Opinion ID: 760360
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Union Agents' Invasion of the Workplace

Text: 42 FSA also alleged that Union agents repeatedly invaded the employer's workplace during working times to engage in electioneering with employees, deliberately creating hostile confrontations with management and refusing to leave when lawfully asked to do [sic]. J.A. at 45. This objection must also fail. When a party to an election is alleged to have engaged in conduct requiring the overturning of the election results, the Board, and we, employ a standard similar to the one used with allegations of improper electioneering. [T]he Board judges the conduct by assessing whether it 'reasonably tend[ed] to interfere with the employees' free and uncoerced choice in the election.'  NLRB v. Earle Industries, Inc., 999 F.2d 1268, 1272 (8th Cir.1993) (quoting Baja's Place, Inc. v. Hotel, Motel, Restaurant Employees Union, 268 N.L.R.B. 868, 868, 1984 WL 36040 (1984)). The factors the Board considers include: the number of incidents of misconduct; the severity of the incidents and whether they were likely to cause fear among the employees in the bargaining unit; and the proximity of the misconduct to the election date. See id.; see also Avis Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc. v. Local Lodge 724, 280 N.L.R.B. 580, 1986 WL 53941 (1986). 43 Here, as the Board correctly found, Mitchell and Garcia made several visits to the Bryant Street site but only two alleged incidents of misconduct occurred. Site Supervisor Storey's brief run-in with Mitchell could hardly be described as likely to induce fear among employees; it was not confrontational and there is no evidence that Mitchell was even asked to leave. Although there were witnesses to Storey's initial encounter with Garcia, that encounter consisted only of Garcia's telling Mitchell that he had a right to be on the premises. The evidence does not reflect that there were any witnesses to the subsequent, slightly more rancorous encounter in the office. Even so, whatever employee angst may have resulted from these two encounters surely dissipated by election day--one incident occurred five months and the other one month before the election. Cf. Wilkinson Mfg. Co. v. NLRB, 456 F.2d 298, 303-04 (8th Cir.1972) (two month interval before election not enough if the incident had been a constant topic of discussion and concern); Station Operators, 307 N.L.R.B. 263, 1992 WL 90690 (1992) (fact that incident occurred two weeks before election supported finding that pre-election misconduct did not taint election). This case is thus distinguishable from Phillips Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 304 N.L.R.B. 16, 1991 WL 160361 (1991), where union agents engaged in a shouting match with the company's president in front of all 10 members of the bargaining unit an hour before the polls opened and refused to leave even after the company called the police. These two run-ins did not rise to the level of interfering with employees' free and uncoerced choice in the election. 44