Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-09558/USCOURTS-ca10-89-09558-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Apparatus Service, Inc.
Respondent
National Labor Relations Board
Petitioner

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

FILED 

United Stat.es C.nrt ol Apt)eLls 

Tl"Tlt.h ~ircuit 

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

APPARATUS SERVICE, INC., 

Respondent. 

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APR 2 31991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-9558 

(NLRB No. 17-CA-14029) 

(Petition for Enforcement) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before ANDERSON, TACHA, Circuit Judges, and KANE,** District 

Judge. 

**Honorable John L. 

District Court for 

designation. 

Kane, Senior District Judge, United States 

the District of Colorado, sitting by 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

The National Labor Relations Board (Board) petitions this 

court for enforcement of its order adopting a decision of the 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-9558 Document: 010110034327 Date Filed: 04/23/1991 Page: 1 
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), who had found respondent Apparatus 

Service, Inc. (ASI) guilty of three separate violations of the 

National Labor Relations Act and had ordered relief accordingly. 

Specifically, the Board held ASI had (1) interfered with 

employees' organizational rights by interrogating them about union 

affiliation, (2) wrongfully refused to bargain collectively with 

the International Union of Electrical Workers Local 1126 (IUE), 

its employees' certified union, and (3) maintained an improper 

policy prohibiting employees from discussing their salaries, all 

in violation of 29 u.s.c. § 158(a)(l) and (5). In response to the 

Board's petition, ASI challenges each of these holdings. 

When reviewing an order of the Board, we "should grant 

enforcement if the Board correctly interpreted and applied the law 

and if its findings are supported by substantial evidence in the 

record, considered in its entirety." YMCA of Pikes Peak Region, 

Inc. v. NLRB, 914 F.2d 1442, 1449 (10th Cir. 1990)(quoting 

Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center v. NLRB, 723 F.2d 1468, 

1471 (10th Cir. 1983)). If substantial evidence, i.e., "such 

relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate," 

exists to support the Board's findings on questions of fact, they 

are conclusive under 29 U.S.C. S 160(e). Presbyterian/St. Luke's, 

723 F.2d at 1471 (quoting Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 

474, 477 (1951)). While our review of questions of law is not so 

circumscribed, nevertheless "the experienced judgment of the Board 

is entitled to great weight." Id. at 1472 (quoting Crane Sheet 

Metal, Inc. v. NLRB, 675 F.2d 256, 257 (10th Cir. 1982)). With 

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Appellate Case: 89-9558 Document: 010110034327 Date Filed: 04/23/1991 Page: 2 
these standards in mind, we turn to the specific issues resolved 

by the Board. 

Questioning of employees concerning union activities, "though 

not per se violative of the Act, is prohibited by section 

[158(a)(l)] if accompanied by coercion, threat, or restraint." 

Presbyterian/St. Luke's, 723 F.2d at 1475. "The test is not 

whether employees were actually coerced, but whether the 

questioning tended to be coercive." Id. Thus, "[a] violation is 

established 'if the questions asked, when viewed and interpreted 

as the employee must have understood the questioning and its 

ramifications, could reasonably coerce or intimidate the employee 

with regard to union activities.'" Id. (quoting NLRB v. Rich's 

Precision Foundry, Inc., 667 F.2d 613, 624 (7th Cir. 1981)). This 

issue necessarily involves an exercise of judgment on the basis of 

facts, inferences and credibility assessments that lie peculiarly 

in the province of the Board, whose determination in this regard 

will not be disturbed if there is substantial evidence to support 

it. NLRB v. Wilhow Corp., 666 F.2d 1294, 1300 (10th Cir. 1981); 

Groendyke Transport, Inc. v. NLRB, 530 F.2d 137, 144 (10th Cir. 

1976). 

At a time when ASI was challenging the representational 

status of the previously certified IUE, ASI president and general 

manager Lawrence Fuller interviewed four newly hired employees. 

The intentions of these employees with respect to union 

representation were especially important, since they constituted a 

significant percentage of the employees in the pertinent 

collective bargaining unit. In the interviews, Fuller expressed 

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Appellate Case: 89-9558 Document: 010110034327 Date Filed: 04/23/1991 Page: 3 
,. 

circumstances in each case." Johns-Manville Sales Corp. v. NLRB, 

906 F.2d 1428, 1431 (10th Cir. 1990)(citations and footnote 

omitted). 

The only potentially valid bases asserted by ASI for its 

doubts were: (1) anti-union sentiments expressed by the four 

newly hired employees to Fuller and (2) negative statements about 

the union's efficacy made by two of the five holdover employees 

and related to Fuller by the shop foreman. Rec. Vol. I at 30, 

101-02. In light of our affirmance of the Board's finding of 

coercion in connection with Fuller's communication with the new 

employees, we also agree that whatever views they expressed to 

Fuller could not properly supply the objective indicia of 

anti-union employee sentiment required to overcome the presumption 

in favor of IUE. See NLRB v. Burns Int'l Sec. Servs. Inc., 406 

U.S. 272, 279-80 (1972)("It goes without saying, of course, that 

[employer] was not entitled to upset what it should have accepted 

as an established union majority [pursuant to presumption of 

continuing majority status] by soliciting representation cards for 

another union and thereby 

practice . ") . As to 

committing 

the holdover 

[an] unfair 

employees' 

labor 

alleged 

dissatisfaction with the union, the two employees named by Fuller 

both testified at the hearing and denied making any such 

representations, Rec. Vol. I at 48 (Napoleon Lewis) and 65 (Henry 

Thompson), though one of the two did state that he had inquired in 

a facially neutral manner about Fuller's preferences regarding the 

union, Rec. Vol. I at 69-71. Furthermore, as also noted by the 

Board, Fuller was presented with a petition affirming IUE's 

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Appellate Case: 89-9558 Document: 010110034327 Date Filed: 04/23/1991 Page: 4 
representation signed by all members of the unit, including the 

four new employees he had interviewed, and thereafter nevertheless 

responded to union demands for negotiation with a letter advising 

IUE of ASI's position that the union no longer represented a 

majority of unit employees. We affirm the Board's determination 

that, under these circumstances, ASI breached its statutory duty 

to bargain with the union. 2 

Finally, ASI does not challenge the Board's finding that its 

prohibition on employee disclosures of salary information was 

improper, but only the Board's determination that the policy 

constitutes a statutory violation despite ASI's assertion that it 

is not unequivocally mandatory (i.e., the policy says employees 

"should not" discuss their salaries) and has not resulted in any 

employee discipline. We agree with the Board that the proscribed 

conduct is protected, see NLRB v. American Spring Bed Mfg. Co., 

670 F.2d 1236, 1242 (1st Cir. 1982), and that the prohibition is 

stated in sufficiently compelling terms to chill the undesired 

activity (which, of course, may be the very reason disciplinary 

enforcement action has evidently not been necessary). ASI has not 

cited us to any authority requiring reversal of the Board's 

experienced judgment on this matter. Indeed, the Board's 

determination here appears to be affirmatively supported, rather 

than undercut, by its consistency with the Board's prior decision 

2 This case does not present the problem identified in 

Johns-Manville Sales Corp., where we held the Board had erred in 

imposing, at least in practical effect, a requirement that the 

employer establish good faith doubt by the express statements of a 

majority of individual workers. Id. at 1432-33. Here the Board 

properly relied on consensus affirmation of union allegiance, not 

the absence of express majority repudiation. 

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in W. R. Grace Co., 240 N.L.R.B. 813, 1978-79 NLRB (CCH) 1 15568 

(1979), in which a similar policy was held to be a violation of 

the act despite the employer's assertion that the policy was 

voluntary and the absence of evidence that any employee had been 

disciplined for noncompliance. 

For the foregoing reasons, we grant enforcement of the 

Board's order. 

Entered for the Court 

Stephen H. Anderson 

Circuit Judge 

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