Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 23, 1945

61 N.L.R.B. 697 (N.L.R.B. 1945)

In the Matter of MINNESOTA MINING & MANUFACTURING COMPANY
and MINNESOTA MINING EMPLOYEES INDEPENDENT UNION'
Case No. 18-8-979
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION
ORDER SETTING ASIDE ELECTION
AND
DIRECTION OF SECOND RUN-OFF ELECTION
April 23, 1945
On July 20, 1944, the National Labor Relations Board issued a Deci-
sion, Direction of Election, and Order 1 in the above-entitled proceed-
ing, wherein it found that certain production and maintenance
employees of Minnesota Mining S, Manufacturing Company, St. Paul,
Minnesota, herein called the Company, constituted an appropriate
unit and directed that an election be held among such employees to
determine whether they desired to be represented by Minnesota Min-
ing Employees Independent Union, herein called the Independent, or
by United Gas, Coke & Chemical Workers, Local 75, affiliated with the
Congress of Industrial Organizations, herein called the C. I. 0., or by
the American Federation of Labor, for the purposes of collective
bargaining, or by none.2 Pursuant to the Board's Direction of Elec-
tion, an election was conducted by the Regional Director for the
Eighteenth Region on August 17 and 18.3 When the result of the
election proved inconclusive, and the leading organizations desired
that a run-off election be held, the Regional Director, on September 14
and 15, conducted a run-off election wherein the C. I. O. and the Inde-
pendent participated. The results of the balloting in the run-off
election were as follows :
' 57 N L R. B. 494
2 More specifically, the Board found that all production and maintenance employees of
the Company at its St Paul plant and warehouse, including machine shop employees and
receiving-department employees, but excluding the boiler room employees, clerical em-
ployees other than clerks in the machine shop, office employees, watchmen, guards, leadmen,
assistant foremen, foremen, and any other supervisory employees, constituted an appro-
priate bargaining unit This finding resulted in the dismissal of three other petitions,
wherein craft organizations affiliated with the American Federation of Laboi proposed
separate craft units among these employees The Board permitted the American Federa-
tion of Labor, as their common parent body, to participate in the election held among
employees in the appropriate unit
3 All dates refer to the calendar year 1944 , unless otherwise noted.
61 N. L. R. B., No. 110. 697
698 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Approximate number of eligible voters--------------------- 2,315
Valid votes counted--------------------------------------- 1,758
Votes cast for the Independent----------------------------- 886
Votes cast for the C. I. 0---------------------------------- 872
Challenged ballots ---------------------------------------- 15
Void ballots---------------------------------------------- 11
On September 19, the C. I. O. filed objections to the conduct of the
run-off election. On October 6, the Regional Director issued his Re-
port on Objections, stating that he had investigated the objections filed
by the C. I. O. and, as a result of his findings, recommended that the
Board direct a, hearing thereon. On October 10, the Company and the
Independent filed Exceptions to the Regional Director's Report on
Objections.
On October 14, the Board directed that the Regional Director in-
vestigate the challenged ballots and report back his findings with re-
spect to the validity of the challenges. On October 18, the Regional
Director issued and duly served upon the parties his Report on the
Challenges. The Regional Director, for reasons stated, found that
two challenged voters, namely, Betty Rouchwater and D. Wolken-
torfer, were ineligible to vote and recommended' that the Board sustain
the challenges with respect to their ballots. No exceptions were taken
to the Regional Director's report and recommendations. Under these
circumstances, we shall adopt the Regional Director's findings with
respect to the status of Betty Rouchwater and D. Wolkentorfer, and
find them ineligible voters, and do hereby declare that their ballots are
void and shall not be counted. Since the other challenged ballots
would not affect the results of the election, the Regional Director made
no recommendation concerning them, and we shall make no finding
with respect to their validity.
On November 2, the Board issued an order, remanding the case to
the Regional Director for hearing on the objections to the conduct of
the run-off election. Pursuant to notice, the hearing was held be-
tween November 17 and 27, at St. Paul, Minnesota, before Henry J.
Kent, Trial Examiner. The Board, the 'Company, the C. I. 0., and
the Independent appeared, participated, and were afforded full oppor-
tunity to be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to in-
troduce evidence bearing on the issues. During the course of the
hearing the Company and the Independent moved that the objections
be overruled. The Trial Examiner referred the motion to the Board.
For reasons which appear below, the motion is denied. The Trial
Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error
and are hereby affirmed. All parties were afforded opportunity to file
briefs with the Board.
Among its objections, the C. 1. 0. alleges that the Company assisted
the Independent by discussing and negotiating grievances with repre-
MINNESOTA MINING & MANUFACTURING COMPANY 699
sentatives of the Independent, thus prejudicing employees against the
C. 1. 0. and influencing them to vote for the Independent. The record
discloses two incidents of grievance procedure which we believe have
a direct bearing upon the issues raised in respect to the validity of the
run-off election.
John McDonough, an employee of the Company, was inducted into
the armed services on June 16, 1942, and discharged for medical
reasons on April 28, 1943. He applied for work at the Company's
plant in May 1943, and was given some trucking work to do. When
McDonough complained that the work was too hard for him, he was
given a medical examination and subsequently released from the Com-
pany's service on the ground that there was no work then available of
which he was capable. On February 2,1944, the Company reemployed
McDonough as a new employee. McDonough claimed that he was thus
unjustly deprived of his seniority rights for the period between his re-
lease in 1943 and his reemployment in 1944. McDonough talked a
good deal about his grievance to anyone who would listen. McDon-
ough was well identified as a supporter of the C. 1. 0. During the
election campaigns, the C. I. O. made a point of promising relief to
service men with grievances. In order to attract to the Independent
employees who were being drawn to the C. 1. 0. by reason of these
promises, the officers of the Independent determined to settle some
grievances. -
On September 7, when Francis O'Malley and Lyden Hathaway,
employees of the Company and president and vice president of the
Independent respectively, were on leave without pay and, unchallenged
by any supervisory employees, were passing through the plant to solicit
signatures for the Independent's first circular contrary to the Com-
pany's rules, they calve upon McDonough at work in his department
and talked with him about his grievance. After some discussion,
O'Malley promised McDonough that the officers of the Independent
would consult Ivan Lawrence, chief personnel officer of the Company,
on McDonough's behalf.
On the next day, O'Malley and Ralph Berres, employee of the Com-
pany and treasurer of the Independent, met Michael Taube,4 employee
counselor under Lyle Fisher, the plant personnel manager under Law-
rence, in front of the plant as Taube was on his way to interview
McDonough about his grievance. Unchallenged, the three men entered
* The meeting of Taube, O'Malley, and Berres may have been a coincidence , as each
testified In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, however, we assume that
O'Malley kept his promise to McDonough to consult Lawrence on McDonough's behalf. It
seems curious , otherwise , that the incident related above occurred the day after O'Malley
and Hathaway had interviewed McDonough, promising to- refer the matter to Lawrence,
who, through Fisher, was Taube's superior . Neither O'Malley nor Berres otherwise ex-
plained their presence at the plant at this opportune time. Neither of them was working
(luring this shift. Earlier in the day they had distributed circulars for the Independent.
700 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the plant,-' and proceeded to the tape packing department. McDo-
nough, who was in the stockroom at the time, was formally summoned
by telephone (used only for official business) and found the three men
at or near the foreman's desk in the department. Berres "introduced"
McDonough to Taube. Berres then sauntered about the department
talking freely to employees, especially to one who he remembered had
deserted the Independent for the C. I. 0., and he examined some new
machinery which had been installed. The official investigation of
McDonough's grievance continued meanwhile. According to Taube,
Taube carried on the entire interview with McDonough, and O'Malley
merely listened. According to O'Malley and McDonough, Taube and
O'Malley both actively participated in the grievance conference.
McDonough told the men that the Company had given him a "medical
leave" when he quit his job in the trucking department in 1943, that
he had seen a letter to that effect, and that it was shown to him by
Foreman Flaherty. Taube thereupon called Flaherty, the foreman of
the department, into the conference. Flaherty denied ever having
seen the letter described by McDonough, and Taube searched his file
for it. The conference, which lasted from 10 to 20 minutes, ended with
Taube's assurance to McDonough that he would endeavor to find the
letter to which McDonough had referred. A few days later, McDo-
nough was called to Fisher's office and was told that the letter affirming
his medical leave had been found. Taube was present at this
conference.
Lawrence, subsequently questioning Taube concerning the details of
his earlier conference with McDonough, at which O'Malley and Berres
were also present, reprimanded Taube for permitting O'Malley and
Berres to accompany him, in view of their official positions with the
Independent. Taube denied to Lawrence any knowledge of O'Malley's
and Berres' official status in the Independent. Lawrence pointed out
to Taube, but not to other employees, the impropriety of the presence
of O'Malley and Berres at the official conference.e No further action
was ever taken with respect to remedying McDonough's grievance.
The Company contends that since it failed to give complete satis-
faction to McDonough at the request of the Independent, the incident
6 The record is not clear whether Taube especially invited , or merely suffered, the two
officers of the Independent to accompany him, and we find it immaterial to the issues.
6 On August 22, about 2 weeks before the McDonough incident, a somewhat similar
grievance procedure was enacted , when other representatives of the Independent , admit-
tedly contrary to the Company ' s rules, attempted "prematurely" to function as bargaining
representative for girls temporarily employed in the tape department and about to be
released from work , and were sharply rebuked by Superintendent Meyer Although
Meyer, unlike Lawrence in the McDonough case , thereafter took occasion to call employees
in his department together and to try to disabuse their minds as to the Company 's recog-
nition of the Independent as representative of its employees , there is no gauge by which
we may measure what coercive effect the incident may have had upon employees throughout
the plant to whose attentipn the matter may have come,
MINNESOTA MINING & MANUFACTURING COMPANY 701
described above has no bearing upon the conduct of the election. We
do not agree. The conference into which Taube especially called
McDonough from his work purported to be an official- conference be-
tween him and a representative of the personnel department, in which
Foreman Flaherty assisted and officers of the Independent partici-
pated. The conference was held during working hours, in view not
only of employees regularly working in the department during that
shift, but also of employees whose ordinary duties took them through
the departments on that and other working days. The subsequent
finding of the letter must be fairly attributed to the efforts of the In-
dependent, and the letter was the primary evidence upon which
McDonough based his alleged grievance and upon the finding of which
any success of his case was predicated. That the Company did not
within the few days remaining before the run-off election, or there-
after, announce a final decision favorable to the aggrieved McDonough
certainly does not nullify the prejudicial effect of the grievance con-
ference opportunely staged shortly before the run-off election through
the joint efforts of the Company and the Independent. Lawrence
clearly recognized the discriminatory effect of the conference when
he reprimanded Taube for allowing the officials of the Independent
to accompany the latter and to participate therein. Neither Lawrence
nor anyone else in authority at the factory took any steps to dispel
the obvious inference to be drawn from the incident, that the Com-
pany, through its selection of representatives to participate in a con-
ference on a well-known grievance matter, had tacitly pointed out
the bargaining agency through which it preferred to deal in matters
affecting its employees. Such conduct is obviously discriminatory.
The close results of the election clearly indicate that the vote of a few
employees may determine the choice of a bargaining representative
for all employees in the appropriate unit. We cannot measure exactly
what effect the staging of this bargaining conference concerning
McDonough's grievance upon the department floor during working
hours, or the attempt to remedy the grievance of the temporary em-
ployees, noted above, may have had upon employees who witnessed
it or who heard of it through onlookers, and it is not necessary that
we do so. Rather than to rely on the results of an election prefaced
by conduct which may have seriously impaired the free choice of em-
ployees in designating their bargaining representative, we prefer to
hold a new election,
We shall, accordingly, set aside the results of the run-off election
conducted on September 14 and 15, and direct a new run-off election.'
Under these circumstances , w e find it unnecessary to consider other evidence included
in the record in support of other objections noted by the C. I. O. with respect to the
conduct of the election.
639678-45-vol 61-46
702 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Upon the recommendation of the Regional Director , and in view of
the lapse of time, we shall direct that the second run-off election be
held without further delay.
ORDER
The National Labor Relations Board hereby vacates and sets aside
the run-off election conducted in this proceeding on September 14 and
15, 1944.
DIRECTION FOR A SECOND RUN-OFF ELECTION
By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National Labor
Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations
Act, and pursuant to Article III, Section 9, of National Labor Rela-
tions Board Rules and Regulations-Series 3, as amended, it is hereby
DIRECTED that, as part of the investigation to ascertain representa
tives for the purposes of collective bargaining with Minnesota Mining
& Manufacturing Company, St . Paul, Minnesota , a second run -off elec-
tion by secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible , but not
later than thirty ( 30) days from the date of this Direction , under the
direction and supervision of the Regional Director for the Eighteenth
Region, acting in this matter as agent for the National Labor Relations
Board, and subject to Article III, Section 9 and 10, of said Rules and
Regulations , among the employees described in the Direction of Elec-
tion issued on July 20 , 1944, but excluding those who have since quit
or been discharged for cause , and have not been rehired or reinstated
prior to the date of the second run -off election , to determine whether
they desire to be represented by Minnesota Mining Employees Inde-
pendent Union , or by United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers, Local
75, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations , for the
purposes of collective bargaining , or by neither.