Court Opinion

ID: 9449986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:31:18.042935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:05.732298
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Three incidents occurred within the period between the consent election agreement and the election which, in my opinion, required the Board to invalidate the election.
Two of these incidents involved threats made by a pro-union employee, Taylor, to Hayes, an anti-union employee. Taylor told Hayes in the presence of two other employees, “I am going to get you if the union gets in.” On another occasion he said to Hayes, “Whether the union gets in or not I am going to get you.” When Hayes said he had nothing to worry about, Taylor replied, “Well you better because I am going to get you.” By far *799the most serious incident occurred at a union meeting held before the election. Someone at the meeting asked what a paint bomb was. A union official explained how one was made but added, according to the report of the regional director, that the union was there to make friends and did not recommend violence.1
The general counsel for the Board says these incidents were “manifestly insufficient” to justify setting aside the election and that the Board in exercising its broad discretion in the representation proceeding acted “within reasonable bounds.”
Contrary to the Board’s position, similar pre-election conduct has been found sufficient for setting aside elections. In N. L. R. B. v. Tampa Crown Distributors, 272 F.2d 470 (5th Cir. 1959), the court denied enforcement of the Board’s order certifying the union because two employees had received anonymous telephone calls before the election threatening their families. The court held that this constituted an atmosphere of fear rendering a free election impossible. See, e. g., Poinsett Lumber & Mfg. Co., 116 N.L.R.B. 1732 (1956) ; Stern Bros., 87 N.L.R.B. 16 (1949); G. H. Hess, Inc., 82 N.L.R.B. 463 (1949).
Only recently in N. L. R. B. v. Realist, Inc., 7 Cir., 1964, 328 F.2d 840, this court enforced a Board order which had upheld the regional director’s action in setting aside an election — one that the union had lost. There, the employer had made statements about unionized plants moving out of the state and that without a union the employees would be afforded equal if not better benefits. We held that the employer’s speech constituted an interference with the employees’ freedom of choice and formed a sufficient basis for ordering a new election.
Here the shoe is on the other foot. Pro-union statements about how paint bombs were made and threats of harm to people if the union lost created an atmosphere out of harmony with the laboratory conditions which the Board must afford for representation elections.
*800Comparing the facts in Realist with those in the instant case, I am compelled to conclude that the Board has applied a double standard in these cases. The general counsel refers to the wide degree of discretion the Board has in establishing safeguards to insure fair elections. He also says that the Board itself is fully cognizant of the responsibilities imposed upon it to conduct elections fairly. Neither statement is subject to dispute except for the fact that the Board’s diverse treatment of these cases speaks for itself.
Moreover, the Board should have afforded Rockwell a hearing on its objections in the instant proceeding. The failure to do so was, in my opinion, a denial of due process. In a similar situation, the Fourth Circuit in N. L. R. B. v. Poinsett Lumber & Mfg. Co., 221 F.2d 121, 123 (4th Cir. 1955), said:
“If a hearing had been held and the evidence had been taken and passed upon by the Board in the representation proceeding, the Board would not be required to go into the matter again in the absence of special circumstances showing that it was in the interest of justice that this be done; but the evidence has not been taken nor a hearing accorded the company at any time even though substantial questions affecting the validity of the election had unquestionably been raised by its exceptions. We think that it is entitled to a hearing at some stage of the proceedings so that it may produce the evidence upon which it relies for consideration by the Board and for consideration by this court in proceedings to enforce or set aside the Board’s order.”
The Board itself has adhered to this view in Celanese Corp. of America, 125 N.L.R.B. 352 (1959), and Underwood Mach. Co., 80 N.L.R.B. 1264 (1948).
This court’s decision in Olson Rug Co. v. N. L. R. B., 260 F.2d 255 (7th Cir. 1958), is inapposite; the facts are clearly distinguishable. In Olson all the evidence (campaign literature) was before the regional director in the representation proceeding. In the instant case, the trial examiner refused to consider the company’s evidence which it claimed amplified the facts presented to the regional director.
I would reverse that part of the Board’s order that requires the company to bargain with the union.

. The regional director’s investigation of the company’s objections to the election was ex parte. In its attempt to gain a hearing on its objections in the instant unfair labor practice proceeding, the company made the following offer of proof which was rejected by the trial examiner :
Respondent would, if permitted, call witnesses who would testify that at the second or third meeting of the union, about February 22, 1952, Steelworker representative Graham, in answer to the question “How do you brand a scab?”, advised Rockwell employees on how to make paint bombs by drilling a %" hole in the base of a light bulb, fill-the bulb with paint, and covering the hole with a wad of gum; that at the same meeting Graham advised against using paint bombs or violence but thereafter gave instructions on how to throw bombs on the roofs of houses rather than the sides because it was more difficult to paint over shingles, and greater damage was thereby inflicted; that on or about February 15, 1962, in a Texaco Service Station at 25th Street and Avenue A, Kearney, Jim Fox, Roger Potter, and Robert Whaley asked one employee to sign a union authorization card; that when said employee replied
he didn’t think he was interested, Fox said, “You better sign it or you are going to die.”; that, at a meeting of employees who were against the union, a union adherent declared violence would be used to keep non-union members in line; that late one morning during the week of March 5, 1962, in the plant, Duane Taylor said to an employee who actively worked against the union and was instrumental in obtaining information about violence in which the union had engaged at another plant of the company in Atchison, Kansas, “I’m going to get you if the union gets in.”; that Taylor said to the same employee on another occasion, “Whether the union gets in or not, I’m going to get you.”; that prior to the election, said employee told other employees of Taylor’s threats; that at a union meeting about March 2, 1962, Graham said there was more than one way to get union authorization cards signed, such as using pressure or getting rough; and that about two weeks before the election two union adherents told an employee returning to his work station after dinner, “If you don’t sign up with the union and the union gets in, you will be laid off.”