Opinion ID: 360524
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: threats of violence

Text: 18 In the course of her investigation the Regional Director or her representative interviewed Martinez. We do not know what he said, and neither did the Board. 1 We do, however, know what the Regional Director said that he said. We quote her report:In support of this objection, the Employer presented an employee witness who stated that approximately one month prior to the second election, he was talking with other employees during their lunch hour about Petitioner (union). He stated that he asked one of the employees what would happen if there was a strike and somebody wanted to go to work. The employee replied that nobody could go to work if there was a picket line. The witness replied that he was going to work as he had a family to support. The other employee is alleged to have then said that somebody could get hurt. The Employer's witness stated that he would still come in to work. The other employee replied that they would send someone to picket and do our dirty work. We'll get some guys from the Mission District (an area in the city of San Francisco). Somebody could get hurt. The witness stated that the subject never came up again prior to the election. He also stated that on occasions prior to the election, two employees asked him if he didn't think that they should push the union in, and told him that the employees should all stick together. 19 The Regional Director concluded that the evidence did not support an inference that the other employee was an agent of the Union, and declined to attribute what he said to the Union. She also concluded that this incident did not serve to create an atmosphere of coercion and fear of reprisal, noting that the conversation occurred a month before the election, that there were subsequent conversations free from any type of threat or pressure, and that when the discussion occurred, none of the employees knew that there would be a second election. 20 The essence of Oshman's attack on these conclusions is that the Regional Director did not get the full story from Martinez, and that, if she had, she would have been required to order a hearing to determine whether Martinez's story was true. Oshman's relies on an affidavit that it obtained from Martinez on July 15, 1976, eight days after the Regional Director handed down her report. 21 On July 19, Oshman's filed with the Board exceptions to the Regional Director's decision, serving a copy on the Regional Director. Nowhere in this 26 page document is there any reference to the Martinez affidavit, nor is it attached as an exhibit. So far as the record before us discloses, the first time the affidavit was mentioned was in Oshman's Memorandum in opposition to the General Counsel's motion for summary judgment, to which the affidavit is an exhibit. This memorandum was dated and served March 21, 1977, in the unfair labor practice refusal to bargain case, long after the Board denied Oshman's request for review of the Regional Director's decision on October 7, 1976. Obviously, this is much too late. 22 However, in its March 21, 1977 Memorandum, Oshman's asserts that its objections to the election were supported by the affidavit. 2 The same assertion is made in Oshman's reply brief before us, and was made by Oshman's counsel at oral argument before us. The Board, in its brief, says that Oshman's first offered the affidavit to the Board in support of its request for review of the Regional Director's decision. 23 We need not resolve this apparent conflict between counsels' undocumented representations to us and the record. Assuming that counsels' representations are correct, the presentation of the affidavit was still too late. It was never presented to the Regional Director. She was never asked, after her decision, to reconsider and hold a hearing on the contents of the affidavit. 24 It will not do to argue, as Oshman's does, that she could have treated its Exceptions to her decision as a request for reconsideration, as the Board's Case Handling Manual, P 11406, permits her to do. Mere service of a copy of the exceptions, and of the affidavit if it was served, is not enough. Oshman's cannot claim that she should have reconsidered when it never asked her to do so. 25 Moreover, Oshman's had an affirmative duty to present its evidence. The Manual, on which Oshman's relies, also provides, in P 11392.5: 26 Duty To Furnish Evidence : It is incumbent upon the party filing objections to do so by the close of business on the fifth working day following the close of the election, and to furnish evidence sufficient to provide a Prima facie case in support thereof before the Region is required to investigate the objections. In addition to identifying the nature of the misconduct on which the objections are based, the party filing objections is required to submit evidence in support thereof at the time the objections are filed or Forthwith upon request from the Regional Director. This should include a list of the witnesses and a brief description of the testimony of each. An objecting party normally should not be permitted to piecemeal the submission of evidence but should be required to disclose promptly all the evidence in support of his objections. Absent the Prompt receipt of evidence, the Regional Director should overrule the objections. (Emphasis in original.) 27 We conclude that the Board was not required to consider the Martinez affidavit. As the Board says in its brief: 28 The function of the administrative determination on objections to provide a speedy and efficient resolution of challenges to the validity of the election would be completely undermined if the Board permitted a witness statement taken by an impartial Board agent during the investigation, when the witness' memory was fresher, to be vitiated by a later affidavit of the same witness, covering evidence available at the time of the investigation. 29 The Martinez affidavit describes the occasion mentioned by the Regional Director much as her decision does. Then it describes two other occurrences, one two weeks before the election, much like the earlier occasion, and one a few days later, at a union meeting at a bowling alley. In each case, the same two employees made similar statements. In each case the statements were made to Martinez. However, Martinez does not say that he told the Regional Director or her investigator about these occasions. He does not say that anything he describes influenced his vote. He does not name any other employees who were present, or say how many were present, or whether, if other employees were present, any of them heard the threats. He does make it clear that the threats were made to him personally. 30 The most that can be said for the affidavit is that it is in part different from, and in part inconsistent with, what the Regional Director says that Martinez said to her or her investigator. This kind of after-decision affidavit is usually regarded by courts with considerable skepticism when presented in support of a motion for a new trial, and therefore the court in such a case has considerable discretion in ruling on the motion. See Thomas v. United States, 9 Cir., 1966, 363 F.2d 159, 161-62. We think that the Board, too, has considerable discretion in such a case as this, and did not abuse it here, assuming that it was required to consider the affidavit at all. As we have said, to warrant overturning an election, employee conduct must be 'coercive and disruptive conduct or other action (which) is So aggravated that a free expression of choice of representation is impossible.'  (emphasis in original) NLRB v. Aaron Brothers Corp., 9 Cir., 1977, 563 F.2d 409, 412. 31