Opinion ID: 1562805
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Interferences with the Employees' Rights.

Text: As for the respondent's campaign against the Union, the Board found that by disseminating this anti-union propaganda the respondent has interfered with, restrained and coerced its employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed them in Section 7 of the Act. The respondent claims that this finding raises a constitutional issue of freedom of speech, citing National Labor Relations Board v. Ford Motor Co., 6 Cir., 1940, 114 F.2d 905, certiorari denied, February 10, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 621, 85 L.Ed. ___; 54 Harv.L.Rev. 344. As an abstract proposition it may be conceded that The constitutional right of free speech    in regard to labor matters is just as clearly a right of employers as of employees. Continental Box Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 5 Cir., 1940, 113 F.2d 93, 97. This is especially true in a case like the present one, where there has been a hitch in collective bargaining negotiations and the Union has called a strike not provoked by an unfair labor practice. The employer in such a case must be privileged to publish to his employees, and to the public at large, his version of the breakdown of negotiations and of the points at issue. And this privilege cannot be confined too narrowly by objective canons of reasonableness of argument and temperateness of expression. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 1940, 310 U.S. 296, 310, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 128 A.L.R. 1352. On the other hand, the Supreme Court said in Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc., 61 S.Ct. 552, 555, 85 L.Ed. ___, decided February 10, 1941: It must never be forgotten, however, that the Bill of Rights was the child of the Enlightenment. Back of the guarantee of free speech lay faith in the power of an appeal to reason by all the peaceful means for gaining access to the mind. It was in order to avert force and explosions due to restrictions upon rational modes of communication that the guarantee of free speech was given a generous scope. But utterance in a context of violence can lose its significance as an appeal to reason and become part of an instrument of force. Such utterance was not meant to be sheltered by the Constitution. This was said in upholding a state court injunction forbidding picketing, including peaceful picketing, the working man's means of communication. Cf. Gompers v. Buck's Stove & Range Co., 1911, 221 U.S. 418, 31 S.Ct. 492, 55 L.Ed. 797, 34 L.R.A.,N.S., 874. The argument can be turned against an employer in comparable circumstances. Anti-union propaganda addressed by an employer to his employees may be more than a mere expression of opinion, may lose its significance as an appeal to reason, in a context of violence, intimidation or coercion. At this point the employer's constitutional right of free speech ends. System Federation No. 40 v. Virginian Ry., D.C. E.D. Va.1935, 11 F. Supp. 621, 624, 633, affirmed, 4 Cir., 1936, 84 F.2d 641, 643, affirmed, 1937, 300 U.S. 515, 57 S.Ct. 592, 81 L.Ed. 789; National Labor Relations Board v. Elkland Leather Co., supra; Virginia Ferry Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 4 Cir., 1939, 101 F.2d 103. In Continental Box Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, supra, 113 F.2d at page 97, the court said: The employer has the right to have and to express a preference for one union over another so long as that expression is the mere expression of opinion in the exercise of free speech and is not the use of economic power to coerce, compel or buy the support of the employees for or against a particular labor organization. But the difficulty with the practical application of a formula of this sort is that intimations of an employer's preference, though subtle, may be as potent as outright threats of discharge. National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Co., supra [61 S.Ct. 366, 85 L.Ed. ___]. As the Supreme Court said in International Ass'n of Machinists, etc., v. National Labor Relations Board, 1940, 311 U.S. 72, 78, 61 S.Ct. 83, 88, 85 L.Ed. ___: Known hostility to one union and clear discrimination against it may indeed make seemingly trivial intimations of preference for another union powerful assistance for it. Slight suggestions as to the employer's choice between unions may have telling effect among men who know the consequences of incurring that employer's strong displeasure. The same thought was expressed by Judge Parker in Virginian Ry. v. System Federation No. 40, 4 Cir., 84 F.2d 641, 643, where he said: It must be remembered in this connection, however, that any sort of influence exerted by an employer upon an employee, dependent upon his employment for means of livelihood, may very easily become undue, in that it will coerce the employee's will in favor of what the employer desires, against his better judgment as to what is really in the best interest of himself and his fellow employees. The problem of striking a balance between the important conflicting interests involved is one of peculiar gravity and delicacy. For this reason, the approach of the courts toward a fair and workable solution must needs be cautious, and an opinion on the subject should not go beyond the exigencies of the particular case. In the present case we are not required to decide whether the company's campaign of publicity and propaganda conducted a couple of weeks during the strike in 1937 constituted a separate and independent unfair labor practice. Without intimating any opinion as to the correctness of the decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Ford Motor Co., supra [114 F.2d 909], it is to be noted that the Board's order in that case specifically commanded the company to cease and desist from interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act by circulating, distributing or otherwise disseminating among its employees statements or propaganda which disparages or criticizes labor organizations or which advises its employees not to join such organizations . (Italics ours.) This portion of the Board's order, the court in the Ford case declined to enforce. In the case at bar the Board did not specifically order the respondent to cease and desist from disseminating among its employees statements disparaging labor organizations or advising its employees not to join such organizations. The Board in its decision pointed out that the propaganda was directed to its employees in an effort to forestall bargaining with their duly designated representatives; the propaganda was thus a phase of the refusal to bargain. But there is ample evidence to sustain the Board's finding of a violation of Section 8 (5) without the necessity of our ruling that the propaganda, in and of itself, constituted an unfair labor practice. The order under review commands the employer in general terms, in paragraph 1 (d), to cease and desist from in any other manner interfering with, restraining or coercing its employees in the exercise of their rights to self-organization, to form, join or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing or to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, as guaranteed in Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. This general provision has been included in all Labor Board orders where the employer has been found guilty of any of the unfair labor practices described in Section 8 of the Act. National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Co., supra; Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, supra; National Labor Relations Board v. Highland Park Mfg. Co., 4 Cir., 1940, 110 F.2d 632, 639; Republic Steel Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 3 Cir., 1939, 107 F.2d 472; National Labor Relations Board v. National Motor Bearing Co., 9 Cir., 1939, 105 F.2d 652, 660, 661. The Board's justification for the general cease and desist order has been that the unfair labor practices described in subsections (2), (3), (4) and (5) of Section 8 are species of the generic unfair labor practice defined in Section 8 (1). Art Metals Construction Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 2 Cir., 1940, 110 F.2d 148, 150. But in National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Co., March 3, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 693, 697, 85 L.Ed. ___, the Supreme Court for the first time had occasion to criticize the breadth of a Board order directing the employer to cease and desist from in any manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of their rights as guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act. That was a case where the only specific unfair labor practice found by the Board was a refusal to bargain in violation of Section 8 (5), which, as the court recognized, was also a technical violation of Section 8 (1). Mr. Justice Stone pointed out that the breadth of the order, like the injunction of a court, must depend upon the circumstances of each case, the purpose being to prevent violations, the threat of which in the future is indicated because of their similarity or relation to those unlawful acts which the Board has found to have been committed by the employer in the past. It was recognized that in several cases, arising both under the National Labor Relations Act and under the Railway Labor Act, the Supreme Court had approved cease and desist orders in broad terms substantially like paragraph 1 (d) of the order now under review. But in them, the court said the unfair labor practices did not appear to be isolated acts in violation of the right of self-organization, like the refusal to bargain here, but the record disclosed persistent attempts by varying methods to interfere with the right of self-organization in circumstances from which the Board or the court found or could have found the threat of continuing and varying efforts to attain the same end in the future. In the Express Publishing Company case the court did not think that a mere refusal to bargain in violation of Section 8 (5), unaggravated by other unfair labor practices, was sufficient to warrant an order in the broader form. It therefore modified the general order of the Board so as to make it require only that the employer should cease and desist from in any manner interfering with the efforts of the Guild to bargain collectively with Express Publishing Company. In the case at bar there was more than a mere refusal to bargain, in violation of Section 8 (5). There was also, as we have seen, a violation of Section 8 (3) in the discriminatory discharge of four employees. Further, there was a violation of Section 8 (1) in signing up the employees under individual contracts which imposed a restraint upon them in the exercise of their right to bargain collectively in the future as a result of provisions in the contracts which forestalled future collective bargaining upon matters which are frequent subjects of negotiation between employers and employees. It would seem that the conjunction of these three unfair labor practices would justify the broader form of cease and desist order, consistent with the scope of the reasoning in the Express Publishing Company case. We are led to this conclusion by an examination of National Labor Relations Board v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., supra, where a general cease and desist order was held within the competence of the Board though the only specific unfair labor practice found was the discriminatory refusal of the employer to rehire certain of the strikers after the collapse of a strike which had not been provoked by an unfair labor practice. If we undertook to modify the Board's order following the pattern of the modification in the Express Publishing Company case we do not think that the effect of the order in its present broader form would as a practical matter be much altered. After the specific cease and desist orders in paragraph 1 (a), (b) and (c), we would further order the respondent to cease and desist from in any manner interfering with the efforts of the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee to bargain collectively with Reed & Prince Mfg. Co.; and to cease and desist from in any manner discouraging membership in Steel Workers' Organizing Committee and Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel & Tin Workers of North America, Local 1315, or in any other labor organization of its employees. In the Express Publishing Company case the Supreme Court recognized that a subsequent discriminatory discharge of union members may so affect the bargaining process as to establish a violation of the modified order. So in the case at bar, a future violation of Section 8 (2), for example, by promoting and dominating a company union would have a tendency both to interfere with the efforts of the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee to bargain with the respondent and to discourage membership in such labor organization. Indeed, it would not take much ingenuity to find that almost any kind of unfair labor practice, manifesting hostility to one union, or favoritism to another, would have the effect of encouraging or discouraging membership in a labor organization, and thus would be a contempt of the decree in the form suggested. Hence there would not seem to be much point in modifying paragraph 1 (d) of the Board's order as it now stands. We therefore think that under the circumstances here disclosed the broader prohibition as appears in paragraph 1 (d) of the Board's order is within the discretion of the Board and should be enforced. Since paragraph 1 (d) of the Order requiring the respondent to cease and desist from interfering with the exercise of the rights of the employees under section 7 can be enforced on the above grounds, it is unnecessary to decide whether or not the Board was justified in finding that the dissemination of anti-union literature, in the particular circumstances of this case, was in itself a forbidden form of interference. Paragraph 2 (e), dealing with the posting of notices, will be modified by striking from it the words will cease and desist and substituting for them the words will not engage in the conduct from which it is ordered to cease and desist. National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Co., supra. A decree will be entered enforcing the order of the Board with the modifications of paragraphs 2 (c), (d) and (e) as previously indicated.