Court Opinion

ID: 9471363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:30:28.473767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:22.558038
License: Public Domain

JAMES HUNTER, III, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Judge Rosenn writes that the issues remaining after the Regional Director’s investigation were “whether the statements of Ross may be attributed to the Union, and, if so, whether those statements may have influenced the outcome of the election.” (emphasis added). He finds that these issues could be properly resolved only through an evidentiary hearing, and that the Regional Director abused his discretion in failing to order one. He finds no abuse of discretion in the Regional Director’s failure to order an evidentiary hearing concerning the threats made by employees Eby and Eckley because J-Wood offered no proof of their union agency. Judge Rosenn’s opinion therefore might suggest that union agency must be found before a hearing to consider the potential impact of employee threats on an election is required. While I agree that union agency is a pivotal factor in this case, I do not believe that union agency must necessarily be found before employee threats require an evidentiary hearing. I write separately, therefore, to emphasize that the essential inquiry is whether the election results reflect the employees’ true *318and uncoerced preferences; the question of union responsibility becomes important only when it informs that inquiry.
It is well settled that, “[a] representation election should be ‘a laboratory in which an experiment may be conducted under conditions as nearly ideal as possible, to determine the uninhibited desires of the employees.’ ” Monmouth Medical Center v. NLRB, 604 F.2d 820, 824 (3d Cir.1979) (quoting General Shoe Corp., 77 NLRB 124, 127 (1948)). We set aside elections not to punish a culpable union or employer, but to protect the employees’ right to free choice.
The Board and the courts have emphasized that the existence of a coercive atmosphere, regardless of how such an atmosphere came about, is the critical fact upon which the Board should focus in determining whether a free and fair election was impossible. Diamond State Poultry Co., 107 NLRB 3, 6 (1953); Cross Baking Co. v. NLRB, 453 F.2d 1346, 1348 (1st Cir.1971).
Zieglers Refuse Collectors, Inc. v. NLRB, 639 F.2d 1000, 1004-05 (3d Cir.1981). Thus, the agency of an employee making threats is not necessarily an issue to be resolved before inquiring into the effect of those threats. It is an issue that is important only to the extent that it sheds light on the effect of the threats. See, e.g., id. at 1006; Methodist Home v. NLRB, 596 F.2d 1173, 1183 (4th Cir.1979); Home Town Foods v. NLRB, 379 F.2d 241, 244 (5th Cir.1967).
In this case, union responsibility is the crucial factor in assessing the fairness of the election. The regional director determined that the employees allegedly making threats were not union agents. He then determined that such threats, .if made by mere employees, would not create a coercive atmosphere. He did not consider whether the threats would have created a coercive atmosphere if made by union agents. Because J-Wood presented evidence that Ross was a union agent, his status is an unresolved “substantial factual issue.” Furthermore, it is an unresolved fact of critical significance. The threats made in this case were stark and unequivocal, and forecast consequences about which a union agent would be presumed to have special knowledge. Considering that the union won the election by only a one-vote margin, it would clearly be an abuse of discretion to refuse to hold a hearing on the effect of these threats if they were made by a union agent.
I agree that J-Wood raised a serious enough question of Ross’s agency to make the NLRB’s refusal to hold a hearing on this issue an abuse of discretion. I also agree that it would be an abuse of discretion to refuse to hold an evidentiary hearing on the effect of those threats if Ross is found to have been a union agent. Consequently, I agree with Judge Rosenn’s conclusion that this case should be remanded for an evidentiary hearing. Finally, so long as the primacy accorded the union agency question is understood to be warranted by the facts of this case, but not required in every case, I join in Judge Rosenn’s opinion.