Opinion ID: 560347
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jeff Tidwell

Text: 15 Tidwell's job was to test pigment samples to ensure that the color matched the customer's order. On April 24, 1987, he experienced trouble with a large order. Production had to be halted while he tried various adjustments. In frustration, Tidwell kicked cans and jugs while cursing loudly. 16 Three days later, the laboratory manager, Ed Pollard, accused Tidwell of having lost his cool and offered him a choice between demotion and a written warning. ALJ Decision at 24 (appendix to Avecor, 296 N.L.R.B. No. 94). Tidwell chose the latter. The next day he stopped by Pollard's office to secure the warning but was told that it was not yet ready. 17 Later that day, another supervisor instructed Tidwell to report to Pollard and Larry Willoughby, the plant manager. Willoughby told Tidwell that the quality control job seemed to be more than he could handle. Pollard had erred in offering the write-up or demotion choice, Willoughby continued, because the company's policy was that if you don't make it, you go out the door. Id. Under that policy, he said, Tidwell was fired. Tidwell protested that he was not to blame for the problems he had encountered on the job and that, in any event, the company should not dismiss people who could ably handle other tasks at the plant. Willoughby was unswayed. 18 The ALJ concluded that the prima facie burden had been met. He found that Tidwell had secured the union telephone number, attended the midnight meeting, signed an authorization card, and persuaded another employee to sign a card. The ALJ also found that Avecor supervisors knew of the union from the outset and that Tidwell had discussed it with two supervisors. Finally, the ALJ believed that the circumstances of the firing suggested disparate treatment of Tidwell: the questionable validity of the basis for the discharge, Respondent's change of position regarding the discipline imposed on Tidwell, and the timing of the discharge in relation to the beginning of the union activity. Id. at 25. 19 No evidence directly showed that Willoughby and Pollard, the supervisors who fired Tidwell, knew of his union activities. In concluding that they did have such knowledge, the ALJ presumably applied the small-plant doctrine, although he cited it only in connection with another matter. The doctrine permits an inference that the company knew of the union activities of specific employees from evidence that union activities 'were carried on in such a manner, or at times that in the normal course of events, [the company] must have noticed them.'  Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers, Local 633 v. NLRB, 509 F.2d 490, 496 (D.C.Cir.1974) (quoting Hadley Mfg. Corp., 108 N.L.R.B. 1641, 1650 (1954)). In this case, the bargaining unit consisted of fewer than forty employees; the evidence supporting the prima facie showing, viewed through the small-plant doctrine, is ample. 20 Avecor argued that the upgraded discipline had a benign explanation that, if true, would rebut the prima facie showing and defeat the unfair labor practice charge. Tidwell's was not a first offense. After certain earlier outbursts, he had been disciplined and, in February 1987, warned that such conduct could cost him his job. The company president, Leonard Klarich, testified that he had instructed supervisors to fire Tidwell if he ever again sounds off or loses control. ALJ Decision at 26. In Avecor's version of events, Pollard, a relatively new employee, was unaware of this history when he imposed the initial punishment. Klarich, who was out of town, ordered the firing when he learned by telephone of Tidwell's misbehavior. The company also cited Willoughby's policy against demoting inadequate employees as an additional legitimate justification. Thus, Avecor contended, the supervisors acted properly in firing Tidwell. 21 The ALJ refused to accept nearly every element of Avecor's explanation. Tidwell's earlier outburst had been specifically different in type: racial slurs directed at a supervisor rather than an untargeted tantrum. Id. at 27. The company had not given him a written warning after the previous incident. His next job evaluation had been positive, had made no mention of the incident, and had resulted in a salary increase. Another supervisor, Sandy Thomas, evidently did not know of Klarich's instructions to fire Tidwell if he misbehaved again. No evidence indicated that Tidwell was at fault for the problems on the production line that provoked his tantrum. Willoughby's assertion that Pollard was a new employee was never substantiated; moreover, Avecor offered no excuse for failing to advise [Pollard] of past job deficiencies of those relatively few people under his supervision or for failing to advise him of the alleged policy against demotions. Id. at 27 n. 15, 28. 22 Finally, the ALJ found Klarich's account of the firing implausible. Klarich testified that he ordered the discharge upon learning that Tidwell, in the ALJ's paraphrase, had been involved in an incident. Id. at 27. According to the ALJ: 23 Klarich admittedly did not seek to ascertain any facts of Tidwell's conduct on April 24 before directing the reversal of Pollard. There was no concern shown by Klarich for whether Tidwell had repeated the offense of issuing racial slurs which Klarich had found so reprehensible in the earlier incident. Even the fact that Klarich issued the discharge decision by telephone reflects the highly unusual treatment of the Tidwell situation. Klarich could not recall ... a previous decision to discharge a rank and file employee by telephone. 24 Id. at 28. He found, in short, that the company's decision to upgrade the discipline constituted strong evidence of its unlawful motivation. Id. 25 We find one prong of the ALJ's argument unconvincing. A racial epithet directed at a supervisor is not different in type from a tantrum; a supervisor could reasonably view both as evidence of a temperament unsuited to quality control work. Otherwise the evidence cited by the ALJ appears sufficient. Avecor's alternative explanation for the Tidwell firing, while plausible, rests on too many unsupported assumptions to rebut the prima facie showing. Accordingly, we uphold the NLRB's conclusion that the Tidwell firing violated sections 8(a)(3) and (1) of the NLRA. 26