Opinion ID: 2810515
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Coercion and Interrogation

Text: The ALJ concluded “that the General Counsel did not prove illegal interrogations and/or surveillance as alleged in paragraph 4 of the complaint.” The Board sustained the General Counsel’s appeal of these rulings and modified its Decision and Order accordingly. The Board found that Correa’s statements to Zamora may not have been interrogation but were nonetheless coercive. Board Member Johnson in concurring “emphasize[d] the need to afford employers the legitimate opportunity to exchange views with employees on terms and conditions of employment.” The Board further found that statements to Degante and Salgado created the impression of wrongful surveillance: “Garcia told Degante that ‘someone’ had told him that Degante was the leader of the planned work stoppage, and Correa accused Salgado of organizing the work stoppage.” Member Johnson dissented from this ruling, finding “insufficient basis to find that Degante and Salgado would reasonably infer from Correa and Garcia’s statements that knowledge or suspicion of their role in the protected activity resulted from management surveillance.” Greater Omaha petitions for review of both rulings.
Section 8(a)(1) prohibits an employer from “coerc[ing] employees in the exercise of the[ir] rights.” However, Section 8(c) explicitly recognizes that not all displeased communications from an employer to an employee are coercive: “The expressing of any views, argument, or opinion . . . shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice . . . if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.” 29 U.S.C. § 158(c). Accordingly, to violate Section 8(a)(1), -9- a statement must contain a threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit. See NLRB v. Hart Beverage Co., 445 F.2d 415, 420 (8th Cir. 1971). “Questioning which does not coerce or restrain employees in their right to [engage in protected activity] is permissible.” NLRB v. Douglas Div., Scott & Fetzer Co., 570 F.2d 742, 745 (8th Cir. 1978). The Board found that supervisor Correa asking Zamora, “what it is that [Zamora] wanted,” stating that Zamora had a good job, and then repeating the inquiry, while perhaps not interrogation, “were nonetheless coercive, as they conveyed displeasure with Zamora’s protected activity.” But the relevant question is not whether management expressed displeasure, but whether the statements reasonably tended to coerce the employee not to exercise his right to engage in concerted activity. The only coercion articulated by the Board was that the statements were made just before the planned work stoppage “and were immediately followed by Zamora’s termination for engaging in protected conduct.” But Zamora was not being coerced, he was being fired. And other employees were not coerced by this statement, as Zamora was summarily escorted from the plant without an opportunity to relate management’s displeasure to his coworkers. In these circumstances, the termination was coercive, but the brief statements preceding termination were not. We agree with Board Member Johnson that employers must be permitted a reasonable opportunity to exchange views with unrepresented employees about their collective concerns with the terms and conditions of their employment. Here, Correa’s question, “What do you want,” was exactly such an inquiry. If Zamora had responded, “We need to talk about line speeds,” rather than, “I want more money,” perhaps management’s response would have been different than summary discharge. The point is that unless the statement itself coerces an employee not to exercise his rights, it is protected by Section 8(c) -10- and is not a violation of Section 8(a)(1).1 The Board’s Order was contrary to this essential statutory principle. We therefore decline to enforce paragraph 2(b) of the Amended Conclusions of Law and paragraph 1(b) of the cease and desist Order.
We have in numerous cases upheld Board determinations that an employer violated Section 8(a)(1) by “keeping its employees’ union activities under surveillance. . . . Such conduct is violative of Section 8(a)(1) as it could inhibit the right of employees to pursue their union activities untrammeled by the fear of possible employer economic coercion or other forms of retaliation.” NLRB v. Ralph Printing & Lithographing Co., 379 F.2d 687, 691 (8th Cir. 1967) (maintaining list of union adherents); see Miss. Transp., Inc. v. NLRB, 33 F.3d 972, 978 (8th Cir. 1994) (monitoring union activities). However, “absent a tendency to coerce, surveillance or creating the impression of surveillance does not constitute a § 8(a)(1) violation.” Belcher Towing Co. v. NLRB, 726 F.2d 705, 708 (11th Cir. 1984). Indeed, the employer’s right to non-coercively gather information, even about union activities, is protected by Section 8(c). See Douglas Div., 570 F.2d at 745-46 (enforcement denied because “casual and sporadic” questions about union organizing campaign were not coercive); Bridgestone Firestone S.C., 350 N.L.R.B. 526, 527 (2007). 1 In April 2012, Zamora was a vocal participant in a work stoppage (for which he was not disciplined). Correa told the involved employees that Greater Omaha’s salaries were competitive taking employee benefits into account. Correa’s question at the start of his May 14 meeting with Zamora, and Zamora’s response, were consistent with a continuation of that lawful April discussion. By contrast, the cases on which the Board relies all involved statements made to discourage employees from supporting or voting for a union, and the employers used words conveying a clear threat of reprisal. See, e.g., NLRB v. Intertherm, Inc., 596 F.2d 267, 273-76 (8th Cir. 1979); NLRB v. Crystal Tire Co., 410 F.2d 916, 918 (8th Cir. 1969). -11- In recent cases involving employer surveillance of union activities, the Board has seemed to ignore this critical coercion element: The Board’s test for determining whether an employer has created an unlawful impression of surveillance is whether, under all of the relevant circumstances, reasonable employees would assume from the statement in question that their union or protected activities had been placed under surveillance. McClain & Co., Inc., 358 N.L.R.B. No. 118, at  (Aug. 31, 2012) (quotation omitted). In addition, while adhering to the distinction that it is only employer surveillance that is unlawful, not obtaining information volunteered by other employees, the Board has reduced this issue to a single inquiry: [W]hen an employer tells employees that it is aware of their union activities, but fails to tell them the source of that information, it violates Section 8(a)(1) because employees are left to speculate as to how the employer obtained the information, causing them reasonably to conclude that the information was obtained through employer monitoring. Id. (quotation omitted). Again the essential element of coercion is entirely missing from this articulation of the statutory standard. Most, indeed virtually all employer surveillance cases have involved union organizing or election campaigns, with the surveillance issue typically surrounded by the employer’s other anti-union unfair labor practices. In that context, the absence of an explicit finding of coercion is not surprising, because it is often reasonable to infer that the employer’s monitoring of union activities or adherents was done for precisely that reason. For example, in Mississippi Transport, the employer told an employee “there was word going around that I had sent in a union card” minutes after wrongfully terminating another employee for his pro-union activities. 33 F.3d at 977-79. But when the Board does not explicitly find the requisite coercion, and it is not apparent to the reviewing court -12- from the record, a creating-the-impression-of-surveillance order should not be enforced. Here, the Board applied the above quoted standard from McClain in finding that Greater Omaha impermissibly created the impression of surveillance in its termination meetings with Degante and Salgado. This is not the typical case where an employer gathers information about ongoing union activities. Rather, the Board found unlawful surveillance of the protected activities of non-union employees who were acting in concert to protest their working conditions. The Board has cited and our research has uncovered only one such prior case, Sams Club, a Div. of Wal-Mart Corp., 342 N.L.R.B. 620, 620-21 (2004). We do not doubt that employer surveillance of this type of protected activity can violate Section 8(a)(1) if the necessary element of coercion is proved. But it is far less likely in this situation that the employer’s statement was intended to be, or was perceived as being, coercive. Therefore, more careful analysis of the coercion element is required than in the McClain standard. The Board found that the statements accusing Degante and Salgado of being leaders of the stoppage impermissibly created the impression of surveillance. But the Board did not explain how those statements could have coerced or restrained the employees from engaging in their protected activity, the planned work stoppage. In assessing Section 8(a)(1) claims, we must consider the entire factual context. Widespread employee communication of the plan before May 14 made it unlikely that Degante, Salgado, or others would assume Greater Omaha learned of the plan through employer surveillance. The statements did not create fear of reprisal or inhibit protected activity by Degante and Salgado, as they were immediately terminated -- independent Section 8(a)(1) violations that are being remedied -- and were prevented from communicating with other employees.2 The statements were not made known 2 Correa had no reason to respond when Salgado asked who told him she was an organizer because she was being terminated. The Board’s emphasis on his failure -13- to the rest of the workforce, so the likelihood they would be perceived as coercive is hard to fathom. The protected activity on May 14 was a work stoppage that would immediately reveal all employee participants to Greater Omaha. In these circumstances, like Dissenting Board Member Johnson, we conclude the ALJ properly found that the statements to Degante and Salgado just before they were wrongfully terminated did not constitute distinct illegal surveillance violations of Section 8(a)(1). Accordingly, we decline to enforce paragraph 2(c) of the Amended Conclusions of Law and paragraph 1(c) of the cease and desist Order.