Court Opinion

ID: 9460626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:56:22.984814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:42.900441
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur with remand of this case for further consideration by the Board, specifically to admit evidence (appropriately safeguarding individual privacy) pertaining to the cards reported to have been filed with the petition for decertification of the union. Like dissenting Board member Kennedy, I am inclined to think as to this evidence that what is “sauce” for the general counsel should be “sauce” for the respondent.
I find myself in disagreement, however, with much of the dicta in the opinion.
First, the Board’s finding of an employer’s good faith doubt concerning a continuing majority on the part of a previously established union does not equate a determination of an actual loss of a majority by the union. Nor do I think this court should hold that such a determination destroys the presumption of a continuing union majority. (See Brooks v. NLRB, 348 U.S. 96, 98-99, 75 S.Ct. 176, 99 L.Ed. 125 (1954)). The presumption should be overborne only by establishment of an objective basis in fact for believing that the union had lost the majority. The respondent certainly is entitled to present competent evidence bearing on this issue, but until respondent has established a prima facie case on the union’s loss of majority, the presumption should still be effective.
Second, I know of no more coercive measures which may be taken by a company in an NLRB election than to circulate plant closing threats. Talk of the transfer of operations or the closing of the plant represents an immediate threat to the job, and the actual livelihood of the employees. This sort of threat should not be minimized.
I also disagree with the suggestion that evidence concerning the impact of the threats upon the persons who testified that they heard them is a significant consideration. The mere fact that in the aftermath of this sort of labor-management controversy an employee *277would testify at all against his employer is indicative that the threats had not changed his mind. But that fact has no relationship to what the Board might find about the coercive effect of the threats on the total employee group.
The Board found that the plant manager, the manufacturing manager and the general foreman of the plant all participated in warning respondent’s employees that if the union won the election, the plant would move or close. Such threats would run like wildfire through a small manufacturing plant. The employees most affected would be the very ones who subsequently would not dare to testify.