PPG Industries, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 7, 1980

247 N.L.R.B. 941 (N.L.R.B. 1980)

PPG INDUSTRIES, INC.
PPG Industries, Inc., Shelby Plant, Fiber Glass
Division and Glass Bottle Blowers Association of
the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO, Petition-
er. Case I -RC-4597
February 7, 1980
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND
CERTIFICATION
OF RESULTS OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS
AND PENELLO
Pursuant to a Stipulation for Certification Upon
Consent Election, an election by secret ballot was
conducted in the above-entitled proceeding on Decem-
ber 7 and 8, 1978, under the direction and supervision
of the Regional Director for Region 11, among the
employees in the appropriate unit. At the conclusion
of the balloting, the parties were furnished a tally of
ballots which showed that of approximately 1,400
eligible voters, 1,323 cast ballots, of which 329 were
for, and 870 were against the Petitioner. There were
124 challenged ballots and no void ballots. The
challenged ballots were insufficient in number to affect
the results of the election. Thereafter, the Petitioner
filed timely objections to conduct affecting the results
of the election.
In accordance with the National Labor Relations
Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended,
the Regional Director conducted an investigation and,
on February 1, 1979, issued and duly served on the
parties his Report on Objections in which he recom-
mended that Objection 9 be sustained, that a second
election be ordered, and that the Petitioner's other
objections be overruled.
Thereafter, the Employer filed exceptions to the
Regional Director's Report on Objections, and a
supporting brief, and the Petitioner filed exceptions to
the Regional Director's failure to sustain its Objec-
tions 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 14, and 15. On May 4, 1979, the
National Labor Relations Board issued its Decision
and Order Directing Hearing' on the issues raised by
the Petitioner's Objection 9 and adopting the Regional
Director's recommendation to overrule the Petition-
er's Objections 1-8 and 10-15.
Pursuant to the Board's order a hearing was held on
June 7, 1979, before Hearing Officer Paris Favors, Jr.
All parties were afforded full opportunity to be heard,
to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to
introduce evidence on the issues. On July 19, 1979, the
Hearing Officer issued his report recommending that
' PPG Industries. Case I I-RC-4597 (not reported in volumes or Board
Decisions).
' The Hearing Officer pointed out that he was not generally discrediting the
247 NLRB No. 114
the Petitioner's Objection 9 be sustained, that the
election be set aside, and that a second election be
directed. The Employer filed timely exceptions to the
Hearing Officer's report and a supporting brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the Hearing Officer's
report, the exceptions and briefs, and the entire record
in the case and finds as follows:
The issues here arise from a speech delivered by
Frank Green, the Employer's vice president, to five
separate groups of employees at the change of each
shift during the week prior to the election. In its
Objection 9, the Petitioner alleges that:
Frank Green held a captive audience meeting, in
his speech he stated if PPG were organized by the
Glass Bottle Blowers Association there's a possi-
bility PPG would close the Shelby, N.C. plant.
The Hearing Officer, crediting the Employer's wit-
nesses, found that Green did not deviate from the
speech. However, upon analysis of the speech and the
employees' testimony regarding "the message they got
from the speech,"2 the Hearing Officer concluded that
the Employer utilized the speech:
. . . as a means of instilling in the minds of its
employees the inevitability of strikes, job losses
and plant closure if the employees selected the
union as their collective bargaining representa-
tive. The Employer's statement in reference to the
three plants deliberately nurtured in the minds of
the employees the fear that the Shelby plant could
likewise be closed, thereby creating an atmo-
sphere of fear that interfered with the employee'
free choice in the election.
We agree with the Employer's contention that the
speech was permissible election campaign propaganda.
One of the campaign issues raised by the Patitioner
was that the employees could secure increased benefits
without having to resort to a strike because the
Employer would not take a strike that required
shutting down its production furnaces. To counter this
argument by the Petitioner, Green first briefly re-
viewed the history of the Employer and its relation-
ships with the unions representing its employees.
Green pointed out that at one time the Employer
"constantly conceeded [sic] to unions and tried to get
along with them", but that some yers ago the
Employer changed its policy for dealing with the
various union because its earlier approach presented
Petitioner's witnesses hut indicated that they were relating in their own words
the message they got from the speech.
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DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the Employer with problems in the areas of competi-
tion and plans for expansion. Green used the example
of the Employer's plant at Ford City, Pennsylvania,
where the employee complement dropped from almost
5,000 to a few hundred, asserting that because the
union refused to work with the Employer in installing
a new glassmaking process it became necessary for the
Employer to build a new plant elsewhere. Green then
reitereated that "[slince that time [Ford City] our
position has been that we will no longer conceed [sic]
to unreasonable union demands and agree to whatever
they may ask-simply to avoid a strike." (Emphasis
supplied.) He also referred to three other plants:
Clarksburg, West Virginia, Mount Vernon, Ohio, and
Henryetta, Oklahoma, stating that these three union-
organized plants "have been completely shut down for
one reason or another."3
Green next spoke of the Employer's history of
dealing with strikes, mentioning first a strike for 3
months. He also talked about the strike at the
Shelbyville, Indiana, plant several years earlier, show-
ing newspaper captions indicating that there had been
sabotage, that some strikers had been given suspended
sentences, and that the state police had been called to
the scene of the strike. He closed his remarks on the
Shelbyville strike by stating that the employees went
back to work on exactly the same Atrms that the
Company had offered before the strike started. Final-
ly, Green discussed a 1976 strike at the Owen-Corning
fiberglass plant at Jackson, Tennessee, which lasted
almost 4 months, commenting that as a consequence
of that strike Owen-Corning lost considerable busi-
' Although the Hearing Officer found that Green did not deviate from his
text, two of the Petitioner's witnesses admitted on cross-examination that in
their affidavits given in the initial investigation of the Petitioner's objections.
they stated that Green made reference to the plants being closed because of
lack of profits. Thus. whether there were minor deviations from the prepared
text or the witnesses drew their conclusions from the overall text or the
totality of the campaign itself, it is clear that the closure of the three plants
was attributed to a legitimate reason-the lack of profits.
'Rudy's Farm Company. Inc.. 190 NLRB 324(1971).
We find inapposite The Singer Company, Friden Division. 199 NLRB 1195
ness, much of which the Employer's Shelby plant was
able to pick up.
In sum, we find that the speech, read as a whole, did
not exceed the bounds of permissible campaign propo-
ganda. Green's remarks about strikes were in direct
response to the Petitioner's campaign position that the
Employer would not take a strike that required
shutting down its production furnaces. There is
nothing in the speech that would instill in the minds of
the employees that they would have to strike to secure
any gains, that a strike was inevitable, that the
Employer has rejected the principles of collective
bargaining, or that the plant would be closed or jobs
lost simply because the Petitioner won the election.
Rather, in our opinion, Green's speech amounts to
nothing more than a partisan explanation of the
realities of collective bargaining and was noncoercive
and temperate.4 Accordingly, we shall overrule Objec-
tion 9, and, as the Petitioner has failed to secure a
majority of the valid ballots cast, certify the results of
the election.'
CERTIFICATION OF RESULTS OF
ELECTION
It is hereby certified that a majority of the valid
ballots have not been cast for Glass Bottle Blowers
Association of the United States and Canada, AFL-
CIO, and that said labor organization is not the
exclusive representative of all the employees, in the
unit herein involved, within the meaning of Section
9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended.
(1972), relied on by the Hearing Officer. There, the evidence revealed a
pattern of statements of the inevitability of strikes and dire consequences of
such strikes, including the loss of jobs if the union were selected. Such
evidence included the speeches of the respondent's officials (six different
speeches during a 6-week period) and the respondent's preelection portfolio
and other campaign material. No such pattern emerges in the instant case.
' Having found that Green's speech did not constitute objectionable
conduct affecting the results of the election, we find it unnecessary to reach
the procedural issues raised by the Employer's other exceptions to the
Hearing Officer's report.
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