Opinion ID: 737402
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Racial Appeals

Text: 30 HeartShare's second contention is that the Board improperly certified the Union because the election was marred by inflammatory racial appeals. We disagree. 31 Appeals to racial prejudice during a representation election  'create conditions which make impossible a sober, informed exercise of the franchise.'  Utell, 750 F.2d at 178 (quoting Sewell Mfg. Co., 138 N.L.R.B. 66, 71 (1962)). On the other hand, not every statement with a racial overtone will invalidate an election. [A]n election will not be set aside so long as a party ... does not deliberately seek to overstress and exacerbate racial feelings by irrelevant, inflammatory appeals. Utell, 750 F.2d at 178 (internal quotations and citation omitted). 32 Two days before the election, Union supporters distributed a multi-page handbill containing the following statement: HeartShare wants to control you as if you were still slaves in the cotton field.... Their apartheid has been seriously shaken to its very core and you have the power by voting the union in to crumble their corrupt racists empire. 33 We do not believe that the Union's references to a racists empire, slaves in the cotton fields, and apartheid risked undermining the fairness of the election. During an election that lasted approximately five months, which included countless leaflets and speeches, three sentences in one multi-page handbill hardly constitutes a sustained appeal to racial prejudice. See Utell Int'l, Inc., 750 F.2d at 180; NLRB v. Hood Furniture Mfg. Co., 941 F.2d 325, 331 (5th Cir.1991). 34 While an isolated reference to race can constitute a sustained inflammatory racial appeal, there must be a history of pre-election racial tension. See NLRB v. Eurodrive, Inc., 724 F.2d 556, 558 (6th Cir.1984). In HeartShare's case there is no such history and HeartShare does not suggest the contrary. 35 Additionally, we do not believe that the Union's statements constitute deliberate inflammatory appeals designed to incite racial hatred. Utell Int'l, Inc., 750 F.2d at 179. The Union's statements are not inflammatory because they urge[ ] the employees to vote for the union not by appealing to and arousing their racial prejudice, but rather by contending that ... [HeartShare] was taking advantage of their inability to protect their own interest because of their minority status. State Bank of India v. NLRB, 808 F.2d 526, 541 (7th Cir.1986). This case falls comfortably within the line of cases not requiring the invalidation of an election because they involve circumstances in which a union has attributed racial discrimination to the employer, or in which there appears an isolated racial slur. Carrington S. Health Care Ctr., Inc. v. NLRB, 76 F.3d 802, 806 (6th Cir.1996). 36 We conclude that the Union's isolated statements in a pre-election flyer were not pervasive enough or of a sufficiently inflammatory nature to invalidate the election.