Court Opinion

ID: 9489723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:22:24.235967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:40.724237
License: Public Domain

*230RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
All aspects of the Board’s order ought to be enforced. I cannot agree with my colleagues that the Board exceeded its authority in determining that the employer’s interrogation of an employee about union activities and threat of a plant relocation constitute violations of the National Labor Relations Act. In both instances, the Board’s order is not contrary to law and is supported by substantial evidence.
In assessing these issues, it is important to keep in mind several very basic, but controlling, propositions. “We must recognize the Board’s special function of applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities of industrial life.” NLRB v. WFMT, 997 F.2d 269, 274 (7th Cir.1993). Congress has committed to the NLRB, and not to this court, the task of developing national labor policy through enforcement of the Act. America’s Best Quality Coatings Corp. v. NLRB, 44 F.3d 516, 520 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 2609, 132 L.Ed.2d 853 (1995). Our task is limited to determining whether the findings of the Board are supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole, see Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 477-88, 71 S.Ct. 456, 459-65, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951), and whether its legal determinations have a reasonable basis in law. America’s Best Quality Coatings Corp., 44 F.3d at 520. Keeping these basic propositions in mind is especially important when, as here, we are called upon to review discrete acts of the employer that, although presented separately before us on appellate review, are, in the real world of industrial relations, part of a more extensive pattern of admitted anti-union activity. As my colleagues quite appropriately note, these uncontested violations “do not disappear altogether. They remain, lending their aroma to the context in which the contested issues are considered.” Rock-Tenn Co. v. NLRB, 69 F.3d 803, 808 (7th Cir.1995) (internal quotation omitted). Assessment of each of the violations here required that the Board examine carefully the circumstances of the statement of management against the backdrop of the overall labor relations situation at that plant at that time. It required that the Board, in making that appraisal, rely upon a great deal of its own institutional expertise. The climate of labor relations in a facility faced with a representational effort by a Union is nuanced, and- a cold record often fails to reveal the subsurface subtleties that are of primary importance.
A.
The court first rejects the Board’s judgment with respect to the interrogation of Gregory Benskin by Mr. Smith. There is, of course, no question that the interrogation of an employee by a member of management about his union sentiments can constitute a violation of the Act. NLRB v. Shelby Memorial Hosp. Ass’n, 1 F.3d 550, 559 (7th Cir.1993). Moreover, in order to establish a violation, it is not necessary to show that an attempt at coercion succeeded. Rather, an impermissible interference with the right of self-organization occurs when the employer engages in conduct that reasonably tends to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees with respect to union activities. Id. In assessing whether the employee’s conduct can be so characterized, the Board must assess the statements from the viewpoint of the questioned employee. NLRB v. Gold Standard Enters., 679 F.2d 673, 676 (7th Cir.1982). Writing for the court in Shelby Memorial Hospital Association, Judge Kanne, although noting that the totality of the circumstances must be considered, delineated a non-exclusive list of factors that ought to be considered in determining whether the Board assessed the situation with sufficient comprehensiveness — the background of employer-employee-union relations, the identity and the authority of the questioner, the nature of the information sought, the place and the method of the questioning, and the truthfulness of the reply. He also noted that whether the employer gave a legitimate reason for the inquiry and whether the questioned employee was assured that no reprisals would follow are also important considerations. 1 F.3d at 559. See also NLRB v. Acme Die Casting Corp., 728 F.2d 959, 962 (7th Cir.1984) (delineating similar factors).
*231My reading of the opinion of the administrative law judge, as adopted by the Board, and my examination of the record convinces me that the Board’s examination of these factors, although perhaps not as thoroughly articulated as it should be, sufficiently analyzes the exchange between Mr. Smith and Mr. BensMn to warrant our enforcement. The record establishes that the supervisor had requested specific information concerning the participation of his subordinates in a union meeting. The refusal of Mr. Benskin to answer is subject to a variety of characterizations. The Board could have concluded that Mr. Benskin’s refusal to provide the information neutralized any coercive effect. However, in light of the other evidence of corporate anti-union animus exhibited, contemporaneously as a practical matter, the Board certainly was permitted to conclude that the episode had more deleterious effect on the labor relations atmosphere at the plant. The Board made no error of law; nor ,. is its factual assessment so superficial that I can say that it did not take into consideration those factors that we have found relevant to the inquiry. Nor can I say that the Board’s characterization of the encounter lacks substantial support in the record. Under these circumstances, it certainly is not our place to substitute our assessment for the expertise of the Board as to the implications of the employer’s conduct on the labor relations environment in the plant.
B.
The assessment of whether a particular statement by a member of management can be considered a threat that had an impact on the labor relations atmosphere of the plant is, of course, a most difficult assessment to make on a cold record. The pages of a typed transcript make it difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between good-natured banter among workers and the sort of statement that, even if it be made in jest, threatens and intimidates the worker who is the object of the manager’s remark. Here, the administrative law judge, relying explicitly on his observation of the demeanor of the two employees to whom the threat had been directed, determined that the státement violated the Act.1 The court, acting on the cold record, disagrees with that decision. In my view, there is sufficient evidence in the record to justify — indeed to require — that we defer to the judgment of the Board. The statement at issue was made while the employees were engaged in union organizational activity and was made immediately after the supervisor had chided one of the employees for having engaged in such activity. The statement was also made in the wake of a statement by company officials that suppliers such as Champion were being pressured by the automakers to move to Mexico.
It is important that, as an institution, we remain faithful to the role designated for us by Congress in the enforcement of the labor laws of the United States. Because I believe that the court has deviated from that assigned role, I respectfully dissent from the court’s decision to deny enforcement. In all other respects, I join the judgment and the opinion of the court.

. We have frequently noted that we will not overturn the credibility finding of a hearing officer, except in the most extraordinary circumstances. See Carry Cos. v. NLRB, 30 F.3d 922, 926 (7th Cir.1994) (citing cases).