Opinion ID: 201690
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Efforts to Decertify the Union

Text: 24 The Hospital's next challenge concerns the effort by a Hospital supervisor to encourage employees to decertify the Union. The Board has interpreted the Act to prevent an employer from lending employees more than ministerial aid in their efforts to file a decertification petition against a union. See Eastern States Optical Co., 275 NLRB 371, 372 (1985); accord V&S ProGalv, Inc. v. NLRB, 168 F.3d 270, 276 (6th Cir.1999); NLRB v. United Union Roofers, Local No. 81, 915 F.2d 508, 512 n. 6 (9th Cir.1990). 25 The Board found that the Hospital violated this prohibition. The ALJ and the Board both credited the testimony of Barbara Feliciano, a hospital employee and Union member. She testified that, in the winter of 1999, she attended a meeting in which a Hospital supervisor, Blanca Hernandez, explained to several employees the procedure for decertifying the Union. Hernandez also told the employees that they should sign the decertification petition because they had lost benefits while unionized and that if they decertified the Union, the Hospital would be able to give them raises. Feliciano further testified that, after the meeting, Hernandez called her into her office and asked her to sign a paper containing a list of other employees who wanted to decertify the Union. Hernandez denied that either of these meetings took place, but the ALJ found her testimony incredible and the Board did not disturb that finding. 26 The Hospital does not claim that Hernandez's conduct constituted permissible ministerial aid, even though the parameters of this standard are not entirely clear. See Catherine Meeker, Defining Ministerial Aid: Union Decertification Under the National Labor Relations Act, 66 U. Chi. L.Rev. 999 (1999); see also Vic Koenig Chevrolet Inc. v. NLRB, 126 F.3d 947, 949 (7th Cir.1997). Rather, it simply contends that the Board should have credited Hernandez's testimony. But it is a fundamental principle that, absent a showing that the ALJ overstepped the bounds of reason, we will not disturb the ALJ's credibility determinations. Ryan Iron Works, Inc. v. NLRB, 257 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir.2001). The Hospital has not come close to meeting this standard. The conclusion that the Hospital violated the Act by encouraging employees to decertify the Union is supported by substantial evidence.