Mead-Atlanta Paper Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 7, 1958

120 N.L.R.B. 832 (N.L.R.B. 1958)

832 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Mead-Atlanta Paper Company and Atlanta Printing Specialties
& Paper Products Local No. 527, AFL-CIO, Subordinate to the
International Printing Pressmen and Assistants ' Union of
North America, Petitioner. Case No. 10-RC-3954. May 7,1958
DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF RESULTS
OF ELECTION
Pursuant to a stipulation for certification upon consent election,
dated October 1, 1957, an election was conducted on October 9, 19b7,
under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director for the
Tenth Region, among the employees at the Employer's Atlanta,
Georgia, plant. At the conclusion of the election, the parties were
furnished a tally of ballots which showed that of approximately
1,059 eligible voters, 1,028 cast ballots of which 367 were for Petitioner
and 605 against. There were 56 challenged ballots, a number in-
sufficient to affect the results of the election. Eight ballots were void.
On October 14,1957, the Petitioner filed timely objections to conduct
affecting the results of the election. On January 24, 1958, following
an investigation, the Regional Director issued and duly served upon
the parties his report on objections, in which he recommended that:
Objections 1 to 5 and 9 to 13 be overruled; objection 7 be sustained;
if necessary, a hearing be held on objections 6 and 8; and the election
be set aside and a new election directed. The Employer filed timely
exceptions to the Regional Director's recommendations. No other
exceptions were filed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Members Rodgers, Bean, and Fanning].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. In agreement with the stipulation of the parties, we find that
the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9 (b) of the Act :
All employees in the Employer's Main and No. 2 plants and two
auxiliary warehouses in Atlanta, Georgia, excluding all office clerical
employees, cafeteria employees, lease machinery employees at Ells-
120 NLRB No. 110.
MEAD-ATLANTA PAPER COMPANY 833
worth Street, technical employees, over-the-road drivers, professional
employees, guards, and all supervisors as defined in the Act.
5. The Union based its objections to the election on 13 separate
grounds. The Regional Director found no merit in 10 of them and
recommended that these be overruled. As no exceptions have been
filed with respect to these 10 objections, we hereby adopt the Regional
Director's recommendations pro forma and overrule these objections.
The remaining objections arise as incidents of talks by company
representatives to various assemblies of employees and a few special
instances of individual conversations with specific employees. On
October 7, 1957, 2 days before the election, all the employees in the
plant, over 1,000, were called to a general meeting in the plant where
they were addressed by the president, Arthur Harris. Harris ex-
plained the forthcoming election and set out the reasons why in his
opinion the employees should not select a union to act as their bar-
gaining agent. It is not alleged that any of Harris' remarks con-
stituted threats or promises of benefit or constituted anything other
than totally privileged expressions of opinion within the purview of
Section 8 (c) of the statute.
The employees were also called into the conference room in the
plant to hear other talks by company representatives on the forth-
coming election. At each of these meetings, some held before the
principal mass meeting and others later, between 60 and 80 employees
were gathered. Again each of these groups was addressed by the
company president, who explained economic benefits then being
enjoyed by the employees, the advantages to their well-being extended
by the company in the past, the possible demands that might be made
by a union and their consequent effects upon conditions of employ-
ment, and further reasons why the Company believed the employees
ought not select a collective-bargaining representative. With respect
to these group meetings, also, there is no contention that company
representatives made anything other than fully protected and privi-
leged expressions of opinion.
Of approximately 1,059 employees in this plant, about 550 are
white and the rest Negroes. The groups invited into the conference
room to hear the discussions described above constituted either all
Negro or all white workmen. The reason for this fact does not appear
affirmatively; for aught that appears the arrangement may have con-
formed with departmental lines. When addressing the Negro groups
the president is alleged to have called to their attention the fact that
a number of unionized plants in the area had a lower ratio of Negroes
to whites than was the case at the Employer's plant.
Four employees assert that they were threatened by individual
company representatives with economic loss in the event of a union
483142-59-vol. 120-54
834 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
victory, 1 on 2 occasions in private offices, 1 "at his work station,"
another "away from the work station of the employee," and the last
at the foreman's desk. The respective supervisors involved in these
minor instances denied having made any threats, promises, or any
coercive statements to these four employees.
One of the separate allegations in the objections is that even though
the Company's statements to assembled employees were in no way
coercive or improper, the mere fact that between 60 and 80 at a time
were gathered in the conference room to hear the president's expres-
sions of opinion was an improper interference with the election within
the Board's recent decision in the Peoples Drug Stores case.' The
Regional Director agreed and recommended that the election be set
aside on this ground regardless of all other considerations. We are
of the opinion that the Petitioner misconceives the import of our
holding in the Peoples Drug Stores case and in the decisions which
preceded it.2
There is nothing to indicate that the conference room in which these
separate mass meetings took place is a private office or locus of mana-
gerial authority in which the employees normally do not go. Nor does
it appear that in the minds of the employees the conference room was
viewed as a special location where management determinations of
company policies are centered. Indeed, the very fact that as many as
80 workmen could congregate there for a general discussion is a
strong indication to the contrary. More important, however, there
is lacking in this case a critical element underlying the Board's theory
of improper company influence in the cited cases. It is the isolation
of individuals, or of small groups of employees, most often just a
few, from the bulk of their fellow workmen into the locus of mana-
gerial authority which supports the inference that company expres-
sions of antiunion sentiment in these circumstances borders too
closely upon coercive influence over their choice later expressed in
the election. When employees are gathered to hear the views of
company representatives respecting the election in open areas of the
plant, where they are not unaccustomed to find themselves, there
results free and open discussion with both management and employees
enjoying the confidences and assurances which are normal aspects of
collective and group activities.
We see nothing in calling groups as large as 60 and 80 workmen to
a general conference that suggests the isolation of a few from among
the many so as to create an aura of special treatment directed to indi-
viduals as distinguished from the employees as a whole. The mere
fact that 80 may be smaller than 1,000 hardly suffices to take this case
i Peoples Drug Stores, Inc., 119 NLRB 634.
2 See, for example , Economic Machinery Company, 111 NLRB 947, and Mrs. Baud's
Bakeries, Inc., 114 NLRB 444.
MEAD-ATLANTA PAPER COMPANY 835
out of the permissive rule respecting speeches to assembled employees
and to bring it within the proscription against intimate innuendoes to
a selected few.
The Board finds it unnecessary to determine whether or not the
personal interviews of 4 employees, 1 in a private office and 3 others
away from a work station or at a foreman's desk, were of the type
which the rule of the Peoples Drag Stores case was intended to reach.
Where over 1,000 employees are involved in an election, we deem these
incidents too isolated and insubstantial to have affected the results of
the election so as to warrant setting the election aside. For the same
reason we do not deem it necessary to conduct a hearing to determine
whether the statements made at these interviews constituted threats,
promises, or coercion. Accordingly, in disagreement with the Regional
Director, we overrule the objection based upon the Employer's activ-
ities in addressing its employees as an entire group or in the conference
room meetings.
The only remaining objection is the Petitioner's assertion that by
calling attention to a lower ratio of Negroes to white employees in
some organized plants, the company president distorted the issues of
the coming election from the question of unionism to one of racial
prejudices. The statement as made is not in dispute. The Regional
Director nevertheless was of the opinion that evidence establishing
the statement, standing alone, is insufficient basis for setting the elec-
tion aside, for he recommended a hearing to inquire into the Com-
pany's intent and to explore the question of whether such a statement
is or is not a threat.
On the facts as they now appear, and in view of the present posture
of the investigation, we do not see sufficient reason for holding a hear-
ing in this case. The facts are plain. Whether or not such a statement
constitutes a threat is clearly and fully answerable on the face of the
statement itself. As to the Employer's intent, unspoken so far as the
detailed and comprehensive field investigation shows, it could neither
convert an innocuous statement into a threat nor change a coercive one
into a permissible expression of opinion. We hold that the statement
in question does not involve misrepresentation, fraud, violence, or
coercive conduct of the type heretofore held objectionable. We
therefore find no merit in this last objection.
Accordingly, as we find no merit in any of the objections filed by
the Petitioner, we hereby overrule them all.
[The Board certified that a majority of the valid ballots was not
cast for Atlanta Printing Specialties & Paper Products Local No. 527,
AFL-CIO, Subordinate to the International Printing Pressmen and
Assistants' Union of North America, and that said Union is not the
836 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
exclusive representative of the Employer's Atlanta, Georgia, plant fir
the unit stipulated by the parties to be appropriate.]
MEMBER BEAN, concurring :
I agree with the majority decision to overrule all the objections to
the election in this case. With, respect to the separate allegation that
the election should be set aside on the ground that the Employer dis-
torted the issue of the election by an appeal to racial prejudice, I find
no merit in the charge because I believe the Employer's statement was-
not such a threat or attempt to create a racial dispute as to bring this
case within the ambit of the issue considered in the recent Westing-
house Electric case .3
As pointed out in the majority opinion, there is nothing to indicate
that Negroes were deliberately separated from white employees for
purposes of the conference room talks, or that an ulterior or improper
objective was in the mind of company officials in any possible conscious
arrangement. The statement does not deny the possibility that there-
may not also be other organized plants in which the percentage of
Negroes is greater than in this Employer's. Because it refers only to
"some" unionized plants, it reasonably leaves the impression that other
unionized plants employ a higher percentage of Negro employees.
More significant, there is no indication of the reason why the reported
ratio prevailed in those particular plants; any number of causes com-
pletely unrelated to racial attitudes could as well explain the local'
situations. Further, the statement makes no reference to the Petitioner
and could therefore as well be taken as referring to the policy of
other labor organizations. Nor does it voice any suggestion that any
possible tendency on the part of unnamed unions towards disparate
treatment of Negroes is the policy of the union involved in this case.
And finally, it is clear that this statement was but a single comment
uttered in the course of extended talks which the president made to^
each of the groups of assembled employees, during which he explained
a great variety of matters pertaining to the pending election-all
entirely proper and correct.
In the light of these considerations, I do not agree with the Peti-
tioner's contention that the Company attempted to invoke any racial
sentiment among segments of his employees in order to affect the results
of the election. Such a finding would require a number of inferences,
not based on fact, which I am unwilling to make in the face of the
complete investigation report and the total absence of any direct
evidence supporting the Petitioner's devious construction of plain
remarks. Without any material justification, I will not impute
unwarranted motives to this Employer nor embark upon a search for
improper conduct where none appears.
8 We8tinghouse Electric Corporation ( Meter Plant ), 119 NLRB 117.