Opinion ID: 185978
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Union misconduct

Text: 10 The Company makes no serious claim the evidence of Union misconduct in the present record conclusively establishes that the election should be set aside. Rather, the Company maintains it was an abuse of discretion for the Board to reject its claim without a hearing. 11 A party to a Board-supervised election is not entitled to a hearing on its objections unless the evidence raises a substantial and material issue[] of fact sufficient to support a prima facie showing of objectionable conduct. Swing Staging, Inc. v. NLRB, 994 F.2d 859, 862 (D.C.Cir.1993) (citing 29 C.F.R. § 102.69(d)). Whether the Company's evidence was sufficient depends upon the Board's substantive criteria for a claim of election misconduct. Id. Those criteria, in turn, depend upon who is charged with interfering with the election. 12 Where election misconduct is attributable to one of the parties, the Board will overturn the election if the misconduct created such an environment of tension and coercion as to have had a probable effect upon the employees' actions at the polls and to have materially affected the results of the election. Where misconduct is attributable to third parties, however, the Board will overturn an election only if the misconduct is so aggravated as to create a general atmosphere of fear and reprisal rendering a free election impossible. 13 Overnite Transp. Co. v. NLRB, 140 F.3d 259, 264-65 (D.C.Cir.1998) (citations and quotations omitted). 14 The Board applies common law principles of agency, including the doctrine of apparent authority, in order to determine whether a union (or employer) is responsible for the misconduct of its supporters. Id. at 265. In view of the factual nature of that determination, an evidentiary hearing ordinarily will be required in order to resolve a dispute about the relationship between a person alleged to have interfered with a Board-supervised election and one of the parties to that election. We review the Board's finding for reasonableness and to ensure that it is supported by substantial evidence. Id. 15 We agree with the Company that the Regional Director erred by deciding, on the basis of an undeveloped record, that Jennings was not an agent of the Union. The case upon which the Regional Director relied, Advance Prods. Corp., 304 N.L.R.B. 436, 1991 WL 172390, 1991 NLRB LEXIS 1043 (Aug. 27, 1991), is inapposite; although the Board there found apparent authority lacking, it did so with reference to details that had been developed at a hearing. Id. at 436. Meanwhile, the Regional Director's statement that the Company presented no evidence to support its assertion that the Union's records would demonstrate that the Union hired Jennings to conduct proUnion activities is erroneous. The Company submitted an affidavit identifying Jennings as an active Union supporter and an observer for the Union on the day of the election. The Company cannot be expected, in order to justify a hearing on the question of agency, to produce detailed information about the Union's records—the very information to which it seeks access through the hearing and associated discovery process. See Colquest Energy, Inc. v. NLRB, 965 F.2d 116, 122 (6th Cir.1992) (remanding for hearing upon agency question after noting employer's contention that only [the Union] has access to vital information concerning [the purported agents] within its files). 16 Our conclusion that the Regional Director improperly concluded Jennings was not acting as an agent of the Union does not necessarily entitle the Company to relief, however. The Regional Director held, in the alternative, that the Company's evidence was insufficient to merit a hearing under the standard for evaluating misconduct by the agent of a union (or employer) during the run-up to an election; more specifically, the Company did not raise a substantial factual question whether there had been misconduct [that] created such an environment of tension and coercion as to have had a probable effect upon the employees' actions at the polls and to have materially affected the results of the election. Overnite Transp. Co., 140 F.3d at 264 (citations and quotations omitted). We agree with the Regional Director's determination. 17 The Company alleged only that Jennings told fellow employees they had to vote for the Union, asked employees how they were going to vote, and followed an employee while she worked. Whether that conduct, assuming it occurred, is sufficiently serious to have had a probable effect upon the employees' actions at the polls, id., is an objective question for the Board, which asks whether the alleged misconduct is of a type that would cause interference with the free choice of a reasonable employee. See Kmart Corp., 322 N.L.R.B. 1014, 1015, 1997 WL 54588, 1996 NLRB LEXIS 91 (Feb. 6, 1997) (Subjective reactions of employees are irrelevant to the question of whether there was, in fact, objectionable conduct). It is therefore of little moment that the Company's witnesses were denied the opportunity to testify that they were intimidated. 18 We find no abuse of discretion in the Board's rejection of the Company's claim. Coercive campaigning can be threatening in any number of ways, but most commonly preys upon the employee's fear for her job security or personal safety. As the Regional Director noted, the Company produced nothing to suggest Jennings had any authority over any of her coworkers such that they might reasonably fear job-related reprisal if they voted against the Union. Nor did the Company suggest Jennings expressly threatened such reprisal, much less any physical harm. Yet the Company has cited no case in which the Board has required a hearing to explore such seemingly innocuous conduct as telling an employee she had to vote in a particular way or following an employee around the workplace. Indeed, we have upheld the Board in holding unobjectionable more serious conduct than that. Cf. Amalgamated Clothing, 736 F.2d at 1564-70 (under fear and coercion standard, boasts by pro-union employees that people could be hurt and cars [would be] torn up and panoply of anonymous pre-election threats and incidents of vandalism insufficient, even taken together, to warrant re-run election). We therefore uphold the Board's conclusion that the Company failed to present evidence meriting a hearing on its claim of election misconduct.