Opinion ID: 772089
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The January 1996 Wage Increase

Text: 19 The second of the two discriminatory wage increases was implemented by Overnite in January 1996, arising from a series of events chronicled in the ALJ's Decision. In early 1995, Overnite enlisted the services of management consultants who recommended substantial operational changes, including the closure of service centers, route changes, and decreased hours. Id. at 55. To make these proposed changes more palatable to employees, President Douglas and other Overnite officials decided to propose a fifty-cent-per-hour wage increase -to be funded by significant productivity-boosting measures. Id. at 56. Accordingly, Overnite drafted a productivity agreement setting forth the hourly raise, along with other enhancements to insurance benefits and overtime pay. These benefit increases were conditioned on the Union's national committee consenting to Overnite's right, inter alia, to `[s]et, change and cancel days and hours of work' for all job classifications and to set driving schedules, routes, and running times. Id. at 57. 20 Overnite pitched the productivity agreement to its employees in December 1995. The ALJ characterized the company's tactics as follows: 21 What Overnite did here was to send by overnight mail its productivity agreement to the Union, wait 1 day, and then make its presentation to the employees directly, 2 days before negotiations were to or did resume. That bypasses the Union in the same way as if [Overnite] never made any proposal at all to the Union, and Overnite certainly gave the Union no adequate opportunity to digest the proposal or to respond or to begin discussion. 22 Id. at 58. Ultimately, the Union's national committee rejected the proposed productivity agreement, and Overnite unilaterally granted the fifty-cent increase to employees at ninety-three percent of its service centers -all those except the represented units-continuing its established practice of yearly increases and holding back on only the ones that had voted for the Teamsters. Id. at 59. 23 Overnite then took measures to ensure that this discriminatory wage increase would be noticed by its employees. Indeed, the ALJ found that Overnite publicized the withholding of the increase to demonstrate that voting for the Teamsters presented serious, adverse consequences. Id. at 60. The company flaunted its actions, and it distributed [anti-union] campaign flyers stating that employees in the represented units were 50 cents per hour behind nonunion employees after the 1996 wage increase and blamed the Union for refusing to allow the employees it represented to accept the increase and refusing to bargain above the increase. Id.