United Aircraft Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 27, 1953

103 N.L.R.B. 102 (N.L.R.B. 1953)

102 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
5. By the statements of Cecil Chacon, its foreman, the Respondent has inter-
fered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in their exercise of the
rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act, and has thus engaged in an unfair
labor practice within the meaning of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act.
6. The aforesaid unfair labor practice is an unfair labor practice affecting
commerce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
[Recommendations omitted from publication in this volume.]
Appendix
NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES
Pursuant to the Recommendations of a Trial Examiner of the National Labor
Relations Board, and in order to effectuate the policies of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, we hereby notify our employees that :
WE WILL NOT interfere with, restrain, or coerce our employees in the
exercise of their right to self-organization, to form labor organizations, to
join or assist FURNITURE WORKERS, UPHOLSTERERS AND WOOD WORKERS
UNION, LOCAL 576, INDEPENDENT, or any other labor organization, to bargain
collectively through representatives of their own free choice, and to engage
in other concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining or other
mutual aid or protection, or to refrain from any or all of such activities,
except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requir-
ing membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment, as
authorized in Section 8 (a) (3) of the Act, as amended.
All of our employees are free to become or remain members of Furniture
Workers, Upholsterers and Woodworkers Union, Local 576, Independent, or any
other labor organization, or to refrain from such membership.
Wilma M. Moran, R. L. Mason and Stewart Mason,
d/b/a GILLCRAFT FURNITURE COMPANY
-------------------------------------------
(Employer)
Dated -------------------- By -------------------------------------------
(Representative) i(Title)
This notice must remain posted for 60 days from the date hereof, and must not
be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
UNITED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, PRATT & WHITNEY AIRCRAFT DIVISION
and INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, AFL, PETITIONER.
Case No. 1-RC-2889. February °27, 1953
Decision , Order, and Direction of New Runoff Election
On October 9, 1952, pursuant to a Stipulation for Certification
Upon Consent Election executed August 14, 1952, an election by
secret ballot was conducted among certain of the Employer's em-
ployees under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director
for the First Region. As neither the TAM nor the other labor or-
103 NLRB No. 15.
UNITED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION 103
ganization on the ballot, International Union, United Automobile,
Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, CIO,
herein called the UAW, received a majority of the valid votes
cast ,l a run-off election was conducted on October 23, 1952. The re-
sults of the balloting at this election show 1,945 ballots cast: 935 for
the UAW, 873 for the IAM, 20 void, and 17 challenged.
On October 27, 1952, the IAM filed objections to conduct affecting
the results of the election. On November 13, 1952, the Regional Di-
rector issued and served upon the parties his report on the objections,
in which he concluded that the conduct objected to did not warrant
setting aside the results of the election. He therefore recommended
that the objections be overruled and that the UAW be certified as the
collective bargaining representative of the employees herein involved.
The IAM has excepted to this conclusion and recommendation.
These are the facts found by the Regional Director with respect to
the UAW's conduct to which the IAM objected: On October 21,
1952, 2 days before the election, the UAW distributed near the plant
to the employees voting in the election copies of the "telegram" set
out below. These copies were on regular familiar Western Union
telegram forms with the following text imprinted thereon :
OCTOBER 21, 1952
UAW-CIO UNION HEADQUARTERS,
Washington Ave. North Haven, Conn.
It has been called to my attention that certain of our repre-
sentatives conducting the IAM-AFL organizational drive in
North Haven, Pratt & Whitney plant, are guilty of smearing your
great union UAW-CIO. We in the labor movement know only
too well that it was your great president, Walter Reuther, who
spearheaded the move to drive the Communists from labor or-
ganizations. And we speak with authority when it comes to
strikes, having just taken on the giant Douglas and Lockheed
corporations. Allow me to express deep regret that some of our
thoughtless representatives have instigated this, and be assured
that I am taking steps to remove the causes of these unfortunate
incidents from our union.
AL HAYES,
President, IAM-AFL
The Regional Director's report discloses that the distribution of the
foregoing telegram was a hoax; that the IAM never sent such a tele-
gram; and that the UAW had conceived and perpetrated its scheme
as a vote-getting device. The IAM contended that the UAW's con-
I The results of this election showed 2,015 ballots cast : 892 for the IAM, 845 for the
UAW, 119 against the participating labor organizations, 8 void , and 18 challenged.
104 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
duct was a fraud upon the employees which went beyond the limits of
permissible campaign propaganda. The Regional Director, however,
relying upon the Board's frequently expressed policy that it will
neither censor nor police campaign propaganda by the parties to an
election in the absence of coercive elements , and finding nothing coer-
cive in the text of the telegram, concluded that the UAW's conduct
consisted of legitimate campaign propaganda 2 We disagree.
Although the Board has traditionally declared its intention not to
censor or police preelection propaganda by parties to elections, it has
imposed some limits on free campaigning which, when transgressed,
require corrective action. Thus, exaggerations, inaccuracies, partial
truths, name-calling, and falsehoods, while not condoned, may be ex-
cused as legitimate propaganda, provided they are not "so mislead-
ing" as to prevent the exercise of a free choice by employees in the
selection of their bargaining representative.3 Propaganda of this
sort, the Board has said, will not be censored or policed if it remains
within "bounds," 4 and in this connection the question to be decided is
"one of degree." 5 In sum, the ultimate consideration is whether the
challenged propaganda has lowered the standards of campaigning to
the point where it may be said that the uninhibited desires of the
employees cannot be determined in an election.6
Consistent with these admonitions a Board majority in the recent
Timken-Detroit Axle Company case , 98 NLRB 790, set aside the re-
sults of an election because the employer, during the preelection cam-
paign had mailed to the employees what incorrectly purported to be
a spontaneous antiunion appeal from a fellow employee.7 The Board,
in pertinent part, said :
we are convinced that the employees were blinded to the fact that
it was the Employer who revised and prefaced the Raymus letter,
and stamped and mailed it to them. We regard such conduct as
improper assistance to one of the groups competing in the elec-
tion, beyond the permissible area of influence resulting from pro-
a The Regional Director relied upon the following Board cases to support his conclu-
sion : Continental Oil Company , 58 NLRB 169 ; Corn Produota Refining Company, 5a NLRB
1441 ; Maywood Hosiery Mille, 64 NLRB 146; General Armature and Mfg. Co., 71 NLRB
413; Kroeder-Reubel Co., 72 NLRB 240; Philadelphia Lager Beer Brewers Association,
79 NLRB 351; General Plywood Corporation, 83 NLRB 197; Western Electric Company,
Incorporated, 87 NLRB 18R
3 Kearney i Trecker Corporation, 96 NLRB 1214 ; Chicago Mill A Lumber Company,
64 NLRB 349'.
4 Kearney d Trecker Corporation, supra.
F General Shoe Corporation, 77 NLRB 124.
s Ibid.
7 Although Member Murdock dissented in the Timken case, he did not differ with the
majority view as to the "virtues of clean elections under proper laboratory condition,"
but viewed that employer's conduct , at worst, as a trivial dereliction which did not spoil
the ideal laboratory conditions requisite to a free election . He regards the UAW's con-
duct in this case as detrimental to the proper conditions for the holding of a clean election.
UNITED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION 105
tected expressions of opinion. The use of plain envelopes mis-
represented to the employees the source of this anti-union propa-
ganda, thereby infringing their right to a fair opportunity to
evaluate it. By concealing its part in preparing and distributing
the Raymus letter, the Employer created the erroneous impres-
sion that what was actually company antiunion campaign activity
was merely unaided and spontaneous employee sentiment. This
impaired the free and informed atmosphere requisite to an un-
trammeled expression of choice by its employees.
We are amply satisfied that the instant case, even more than the
Timken case, requires invocation of the Board's corrective authority.
No doubt whatever exists as to the deliberateness of the deception
perpetrated by the UAW. Moreover, we find more offensive the
UAW's conduct than the objectionable conduct in the Timken case,
because in our opinion, the IAM's purported self-immolation and
praise of its rival a was a more effective vote-getting device than the
mere antiunion argument of the Raymus letter in the Timken case.
That letter may reasonably be assumed to have been only a repetition
of arguments already made by the employees opposed to the union
in that case. The conclusion is impelled that the UAW by its de-
liberate deception as to the source of the "telegram" so blinded the
employees to the significance of its contents that they could neither
recognize it as a fake nor evaluate it as propaganda.9 This conduct
lowered the standards of campaigning to a level which impaired the
free and informed atmosphere requisite to an untrammeled expression
of choice by the employees. Accordingly, we reject the Regional Di-
rector's conclusion and recommendation, and shall set aside the re-
sults of the election in this case and order that a new election be held.
On January 15, 1953, the UAW requested permission from the
Board to file a brief and to argue orally in support of the Regional
Director's conclusions of law, and further asked that this matter be
remanded to the Regional Director for a hearing and issuance of
a supplemental report if the Board should reject his conclusions.
The UAW asserted that the Regional Director, having concluded in
:Nothing appears to permit a conclusion that the employees had any reason to question
the authenticity of the source or content of the telegram , or that the employees accepted
its substance at less than face value.
o The leeway permitted parties in the use of campaign propaganda stems in part from
the Board 's belief that employees recognize propaganda "for what it is, and discount it."
See Corn Products Refining Company , supra . The Board has frequently observed that it
prefers to leave to the "good sense" of the voters the task of appraising propaganda, even
though it contains misinformation . Trinity Steel Company, Inc., 97 NLRB 1486. This,
of course , implies the absence of a trick to dupe the voters . Deprived of their ability to
recognize propaganda for what it is, the voters are helpless to exercise good sense in
appraising it. It is in this way that the instant case is distinguishable from the precedents
relied upon by the Regional Director to support his conclusion that the UAW's stunt was
only legitimate propaganda.
106 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
his report that the telegram was not coercive, did not concern himself
with certain facts which would have shown that the telegram could
not have affected the results of the election. These alleged facts are
(a) that a "negligible" number of copies of the telegram were distrib-
uted by employees, without union authorization, sufficiently in ad-
vance of the election to have permitted a reply by the IAM, and that
the IAM had before the election widely distributed a letter from
the president of that union to the employees urging their support,
and (b) that the telegram was utilized to combat false Communist
imputations directed by the IAM against the UAW, plus the distribu-
tion by the IAM of a "card purportedly printed by the UAW-CIO
indicating probability of unnecessary strike action." The UAW also
asserted that the Board's refusal to grant the foregoing requests
would deny it due process.
The Regional Director's report was issued on November 13, 1952.
Time for filing exceptions to the report, as provided by Section 102.61
of the Board's Rules and Regulations, thus expired about Novem-
ber 26, 1952. Had the UAW before that date sought to file a brief
in support of the report or in the nature of an exception to any
omission therein, it could have done so as a matter of course. Instead,
the UAW was content to rest satisfied with the report until 7 weeks
later. No satisfactory reason has been presented to justify a departure
from the requirements of the Board's Rules and Regulations. We
shall therefore deny the request for permission at this late date to
file a brief and secure oral argument, as the issues to be determined
in this matter are adequately presented on the record before us.
We also can perceive no warrant for holding a hearing or issuing
a supplemental report. In effect the UAW would adduce evidence
to show that its deception was justified because provoked by "Com-
munist smears" originated by the IAM and the distribution of a card
by the IAM which, like the UAW's telegram, was a fabrication. We
deplore these tactics, if in fact the IAM engaged in them; indeed,
if the IAM did indulge in them and had that union gone on to win the
election, we might well have set the balloting aside upon a timely
protest by the UAW. These allegations would not, however, even if
proved, alter our conclusion that damaging interference with the in-
formed atmosphere necessary to a valid election resulted from the
UAW's glaring misrepresentation. One wrong cannot justify an-
other, so we are not impressed by our dissenting colleagues' concern
with the "surrounding circumstances which may excuse" UAW's
conduct.
UNITED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION 107
We regard as irrelevant the imprecise intimations by the UAW
which suddenly disclaim responsibility for distribution of the "Hayes"
telegram. The Regional Director reported that the UAW had ad-
mitted distribution of the telegram; the UAW is now, in effect, at-
tempting to controvert this finding of fact in his report. We consider
it unimportant whether the telegram was distributed to few or to
many employees, for we do not doubt that a misrepresentation of this
sort, once loosed, could spread so rapidly as to impair the election
atmosphere. Finally, we fail to understand how mere proof that
the president of the IAM had sent a letter to the employees urging
their support could overcome the invidious effect of the telegram. If
the UAW is implying that the IAM had a fair opportunity before
the election to counteract the effect of the telegram by communicating
with the employees, the timing of the distribution of the telegram 2
days before the election precluded the accomplishment of any such
result. Accordingly, we must deny the UAW's untimely requests for
a hearing and the issuance of a supplemental report.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the runoff election held on October 23,
1952, among the employees of the United Aircraft Corporation, Pratt
& Whitney Aircraft Division, at its North Haven, Connecticut, plant
be, and it hereby is, set aside.
[Text of Direction of New Runoff Election omitted from publication
in this volume.]
MEMBERS HOUSTON and STYLES, dissenting :
We do not agree with the result reached by our colleagues in pass-
ing on the merits of the objections at this time. We would, on the
other hand, order that a hearing be held to develop all the facts in this
case. While we are mindful of the dangers inherent in the type of
campaigning resorted to by the UAW, we are hesitant to express con-
demnation of it without complete knowledge as to all the surrounding
circumstances that may excuse it. We readily conceive the possible
existence of a preelection atmosphere, created through no fault of the
UAW, in which the distribution of the telegram could not have af-
fected the outcome of the election. Accordingly, we believe that the
policies of the Act would best be served by an investigation and re-
port as to all the facts leading up to the distribution of the telegram.