Ampex Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 28, 1967

164 N.L.R.B. 224 (N.L.R.B. 1967)

224 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Ampex Corporation and International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
AFL-CIO. Case 27-CA-2052.
April 28, 1967
DECISION AND ORDER
CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND ZAGORIA
On January 18, 1967, Trial Examiner Milton Janus
issued his Decision in the above-entitled proceeding,
finding that the Respondent had not engaged in the
unfair labor practices alleged in the complaint and
recommending that the complaint be dismissed, as
set forth in the attached Trial Examiner's Decision.
Thereafter, the Charging Party filed exceptions to
the Decision and a supporting brief, and the
Respondent filed an answering brief to exceptions of
Charging Party.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the-
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial
Examiner made at the hearing and finds that no
prejudicial error was committed. The rulings are
hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Trial
Examiner's Decision, the exceptions and the briefs,
and the entire record in the case, and hereby adopts
the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of
the Trial Examiner.
ORDER
Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor
Relations Board adopts as its Order the
Recommended Order of the Trial Examiner and
orders that the complaint herein be, and it hereby is,
dismissed in its entirety.
TRIAL EXAMINER'S DECISION
MILTON JANUS , Trial Examiner : This proceeding under
Section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as
amended, was heard by me at Colorado Springs, Colorado,
on October 25 through 28, 1966 , pursuant to due notice.
The complaint , which was issued on August 30, 1966, on a
charge and an amended charge dated June 13, and
August 4 , 1966 , respectively, alleged in substance that
Respondent had engaged in unfair labor practices in
violation of Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the Act by various
specified acts of interference , restraint, and coercion, and
by discharging Sally Paukune because of her membership
in, or activities on behalf of, the Charging Party.
Respondent ' s answer denied the alleged unfair labor
I Work ends for the day shift at 4 30 p m. and begins for the
night shift at 5 p.m
practices. The Respondent and the General Counsel filed
briefs.
Upon the entire record in the case and from my
observation of the witnesses, I make the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. JURISDICTIONAL FINDINGS
Respondent is a California corporation with its principal
office in Redwood City, California. It is engaged in the
manufacture of video and audio tape recording equipment.
From its plant at Colorado Springs , Colorado, the only
establishment involved in this proceeding , Respondent
shipped finished products during the past year valued in
excess of $50,000 directly to customers in States other
than Colorado. Respondent admits, and I find , that it is an
employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
II. THE LABOR ORGANIZATION INVOLVED
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
AFL-CIO, is a labor organization within the meaning of
the Act.
III. THE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES
A. Background and Issues
Respondent manufactures video and audio tape
recording equipment at its Colorado Springs plant, where
all the alleged unfair labor practices occurred. During the
period involved, mainly in June 1966, it employed about
600 people at the plant. On Wednesday, June 8, 1966,
starting about 4:15 p.m. (timed to reach employees on both
the day and evening shifts),' representatives of the
Charging Union began handbilling at points adjacent to the
Company's parking area. No preliminary organizing
activities had come to the Respondent's attention,
although apparently some such work had taken place.
Thereafter, handbilling at access roads leading to
company property was engaged in on June 14, 20, 24, and
30, and on four other dates in succeeding months before
the hearing in this case in late October.
The complaint alleges that Respondent discharged
Sally Paukune, its toolcrib attendent, on June 9, because it
knew or suspected that she had become involved with the
Union, that its supervisor, Jack Hill, interrogated
employee June Teeter in a coercive manner on June 10,
concerning union activities; that its plant manager,
John Beumer, promised employees certain benefits at an
employee meeting on June 10; and that Personnel Manager
Ernest Knapp kept the handbilling under surveillance on
June 14 and 20, or created the impression that he was
doing so.
Respondent denied the commission of any unfair labor
practices. Its specific defenses to each of the charges will
be set out later.
At Respondent's invitation, the representatives of the
General Counsel, the attorney for the Charging Union, and
I, visited the plant during the hearing in order to inspect its
physical layout since, for reasons appearing later, it would
be helpful to know the location of the toolcrib with respect
to other areas of the plant. My familiarity with the plant is
therefore based on personal observation, the study of
164 NLRB No. 35
AMPEX CORPORATION 225
certain of Respondent's exhibits, and the descriptions of
witnesses.
B. The Discharge of Sally Paukune
Mrs. Paukune worked for the Respondent from
February 1965 to June 9, 1966 . She was first hired as a
production worker on an assembly line, but was
transferred in November to be the toolcrib attendant on
the day shift . She was the only regular attendant , and was
expected to be in the toolcrib at all times during her shift,
except for lunch or break periods . The crib is centrally
located in the production area and faces on a corridor
which connects it with the west end of the plant where the
offices, cafeteria , and employees ' entrance are located.
The crib is about 20 by 20 feet in area, enclosed by heavy
wire mesh on three sides and a solid masonry wall on the
other . At the front of the crib , facing on the corridor, is a
pass-through counter , and a door which was supposed to
be kept locked at all times . The other sides are lined with
steel shelving, reaching to ceiling height , on which
supplies are stored . Anyone passing the crib on his way
through the corridor would have to peer over the pass-
through counter in order to observe Mrs. Paukune if she
were seated at her workspace or using her telephone
which was located on a low shelf towards the rear.
Since she had to speak to production supervisors about
supplies, a telephone was installed in the crib in March
1966 so that she would not have to leave the toolcrib
unattended.
Sometime around the middle or end of March , the wives
of certain supervisors began receiving telephone calls at
home while their husbands were at work on the day shift.
The caller was a woman who never identified herself. The
import of the calls was that the husband had just been
observed walking by, and that he was on his way to meet
another woman with whom he was philandering . Calls of
this nature, or calls which seemed to start out that way but
which were frustrated by the wife refusing to give the
expected preliminary answers, were made to the wives of
Supervisors Hill, Van Dok , and Chantrell, and to
Mrs. Nunn , the wife of a nonsupervisory dispatcher. None
of the wives testified, and the evidence as to the nature
and content of these "poison pen" calls, as they were
uniformly referred to at the hearing, came from Hill and
Van Dok . Van Dok testified that his wife told him she had
received about 10 such calls from March through June 1.
Although it is clearly hearsay , I have no reason to doubt
his sworn testimony as to what his wife told him about the
calls, nor the testimony of Plant Manager Beumer and
other company officials that they learned about the calls
on or about June 1, and that they took immediate action to
attempt to trace the caller.
Beumer first learned of the calls when he joined a
number of plant officials convening in a conference room
near his office to discuss the matter. It was the consensus
at this meeting on the basis of what was known about the
calls that they were being made from the plant and from a
telephone where the caller could observe the movement of
people in the corridor between the production area and the
cafeteria , while being herself relatively safe from being
detected . Because the toolcrib and its telephone most
adequately fit these assumptions , suspicion was directed
towards Sally Paukune.
In order to understand the steps taken to track down the
poison pen caller, it is necessary to describe the plant's
telephone system. There is a central switchboard in a
wholly enclosed area near the office section. It is attended
by a regular operator and one or two relief operators.
Whoever is at the switchboard also operates the intraplant
paging system. Calls from the outside are handled by the
operator who will connect the caller with his party by
ringing his extension or paging him in the plant. There are
about 75 handsets, of which all but 6 restricted telephones
may use direct dialing for outside calls without going
through the board. Direct dialing is also used for all
intraplant calls, whether the telephone is restricted or
unrestricted. A caller from one of the six restricted
telephones may make an outside call only by dialing the
operator and asking for an outside line. However, there is
no way for the operator to ascertain visually on the
switchboard from which of the restricted telephones a
request for an outside line has been made. The only way to
do so is to tap in on the extension for the restricted
telephone, although even that would merely tell the
operator that the telephone was in use, without telling her
whether the call being made was intraplant or to the
outside. Of course, the operator may recognize the voice of
the caller from a restricted telephone when he or she askes
for an outside line. Of the six restricted telephones, five
were either in partially enclosed foremen's offices or in
open production or receiving areas. The sixth was in the
toolcrib. There were also four public pay telephones in the
plant-two in the cafeteria area, one at the receiving dock,
and one in the corridor, almost directly opposite the
toolcrib, and next to a drinking fountain. The pay
telephones were all in the open.
The plant rules as to the use of telephones by production
employees had been publicized and were well known.
During nonworking times, employees could use the public
pay phones. During working periods, they could make
outside calls in an emergency, after obtaining a foreman's
permission .2 Such calls could be made from a restricted
phone, but it was not the operator's responsibility to
question someone asking for an outside line whether he
had gotten his foreman's permission. All requests for
outside lines were routinely served.
At the June 1 conference of Beumer and other officials,
it was decided to try to monitor requests for outside lines
from restricted phones. Billings, the supervisor of the
switchboard operators instructed Mrs. Renck, the regular
operator, on June 1 to note all requests for outside lines.
The next day he told her to note particularly requests by
female voices, and the day after that, Friday, June 3, he
asked her to check such requests from extension 276, the
toolcrib phone. Mrs. Renck testified that on these first
days, she recognized Mrs. Paukune's voice asking for
outside lines a number of times. She did not try to learn to
whom the calls were being made.
Beumer then decided that the monitoring system was
ineffectual, and he called the local telephone company
about the problem. They recommended that a speaker be
attached to Extension 276, so that all calls to and from the
toolcrib phone would be amplified and could be overheard
in the switchboard room. The speaker was installed by a
phone company representative on Monday morning,
June 6. Billings then instructed Mrs. Renck to call him
whenever an outgoing call was made from extension 276,
2 The rule may have been laxly administered in the sense that
foremen gave permission for outside calls from a restricted phone
without inquiring closely into the supposed emergency , but those
employees who testified as to the rule, including Paukune, were
quite aware about the need for permission from a foreman, and
that an "emergency" might have to be claimed.
226 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and for the first time told her that he was trying to learn if
Mrs. Paukune was making the poison pen calls. The
operator started to keep a log of outside calls to and from
the toolcrib extension. No outgoing calls were made on
June 6 after the speaker was installed, one was made on
June 7, one on the 8th, and two on the 9th. Mrs. Renck also
testified that she recalled three outside calls had been
made from extension 276 on June 2, before installation of
the speaker. There were thus, during the 6 working days
between June 2 and 9, a total of seven outgoing calls made
from the toolcrib phone. No poison pen calls were reported
during this period, either by previous recipients or by the
telephone operators.
Despite his instructions to be advised of outgoing calls
from extension 276 on and after June 6, Mrs. Renck was
unable to reach Billings in time for him to hear anything,
except as to the second call on June 9. While that call was
in process, Mrs. Renck managed to get him in his office,
and he came into the switchboard room, listened for a
moment or two, and then left to return to a visitor in his
office. A few moments later when he came back to the
switchboard, the call had been completed. Since it is
primarily on the basis of this call that the General Counsel
relies in arguing that Billings learned of Paukune's union
activity, I will describe it more fully later on; for the
present it is enough to relate what Billings did
immediately.
On learning that the call had been completed, Billings
asked the operator for the log of calls she had been
instructed to keep, took the three sheets (Resp. Exh. 6),
and went to show them to Beumer. They were not able to
understand the operator's rough notes, so Billings brought
them back to Mrs. Renck and asked her to make a
summary of what the log indicated. Her summary was
received in evidence as Respondent's Exhibit 7, and
shows, as mentioned above, that seven calls had been
made from the toolcrib phone in the past week. Also
entered on the summary was a report from a relief
operator who recalled recognizing Paukune's voice asking
for outside lines on two occasions on May 23, before any
monitoring had occurred. Beumer and Billings studied the
summary, and Beumer then called to his office, Foremen
Coletti and Hill, and the personnel manager, Knapp. After
some discussion as to what had been discovered about
Paukune's calls, Beumer decided to discharge her
immediately, and she was in fact discharged before the
end of the day.
Beumer testified that he discharged her for two
reasons-the one that she was given: serious breach of the
plant rule about unauthorized personal use of a company
phone, and the second, which she was not told about,
his strong but unprovable suspicion that it was she who
had been making the poison pen calls.
I do not intend to discuss whether Paukune in fact had
made the poison pen calls, or whether Beumer's suspicion
that she had was reasonable with reference to the situation
as it appeared to him. If the discharge was not motivated
by Respondent's knowledge or belief that Paukune was in
some manner tied up with the Union, or if Respondent was
unaware of that connection, then the 8(a)(3) allegation
must be dismissed.
Whether Beumer or any other supervisory official at the
plant knew or suspected that Paukune might be interested
in the Union turns on two incidents-Paukune's telephone
call on June 9, part of which Billings overheard, and an
effort, initiated by Paukune, to obtain a list of the names
and addresses of the employees in one of the production
departments.
1. The telephone call. One of Sally Paukune's close
friends at the plant was Mrs. Jerry Wirtanen. Jerry fainted
while at work June 7, and was taken to a hospital where
she remained about a week. She called Sally that day at
the plant, reaching her on the toolcrib extension, to let her
know about her condition. Sally called her the next day
from the plant to find out how she was.
On Thursday, June 9, Sally called her again from her
phone in the crib. The exact time of the call is in dispute,
and although it is not material whether the call was made
around- 12:30 p.m., as Sally testified, or at 2:50 p.m., as
Billings and the telephone operator testified, a de-
termination as to the time of the call does bear on the
general credibility of the witnesses. Mrs. Paukune testi-
fied that she spoke to her friend Jerry about 12:30 from
her phone, and that she had not asked her foreman
for permission because he was out to lunch then, and he
usually raised no objection anyway. She also said she had
made another call about 2:30 from the pay phone across
the corridor, after receiving her foreman's permission to
leave her work station, but this call was not to Jerry.
Jerry testified that Sally's call was between 1 and 2 p.m.
that Thursday. The log of calls from extension 276
indicates that two outgoing calls were completed that day,
one about 12:15, in which two unidentified women
conversed in a foreign language, and one about 2:50 p.m.,
which the operator and Billings testified was Sally's call to
Jerry which they overheard in part. The operator recalled
that it was made shortly before her afternoon break,
because it had been completed while she was still at the
board, and that Billings had come to get her in the
cafeteria, on her relief period which began at 3 p.m., to ask
her to compile the summary from her rough notes which
Billings had taken into show Beumer. I credit the
recollection of Mrs. Renck and Billings as to the time, as
corroborated by the log, and infer therefrom that Paukune
was anxious to place the time of the call to Jerry as being
during her foreman's lunch period in order to justify her
failure to ask his permission.
The call itself was not very long. They inquired after
each other's health. Jerry told Sally she was worried about
getting a substitute for that evening's bowling game, and
Sally offered to speak to the vice president of the team
whom she had just seen passing by in the corridor. The
names of some mutual acquaintances were mentioned.
Then, according to Jerry's testimony, Sally mentioned that
the plant had been handbilled the day before, and Jerry
responded, according to her, that she would like to see
what had been passed out. Sally said she did not have it
but would try to get a copy for her, and that she would
rather not say anything more because someone might be
listening. Sally's version of the critical reference to the
handbilling the day before is that it was Jerry who first
mentioned it in their conversation, and that Jerry then
asked her to bring her a card, because she wanted to sign
one too. Sally then warned her that the call was going
through the office, although she did not then know that her
phone was being monitored.
If Jerry's version is true, that she asked Sally to bring
her a copy of the handbill, there seems little reason to
believe that Billings, assuming he even heard that portion
of the conversation, or Beumer, would conclude therefrom
that Sally was a secret adherent of the Union who should
be gotten rid of immediately. The fact that a union has
opened an organizing drive is the sort of interesting piece:
of information about life at the plant which would normally
be related to an absent employee, and it would be an
apprehensive employer indeed who would react so
AMPEX CORPORATION
violently to so innocuous an exchange of small talk. On the
other hand, if Jerry had told Sally that she wanted to sign a
card too, it would be strong evidence that Sally was
already involved in the Union's effort. Sally had signed an
authorization card as "early as July 1965, and had signed
another on May 24, 1966; and Sally had invited Jerry to
attend a union organizing meeting which Jerry had
declined.
So far as their demeanor in testifying is concerned,
there is little to choose between them. Each may have had
an interest in shaping her testimony to suit her
purpose-Paukune to show that Respondent was aware of
her adherence to the Union, and Wirtanen, who was still
employed at the plant at the time of the hearing, to show
that her interest in the Union was minimal. My assessment
of the probabilities of the situation leads me to conclude
that Jerry's recollection of the phone conversation is the
more accurate, and that she did not ask Sally to bring her a
card at the the hospital so that she could sign one too.
Jerry knew of Sally's interest in the Union, from her
invitation to attend a meeting, yet she had not signed a
card when Sally did. It is unlikely that Jerry would have
considered it so urgent a matter as to want to sign a card
that day while she was ill in the hospital. Further, the
casual tone of the rest of the conversation leads me to
believe that the Union was not uppermost in the minds of
either, and was possibly of less interest to Jerry than was
her problem of getting a bowling substitute that evening. It
seems highly improbable that Jerry should have decided
then and there that she wanted to sign a card for the
Union.
Of course, none of this has any relevance unless Billings
overheard that portion of the conversation, directly or
through Mrs. Renck. Billings testified that all he heard
was something about some people who were being
mentioned, and Mrs. Renck testified that she remembered
very little about it, and that she had had to turn the
speaker down two or three times while she was attending
to other calls coming in on the switchboard. Both of them
denied that they heard anything relating to the Union or to
its handbilling, and Mrs. Renck denied additionally that
she had heard similar talk in any of Paukune's monitored
calls. Their testimony that they had heard nothing in the
June 9 conversation or at any other time relating to the
Union or to its handbilling was straightforward and
unequivocal. I have no basis for discrediting them unless I
also discredit the testimony of other witnesses for the
Respondent as to the other incident through which
Respondent had learned or suspected that Paukune was
involved with the Union before it discharged her on June 9.
f turn then to a description of other events which occurred
on June 8, 9, and 10.
2. The last. Out of the blue, Sally Paukune suggested
early on June 8 to June Teeter, a friend of hers in the
plant, that it would be nice if the mechanical assembly
employees had an up-to-date list of their names and
addresses which would be useful for thank you notes, get
well cards, and the like. Sally obligingly supplied June
with a sheet of paper on which June put her name and
address, and June then passed it around her department.
The list came back to June about an hour later with 35-40
entries. June gave the list to Sally, who had it duplicated
somewhere. A stack of the duplicated list was then placed
on a desk in the department, available to all. Whether
Sally also retained a copy for the Union was not brought
out, but after the first appearance of the Union late that
afternoon, there arose the suspicion in the minds of some
of the employees that there may have been a reason for
227
getting up the list other than what they had been told. The
rumor began to spread that those who had signed the list
might in some way have committed themselves to the
Union.
No supervisor asked June Teeter or Sally Paukune
anything about the list the next day, June 9. On the 10th,
the day after Paukune was discharged, Hill, foreman of
mechanical assembly, learned for the first time, according
to his testimony, that such a list was in existence. He
heard of it from Shuey, one of his subordinate supervisors
who, in turn, had heard it from a rank-and-file employee.
There is no evidence as to when Shuey first learned about
the list, or if he knew that Paukune had suggested it to
June Teeter. There is testimony from Respondent's
witnesses that it was not discussed at the June 9 meeting
of Beumer and other officials when Beumer ordered
Paukune's immediate discharge.
Thus, the testimony of Respondent's witnesses is that
they did not know of any possible link between Paukune
and the Union when she was discharged. To discredit
Beumer, Billings and Hill on this issue of knowledge could
only be justified if there were strong, countervailing
inferences to be drawn from the discharge itself.
There are suspicious circumstances surrounding the
discharge. First, Paukune was never asked to explain why
there were so many outside calls from her phone, and her
immediate supervisor was never asked if he had given her
permission to make them. There was, in other words, no
full investigation of the alleged violation of the plant rule
against unauthorized use of company phones. Second,
Paukune was discharged a day before the end of the pay
period, and the normal practice of the plant is to handle all
separations on Friday. If I were to assume that
Respondent knew of Paukune's connection with the
Union, either through her conversation with Wirtanen on
June 9, or through her effort to get a list of employee
names and addresses, then her summary discharge is
explainable in the light of that knowledge. But these
conjectures lose much of their apparent force in the face of
Respondent's explanation for the discharge. If
Respondent's only reason had been Paukune's
unauthorized use of the phone, then its failure to
investigate her use of the phone would give the discharge a
pretextual flavor. It must be remembered, however, that
Respondent in effect used the unauthorized calls as a
partial coverup for what Beumer justifiably regarded as a
much more heinous offense-the poison pen calls.
Beumer had no solid proof that Paukune had made those
calls, but his suspicion that she had, predated by a week
any possible knowledge of her attachment to the Union.
Beumer's interest and concern as to the source of the
poison pen calls cannot be denied or faulted. He took
prompt action to trace the caller, and he regarded
Paukune as the most likely culprit days before he could
possibly have known of her union connections. Beumer
was thus in the position of utilizing one reason for firing
Paukune without having to reveal to her his strong
suspicion that she was also guilty of a much more serious
offense.
Beumer's explanation of why he fired Paukune on
Thursday afternoon instead of on Friday, when
terminations are normally processed, is not implausible.
He explained that Fridays are busy days for the personnel
department, what with preparing separation papers and
conducting termination interviews. Besides, he was fearful
of an emotional outburst if Paukune's discharge had been
handled routinely the next day. These reasons would ring
less true if Beumer knew on June 9 that Paukune had
298-668 0-69-16
228 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
busied herself the day before in securing a list of
employees in a department where she did not work. But if
I assume that he did know of it on the 9th, I would also
have to assume that he discharged her that day instead of
on Friday because,he wanted her out of the way before it
could come to his attention publicly, as was bound to
happen, that she had been mixed up in securing the list of
employees. All in all, it was a strange coincidence that
Respondent should have discharged Paukune the day it
could have learned about her link with the Union, but
strange coincidences, possibilities, and conjectures may
not outweigh the lack of evidence that Respondent had
any inkling on June 9 that Paukune was an adherent of the
Union. In the absence of such proof, I will recommend
dismissal of the 8(a)(3) allegation of the complaint.
C. The 8(a)(1) Allegations
1. Interrogation of June Teeter. The morning after
Paukune's discharge, Hill learned about the list and that
some of the employees were concerned over having signed
it. Hill checked with Beumer who told him to reassure the
employees that they had nothing to be concerned about.
During the day Hill spoke privately to a number of
employees in his department. Two of them, Verla Martinez
and Nancy Fraser, testified for the Respondent,
corroborating Hill's testimony that he had merely told
them that signing the list would have no effect on their
jobs, and that in response to their questions about
handbills and authorization cards, he had told them that
signing a card would "sort of" be a vote for the Union.
They testified that he had not asked them if they had
signed cards, and that Hill had said nothing about gaining
or losing vacation or insurance benefits if the Union was
successful.
The first employee whom Hill had called in that day for
an interview was June Teeter, who had gotten the list
started at Paukune' s suggestion . Teeter, testifying for the
General Counsel, said that Hill told her the list could be
dangerous, that in his opinion it had gotten in the hands of
the Union and could cause a great deal of trouble. He told
her that she should not sign anything again , but as with the
other employees, he assured her she had nothing to worry
about. At some point in the interview, Hill said, according
to Teeter, that he hoped she had not signed an
authorization card. He also said that if 51 percent of the
employees signed cards, the Union would automatically
come in and take over, and that maybe they would lose
their insurance and vacation, or part of it.
Hill's testimony is that he had not asked Teeter if she
had signed a card, that he did not tell her not to sign one,
and that he had not told her he hoped she had not or would
not sign one . He told her it was up to the individual to
decide for himself whether or not to sign a card. He
recalled that Teeter had asked him if she would lose her
insurance benefits if the Union came in, and that he had
told her that she would not, as far as he knew, and that the
Company's plant at Redwood City was unionized and had
basically the same insurance privileges as their plant. He
could not recall her asking him about vacation benefits.
I have no doubt that in their conversation Hill expressed
to Teeter his belief that the list had been turned over to the
Union, and was, from his point of view, dangerous.
Whether he also told her not to sign anything again is more
doubtful, but in any event , it seems to me that it would
have reference to documents whose purpose might be
unclear. He denied saying to Teeter that she should not
sign an authorization card, or that he hoped she had not
signed a card. But even if he said that he hoped she had
not signed a card (as Teeter testified), the remark bears no
coercive implication. I have considered_in this connection
Teeter's testimony that Hill had said that the employees
might lose insurance or vacation benefits if the Union came
in. Teeter was very uncertain with respect to many aspects
of her testimony, and I had the impression that her
nervousness both at the interview and in her testimony
had impaired her recollection. I credit Hill where his
testimony varies from Teeter's, and find that what he said
did not constitute unlawful interrogation, or other
interference, restraint, or coercion with Teeter's Section 7
rights.3
2. The employee meeting of June 10. The evidence
bearing on the allegation of the complaint that Plant
Manager Beumer promised employees new and improved
benefits to discourage their union activities is as follows.
On Friday, June 10, 2 days after the Union's first
handbilling at the plant, Beumer called and presided at a
meeting of all the employees. Beumer testified that
employee meetings were generally held monthly on a date
selected by him, where matters of employee interest were
discussed. Beumer decided to hold the June meeting on
the 10th because he usually tried to hold it during the first
half of the month, and this date was convenient with
respect to his personal schedule, since he had been at the
company headquarters in Redwood City sometime the
week before and he was due to go to Chicago the following
weekend. At the meeting he distributed employee awards,
discussed production goals, mentioned a previously
announced employee dinner in honor of the forthcoming
visit of the company president , and explained a proposed
longterm disability insurance program (the LTD program)
and a management training program. As to the handbilling,
Beumer said he told the employees that the Union had a
right to distribute literature, that the plant provided equal
or better benefits than were paid in the area for
comparable work, that it was up to the employees to
determine the facts, and he would keep them informed.
There is no evidence that Beumer's testimony is other
than an accurate presentation of what he had said.
Because the General Counsel's brief emphasizes that
the announcement of the LTD program was timed to
counter the Union 's organizational drive, it is necessary to
discuss the genesis of the program and its timing . If it was,
as the General Counsel contends, prematurely announced,
then the inference could be drawn that it was intended to
show the employees that their employer was no less
solicitous for their welfare than the Union, and that
representation was unnecessary.
Beumer testified that he first became interested in an
LTD program when he learned the previous summer that
another employer in Colorado Springs, using the same
type of labor, had instituted that type of plan. Such a
program for his plant would need approval of company
headquarters and Beumer proposed to the vice president
for labor relations that it be looked into. In November
1965, Redwood City advised Beumer that it was asking
insurance companies to come up with proposals for an
LTD program either for one or for several of its divisions.
In April 1966, Redwood City advised Beumer and officials
at its other plants throughout the country that it had
3 The complaint does not allege that Hill's interrogation of
Teeter also constituted a threat of loss of benefits.
AMPEX CORPORATION
analyzed the proposals submitted by the insurance
carriers and had selected one of them as the most
satisfactory. The divisions were told that the carrier's
requirement for the program was that at least 75 percent of
the employees in no fewer than three divisions be enrolled.
The level of benefits and premiums was stated, and a
deadline of May 16 was set for each division to report back
on whether it would be interested. At least three divisions
responded affirmatively, and on June 1, Redwood City told
them to go ahead with polling their employees to ascertain
whether the necessary 75 percent would enroll. In this
letter of June 1 from Redwood City, the divisions were told
to begin their campaign for enrollment of employees
"sometime around June 15" and to bring it to a close no
later than July 31. The letter also informed them that
about June 15 they would be supplied with IBM signup
cards on which the employees could authorize their formal
enrollment in the program.
It was at the employee meeting of June 10 that Beumer
informed his employees about the proposed LTD program,
what the levels of premiums and benefits were, and
advised them that it would be put into effect only if the
required percentage at three divisions voted for it. He
asked for a show of hands, and the employees' response
indicated that more than 75 percent were interested in
enrolling. Beumer then called corporate headquarters at
Redwood City to report that his division would participate.
I am not persuaded that the evidence related above
establishes that Beumer was prompted to make his
announcement on June 10 in order to inhibit the Union's
organizational efforts. The Union's campaign to secure
authorization cards had surfaced just 2 days before, and
was still continuing 4 months later, when this hearing was
held. As of the latter date, no demand for recognition had
been made or petition for an election filed. Beumer had a
fairly limited period in which his employees could decide
to enroll, and if he had polled them a week or two later in
June, or sometime in July, he would still have faced the
same dilemma of whether to announce the proposed
benefit during the Union's campaign or to forego it entirely
for his division, and this perhaps make it impossible for
other divisions also to obtain the program. The
announcement on June 10 was not premature simply
because the IBM cards had not yet arrived, as the General
Counsel contends, since they would not have been needed
at all if the employee poll showed that a 75-percent
enrollment could not be attained. I am satisfied that
Beumer announced the plan on June 10 rather than on
some later day in June or July because he wanted to get it
underway for reasons unrelated to the union campaign. It
had progressed so far by June 8, and it involved so many
other divisions of the Company, that I can draw no
inference that its announcement on June 10 to the
employees at Colorado Springs was intended as a response
to the Union' s organizational efforts.'
The General Counsel also suggests, rather glancingly,
that Beumer conferred or promised two other employee
benefits at the June 10 meeting. The first relates to an
open house and buffet dinner to honor the company
president who was coming to visit the Colorado Springs
' True Temper Corporation, 127 NLRB 839,842-844, and TMT
Trailer Ferry, Inc., 152 NLRB 1495, fn 1. Cf Northwest
Engineering Company, 148 NLRB 1136, 1137-39, and Exchange
Parts Company, 131 NLRB 806, affil 375 U.S 405, where the
announcements of new benefits were made shortly before a
scheduled election . I am not suggesting that an announcement of
benefits may not also violate Section 8(axl) if made during an
229
plant on June 20. Beumer's announcement was no more
than a reminder of what the employees had already been
told before June 8 about the impending visit, and as a
matter of fact employees had already been asked to
indicate in writing whether they and their spouses would
attend.
The second item was the formal announcement of a
training program to fit production employees for better
positions as the plant expanded. The program had in fact
been instituted on an experimental basis before the
announcement . Employees selected for training received
instructions a few hours per week on plant operations. It
was not a supervisory training program, but one designed
to create a pool of employees with a potential for more
responsibility.
I am satisfied that neither of these announcements as to
proposed "benefits" was prompted by the incipient union
campaign or was undertaken in order to impinge on the
employees' freedom of choice, nor are they reasonably
calculated to have that effect. I shall recommend dismissal
of the allegation of the complaint relating to the promise of
benefits.
3. Surveillance. The complaint alleged that Personnel
Manager Knapp kept the Union's handbilling under
surveillance on June 14 and 20, 2 of the 5 days in June on
which handbilling took place.
There are three points at the access roads around the
plant at which the parking lots are normally entered. Two
are on the west side of the plant, and each is about 120
yards from the steps at the west , or main , entrance to the
plant. The third driveway into the parking area is on the
plant's south side, about 175 yards from the south, or
employee, entrance. A person standing on the lawn at the
southwestern corner of the plant would have an
unobstructed view of all three parking area entrances.
Handbilling took place at the three points where access
roads lead into the parking area . It occurred between 4:15
and 5 p.m., but was concentrated mainly in the 20 minutes
or so when the day-shift employees left the parking area
shortly after 4:30, and the night-shift employees began
entering, shortly before 5 p.m.
Evidence as to the distribution of union literature on the
two pertinent dates, June 14 and 20, and Knapp's activities
then, was given by Guy Perry , an International
representative of the Charging Union, who was in charge
of the campaign, his brother Boyd Perry, who assisted in
the distribution, and Ernest Knapp. Ruth Blackmon, a
plant employee, testified as to her observation of Knapp on
a date she could not fix definitely, but which could only
have been June 14, as determined from her attendance
record.5
Boyd Perry testified that he participated in the
handbilling twice, and from his brother's testimony it
appears that these two occasions were June 14 and 20.
Boyd said that the first time a man whom he did not know,
but who was later identified to him as Knapp, came out of
the plant building and walked toward the northwest
entrance to the parking area , that his brother who was with
him at the southwest entrance went over to meet Knapp
and handed him a copy of the handbill. According to Boyd,
organizational campaign See Betts Baking Company, 155 NLRB
1313 I only hold, in the circumstances of this case, that the timing
was neither delayed nor advanced in order to affect the Union's
campaign
She was absent on June 8, and was on vacation or leave of
absence from June 17 through July 1.
230 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the individual then walked back toward the building and
stood on the lawn near the west entrance to the plant for
about 20 to 25 minutes, observing the distribution and the
entrance and exit of employees ' cars. The second time, he
said , Knapp came out of the building shortly after their
arrival at 4:15 p.m., stood on the lawn 5 or 10 minutes, and
then went over to the steps of the plant ' s main entrance
where he waited until the shift change was over.
Guy Perry's testimony agrees substantially with his
brother's as to where Knapp stood and for how long. Their
testimony definitely places Knapp on these two dates as
being either on the lawn or on the steps at the main or west
entrance during the 20 minutes or so between 4:30 and
5.p.m. when the bulk of the employees were either exiting
or entering the parking lots. Ruth Blackmon , however,
who was also called by the General Counsel, placed Knapp
as standing with Beumer inside the building at the
employee or south entrance to the plant about 4:40 p.m. on
June 14 when she entered the building on her way to work.
From this point it would have been about 175 yards to
where handbilling was taking place at the south entrance
to the parking area. Blackmon , who had to pass Knapp as
she came in by the south entrance to the plant, and who
knew him well , is much more creditable in her
identification of Knapp than are the Perrys who had not
known him before, and who were 100 yards or more distant
from the points at which they say he was standing.
Furthermore, Knapp's testimony as to his activities
between 4:15 and 5 p.m. on June 14 and 20 is persuasive
and reasonably in accord with the probabilities of the
situation. Knapp said that he learned about the handbilling
shortly after 4:15 when the union representatives
appeared, and that on both dates he went outside the
building to get copies of what was being distributed, and
got them from Guy Perry. He then returned to the building
before 4:30 and did not again go outside. On June 14, he
said , he showed the literature to Beumer and then went to
prepare an answer to it which he posted on the three
bulletin boards before 5 p.m. This is consistent with
Blackmon's testimony that Knapp was inside the plant
about 4:40. On June 20 , Knapp testified , after returning to
the building with the union leaflet , he resumed the work he
had been doing in preparation for the open house and
buffet dinner in honor of the company president, which
was scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.
Blackmon 's corroboration of Knapp 's testimony that he
was inside the plant after 4:30 on June 14, and the
difficulties faced by the Perrys in making certain who was
observing the handbilling from the lawn or from the west
entrance, coupled with my favorable impression of
Knapp's demeanor in testifying , lead me to credit his
denial that he stood outside the plant between 4:30 and
5 p.m. on either June 14 or 20 observing the distribution of
literature. In the absence of other evidence as to the
identity of the person who may have been watching from
either of these points, I must conclude that the General
Counsel has failed to establish that any supervisor or agent
of the Respondent was engaged in surveillance. I shall
therefore recommend not only dismissal of that allegation,
but of the entire complaint , since none of the other alleged
violations have been established by a preponderance of
the proof.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. Ampex Corporation is engaged in commerce and in
activities affecting commerce within the meaning of
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
2. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
AFL-CIO , is a labor organization within the meaning of
Section 2(5) of the Act.
3. The Respondent has not engaged in any unfair labor
practices as alleged in the complaint.
RECOMMENDED ORDER
It is hereby recommended that the complaint be
dismissed in its entirety.