Opinion ID: 442901
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Observer Contact With Employees

Text: 7 Cassidy contends that, under Michem, Inc., 170 N.L.R.B. 362 (1968), the Union observer's comments to employees are a per se ground for overturning the election, without regard to the content or duration of the conversations. We disagree. 8 In Michem, the Board stated that prolonged conversations between parties to an election and voters waiting to vote will normally ... be deemed prejudicial. Id. at 363. However, the Board also noted that the rule does not mean that any chance, isolated, innocuous comment or inquiry by an employer or union official to a voter will necessarily void the election. Id. 9 The evidence in this case amply supports the Regional Director's conclusion that the observer's comments to employees could not have prejudiced the election results. Only two contacts between the observer and employees appear in the record. In the first, the observer asked an employee who had been ill how he was feeling. The employee's vote was later challenged and was not counted. In the second encounter, the employee asked the observer, who was returning to the polls from the restroom, to get him a soft drink from the machine located in the polling area since employees were not allowed to enter that area except to vote. The observer did so. Neither of these encounters occurred in the polling area, and there is no evidence of electioneering. See NLRB v. Newton-New Haven Co., 506 F.2d 1035, 1037 (2d Cir.1974) ([T]he rationale of Michem is to eliminate the last-minute advantage given a party who intrudes upon the privacy of the employee while he is in the polling place or standing on line to vote.). Cf. Midwest Stock Exchange v. NLRB, 620 F.2d 629 (7th Cir.) (Michem violated where observer engaged in repeated conversations with voters standing in line to vote, one of which lasted five minutes), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 873, 101 S.Ct. 214, 66 L.Ed.2d 94 (1980). 10 The circumstances of this case show no more than the chance, isolated, innocuous comment[s] which the Board indicated in Michem are insufficient without more to invalidate an election.