Pabst Brewing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 14, 1981

254 N.L.R.B. 494 (N.L.R.B. 1981)

DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Pabst Brewing Company and Brewery Workers
Local Union No. 9, D.A.L.U., AFL-CIO. Case
30-CA-5459
January 14, 1981
DECISION AND ORDER
BY MEMBERS JENKINS, PENELLO, AND
ZIMMERMAN
On September 15, 1980, Administrative Law
Judge Karl H. Buschmann issued the attached De-
cision in this proceeding. Thereafter, Respondent
filed exceptions and a supporting brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the record and the at-
tached Decision in light of the exceptions and brief
and has decided to affirm the rulings, findings,'
and conclusions of the Administrative Law Judge
and to adopt his recommended Order.
ORDER
Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Re-
lations Board adopts as its Order the recommended
Order of the Administrative Law Judge and
hereby orders that the Respondent, Pabst Brewing
Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, its officers,
agents, successors, and assigns, shall take the action
set forth in the said recommended Order.
I Respondent has excepted to certain credibility findings made by the
Administrative Law Judge. It is the Board's established policy not to
overrule an administrative law judge's resolutions with respect to credi-
bility unless the clear preponderance of all of the relevant evidence con-
vinces us that the resolutions are incorrect. Standard Dry Wall Products.
Inc., 91 NI3RH 544 (1950), enfd. 188 F2d 362 (3d Cir. 1951) We have
carefully examined the record and find no basis for reversing his findings
DECISION
KARL H. BUSCHMANN, Administrative Law Judge:
This case arose upon a charge, dated October 19, 1979.
and a resulting complaint, dated December 4, 1979. The
complaint alleged that the Respondent, Pabst Brewing
Company, violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor
Relations Act ("the Act") by acts of unlawful interroga-
tion and threats. Respondent filed an answer on Decem-
ber 7, 1979, in which it admitted all jurisdictional allega-
tions of the complaint, including the supervisory status of
its employee George Rankin.
A hearing on these allegations was held on May 19,
1980, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The General Counsel
and Respondent filed briefs on July 24 and July 28, 1980,
respectively. Based upon the whole record in this case
and my observation of the demeanor of the witnesses, I
make the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
Pabst Brewing Company, a Delaware corporation
headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is engaged in
the production of beer. It is admittedly an employer en-
gaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act.
The Union, Brewery Workers Local Union No. 9,
D.A.L.U., AFL-CIO, is admittedly a labor organization
within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act.
In September 1979, an employee by the name of Mi-
chelle Richlin sought the assistance of shop steward
James Robinson. She complained that her supervisors,
notably George Rankin "were out to get her, that they
had been harassing her on the job." Robinson advised
her to seek a transfer to a different division and to see
Labor Relations Director Lewitzke. Richlin, however,
was unsuccessful in obtaining an immediate transfer.
Robinson then spoke to Bill Johnson, her immediate
foreman, who indicated that he was under orders to keep
her busy because she had poor working habits. There-
upon, Robinson contacted George Rankin. He stated that
Richlin had to be harassed into doing her job, and that
he would try "to get her" before she would be able to
effectuate a transfer. Robinson advised Richlin of his
conversations with her supervisors, including Rankin's
expressed intentions to get her, and suggested that she
file a written grievance with her shop steward, or seek
the assistance of Donald Pfaff, a fellow employee, in
drafting a written grievance.
On October 1, 1979, Richlin handed her handwritten
grievance, consisting of about seven pages, to Donald
Pfaff who proceeded to obtain the signatures of several
employees who had witnessed the alleged harassing inci-
dents. Included among the signatories on the grievance
were fellow employees Donald Sackmaster, Natale Per-
longo, and Gerald Camus On October 2, 1979, the griev-
ance was handed to Joseph Strauss, the alternate shop
steward. He signed it and forwarded it to Gene Martin,
Respondent's distribution manager. Martin, in the pres-
ence of Strauss, perused the document and subsequently
gave it to Rankin with the comment: "You better go
over this just to protect ourselves."
On October 2, 1979, Rankin contacted several of the
witnesses in an obvious effort to coerce them into with-
drawing their signature from the Richlin grievance. For
example, Donald Sackmaster, one of the witnesses who
had signed the grievance, was in front of the main con-
veyor in the shipping room, when Rankin approached
him. According to Sackmaster, the following exchange
occurred:
A. He [Rankin] was very upset and wondering if
I knew what I had signed. I told him to a certain
extent I knew what I had signed, yes.
Q. Okay. Anything else?
A. He said that I could be liable for a liable [sic]
suit and a slander suit.
Q. For doing what?
A. For signing this grievance.
On the following day, October 3, Sackmaster obtained
the grievance from Strauss. Sackmaster crossed his name
254 NLRB No. 58
494
PABST BREWING COMPANY
off the grievance because, in his words, he "was threat-
ened with a liable [sic] suit and slander suit."
A similar incident occurred between Rankin and
Gerald Camus. Camus testified as follows:
A. Mr. Rankin approached me and he had the
grievance in his hand and he asked me-he says,
did you sign your name on this? I said, yes, I did;
and he says, well, I went to my Company attorney.
I talked to him and he says, you know that you
could-anybody who would sign this could be sued
for liable [sic] or slander, and I said, well, I says,
George, I says, you have to do what you have to
do and that was just about the end of the thing.
A. Later on that following day I believe it was I
walked-I got the grievance back again.
Q. From whom?
A. From Joe Strauss, and he says, I want you to
initial-put your initial on the things that pertain to
you in the grievance, and at that time when I says,
well, I don't think I-I don't think I want to sign
anymore on this thing. I said, I've been threatened
from George--or George Rankin, I'm being sued. I
said, I don't want to go along with it anymore. I'll
scratch my name off of it.
Another witness to the grievance was Natale Per-
longo, who testified as follows about Rankin's conduct:
A. Well, I was doing some sweeping up at my
station there, one of my stations, and George came
up to me where I was sweeping with the grievance
in his hand and he pointed at the grievance, my
name here. He was very upset and he just slapped
right where my name was there and asked me if
that was my signature and I told him, yes, that's
mine. He leafed through the grievance and he
pointed to one there and asked me if I witnessed
that and I read it over and I said, no, I didn't wit-
ness that but there's a number of them that I did
witness in here.
Q. Okay.
A. And he said, I want information from my at-
torney on this. He said, this is very slanderous, and
he was very upset. He was talking in a loud voice
and then he says, I'm going to get each and every
one of you people with your signature on there in
my office individually and to point out the griev-
ances that you witnessed, and that's as far as it
went. Then he left me.
Perlongo removed his name from the grievance be-
cause, according to his testimony, "Mr. Rankin had ap-
proached me, told me this was slanderous and I want in-
formation from my attorney, and I thought that he
would sue me for liable [sic], so I told him, I don't want
nothing to do with this grievance."
Even Strauss, the steward, who had filed the griev-
ance with Martin, and who had signed the grievance in
his capacity as the shop steward, was approached by
Rankin and questioned as to whether he knew what he
had signed. Rankin threatened Strauss that he would be
taken to court for signing the grievance. Thereupon,
Strauss took the grievance back from Rankin but not
before Rankin had made copies of it. Strauss informed
James Robinson-the union steward who had earlier at-
tempted to intercede between management and Richlin-
that he would not pursue the grievance any longer. Rob-
inson then went to Rankin's office and asked how he
could simply refuse to accept the Richlin grievance.
Rankin, in the presence of other supervisors, and in an
arrogant and abusive manner, described the grievance as
a joke with which he could sue the signatories for libel
and slander. Robinson attempted to explain that the
grievance was not funny, that he could attest to the truth
of some segments in the document and that a grievance
did not need the signatories of all witnesses to be han-
dled in the usual fashion. With an obsene comment,
Rankin simply ordered Robinson out of his office.
Rankin's conduct in interrogating these employee-xit-
nesses and threatening them with law suits succeeded in
coercing them to withdraw their names from the griev-
ance and directly interfered with the employees' rights
protected by Section 7 of the Act, including the right to
file and process a grievance. I have no difficulty in find-
ing that Respondent violated Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.
CONCLUSIONS O: LAW
1. The Respondent, Pabst Brewing Company, is an
employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
2. Brewery Workers Local Union No. 9, D.A.L.U.,
AFL-CIO, is a labor organization within the meaning of
Section 2(5) of the Act.
3. By interrogating employees as to their participation
in a grievance proceeding, Respondent violated Section
8(a)(l) of the Act.
4. By threatening its employees with a lawsuit because
they had signed a grievance as witnesses, Respondent
violated Section 8(a)(l) of the Act.
THEt REMF)
Having found that Respondent has engaged in certain
unfair labor practices in violation of Section 8(a)( ) of
the Act, I shall recommend that Respondent be ordered
to cease and desist therefrom and from in any like or re-
lated manner infringing upon its employees' Section 7
rights, and to take certain affirmative action designed to
effectuate the policies of the Act.
Upon the above findings of fact, conclusions of law,
the entire record in the case, and pursuant to Section
Although Rankin conceded in his testimrnon that he had alked to
several of the employee-uitncsses ahboul he grievance. he denied hat he
had threatenied or interrogated any )ne I have credited he consistel and
plausible Itesimon5 of Sackmaster. Robinson Perlongo, Camus, Pfaff, and
Strauss I arn convlinced that Rankin lied throughout his lesrimon 'The
four itlilescs s\hould ohlously not have heen coerced inltl recmosing
Iheir naitnis from the griea ane hb an\ of he commentis hlch Rankin
claimred t hase made IFulrtilrnlmore. his les lil ii y stash ;t tinlIes nconlss-
tent ith that of Mi rtil l For c xample, Marlin's iestimmny and Rankin's
ovin prior affidaIt -disputed Rankin' testimon) v that Martin asked him
"to insesigate" the griecancc
495
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
10(c) of the Act, I hereby issue the following recom-
mended:
()RD R2
The Respondent. Pabst Brrewing Company, its officers,
agents, successors, and assigns, shall:
1. Cease and desist from:
(a) Interrogating or threatening its enmloyces for engag-
ing in concerted activities protected by Section 7 of the
Act.
(b) In any like or related malner interfering with, re-
straining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the
right to self-organization, to form labor organizations, to
join or assist the above-naimed or any other labor organi-
zation, to bargain collectively through representatives of
their own choosing, to engage in concerted activities for
the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid
or protection, and to refrain from any or all such activi-
ties.
2. Take the follo,,ving affirmative action which is nec-
essary to effectuate the policies of the Act:
(a) Post at its place of business in Milwaukee, Wiscon-
sin, copies of the attached notice marked "Appendix."
Copies of said notice, on forms provided by the Regional
Director for Region 9, after being duly signed by Re-
spondent's representative, shall be posted by Respondent
immediately upon receipt thereof, in conspicuous places,
including all places where notices to employees are cus-
tomarily posted. Reasonable steps shall be taken by the
Respondent to insure that said notices are not altered,
defaced, or covered by any other material.
(b) Notify the Regional I)irector for Region 9, in writ-
Ic ti e l ,11,t , xciepti ons arc lilcd as provided bh Sectionl 1)2.46 of
tIh Rules and Regulations of the National I.abor Relations Board, the
indings, conclusilons. aind recomllmended Order hcrein. shall, as prlovided
illn Sec 10)2 4 of hc Rules and Regulations, h adopted by the loard and
hccorle its dilldi , Cll c iclusolTs, ilill ()rdel, ii ll objecCills thereto
shall bh dcmenid .valived for all purposes
ing, within 20 days from the date of this Order, what
steps the Respondent has taken to comply herewith.
APPENDIX
NOTIC To EMP.OYEIS
POSlEiD BiY ORDER OF I HI i
NATIONA LABOR REI ATIONS BOARD
An Agency of the United States Government
After a hearing in which all parties had the opportunity
to present evidence, it has been decided that we violated
the law. We have been ordered to take certain steps to
correct our violation and have been ordered to post this
notice. We intend to carry out the order of the National
Itabor Relations Board and abide by the following:
We notify you that the National Labor Relations
Act gives all employees these rights:
To engage ill self-organization
To form, join, or help unions
To engage in collective bargaining through a
representative selected by you
To act together for collective bargaining or
other mutual aid or protection
To refrain from any or all these things.
Wl,. Vl Ii NO()I interrogate our employees or
threaten them because they engaged in concerted
activities protected by Section 7 of the National
l.abor Relations Act.
Wt l Wll NOI in any like or related manner in-
terfere with, restrain, or coerce you in the exercise
of any or all of the rights described at the beginning
of this notice
PIiSI B[3REWING COMNPANY
496