Court Opinion

ID: 9465503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:48:05.289231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:12.771790
License: Public Domain

*308EDWARDS, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
The United Automobile Workers conducted an organizing campaign at Prestolite Division of Eltra Corporation’s plant at Rose City, Michigan. It won an election as collective bargaining representative of the employees by a vote of 59 to 55. After the election the company filed objections to certification of the results on eight separate grounds, each of which was rejected by the Regional Director after an investigation in a report and recommendation to the NLRB.
Petitioner then presented detailed exceptions to the report and recommendation of the Regional Director, but did not attach sworn affidavits to support them. The National Labor Relations Board was convinced by the Regional Director’s report and certified the UAW as collective bargaining representative. This resulted in the present petition for review by Eltra and cross-application for enforcement by the Board.
Petitioner’s principal exceptions do not appear to me to dispute matters of fact, as opposed to the interpretation of the impact or the legal effect of the facts concerned. I am persuaded that the Regional Director’s treatment of the objections was proper and that under this court’s opinion in NLRB v. Tennessee Packers, Inc., 379 F.2d 172 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 958, 88 S.Ct. 338, 19 L.Ed.2d 364 (1967), the Board was entitled to reject Eltra’s exceptions without a hearing.
In Tennessee Packers this court said:
In order to raise “substantial and material factual issues”, it is necessary for a party to do more than question the interpretation and inferences placed upon the facts by the Regional Director. N. L. R. B. v. National Survey Service Inc., 361 F.2d 199 (C.A. 7); N. L. R. B. v. J. R. Simplot Company, 322 F.2d 170 (C.A. 9); Macomb Pottery Company v. N. L. R. B., 376 F.2d 450 (C.A. 7); N. L. R. B. v J. J. Collins’ Sons, Inc., 332 F.2d 523 (C.A. 7); N. L. R. B. v. Sun Drug Co., 359 F.2d 408 (C.A. 3). It is incumbent upon the party seeking a hearing to clearly demonstrate that factual issues exist which can only be resolved by an evidentiary hearing. The exceptions must state the specific findings that are controverted and must show what evidence will be presented to support a contrary finding or conclusion. N. L. R. B. v. National Survey Service, Inc., supra; N. L. R. B. v. J. R. Simplot Company, supra; Macomb Pottery Company v. N. L. R. B., supra. Mere disagreement with the Regional Director’s reasoning and conclusions do not raise “substantial and material factual issues.” This is not to say that a party cannot except to the inferences and conclusions drawn by the Regional Director, but that such disagreement, in itself, cannot be the basis for demanding a hearing. To request a hearing a party must, in its exceptions, define its disagreements and make an offer of proof to support findings contrary to those of the Regional Director. The Board is entitled to rely on the report of the Regional Director in the absence of specific assertions of error, substantiated by offers of proof.
The purpose behind the rule which requires a hearing only when “substantial and material factual issues” are raised is to avoid lengthy and protracted proceedings, and eliminate unnecessary delays in certifying the results of an election. If a hearing is required to be held on all exceptions to an election or report of a Regional Director, it would unduly lengthen and prolong labor unrest, contrary to the very purposes of the National Labor Relations Act. The cases relied upon by respondent in support of its contention that it is entitled to a hearing, all deal with cases in which the court determined that “substantial and material factual issues” were raised, and therefore held that the Board erred in not ordering a hearing. United States Rubber Company v. N. L. R. B., 373 F.2d 602 (C.A. 5); N. L. R. B. v. Capital Bakers, Inc., 351 F.2d 45 (C.A. 3); N. L. R. B. v. Joclin Mfg. Co., 314 F.2d 627 (C.A. 2); N. L. R. B. v. Lord Baltimore Press, Inc., 300 F.2d 671 (C.A. 4); N. L. R. B. v. Dallas City Packing Co., 230 F.2d 708 (C.A. 5); N. L. R. B. v. Poinsett Lumber and Mfg. Co., *309221 F.2d 121 (C.A. 4). In N. L. R. B. v. Sidran, 181 F.2d 671 (C.A. 5), cited by respondent, the Court could only have held that the Board erred in denying a hearing if “substantial and material factual issues” were raised.
Respondent’s exceptions to the report of the Regional Director filed December 13th, as heretofore described, do not state specific objections or indicate that material factual issues exist. They do not clearly put in issue the correctness of the Director’s findings, but merely attack the correctness of his conclusions and inferences drawn from the facts uncovered in his investigation. It was proper for respondent to question the conclusions of the Director, but to require a hearing it was incumbent upon it to state what evidence it would produce to establish that the conclusions were incorrect. Respondent fails to suggest any material facts which would be developed at a hearing. A hearing “would not deal with matters of factual proof but would serve only to permit argument which could as well have been presented in the writing itself.” N. L. R. B. v. J. R. Simplot Company, supra.
Id. at 178.
In NLRB v. O.K. Van Storage, Inc., 297 F.2d 74 (5th Cir. 1961), the Fifth Circuit said:
The National Labor Relations Act, as amended, declares that it is the policy of the United States to encourage establishment of the collective bargaining relationship; the Act then specifies the procedures by which the relationship is to be established. Nowhere in the Act is there a specific requirement that the Board conduct post-election hearings on objections to the conduct of elections; rather, it is implicit in the Act that questions preliminary to the establishment of the bargaining relationship be expeditiously resolved, with litigious questions reserved for the proceedings for review or enforcement of Board orders. The Board nonetheless makes it a practice to hold post-election hearings on objections to elections, but in keeping with the spirit of the Act does so only when it appears that the allegations relied on to overturn the election have a basis in law and that there is evidence to support them. The opportunity for protracted delay of certification of the results of representation elections which would exist in the absence of reasonable conditions to the allowance of a hearing on objections is apparent. An objecting party who fails to satisfy such conditions has no cause for complaint when and if his demand for a hearing is denied.
Id. at 76. (Footnotes omitted.)
The majority’s result in this case could turn out to be that the Board is required to review each set of such unsupported objections by detailed hearing procedures. The already egregious delay between election and ultimate certification in NLRB election cases could be lengthened to a decade or more by this process.
I would grant enforcement.