Universal Manufacturing Corp. of Mississippi

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 14, 1966

156 N.L.R.B. 1459 (N.L.R.B. 1966)

UNIVERAL MANUFACTURING CORP. OF MISSISSIPPI 1459
MEMBER BROWN, concurring:
The Employer's closing of stores to the public while continuing to
pay employees' wages in these stores does not, in my opinion, constitute
a lockout in the present circumstances. I therefore agree with my
•colleagues that there was no meaningful discrimination against the
nonunit employees, and for that reason I join in dismissing the
complaint.
Universal Manufacturing Corporation of Mississippi and Inter-
national Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO-CLC,
Petitioner. Case No. 15-RC-3061. February 14, 1966
DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION
OF SECOND ELECTION
Pursuant to the provisions of a Stipulation for Certification upon
Consent Election, approved March 25, 1965, an election by secret
ballot was conducted April 23, 1965, under the direction and super-
vision of the Regional Director for. Region 15 in the unit which had
been found appropriate to determine whether the employees therein
desired to be represented by the Petitioner for purposes of collective
bargaining. Upon the conclusion of the balloting, the parties were
furnished with a tally of ballots showing that 567 of approximately
578 eligible voters cast ballots, of which 272 were for, and 287 were
against, the Petitioner, and 8 ballots were challenged. The number
of challenged ballots was insufficient to affect the election results.
Thereafter, Petitioner filed timely objections to conduct affecting the
results of the election.
After an investigation, the Regional Director issued his Report on
Objections on August 6,1965; in which he recommended that the objec-
tions be overruled in their entirety. Petitioner then filed timely
exceptions to the Regional Director's Report.
Upon the entire record in this case, the National Labor Relations
Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdic-
tion herein.
2. The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent cer-
tain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of the employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9(c) (1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
156 NLRB No. 132.
217-919-66-vol. 156-93
1460 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
4. The parties stipulated, and we find, that the following employees
constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargain-
ing within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act :
All production and maintenance employees and plant clerical
employees of the Employer at its Simpson County, Mississippi, plant,
including shipping and receiving clerks, but excluding office clerical
employees, technical employees including quality control technicians,
professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
5. The Board has considered the Regional Director's report and
the exceptions thereto,' and finds merit in the exceptions for the rea-
sons discussed below.
In requesting that the election be set aside, the Union argues that
certain election campaign conduct by members of the, community,
whether attributable to the Employer or considered independently,
was an outrageous interference with the laboratory conditions which
should attend a representation election. Particularly objectionable,
the Union claims, was the material disseminated in the form of ads
and handbills which was calculated to foster a climate of irrational
hostility among the employees toward the Union by irrelevant appeals
to racist sentiment, threats of blacklisting, and warnings about the
economic disaster which would befall the county if the Union were
elected.
Although our decision is predicated on events between March 5 and
April 23, 1965, the period between the filing of the petition and the
election, a recitation of prior events is helpful in understanding why
we believe the election must be set aside.
With the opening of Universal Manufacturing Company's plant in
1963, Simpson County, Mississippi, took its first step toward indus-
trializing its basically rural economy. Funds for the purchase of the
plant site, located between the county's leading towns of Magee and
Mendenhall, as well as for the construction of the plant, were obtained
through a $1.2 million bond issue authorized by Simpson County
voters in 1962.2 To aid the plant in community relations, a group of
county business and professional men, elected officials, and the editors
of the two local newspapers met in 1963 at the invitation of the
Employer's local attorney to set up the Universal Advisory Board.
Available evidence provides little indication of the frequency or
manner of the Board's functioning, but it appears that some members
of the Advisory Board met in late 1964 to consider an unfair labor
practice charge filed by the Union, which alleged conspiracy between
the members of the Advisory Board and the Employer.
i No exceptions were filed with respect to the Regional Director' s recommendation that
objections 3 through 7 be overruled ; accordingly , we adopt his recommendation pro forma.
2 At the time of the election, the plant employed about 600 people, most of whom lived
in Simpson County The 1962 Rand McNally Atlas indicates that Simpson County's
population was about 20,000, and that of Magee, and Mendenhall, about 2,000 each
UNIVERAL MANUFACTURING CORP. OF MISSISSIPPI 1461
The Union began organizing in the spring of 1964, and immediately
encountered opposition and hostility. The Employer's plant manager
addressed the workers in March 1964, telling them of the Employer's
dislike of the Union, and threatening closing of the plant.'
The campaign, which subsided during the summer, was revived in
the fall of 1964. In January 1965, the union organizers filed a lawsuit
in United States District Court, Southern District of Mississippi,
Jackson Division, against some 32 local people, including both editors,
alleging deprivation of their civil rights in violation of the 14th
amendment.
The campaign entered its last and crucial stage with the filing of the
petition on March 5, 1965. Many of the employees, both anti- and
pro-union, actively displayed their loyalties by distributing leaflets
at the plant entrance, and by wearing signs and buttons 4 The
Employer's no-distribution rule, covering the plant and the parking
lot, was found by the Regional Director to have been impartially
enforced . The Union held several committee and membership meet-
ings in the local area but was deliberately rebuffed, the Regional Direc-
tor found, in some of its attempts to obtain convenient and suitable
local facilities for conducting meetings, and was then forced to hold
meetings near Jackson, which is 30 miles away. However, the
Regional Director concluded that such occurrences did not prevent
the Union from communicating with the employees.5
On Thursday, April 8, the two weekly newspapers having general
circulation in the county, the Magee Courier and the Simpson County
News , criticized the Union campaign in editorials. Each mentioned
certain plants which had closed because of unionization, and the result-
ant economic difficulties to the community. The Union's point of view
was not expressed in the publications. The Simpson County News
warned its readers:
This is the third time in recent months that the closing of a
plant because of union activities has come to our attention. The
first was the Union Aluminum Company plant in Sheffield,
3 The speech was found to be a violation of Section 8(a)(1) in a Trial Examinei's
Decision , issued in October 1964 . Since the Employer voluntarily complied with the
Trial Examiner 's Recommended Order, our only purpose in referring to the incident is to
provide a background for subsequent events.
4 Some of the antiunion signs and buttons bore slogans linking the Union with the
civil rights movement and communism.
5 We note that although antiunion ads appeared in the newspapers , the editors , during
the week before the election , refused to accept advertising from the Union. While a
newspaper retains the right to refuse advertisements at will, the action might be a basis
for setting aside an election if the Union were thereby prevented from adequately com-
municating its message to the employees The Regional Director found that other meth-
ods of communication were available to the Union We also note that the Union un-
successfully sought to purchase air time from a local radio station in early April In
view of the conflicting evidence as to which party was responsible for the Union ' s failure
to purchase commercial time , and the fact that the ,station broadcast no antiunion matter,
we have not considered this incident in reaching our conclusion
1462 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Alabama; the second was the Darlington Mills plant in South
Carolina; and now the one in West Virginia. And on March 29
the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision which
gives plant owners the right to close down a plant because of union
activity-provided the entire plant closes, and not just a part of
the plant.
Now-we have no way of knowing that Universal Manufactur-
ing Corporation would close their plant if the union wins in the
election to be held on April 23-slightly more than two weeks off.
Neither did anyone know that the three plants mentioned above
would be closed because of unreasonable union demands. Yet,
they are closed today and apparently there is no hope in those
areas for the plants to ever operate again.
* * * * * * *
It's time for Simpson County citizens to wake up. The days to
follow April 23 could be dark and gloomy.
In addition, the Magee Courier editorial injected the racial issue by
the following comments :
Recently, the news headlined the fact that Mr. Hoffa, head union
official, contributed $25,000 to Martin Luther King at the funeral
of the lady .killed in Alabama. WHOSE MONEY WAS THIS
THAT WENT INTO THIS CONTRIBUTION?
LET'S STOP AND THINK .... and while we think, ask a few
simple questions.
Do I want part of my earnings to help support the forces of
Martin Luther King?
On the following Thursday, April 15, identical full-page antiunion
advertisements appeared in both papers." There was no advertise-
ment, expressing the union point of view. The advertisement, reflect-
ing the community's fears of economic loss should the Union win,
warned the employees, in effect, that a union victory could only hurt
them. Paragraph 6 of the ad emphasized this theme by a threat of
blacklisting:
If you should become a union member and later terminate your
employment with the union plant, could you expect to find employ-
ment with other industry in the area?
8 The Regional Director found that the editors had obtained the copy for this and
other antiunion advertisements from various papers in the State , which had recently
printed similar material during union campaigns in their communities ,
The advertise-
ments in the Courier were paid for by local citizens , identified only as "Friends and
Neighbors of Simpson County" but those in the News, although apparently sponsored by
"Friends and Neighbors of Mendenhall ," were actually financed by the editor , a member
of the Universal Advisory Board, and his family.
UNIVERAL MANUFACTURING CORP. OF MISSISSIPPI 1463
Paragraphs 8 through 11 warned the employees that they would suffer
irreparable economic damage, as wage earners and taxpayers, if the
Union won :
8. The people of Simpson County have accepted a bonded
indebtedness of $1.2 million to provide industrial employment for
the people of this area. This money is in' buildings and land.
If not occupied by industry, the payments on these bonds must
be made by Simpson County taxpayers in-the form of increased
tax millage. If any union is successful in organizing this plant
in Simpson County, all hope of industrial expansion will be lost.
You will have placed a heavy tax, burden on yourselves, and others
who were willing to help the County' and to help you. 1,
9. Help preserve the healthy indust'r'ial climate-which means so
much to the growth of Simpson County in the securing of your
jobs, as well as others: Today more than, 600 people are gainfully
employed in jobs not available 2 years ago.
10. One of the best bargaining agents that employees can have
is a choice of jobs. It would be a good feeling to know-that if you
become dissatisfied with one job that there were other jobs in your
area to be had. With an ample supply of jobs employers' demands
for workers would do more for salary increase than all of the union
bargaining, strikes, etc.; in the world.
11. Don't deny your younger brother, sister, cousins, and friends
the opportunity of working in Simpson County by voting in a
labor union and discouraging other manufacturers from locating
in our county.
On the following Thursday, the day before the election, full-page ads
sponsored by the same group or groups again presaged economic hard-
ship for the community if the Union were to win, at a time when these
newspapers were not accepting union advertising. Under a banner
headline proclaiming "Don't let an outsider inject friction in Simpson
County," appeared, inter alia, the following comments :
Workers at Universal's Simpson County plant well can ask
themselves : After these outside organizers have come in and in=
jected employees of the plant with a job-killing attitude of fric-
tion, will they remain to help build a better county and expand job
opportunities?
Or will they collect their fat fee injecting bitterness and con-
flict into Universal's Simpson County plant and then not care what
happens to Simpson County voters as other industrial prospects
take a look at what has happened to our county and decide to go
1464 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
where they think potential workers will be cooperative and
friendly.
In Laurel and Meridian four plants closed after being organized
by the Steelworkers Union. And partly as a result of the black
eye given them by this action both counties in which Laurel and
Meridian are located actually had fewer industrial employees in
1962 than they did twelve years earlier in 1950. This is the cold
fact as shown by records of the Mississippi Employment Commis-
sion. And we doubt if anyone wants to risk any such backward
step here in Simpson County.
For between 1950 and 1962 three Southeast Mississippi cities-
Laurel, Meridian and Hattiesburg-show an increase of only seven
industrial jobs per year per city. Even the smallest community in
Simpson County needs more new job than that each year to take
care of the fine young people growing up among us. But the rec-
ord of these three cities in Southeast Mississippi indicates quite
clearly that we won't be able to provide them if we get a reputation
for letting unions run our county and destroy our industries.
For the sake of our young people.... for the sake of our county
.... and for the sake of your own chance of broad job opportunities
here in Simpson County .... VOTE AGAINST THE UNION
ON FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1965.
That same day a cartoon appeared on the front page of both news-
papers, the only newspapers of general circulation in the area, under
the headline of an IBEW publication, in which it had appeared on
April 1, 1965. It depicted Negroes and whites marching together with
arms linked, and carrying a banner entitled "We Shall Overcome."
Captions under the cartoon read "where did the above slogan origi-
nate?" and "Just a Reminder !" in the Courier and News, respectively.
For several days prior to April 23, a handbill of the cartoon as
printed in the Courier was distributed, together with a mimeographed
handbill published by "Taxpaying Citizens of Simpson County."
Antiunion employees and some unidentified people distributed the
_handbills at the plant gate on several occasions prior to election day;
in addition, both items were placed on the windshields of a number of
cars in the company parking lot on the two nights preceding the
election.'
7 As the Regional Director found, there was no evidence that this breach of the no-
distribution rule was prompted by, approved of, or acquiesced in, by the Employer. The
Employer made no effort to disavow the content or spirit of the handbills distributed in
his plant.
UNIVERAL MANUFACTURING CORP. OF MISSISSIPPI 1465
The handbill begins with the ominous reminder that in the election,
"the employees of Universal Manufacturing Company will vote the
destiny of Simpson County, industrially and tax-wise." Among the
antiunion comments which follow, appear these references to the Negro
civil rights movement and communism :
Have you asked the Union why all the unions are pushing the
Civil Rights Movement? Is it because all unions are infiltrated
with Communists? Here are just a few examples: We all remem-
ber the $25,000 to Martin Luther IKing; we remember that George
Meany, who is National President of the AFL-CIO said that the
voter registration bill was not strong enough.
Wickie, [a reference to one of the union organizers] what did
one of your STOOGIES by the name of Lois Maygors have to say
about the Negroes? She said that she didn't give a damn if her
kids went to school with the Negroes, and she didn't give a damn
if she sat right beside them to work, and that the Negroes were
better than what she was working with NOW.
* * * * * * *
YES, LET'S KEEP UNIVERSAL SIMPSON COUNTY
"PROFITS" IN SIMPSON COUNTY, NOT IN OHIO, FLOR-
IDA, NEW YORK, CHICAGO, or the COMMUNIST PARTY.
The Regional Director found that the propaganda involving racial
matters was truthful and could reasonably be evaluated by the employ-
ees. We believe that in making his findings, the Regional Director
misapplied the standards which we established in Sewell Manufactur-
ing Company, 138 NLRB 66, to evaluate election campaign propa-
ganda on racial matters. Sewell stands for the proposition that the
Board will not tolerate racial propaganda unless it meets the following
conditions : the statements must be truthful, temperate, and germane
to a party's position ; and they must not "deliberately seek to overstress
and exacerbate racial feelings by irrelevant, inflammatory appeals."
Judged in terms of these criteria, we are satisfied that the handbill and
cartoon "overstepped the bounds of permissible campaigning and so
lowered these standards that the uninhibited desires of the employees
could not be determined in the election."
The reference in the handbill to a $25,000 gift to Martin Luther
King refers to an action taken by Teamsters' President Hoff a. It may
satisfy the standard of truthfulness but it is irrelevant to any aspect of
the IBEW's campaign. There is no indication that the militant pro-
integrationist remarks attributed to prounion employee Lois Maygors
1466 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
meets any test. Even if she had voted such opinions, the only purpose
served by adverting to them is to encourage those employees, who find
her sentiments repugnant, to reject the Union out of hand. The-inflam-
matory nature and intent of the remarks in the' handbill was under-
scored by the simultaneous distribution of the IBEW cartoon, bearing
a'provocative caption. Although the cartoon originated in the peti-
tioning, Union's publication, as the, Regional Director found, the
method of its distribution compels the inference that the sponsoring
parties intended, not to educate or inform the employees about an issue
germane, to the election, but to prompt them to vote against the Union
"on racial grounds alone." , .
We do not agree with the Regional Director's finding that the specter
of communism introduced into the campaign may be condoned because
the theme'appears so often in campaigns that employees can properly
and adequately evaluate it. Frequent use cannot blunt the explosive
emotional impact of a statement alleging that a communist conspiracy
controls the civil rights movement and also controls unions, especially
where the election campaign takes place in a community which is for
the first time facing the strains of industrialization and integration.
Besides linking unions, civil rights, and communism as if they were'
aspects of a single pernicious entity, another statement in the handbill
further implies that IBEW Union dues' would end up in Communist
Party coffers.
The editors and other, unidentified, third parties were also respon-
sible for repeatedly sounding the alarm that the success of the Union
could spell only economic hardship for the employees, their families
and their neighbors, and a decline in the economic fortunes of their-
community. An effort was made to impress upon employees that the
plant might close if the Union won the election, creating widespread
unemployment and compelling an increase in tax assessments; if the
plant continued to operate, employees who became union members
would be blacklisted from future employment in the area; and, in
either event, all citizens would suffer because the fear of unionization
would keep other employers from locating in Simpson County. By
appealing to the employees' sentiments as civic minded individuals,
injecting the fear of personal economic loss, and playing on racial
prejudice, the 'full-page ads, the editorials, the cartoon, and the hand-
bill were calculated to convince the employees that a yote for the Union
meant the betrayal of the community's best interests. Faced with pres-
sures of this sort, the employees in our opinion were inhibited from
freely exercising their choice in the election .8 I
s Utica-Herbrand Tool 'Division of Kelsey-Hayes Company , 145 NLRB 1717
PACIFIC HOSTS, INC.-PADRE TRAILS MOTEL CORP. 1467
Accordingly, we shall set aside the election, on the ground that
actions by members of the community rendered impossible "the ra-
tional, uncoerced selection of a bargaining representative as contem-
plated by the Act," 9 and shall direct the holding of a second election.
ORDER
'[The Board set aside the election conducted herein on April 23,
1965.]
[Text of Direction of Second Election omitted from publication.]
0 The Falmouth Company, 114 NLRB 896 ; James Lees and Sons Company, 130 NLRB
290 ; Monarch Rubber Co., Inc., 121 NLRB 81.
Pacific Hosts, Inc.-Padre Trails Motel Corporation I and Local
Joint Executive Board of San Diego , Comprising Waiters and
Bartenders Union Local No. 500 , and Culinary Alliance and
Hotel Service Employees Union , Local No. 402, AFL-CIO, Peti-
tioner.2 Case No. 21-RC-9646. February 14, 1966
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer
Claude R. Marston. The Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hear-
ing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. There-
after, the Petitioner and the Employer each filed briefs with the
National Labor Relations Board and the Petitioner subsequently filed
a supplemental brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman McCulloch and Members Fanning and Jenkins].
Upon the entire record in this case the Board finds :
1. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of hotel and restaurant
workers employed at the Padre Trail Inn, herein called the Inn. The
Employer contends that its operations do not meet the Board's current
discretionary standards for asserting jurisdiction in the hotel indus-
try 3 and that the petition should, therefore, be dismissed. In support
of this position, the Employer argues that no employer-employee rela-
1 The name Padre Trails Motel Corporation appears as amended at the hearing.
a The name of the Petitioner appears as amended at the hearing.
a Floridan Hotel of Tampa, Inc., 124 NLRB 261.
156 NLRB No. 128.