Opinion ID: 186939
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Improper Electioneering

Text: 29 U-Haul argues that the Union's election observer violated the Board's longstanding rule against electioneering at or near the polls, Brinks, Inc., 331 NLRB 46 (2000), because he made a practice of smiling at voters and giving a `thumbs up' as they approached the table, which some voters acknowledged by pointing to their `Union Yes' pins and smiling back. In Brinks, too, the union observer gave several voters a thumbs-up gesture and the Board overturned the election. 30 Although we do not agree with the Board's Decision insofar as it said the Union observer's gesture in this case could not reasonably be understood to convey any particular meaning—the gesture was obviously meant to encourage support for the Union—the Board went on reasonably to distinguish Brinks on the ground that in that case the union observer, who had been instructed not to speak to employees, also explicitly instructed several employees how to vote, see id. at 47. In this case there is no suggestion the Union's observer either told employees how to vote or ignored any of the Board agent's instructions. We therefore conclude the Board did not abuse its discretion in concluding the thumbs-up gestures by themselves were not a ground upon which to overturn the election. 31 U-Haul next contends that conversations Union officials had with six or seven voters in a nearby parking lot violated the rule in Milchem, Inc., 170 NLRB 362 (1968), which prohibits prolonged conversations between representatives of any party to the election and voters waiting to cast ballots, id. at 362. U-Haul also relies upon this court's decision in Nathan Katz Realty, LLC v. NLRB, 251 F.3d 981 (2001), in which we summarized the law as follows: [A] party engages in objectionable conduct sufficient to set aside an election if one of its agents is continually present in a place where employees have to pass in order to vote. Id. at 993. 32 Assuming the Union officials were, as U-Haul maintains and the Board assumed for the sake of the argument, as little as 30 feet from the polling place, which was on the second floor of U-Haul's facility, nothing in the record suggests a Union agent was continually present in a place where employees ha[d] to pass in order to vote, id. On the contrary, the Board noted in its Decision that [a]ll but a handful of eligible voters were already inside the building when the voting period began and by the time [the Union agent] arrived in the parking lot, and the subject conversations did not take place in the polling area, the waiting area, or near the line of voters. The Board's conclusion that for these reasons the conversations are not objectionable is consistent with Katz. Therefore, the Board did not abuse its discretion in rejecting U-Haul's objection to the Union's electioneering.