Court Opinion

ID: 9481925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:35:48.785509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:39.974491
License: Public Domain

BARKSDALE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. While agreeing with parts II.B. (racial prejudice) and II.C. (religious objector) of the majority opinion, I believe that the issues of improper electioneering and coercive or threatening conduct discussed in part II.A. compel a remand for an evidentiary hearing by the Board. The thorough majority opinion does not accord sufficient weight to the closeness of the election.
As the majority notes, the Board’s discretion in determining whether to hold an evi-dentiary hearing in this instance is not unlimited. “Due process requires the Board to grant ‘a [post election] hearing to a losing party who has supplied prima facie evidence raising substantial and material issues that would warrant setting the election aside.’ ” NLRB v. Claxton Mfg. Co., 613 F.2d 1364, 1365 (5th Cir.1980) (citations omitted). As the majority also notes, whether an adequate showing has been made is a question of law. Id.
Most assuredly,- to obtain a hearing, the losing party’s “affidavits must contain ‘specific evidence of specific events from or about specific people ... ’: conclusory allegations are not sufficient.” Id. at 1366 (citations omitted). See also NLRB v. Gooch Packing Co., 457 F.2d 361, 362 (5th Cir.1972) (“The Company is required to supply the Board with exact and non-con-clusory facts describing specific events from or about specific people which constitute a prima facie case of election irregularities.”). “Moreover, an election may be set aside only if the objectionable activity, when considered as a whole, either tended to or did influence the outcome of the election. ... Such a showing is particularly difficult to make where ... the union [wins] by a wide margin.” Claxton, 613 F.2d at 1366 (citations omitted). Where, however, as here, an election turns on one vote out of 207, the showing required to obtain the hearing is, obviously, much less difficult to make.
An election result similar to that at issue here took place in Gooch Packing, where “the union won by the least possible whisker, 77 to 75 — if one vote was swayed by impermissible union conduct, then no certification could be made.” 457 F.2d at 362. Regarding the necessity of a hearing, the court noted:
[t]he question of whether a Company has presented the requisitely specific facts to raise substantial and material factual issues must always be answered in light of the context in which it is posed. There can be no abstract rules. The closeness of the election is obviously relevant. Conduct which could have affected only a few voters may not have any effect on the ultimate outcome of the election in cases where the vote disparity is large, but the same conduct in a close *334election could be determinative. In close vote election situations the Board is required to particularly and carefully scrutinize charges which in other cases would constitute immaterial or insubstantial objections to the election and, when the existence of hard evidence of irregularities is supplied, a full hearing to get at the truth should be accorded.
Id. (emphasis added).
In Gooch Packing, a company employee and union organizer, on the morning of the election, informed another employee that she had earned a higher wage while working for a rival union company. Two or three other employees heard this remark. Submitted evidence reflected that it was “highly unlikely” the employee had earned the wage rate claimed. As the court noted, “[i]f just one of these persons was influenced to vote for the union by this remark, then the union has won an election it should not have won. If supplied with adequate evidence that these facts existed, the Board should have conducted a hearing to sort substance from rumor and conjecture.” Id. See also NLRB v. Nixon Gear, Inc., 649 F.2d 906, 914 (2d Cir.1981) (“[t]he need for a hearing is particularly acute” in an election decided by two votes because “even minor misconduct cannot be summarily excused on the ground that it could not have influenced the election”); Henderson Trumbull Supply Corp. v. NLRB, 601 F.2d 1224, 1230 (2d Cir.1974) (stating an identical proposition for an election decided by one vote).
As discussed in part II.A. of the majority opinion, the Company’s affidavits did not contain conclusory allegations, but instead contained the requisite “specific evidence of specific events from [and] about specific people”. If just one person was influenced by the improper conduct and comments of Readus or Jackson at the polling area, or by the threatening conduct of the handbil-ler described by employee Presley, or by the misleading handbills which insinuated that the union (but not the Company) would know how employees voted or that labeled the Company “liars” and “thieves”, then the union has won an election that it should not have won. Most certainly, at the very least, such objectionable activity, which must be “considered as a whole,” could “tend to ... influence the outcome of [an] election” decided by but a single vote. Claxton, 613 F.2d at 1366. Because the Company has raised material and substantial factual issues of improper electioneering and coercive conduct, “a full hearing to get at the truth should be accorded.” Gooch Packing, 457 F.2d at 362.
The majority holds that the Company failed to produce specific evidence which established a prima facie case that the election could have been adversely affected. In the light of the extremely close vote, I respectfully disagree. I would deny the petition for enforcement of the order and remand for an evidentiary hearing.