Opinion ID: 4017094
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Interrogation of John Sponsler

Text: The Judge concluded that Ewry’s questioning of Sponsler was an attempt to assess Sponsler’s position on unionization in order to report it to Caterpillar corporate labor relations official Ron Hassinger, and that such questioning was coercive because it closely followed a management-organized anti-union meeting for employees. The Board agreed with this conclusion. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion that Sponsler’s questioning of Ewry amounted to coercive interrogation in violation of the Act. This conclusion is supported by: the background of the exchange, in that an anti-union meeting had been held the day before and Sponsler’s union support was private; the nature of the information sought, in that Ewry clearly sought Sponsler’s position on the union; the questioner’s identity, in that Ewry was Sponsler’s supervisor; and the place and method of interrogation, in that Ewry approached Sponsler on the work floor while Sponsler was alone, a situation in which he might have felt more vulnerable than if he had been surrounded by his peers. The Board reasonably concluded that this encounter had a reasonable tendency to coerce. See Allegheny Ludlum Corp. v. NLRB, 104 F.3d 1354, 1359 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (quoting Struksnes Constr. Co., 165 N.L.R.B. 1062, 1062 (1967)) (“[A]ny attempt by an employer to ascertain employee views and sympathies regarding unionism generally tends to cause fear of reprisal in the mind of the employee if he replies in favor of unionism and, therefore, tends to impinge on his [National Labor Relations Act] rights.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). -8- Case Nos. 15-1433, 15-1611 Caterpillar Logistics, Inc. v. NLRB