Court Opinion

ID: 9651205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:10:11.830216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:30.994087
License: Public Domain

GRONER, C. J.
(concurring).
The order of the Board in this case requires the employer to — ’
“Cease and desist from in any manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of the right to * * * form, join, or assist labor organizations, * * * ” and requires that the employer mail to its employees notices stating it will not engage in the conduct condemned by the Board, and that it will post notices in its plant accordingly.
Judge ARNOLD thinks that a certain letter, which is quoted in full in his opinion and which was sent by the employer to the employees in advance of a plant election held by the Board, constituted an unfair labor practice. The ground of his holding is that the letter was intended to give and did give the impression to the employees that the continuation of the benefits shown by the letter to have been conferred by the employer upon the employees depended on the plant’s remaining non-union. On this basis he holds that the Board’s order should be sustained to the extent and only to the extent that it requires notice to be given to the employees that “the liberal labor policy it has adopted will not be changed because they vote for a union.”
In my opinion the letter is not susceptible of this construction. I am unable to find in it a single word from beginning to end which contains an open or covert threat that the employee-benefits it enumerates will be withdrawn if a majority vote for a union. But in reaching his conclusion Judge ARNOLD says: “There is little hardship * * * in this order even if the Board were wrong on the merits. If in fact petitioner did not intend to give the impression that benefits might be lost through unionization it should be anxious to dispel that impression by an appropriate notice stating its real position on the question.”
While, as indicated above, I am of the opinion that the letter is in all respects a fair and honest statement of the Company’s long standing cooperative policy in its relationships with its employees, and of which — I may add — it has every reason to be proud, I have no objection to the requirement that it restate the fact that it contemplates no reprisals and will make none. I therefore concur in the requirement that such notice be given.
Judge ARNOLD, further holds that the employer by satisfying its employees so completely that they would not want a union, and by calling its labor policy to their attention so as to induce them to vote against the union through loyalty and gratitude, is not guilty of an unfair labor practice. This, in my opinion, is correct. I am *526therefore also concurring in his holding that the order of the Board as to this feature of the case should be reversed.