Court Opinion

ID: 9486758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:59:06.375013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:55.062614
License: Public Domain

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
During the course of an election campaign, representatives of the Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Union, Local No. 391 (“the Union”) told employees of VSA, Inc., at several pre-election meetings, that Union initiation fees, of $100, would be waived if the Union won the election, but that if the Union lost the election, the fees would not be waived for a future campaign. The details, established by employee affidavits, are not substantially in dispute:
That after discovering that support for the Union was decreasing, R.W. Brown announced, at a Union meeting attended by other drivers, that the Union would waive initiation fees only if it was elected as the employees’ representative on November 22, 1991. Brown further stated that the initiation fees would not be waived if the Union was defeated in the November 22 election and the employees subsequently attempted to gain Teamster representation in any future election.
The Union won the election by a vote of 11 to 8.
VSA objected to the representation election, contending that “union representatives conditioned a waiver of initiation fees upon a showing of pre-election support for the Union, thereby improperly inducing employees to vote for the Union.” The Regional Director refused to set aside the election and the National Labor Relations Board (“the Board”) affirmed and certified the Union as the bargaining representative. Because I believe that the Union’s offer to waive the fees was an effort to purchase the employees’ vote, since the offer was conditioned on a vote in favor of the Union, I conclude that the practice interfered with the principle of neutrality imposed by § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 157. See NLRB v. Savair Mfg. Co., 414 U.S. 270, 278, 94 S.Ct. 495, 499, 38 L.Ed.2d 495 (1973). Accordingly, I would deny enforcement of *599the Board’s order requiring negotiation pursuant to this representation election.
In Savair, the union offered to waive union membership initiation fees for employees who signed “recognition slips” before the representation election. While the waiver was not in any way directly tied to how the employee would vote, the Supreme Court nevertheless found the practice to interfere with the free choice of employees in the election. The Court reasoned that signed recognition slips could be used as a campaign tool by the union to solicit other votes, and thus violate the policy of assuring a fair and free choice during elections. Moreover, even though the Court recognized that signing a recognition slip did not obligate the employee to vote in a particular manner at the election, it nevertheless condemned the practice on the possibility that an employee who did sign such a recognition slip might feel obliged to carry through and vote for the union. To approve the union practice would, the Court concluded, violate the fair election policy which must “honor the right of those who oppose a union as well as those who favor it. The Act is wholly neutral when it comes to that basic choice.” 414 U.S. at 278, 94 S.Ct. at 499. Because the benefit offered to the employees in this case, even though offered to all, is conditioned on a union victory, it also has the effect of urging a vote for the union and therefore cannot be neutral. An election following such an offer cannot be “fair” as defined by Savair and must be set aside.
The Savair holding was applied later by the Board in Deming Division, Crane Co., 225 NLRB 657, 1976 WL 7278 (1976), where the union had agreed during an election campaign to waive initiation fees for any employee who signed an “authorization card.” Concluding that the practice violated the instruction of Savair, the Board set aside the election, stating a principle that is directly relevant to this case:
[A] waiver is permissible only where it is unconnected with support for the union before the election, unrelated to a vote in the election, and with support for the union before the election, unrelated to a vote in the election, and without distinction between joining the union before or after the election.
225 NLRB at 659, 1976 WL 7278.
While the benefit created by a waiver of initiation fees in the case before us is not linked to individual support, it is nevertheless linked to a successful vote for the Union with the threat that in the next election campaign, there will be no such waiver. The waiver of initiation fees was thus conditioned on a particular vote, that being one for the Union, and it clearly supplied an inducement to vote in a particular way. Thus, even though the offer was extended to all employees, its benefits could not have been realized unless the Union won and a person in doubt about how to vote might thus be influenced to vote for the Union.
A policy that sanctions this practice, I submit, is not neutral because it tends to favor the organizing effort. Stated in the prohibition established by Deming, the benefit is related to the vote in an election. This is not the same as the practice of offering an across-the-board waiver of initiation fees to all employees joining the Union, regardless of the outcome of the vote.
Because enforcement of the Board’s order would perpetuate a non-neutral policy, I would deny enforcement of the Board’s order and remand the case with directions to order a new election. I therefore respectfully dissent.