Court Opinion

ID: 9651545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:25:37.44691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:35.332026
License: Public Domain

ALLEN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I am unable to concur in the decision as to the discharge of Casterline and Schuller. Schneider’s admission of resentment because he had not secured a promotion strongly supports the employer’s claim that he was discharged for inefficiency and slump in his work; but Casterline and Schuller each had excellent work records, and the reasons given by the employer for their discharge are unsubstantial. The fact that Casterline stole a fifty-cent lamp at the party of the employees was not given as a cause of complaint against him before the organization meeting, although the party occurred about a month before then. No one else was discharged for this cause, although property was taken at the party by other employees. Schuller had received four individual raises in pay between October 6, 1936, and April 6, 1937, when he was discharged. His foreman stated that it was possible that not all the scrap made on the evening of April 5th, which was blamed to Schuller, was actually made by Schuller. It is significant that when Schuller was discharged his sympathy for the Union was thrown up to him by the supervisor of his department.
While there is no evidence that the employer actively tried to prevent the holding of the meeting for the formation of a Union at this plant, it was not friendly to this organization. The meeting, attended by Casterline and Schuller, was the first open meeting held, and was for the express purpose of organizing within the plant. Only eighteen out of some fifteen hundred of the employees remained at it for organization purposes, and they of course were marked men. Casterline and Schuller were among them, and each was discharged within a few days later. This constitutes in my opinion substantial evidence of discharge because of Union membership and activity, and hence the findings of the Board are conclusive upon these matters. Title 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e) ; Agwilines, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 5 Cir., 87 F.2d 146.