Court Opinion

ID: 9651206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:10:11.83494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:30.995085
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice
(dissenting in part).
The Board found that “even absent the letter, the [employer’s] conduct was coercive and in violation of Section 8(1) of the Act.” In other words the letter was not the only act by which the employer interfered with, restrained, or coerced its employees in the exercise of their right to self-organization. I think that the evidence supports this finding and that the Board’s order should be enforced in full. Judge ARNOLD’S opinion recognizes only one type of interference, viz., a threat to discontinue certain benefits and to adopt a less liberal labor policy. In my opinion there were, in addition, at least three other types of interference.
(1) The Board found repeated instances of anti-union argument, by which the employer sought to persuade its employees that they would gain nothing by forming a union. It is true that such argument, if it does not amount to a protracted campaign and is not a part of a general “course of conduct * * * aimed at achieving objectives forbidden by the Act,” is recognized by the Virginia Electric case as privileged.1 But that case also recognizes that such argument is not privileged when it is a part of a general effort at interference and restraint.2 It was part of such an effort in this case.
(2) The Board found that the employer questioned several employees with regard to their union activities. Such questioning, at least in its present context of expressed hostility to the union, is in my opinion a form of interference, restraint, and coercion.3 Its evident purpose and tendency were to discourage the formation of the union by inspiring fear of reprisals.
(3) The Board found that the employer asked its employee Mulherin whether, if demands which he made in respect to wages and hours were satisfied, he would continue his union activities. Mulherin declined to commit himself. His wages, although they had recently been raised, were immediately raised again. The Board inferred, as it well might, that by this course of conduct petitioner attempted to influence Mulherin to abandon the union. In Medo Photo Supply Corporation v. National Labor Relations Board4 the Supreme Court held that it was “an unfair labor practice for petitioner, in response to the offer of its employees, to induce them by the grant of wage increases, to leave the union.” I take it that the unfairness in that case was in the employer’s effort at inducement by economic means, not in the fact that the effort was successful or in the fact that the employer knew it would be successful. Accordingly nothing turns, in my opinion, on the presence in that case of an offer or agreement by the employees that they would leave the union in consideration of a wage increase. I think it was an unfair labor practice to grant any wage increase5 during a unionizing *527campaign and as part of an effort to hinder that campaign. “Interference is no less interference because it is accomplished thi ough allurements rather than coercion, when, as here, the system is employed to stem a tide of organization * * *."6

 National Labor Relations Board v. Virginia Electric & Power Co., 314 U.S. 469, 479, 62 S.Ct. 344, 86 L.Ed. 348. National Labor Relations Board v. American Tube Bending Co., 2 Cir., 134 F.2d 993, 146 A.L.R. 107.

 “If the total activities of an employer restrain or coerce his employees in their free choice, then those employees are entitled to the protection of the Act. And in determining whether a course of conduct amounts to restraint or coercion, pressure exerted vocally by the employer may no more be disregarded than pressure exerted in other ways.” 314 U.S. 469, 477, 62 S.Ct. 344, 348, 86 L.Ed. 348.

 Cf., e.g., H. J. Heinz Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 311 U.S. 514, 518, 520, 61 S.Ct. 320, 85 L.Ed. 309; National Labor Relations Board v. Arcade-Sunshine Co., 73 App.D.C. 128, 118 F.2d 49, 50, certiorari denied 313 U.S. 567, 61 S.Ct. 942, 85 L.Ed. 1526; National Labor Relations Board v. Federbush Co., 2 Cir., 121 F.2d 954; National Labor Relations Board v. Stone, 7 Cir., 125 F.2d 752, 755, 756, certiorari denied 317 U.S. 649, 63 S.Ct. 44, 87 L.Ed. 522.

 64 S.Ct. 830, 834.

 Cf. Southern Colorado Power Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 10 Cir., 111 F.2d 539; M. H. Ritzwoller Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 7 Cir., 114 F.2d 432.
The Board did not rely upon the general wage increase of 1941 and 1942, although that increase was granted during an attempt to organize the plant, because evidence regarding that increase “was introduced only for the purpose of background” and the complaint did not allege unfair labor practices prior to January, 1943.

 Western Cartridge Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 7 Cir., 134 F.2d 240, 244, certiorari denied 320 U.S. 746, 64 S.Ct. 48.