. 575, 617

(1969). The Gissel Court's mandate to engage in a contextual inquiry springs from the belief that

employees, because oftheir economic dependencyon their employer, mayascribe a different meaning

to employer speech from those with a "more disinterested ear." Id. Thus the Court worried that

ignoring the context of the labor relations setting could result in giving too little weight to employee

rights. Gissel's instruction to consider context, however, is equally necessary to give the employer

a fair shake. Cf. Dow Chem. Co. v. NLRB, 660 F.2d 637, 644 (5th Cir. 1981) ("In analyzing election

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campaign statements of employers for the presence of promises .... [i]t is not sufficient that bits and

pieces of statements may be later lifted out of context, that the facts and circumstances in which the

statements were made and whichwere known to the employee or employeesmaybe ignored, and that

those bits and pieces may then be viewed in vacuo ....") (citation omitted).

The majority fails to consider the statements in Your Choice in context. It first neglects to

mention that AL's newsletter was published in response to a Union newsletter, The A-L Organizer,

which came out several months earlier. Indeed, in response to the question, "How did you develop

the specific format for the newsletters?" Joyce Kurcina, AL's Director of Employee Relations, stated,

"[W]e got the idea ... from two sources. One is because the Steel Workers had put out

newslettersthe A.L. Organizer.... Frankly, they were very effective." DA 182a-183a. In its

newsletter, the Union described job security as an important issue in the organizational campaign.

The newsletter included severalstatementsfrom employees that the Union could deliver job security

then lacking at AL. For example, one employee stated, "Being organized would bring more security

and dignity to our present jobs and provide us with a better pension that will enable us to look

forward to retirement." DA 324a. Another employee stated, "We need a Union to get decent raises,

job security and better pension benefits." DA 325a. A third employee stated, "I think we need more

protection for job security. I give all I can on my job and I think we should get something back." DA

328a. Thus it was the Union that made job security a rallying point in the organizational campaign

and its newsletter urged employees that the Union, not AL, was the better provider.

In response to the Union's thrust, the Company parried with Your Choice. The lead article

entitled "Security for Your Future," opened as follows:

Salaried employees at AlleghenyLudlumcan feel quite secure in their jobsand with

very good reason. Since 1980, the year when Allegheny Ludlum became an

independent company, there have been no layoffs in the salaried ranks ... repeat: NO

LAYOFFS OF SALARIED EMPLOYEES.

This wasin spite of poor business conditionsthat were forcing other companiesto lay

off their employees by the hundreds. This was in spite of our own work force

reductions in Westwood and Wallingford. This was in spite of the closing of

Laminations. This was in spite of a program to return to our 1985 head count level.

This was in spite of a 10-week USWA strike last spring.

DA 381a. Following the statements describing AL's record of ensuring job security for salaried

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1Although the majority claims that it does not rely upon any parts of the newsletter in which

AL defended its past record on job security, Maj. Op. at 22 n.13, it plainly finds fault with the

newsletter's "ominous reference to the Company's past attempts to keep salaried employees' jobs

intact." Id. at 19; see also id. at 20 (one of three elements supporting violation of Act is

newsletter "statement that salaried employees had retained their jobs in the past"). 

employees, the article continued, "In all of these cases the Company found ways to manage the

situation without resorting to layoffs of salaried employees." Id.

The majority characterizes this final statement as an "ominous" reference to AL's past

performance in which the "message was clear" that the Company "would not look so hard [for ways

to avoid layoffs] in the future if the Union won." Maj. Op. at 19. There is, however, not a single

word in the article about what AL might do in the future. Like my colleagues, I find that AL's

statement sent a clear(but different) messagethe salaried non-exempt employees ofALalreadyhad

job security.

Because the majority reads into the statement an implied threat unsupported by its language

(even accepting that the statement was not heard by a "disinterested ear"), the majority's treatment

ofthe newsletter cannot be reconciled with the employer'sspeech rights protected undersection 8(c)

of the Act. On the majority's approach it appears that the employer can never respond to a union

characterization, whether accurate or not, of workplace conditions with a defense of the employer's

record.1If the employer does respond by describing how it has treated its employees in the past, we

will view this as an implied threat to end favorable treatment of employees if they vote for

unionization and will impose, in effect, a gag rule to prevent the employer from defending itsrecord.

This is not how section 8(c) speech rights are to be protected. Cf. Dow Chem., 660 F.2d at 644

("[C]entralto an analysis of employerstatementsisthe principle that § 8(c) at an irreducible minimum

protects the right of an employer to ... make truthful statements of existing facts. The First

Amendment would permit no less."); NLRB v. Automotive Controls Corp., 406 F.2d 221, 224 (10th

Cir. 1969) (concluding that employer'sstatement that it could move its plant at any time, when union

had previously stated that employer would violate law by moving its plant if union won election, was

protected under section 8(c) and declaring, "[I]t is necessary to guard against the Board adopting an

overly restrictive attitude toward employer communications."); NLRB v. River Togs, Inc., 382 F.2d

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2

In any event Gallagher's statements should not form the basis to affirm the Board's finding

that Your Choice violated the Act. Gallagher's interview was excerpted from AL's promotional

video. At oral argument Board counsel stated, "The Board does not say that the videotape itself

is a violation of the Act." Having conceded that, it cannot also argue that the same statements

violate the Act if included in a newsletter. 

3The majority emphasizes that the combination of the three items, each "reinforcing" the

others, constituted a threat, Maj. Op. at 20-21, 23, and at the same time characterizes a

particularized analysis of the items as non-contextual. Id. at 20-21. Frankly, I fail to see how the

198, 202 (2d Cir. 1967) ("If § 8(c) does not permit an employer to counter promises of pie in the sky

with reasonable warnings that the pie may be a mirage, it would indeed keep Congress' word of

promise to the ear but break it to the hope.").

The majority uses two other items in Your Choice to support its conclusion. They also are

taken out of context. Karen Gallagher's full statement printed in interview format is, "As a salaried

employee, I feelI have job security because if it came to a layoff due to lack of work, the first people

to be laid off would be those in the union." The majority quotes only the second half of the

statement. When the complete sentence is considered, however, it plainly states an individual

employee's belief that she currently has job security and therefore has no desire to join a union.2It

is not a threat by AL that AL will lay off employees who support the Union. Moreover, her statement

follows a lead-in paragraph indicating that Gallagher's views came "from her experience as a member

of the union," DA 319a, while working for a previous employer. A fair reading of the statement,

then, is that Gallagher was stating only what her previous employer had doneit had laid off union

members first. This reading is corroborated by Gallagher's testimony that her newsletter comments

referred to her "past experiences of being laid off" and not "the bargaining unit that was going to

vote." DA 179a. And finally the newsletter cartoon. It depicts a rat on a leash held by a hand

labelled with the Union's initials. The rat is removing a blanket from a sleeping figure. The blanket

has AL's initials on it and is labelled, "Secure Job at AL." The caption asks, "Will they get AL's

security blanket?" DA 322a. I read the cartoon as a statement, albeit a blunt one, that AL employees

currently enjoy job security. The rat symbolizes AL's belief that the Union will do a poorer job of

providing job security than AL. All three newsletter items highlighted by the majority do no more

than give AL's view of the current status of job security in response to the Union's version.3

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newsletter can be evaluated except by reviewing its contents. In any event, three items, none of

which threatens reprisal, cannot together do otherwise. 

An employer must be permitted to answer union chargesifitsspeech rights undersection 8(c)

have any meaning. Even if AL had not been responding to the Union's claims about job security, I

would nevertheless find that AL's newsletter does not run afoul of the Act. Gissel sets forth the rule

governing AL's newsletter:

[A]n employerisfree to communicate to his employees any of his general views about

unionism or any of his specific views about a particular union, so long as the

communications do not contain a "threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit."

He may even make a prediction as to the precise effects he believes unionization will

have on his company. In such a case, however, the prediction must be carefully

phrased on the basis of objective fact to convey an employer's belief as to

demonstrably probable consequences beyond his control or to convey a management

decision already arrived at to close the plant in case of unionization.

395 U.S. at 618. In Crown Cork &Seal Co. v. NLRB, 36 F.3d 1130 (D.C. Cir. 1994), we described,

and distinguished, two different "strands" under Gissel. 36 F.3d at 1134. Under the first strand, the

Board "may condemn a "threat of reprisal.' " Id. Under the second strand, the Board "may sanction

at least some predictions of adverse economic consequences: predictions that may be understood by

workers asthreats, because they suggest that the action will occur not because of ordinary operations

of a market economy ("economic necessities'), but because the employer, for reasons of labor

strategy, will seek to penalize concerted activity." Id. (emphasis in original).

Notwithstanding the majority's contrary characterization, Maj. Op. at 25 n.14, the Board

mistakenly analyzed this case under the second strand of Gissel. See Allegheny Ludlum Corp., 320

N.L.R.B. 484, 492 (1995) (quoting portion of Gissel standard referring to "demonstrably probable

consequences beyond [employer's] control" but making no mention of Gissel's "threat of reprisal"

language). The second strand of Gissel, however, applies to an employer who makes predictions of

"precise effects he believes unionization will have on his company." Gissel, 395 U.S. at 618

(emphasis added). Your Choice simply outlines AL's job security history and its belief that it will do

a better job of continuing job security than the Union. I fail to see how these statements can be read

as a prediction of "precise effects." To analyze this case under the second strand of Gissel establishes

a standard that will be impossible for any employer to meet. Because AL made no prediction of

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"precise effects" to begin with, there are no objective facts to which it can point to show that its

"prediction" describes consequences beyond its control.

By contrast, Crown Cork and Somerset Welding & Steel v. NLRB, 987 F.2d 777 (D.C. Cir.

1993), are properly analyzed under the second strand of Gissel. Thus I agree with the majority that

CrownCork and Somerset Welding are distinguishable in that the employers'statementsin those cases

were based on objective facts not within their control. Crown Cork involved a multi-plant bargaining

unit with a master collective bargaining agreement. With the operative contract terms before it, the

employer had a factual basis for its predictions. Similarly in Somerset Welding the employer's

predictions were based on a financialreport that it showed to the employees. There is no comparable

item of objective fact here. The majority, however, looks at only one half of the story because AL

did not predict "precise effects" as did the employers in Crown Cork and Somerset Welding. In

Crown Cork the employer stated, "WE WILL NOT BRING WORK INTO THIS PLANT." 36 F.3d

at 1133. In Somerset Welding the employer stated, "there'd be no way that the shop could continue

to go." 987 F.2d at 780. Under Gissel these predictions of precise effects must be based on objective

fact. No such requirement applies to the statements in AL's newsletter. Because I believe that AL's

newsletter does not violate the Act, I respectfully dissent from Part II.B of the majority's opinion.

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