Opinion ID: 187098
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Labor Violations

Text: The Board found that W & M violated the NLRA by interfering with the employees' right to unionize, declining to hire its predecessor's employees because of their union membership, and refusing to bargain with the union. See 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (3), (5) (proscribing such conduct). We review the Board's order to determine whether it enjoys the support of substantial evidence in the record. Waterbury Hotel Mgmt., LLC v. NLRB, 314 F.3d 645, 650 (D.C.Cir.2003). Our review of the Board's factual conclusions is highly deferential, Capital Cleaning Contractors, Inc. v. NLRB, 147 F.3d 999, 1004 (D.C.Cir.1998), for we must treat the Board's findings of fact as conclusive if supported by substantial evidence, 29 U.S.C § 160(e). We will not disturb the Board's reasonably defensible interpretation of the facts, Traction Wholesale Ctr. Co. v. NLRB, 216 F.3d 92, 99 (D.C.Cir. 2000), regardless whether we might rule differently de novo, Evergreen Am. Corp. v. NLRB, 362 F.3d 827, 837 (D.C.Cir.2004). Greater still is the deference due a credibility determination or a finding regarding motive. See Capital Cleaning, 147 F.3d at 1004. W & M challenges the finding that it unlawfully interrogated Perez about his union membership. Coercive interrogation of this sort violates § 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, which makes it an unfair labor practice to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their right to unionize. 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1). The standard for unlawful interrogation is whether an employer's questions about union membership reasonably tended to interfere with, restrain, or coerce. Facchina Constr. Co., 343 N.L.R.B. 886, 886 (2004), enforced mem., 180 Fed.Appx. 178 (D.C.Cir.2006). The Board, after properly examining the totality of the circumstances, Vincent Indus. Plastics, Inc. v. NLRB, 209 F.3d 727, 737 (D.C.Cir.2000), found that Heller's coercive questioning of Perez violated § 8(a)(1) of the NLRA. Substantial evidence supports this conclusion. Testifying before the administrative law judge, Perez described the following interaction: [Q:] Okay. Anything else you recall being discussed in that meeting with Mr. Heller? [A:] Yes. He asked me, you know, likehe also asked me how long I was a member of Local 30. [Q:] And what did you tell him? [A:] I told him for almost eight years. You know, he also asked me, you know, like, if I was to get laid off, like, if the Union would get me another job. Questions about union membership have a tendency to coerce. See Allegheny Ludlum Corp. v. NLRB, 104 F.3d 1354, 1359 (D.C.Cir.1997). This is especially so where the questioning occurs behind closed doors and is initiated by a company official, as it was in this case. See Timsco Inc. v. NLRB, 819 F.2d 1173, 1178 (D.C.Cir.1987); Perdue Farms, Inc., Cookin' Good Div. v. NLRB, 144 F.3d 830, 835-36 (D.C.Cir. 1998). A reasonable jury viewing this record could have found W & M's questioning to violate § 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, so we conclude that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding to that effect. See Allentown Mack Sales & Serv., Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U.S. 359, 366-67, 118 S.Ct. 818, 139 L.Ed.2d 797 (1998). W & M also challenges the finding that it discriminatorily refused to hire TrizecHahn's unionized employees, in violation of § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). The Board's finding to this effect is built upon two propositions, each of which finds support in the record. First is the proposition that W & M harbored anti-union animus against the TrizecHahn engineers. Gerrit Blauvelt, W & M's Director of Property Management, told one job applicant that W & M would never recognize Local 30 because the owners did not want a unionized workforce at First Stamford Place, and told another that if anyone was going to work for W & M that it would have to be non-Union. The second proposition is that W & M's excuse for not hiring the TrizecHahn engineers was a pretext for anti-union animus. W & M claimed that its decision not to hire McGoohan, Bonos, Stofko, and Cassidy was based on its walking tours, which showed First Stamford Place to be in disrepair; on its neutral and objective hiring criteria; and on its interviews, which revealed certain employees to be unsatisfactory. The Board reasonably discredited the disrepair argument because W & M made no effort to attribute the problems found to the employees not hired, and in fact showed an interest in hiring Joe Marra despite his responsibility, as Property Manager, for the poor condition of First Stamford Place. The Board inferred from the hiring of Benitez and outside applicant Adalberto Sothic', both of whom lacked relevant experience, and from the failure to hire more qualified and better trained employees, that W & M's alleged criteria were illusory. Finally, the Board discredited W & M officials' claims that subjective but neutral observations from the interviews supported the decision not to hire. Substantial evidence supports the finding of a violation of § 8(a)(3) of the NLRA because, taken together, these items from the record are enough to persuade a reasonable jury that protected union conduct was a motivating factor in W & M's decisionmaking process, and that it failed to establish an affirmative defense under Wright Line and Planned Building. See Allentown Mack, 522 U.S. at 366-67, 118 S.Ct. 818. Finally, the Board found that W & M's objection to the administrative law judge's conclusion on the § 8(a)(5) refusal-to-bargain charge depended on its contention that the § 8(a)(3) finding was erroneous. Having properly rejected W & M's challenges to the § 8(a)(3) finding, the Board reasonably found no merit in W & M's exceptions to the administrative law judge's findings on the § 8(a)(5) charge.