Court Opinion

ID: 9641287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:27:46.731121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:36.453936
License: Public Domain

SWAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree that the Newport News case, supra, 308 U.S. 241, 60 S.Ct. 203, 84 L.Ed. 219, compels us to confirm the Board’s order. There the personnel manager and general manager of the employer took part in the “revision” of the “Plan” and the drafting of a constitution for the union. Effective action by the union required agreement by the company and the constitution could not be amended if the company disapproved. Continuity between tlie old “Plan” and the recently organized union was plain. That is not true in the case_ at bar. On May 12th Madden told the employee members of the Joint Conference Committee that the old “Plan” was discontinued. FTe withdrew from the meeting and everything done thereafter in formulating the charter and by-laws of the “Independent” was done by the employees without suggestion or advice from any company representative. If employees who were former committeemen cannot take the initiative in forming an independent union, then it is difficult to imagine how a valid local organization can ever be formed; they are the natural leaders among the employees, for otherwise they would not have been elected representatives under the old “Plan”. I do not see how any employer could have acted more scrupulously than did Westinghouse after announcing on May 12th that the “Plan” would no longer be recognized. That announcement was undoubtedly spread among the employees by those to whom it was made. If an employer keeps hands off and gives employees complete freedom to organize as they please, the mere fact that some employees may infer from the character of organization formerly existing that a local union will better please the management than' one affiliated with a national labor body, should not justify a finding of employer domination or coercion. In my opinion there was no substantial evidence of company domination or coercion of the “Independent”. In approving the Board’s order on the authority of the Newport News case T- think we are pushing the dicta of that opinion to unnecessary and undesirable extremes.