Mission Industries

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 18, 1987

283 N.L.R.B. 1027 (N.L.R.B. 1987)

MISSION INDUSTRIES
Mission Industries and Ralph Barbosa, Petitioner
and International Union of Operating Engi-
neers, Local 501 , AFL-CIO. Case 31-RD-1032
18 May 1987
DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF
REPRESENTATIVE
BY MEMBERS JOHANSEN, BABSON, AND
STEPHENS
The National Labor Relations Board, by a three-
member panel, has considered objections to an
election held 24 October 1986 and the Regional Di-
rector's report recommending disposition of them.
The election was conducted pursuant to a Stipulat-
ed Election Agreement.
The Board has reviewed the record in light of
the exceptions and briefs, and has adopted the Re-
gional Director's findings and recommendations
only to the extent that they are consistent with this
decision. 1
Pursuant to a Stipulation for Certification Upon
Consent Election, a secret mail ballot election was
conducted on 24 October 1986. A ballot was
mailed to each of 31 eligible voters, whose names
and addresses were provided by the Employer.
Twenty-eight ballots were returned. The tally of
ballots shows 14 for and 13 against the Union, with
1 ballot declared void and none challenged. The
Employer alleged in its Objections 1 and 2 that the
voided ballot should be opened and counted (Ob-
jection 1) or, in the alternative, that the Board,
through its agents, should have challenged the
ballot rather than consider it void (Objection 2).
The Union has excepted to the Regional Director's
recommendation that the Employer's Objections 1
and 2 be sustained. We find merit in the Union's
exceptions.
The mail ballot in question arrived at the Re-
gional Office enclosed in the appropriate official
envelope. The identification stub of the mail ballot
envelope, however,,was missing. This identification
stub would have exhibited both the signature of the
voter and a "key number" matching the particular
ballot to that voter 'on the eligibility list. Although
the main portion of the disputed mail ballot enve-
lope was postmarked in Santa Barbara, California,
the Board agent was unable to identify, its source as
an eligible voter and thus voided the ballot.
After the election, the Employer interviewed the
only four eligible voters whose names were not
checked on the eligibility list as having voted.
Each of these individuals signed statements, which
i In the absence of exceptions, we adopt, pro forma, the Regional Di-
rector's recommendation that the Employer's Objections 3, 4, and 5 be
overruled
1027
the Employer submitted to the Regional Director
in support of its objections. Only one of the four
eligible voters interviewed attested to having
mailed his ballot, with the identification stub at-
tached and signed, from Santa Barbara.2
The Regional Director determined that these af-
fidavits and the Santa Barbara postmark were suffi-
cient to establish positively that the eligible voter
who claimed to have mailed his ballot from Santa
Barbara was the source of the ballot in question.
Therefore, the Regional Director recommended
that the ballot previously declared void be, opened
and counted and that a revised tally be issued.
The Union has excepted,to the Regional Direc-
tor's recommendation with respect to the Employ-
er's Objections 1 and 2. The Union contends, inter
alia, that the envelope' identification stubs are nec-
essary to ensure that only eligible voters participate
in the election. We agree with this contention. As
noted in Brink's Armored Car, 278 NLRB 141
(1986), mail ballot elections are more vulnerable to
the destruction of laboratory conditions than are
manual elections, due to the absence of direct
Board supervision over the employees' voting. Ac-
cordingly, the Board has adopted mail ballot elec-
tion procedures, including the use of an identifica-
tion stub, designed to preserve the integrity of the
election process and to ensure that no reasonable
doubt is raised about the fairness ar validity of that
process. The absence of an identification stub, in
itself, raises a reasonable doubt concerning whether
only eligible voters participated in the election and
whether each of those eligible voters cast only one
ballot. See Northwest Packing Co., 65 NLRB 890
(1946). We further find that permitting inquiry into
the source of a mail ballot without an identification
stub would greatly increase the potential for confu-
sion and coercion and that such inquiries are not
likely to dispel the reasonable doubt concerning the
validity of such ballots.3 Accordingly, we con-
2 The ballot declared void by the Board agent conducting the election
has been retained in an official Board envelope and secured at the Re-
gional Office. The Regional Director designated the four eligible voters
whose names had not been checked off on the eligibility list as having
voted as Employees A through D Employee A indicated that he signed
the identification stub of his mail ballot envelope and watched his wife
deposit it in a Santa Barbara mailbox . Employee A's wife also provided a
statement corroborating Employee A's account. Employees B and C
claimed that they mailed their ballots from locations other than Santa
Barbara These ballots were not received by the Regional Office. Em-
ployee D, who resides in Santa Barbara, maintained that he never re-
cieved a ballot from the Regional Office and, therefore, he did not vote
No party has excepted to the Regional Director's findings that the appar-
ent failure of the Regional Office to receive the ballots of Employees B
and C, as well as Employee D's apparent nonreceipt of a ballot, did not
warrant setting aside the election
3 Moreover, even assuming inquiry into the source of the presently dis-
puted ballot would be appropriate, which we decline to do for the policy
reasons set forth above, we would find that the Santa Barbara postmark
on the mail ballot envelope and the employee affidavits would not be suf-
ficient evidence to establish positively the identity of the voter
283 NLRB No. 154
1028 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
dude, contrary to the Regional Director, that the
mail ballot in issue should remain void. We there-
fore overrule the Employer's Objections 1 and 2
and find that a certification of representative
should be issued.
CERTIFICATION OF
REPRESENTATIVE
IT IS CERTIFIED that a majority of the valid bal-
lots have been cast for the International Union of
Operating Engineers, Local 501, AFL-CIO and
that it is the exclusive collective-bargaining repre-
sentative of the employees in the following appro-
priate unit:
Included: All engineers and automotive re-
pairmen employed by Mission Industries at its
facilities located in Bakersfield, Eureka,
Fresno, Lancaster, Morro Bay, - Oceanside,
Oxnard, Pacific Grove, Sacramento, Salinas,
Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Maria, Tur-
lock, Ventura and Victorville, California.
Excluded: Office clerical employees, profes-
sional employees, guards and supervisors as
defined in the Act, and all other employees.