Court Opinion

ID: 9457581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:26:27.628987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:24.789364
License: Public Domain

(dissenting).
I conclude that the majority opinion puts too narrow an interpretation on NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105, 112, 76 S.Ct. 679, 684, 100 L.Ed. 975 (1956), which held that “when the inaccessibility of employees makes ineffective the reasonable attempts by non-employees to communicate with them *800through the usual channels, the right to exclude from property has been required to yield to the extent needed to permit communication of information on the right to organize.” I believe that non-employee union organizers made reasonable attempts to communicate with the employees of Tamiment. Schuster’s efforts to organize did not bear good fruit principally because he was not allowed to contact the employees to a reasonable degree.
It is conceded by the majority that mail is no substitute for face-to-face contact, NLRB v. United Aircraft Corp., 324 F.2d 128, 130 (2nd Cir.1963), cert. denied 376 U.S. 951, 84 S.Ct. 969, 11 L.Ed.2d 971, and it is also apparently conceded by the majority that communication by radio or television broadcasts could not be effective. It should be noted that' the union sent a letter to the management of Tamiment in New York requesting permission to come upon the premises and that the letter was never answered. It should also be observed that Schuster attempted to hand out leaflets just outside the Tamiment gate but that the administrative manager of the hotel asked him to leave because traffic was heavy and he was causing “congestion.” Congestion may well have occurred at or near the Tamiment gates but since the Tamiment enclave was surrounded with barbed wire and the union organizers were not permitted on the premises, where else could union organizational cards have been appropriately passed out to the employees. One could hardly believe that stopping cars along a public road at some point distant from the Tamiment gates to pass out union cards would be a permissible or even a legal method of attempting unionization. Also, Schuster was told by Tamiment guards that he could not come up to the guard house, could not use the private road from the highway, and new “No Trespassing” signs were posted along the road after attempts were made at unionization. Schuster also claims that he was followed closely by security personnel when he attempted to communicate with employees and that after a summer’s effort he had spoken to about 25 employees, handed out about 150 authorization cards, but had secured only 12 signed cards. In fact, close to the end of the attempt to organize the record seems to support the conclusion that the union organiz.ers were in effect prohibited from coming to the Tamiment grounds.
The case falls not only within Wilcox, supra, but also within the ruling of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in NLRB v. S & H Grossinger’s, Inc., 372 F.2d 26, 30 (2nd Cir.1967), where the Board’s order was enforced insofar as it required Grossinger’s “to permit nonem-ployee union organizers to come upon its premises in order to solicit employees.”
An examination of the whole record indicates to me that there existed a degree of hostility on the part of Tamiment to unionization, and a desire to resist unionization in ways not compatible with the National Labor Relations Act and the decisions of the Supreme Court.
For these reasons I must respectfully dissent. I would enforce the Board’s order.