Court Opinion

ID: 9457551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:24:57.445986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:23.698411
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
By regulation, 29 C.F.R. § 102.69(e), it is provided that where exceptions are taken to the regional director’s report made after investigation of a consent election and “it appears to the Board that such exceptions do not raise substantial and material issues with respect to the conduct or results of the election, the Board may decide the matter forthwith upon the record * *
As the majority opinion points out, the Board here has determined that “even if all the facts alleged in the attachments to the Employer’s exceptions were true, such facts would not warrant setting aside the election.” I find no error in that determination. Implicit in it is a finding that any alleged inconsistencies in union statements made to employees respecting initiation fees and strike benefits were not of such moment as to constitute interference with or inhibition of the free choice of the employees in the selection of their bargaining representative.
I do not see how we can possibly question that finding. Improper inducement does not appear. The employer’s mere recitation of the claimed inconsistencies and inadequacies in the union’s election campaign statements does not at all persuade me that had the truth been known (whatever it may be) the vote of the employees might have been different. If the hearing ordered by the majority should show the employer’s allegations to be true, as already hypothesized by the Board, it is not clear to me how the Board could reach or ought to reach any different conclusions of law. Accordingly I fail to see what a hearing would accomplish. See generally Sonoco Products Co. v. N.L.R.B., 399 F.2d 835, 839 (9th Cir. 1968); N.L.R.B. v. J. R. Sim-plot Co., 322 F.2d 170, 172 (9th Cir. 1963).
I would enforce the Board’s order.