Wabash Magnetics, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 13, 1974

215 N.L.R.B. 546 (N.L.R.B. 1974)

546 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Wabash Transformer Corp ., Subsidiary of Wabash
Magnetics , Inc. and Communications Workers of
America , AFL-CIO. Cases 14-CA-7420-1,
14-CA-7420-2, and 14-CA-7548
December 13, 1974
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS FANNING AND
PENELLO
On July 23, 1974, Administrative Law Judge Fannie
M. Boyls issued the attached Supplemental Decision in
this proceeding.' Thereafter, the General Counsel and
Respondent filed exceptions, supporting briefs, and an-
swering briefs.'
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 Supplemental Decision in light of the exceptions
and briefs and has decided to affirm the rulings,3
findings,' and conclusions' of the Administrative Law
i As set forth in the attached Supplemental Decision, on February 11,
1974, the Administrative Law Judge issued a Summary Decision and
Recommended Bargaining Order limited to the 8(a)(5) aspect of this case,
which was subsequently adopted by the Board Wabash Transformer Corp.
210 NLRB 462 (1974) Her Supplemental Decision disposes of the remain-
ing aspects of the case
2 Respondent's request for oral argument is hereby denied, as the record,
including the briefs, adequately presents the issues and the positions of the
parties
3 We find no merit in Respondent's exception to the Administrative Law
Judge's denial of its motion to strike Boyer's testimony, in accordance with
Sec 102 118 of the National Labor Relations Board's Rules and Regula-
tions, Series 8, as amended, due to the General Counsel's failure to produce
certain notes which the witness had passed to him during the course of the
hearing The General Counsel produced those notes which were in his
possession and stated on the record that he had probably discarded the
others, because he did not consider them to be "statements" and because
the Respondent, although aware of the notes during 15 days of the hearing,
exhibited no interest in them during that entire period Accordingly, assum-
ing, arguendo, that the notes were "statements" within the meaning of Sec
102 118(d) of the Board's Rules and Regulations, we find that they were lost
or destroyed in good faith, and the Respondent's motion to strike the tes-
timony was properly denied NLR B v Seine and Line Fishermen's Union
of San Pedro, 374 F 2d 974, 979 (C A 9, 1967), cert denied 389 U S 913
(1967), holding that "[w]here statements have been lost or destroyed in
good faith the testimony of the witness concerned need not be struck "
4 The Respondent has excepted to certain credibility findings made by the
Administrative Law Judge, and the General Counsel in his brief attacks
other such findings It is the Board's established policy not to overrule an
Administrative Law Judge's resolutions with respect to credibility unless the
clear preponderance of all of the relevant evidence convinces us that the
resolutions are incorrect Standard Dry Wall Products, Inc, 91 N LRB 544
(1950), enfd 188 F 2d 362 (C A 3, 1951) We have carefully examined the
record and find no basis for reversing her findings
5 The General Counsel has excepted to the Administrative Law Judge's
failure to find and conclude and to report the evidence showing that Re-
spondent committed certain alleged additional violations of Sec 8(a)(1) We
find it unnecessary to pass on these allegations, as they would be essentially
cumulative
Judge and to adopt her recommended Order, except as
modified herein.'
1. Although we agree with the Administrative Law
Judge's conclusion that Margaret Clinton was dis-
charged in violation of Section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the
Act, we do not rely on her finding that Clinton's effi-
ciency at the time of her discharge had shown substan-
tial improvement over that of the day before when she
was reprimanded and given a week to improve or be
terminated. Respondent argues in its brief that that
finding is contrary to the preponderance of the evi-
dence. However, even assuming that Clinton's effi-
ciency had not improved at the time of her discharge,
we nevertheless conclude that she was not discharged
for that reason. There is no apparent reason for Re-
spondent's rechecking of her rate of performance the
day after promising her a week to improve except the
coincidence of her first display of her change of sympa-
thies from antiunion to prounion by wearing a union
button on her blouse during these last 2 days of her
employment. Thus, the inference is fully warranted
that it was this show of union sympathies that led
Respondent to reevaluate Clinton's performance and
terminate her employment and that Respondent's con-
tention that her discharge was motivated by her failure
to improve her productivity is pretextual in the absence
of any explanation for the hasty rechecking of her effi-
ciency. We further agree with the Administrative Law
Judge in finding no merit in Respondent's contention
that Clinton's vulgar language was the motivating fac-
tor, as that reason was neither mentioned to Clinton at
the time of discharge nor asserted at the hearing. Ac-
cordingly, we adopt the conclusion that Clinton's dis-
charge was unlawfully motivated and violated Section
8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act.
2. The Administrative Law Judge found that Re-
spondent's imposition of the penalty of discharge for
failure to meet its efficiency standards constituted a
unilateral change in working conditions in violation of
Section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act. We disagree.'
It is clear that Respondent did not promulgate new
productivity rules or standards, as the existence of the
efficiency standards predated the Union's campaign
6 Although we find merit in the General Counsel's contention that the
Administrative Law Judge erred in implying that the burden was on him to
introduce Respondent's records to disprove its affirmative defense of Alma
Powers' defective work (part 11,C,2,c, of the attached Supplemental Deci-
sion), we conclude that, in the circumstances of this case, this error was not
prejudicial because the Administrative Law Judge's findings as to the exces-
sive amount of defective work produced by Powers are supported by the
record and clearly warrant the conclusion that Powers' discharge was moti-
vated by her poor workmanship, not her union sympathies
7 Chairman Miller concurs in the reversal of the conclusion that Respond-
ent violated Sec 8(a)(5) because he finds that Respondent was under no
bargaining obligation For the reasons set forth in his dissent in the underly-
ing representation case, Wabash Transformer Corp , 205 NLRB 148 (1973),
he is of the view that the Union's certification was improvidently granted
and that the election should, instead, have been set aside
215 NLRB No. 101.
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP
and certification.' Furthermore, this is not a case
where work rules have been abandoned and subse-
quently revived and invoked. Finally, the record dis-
closes that from the time the plant commenced opera-
tions Respondent had actively enforced its rules by
personally interviewing individuals in default, by post-
ing notices on the bulletin board, and by delivering
speeches to assembled employees.
Under the above circumstances, we conclude that
the discharge sanction was merely one means of enforc-
ing the preexisting efficiency standards which was im-
plicit in the existence of any such standard. The empha-
sizing of this means did not constitute unlawful
unilateral action in violation of Section 8(a)(5) and (1)
of the Act. Accordingly, we also reject the finding that
Rose Conrad's quitting because of the enforcement of
Respondent's efficiency policy constituted a construc-
tive discharge and an unfair labor practice within the
meaning of Section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act. There-
fore, we shall dismiss the complaint insofar as it alleges
violations in these respects.
ORDER
Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor Re-
lations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations
Board adopts as its Order the recommended Order of
the Administrative Law Judge as modified below and
hereby orders that Respondent, Wabash Transformer
Corp., Subsidiary of Wabash Magnetics,' Inc., Farm-
ington, Missouri , its officers , agents , successors, and
assigns , shall take the action set forth in the said recom-
mended Order as herein modified:
1. Delete the name "Rose Conrad" from paragraph
2(a).
2. Delete paragraphs 1(j) and 2(b) and reletter re-
maining paragraphs accordingly.
3. Substitute the attached notice for the Administra-
tive Law Judge's notice.
IT IS HEREBY FURTHER ORDERED that the complaint be,
and it hereby is, dismissed insofar as it alleges viola-
tions not found herein.
S For this reason, the Administrative Law Judge's reliance on cases such
as The DalfCorporation, d/b/a Hoffman Bros., 188 NLRB 319, 324 (1971),
involving the unilateral institution of new rules, is clearly misplaced
APPENDIX
NOTICE To EMPLOYEES
POSTED BY ORDER OF THE
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
An Agency of the United States Government
WE WILL offer Becky Boyer and Margaret Clin-
ton full reinstatement and pay each for her earn-
547
ings lost as a result of her discharge , plus 6-percent
interest.
WE WILL NOT coercively interrogate our em-
ployees regarding their knowledge of union activi-
ties, regarding the union sympathies or activities
of fellow employees , or regarding what goes on at
union meetings.
WE WILL NOT solicit or request employees to find
out and report back to us the union or company
sympathies of fellow employees and/or document
the information obtained to categorize our em-
ployees as prounion or procompany.
WE WILL NOT request any employee to attend a
union meeting and ask questions which we have
posed.
WE WILL NOT solicit employees to report the
identity of employees making derogatory remarks
about management representatives.
WE WILL NOT request any employee to assist in
the circulation of a petition to obtain employee
withdrawal of their union cards.
WE WILL NOT threaten plant closure or removal,
the discharge of union supporters , or other forms
of reprisal against employees should they select
the Union to represent them.
WE WILL NOT threaten that any employee will not
be rehired unless such employee withdraws from
Communications Workers of America, AFL-
CIO, or promises to vote against said labor
organization in any election.
WE WILL NOT seek to create the impression that
the plant is in the process of closing down because
our employees have selected the Union to repre-
sent them.
WE WILL NOT discharge or otherwise discriminate
in regard to the hire or tenure of employment of
our employees because of their union sympathies
or activities.
WE WILL NOT in any other manner interfere with,
restrain , or coerce our employees in the exercise of
their rights guaranteed under Section 7 of the Act.
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP.,
SUBSIDIARY OF WABASH MAGNETICS,
INC.
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
FANNIE M. BOYLS, Administrative Law Judge These con-
solidated cases, initiated by charges filed on May 29, July 10,
August 23 and 31, and October 4, 1973, and a consolidated
amended complaint issued on October 11, 1973, were heard
before me at Farmington, Missouri , on 16 hearing days be-
tween November 5 and December 12, 1973. The amended
complaint , as further amended at the hearing, alleges that
Respondent, both before and after an election conducted un-
548 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
der the Board 's auspices on March 16 , 1973, engaged in
numerous acts of interference , restraint , and coercion in vio-
lation of Section 8(a)(1) of the Act; discriminatorily dis-
charged or otherwise discriminated in regard to the terms and
conditions of employment of seven employees because of
their union membership and activities , in violation of Section
8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act; and refused to bargain with Com-
munications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, following the
Board 's certification , on July 31, 1973, of that labor organiza-
tion as the bargaining representative of Respondent 's produc-
tion and maintenance employees , in violation of Section
8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act. Respondent' s answers deny that
it engaged in any of the unfair labor practices alleged.
With respect to the alleged 8(a)(5) violations , Respondent
conceded at the hearing that it had refused to bargain with
the Union but contended that its refusals were justified and
not in violation of the statute because the Board in the under-
lying representation proceeding (Case 14-RC-7260) had im-
properly overruled its objections to the election and improp-
erly certified the Union. Since all allegations of the complaint
pertaining to an unlawful refusal to bargain (such as a unilat-
eral change in working conditions , a refusal to furnish data
and a refusal to confer with the Union) stemmed from Re-
spondent 's position that the certification was invalid and that
it could not , consistently with that position , recognize or
bargain with the Union while continuing to assert that posi-
tion , I, following an order to show cause, on February 11,
1974, issued a Summary Decision and Recommended Bar-
gaining Order, requiring Respondent , upon request, to bar-
gain with the Union The Board, thereafter, on April 30,
1974, issued its Decision and Order, adopting the Recom-
mended Bargaining Order (210 NLRB 462). That order is
now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit on the Board 's petition for enforcement.
Subsequent to the hearing, on or about February 18, 1974,
the General Counsel and Respondent each filed an excellent
brief and on March 29, 1974 Respondent, in addition, filed
a reply brief. (Also subsequent to the hearing I received a
letter purportedly written by Barbara Marler , Ethel Brown
and Rhema Mullins, a copy of which I transmitted to each
of the parties, with a request for their views regarding the
significance of the letter and the disposition to be made of it.
Neither the General Counsel nor Respondent have pointed to
any relevance of the allegations in the letter to any issue
before me and I see none. I have given the letter no weight
I find it inappropriate under Sec . 102.134 of the Board's
Rules and Regulations , Series 8, as amended , to deny relief
to alleged discriminatees Brown and Mullins because of their
part in sending the letter to me, as Respondent requests, and
shall decide on their merits the allegations as to them.)
Upon the entire record in this case, upon my observation
of the demeanor of the witnesses , and after a careful consider-
ation of the briefs, I make the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
I JURISDICTIONAL FINDINGS, THE LABOR ORGANIZATION INVOLVED
On the basis of facts set forth in the Board 's prior decision,
210 NLRB 462 (1974), it was found, and Respondent does
not dispute , that it is an employer engaged in commerce
within the meaning of Section 2 (2), (6) and (7) of the Act and
that Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO,
herein called the Union, is a labor organization within the
meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act.
11 THE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES ALLEGED
A. Setting and Issues
The Farmington , Missouri , operation here involved is one
of a number of plants operated by Respondent . It started at
a store front in Farmington in June 1972 as a training pro-
gram for winders and was moved to its current plant location
in early August 1972 The plant was established to manufac-
ture power transformers , one of the two types of transformers
formerly manufactured at Respondent 's McHenry , Illinois
operation, before the latter plant was closed down The Union
commenced organizing efforts among Respondent's em-
ployees in about mid-December 1972 and held its first union
meeting in late January or early February 1973. Respondent
learned of these organizational efforts almost immediately.
The General Counsel contends that Respondent countered
the Union 's organizational efforts with unlawful interroga-
tion , threats and other unlawful conduct , including discrimi-
nation against employees active or believed to be active in the
Union 's behalf. It is alleged that this unlawful conduct con-
tinued even after the Union won an election on March 16 and
was certified on July 31 , 1973 and while Respondent has been
refusing to furnish the Union requested information and bar-
gain with it.
Respondent , while denying that it has engaged in any un-
fair labor practices , specifically defends its action taken
against the seven employees alleged to have been unlawfully
discriminated against by contending , early in the hearing,
that Ethel Brown was discharged for insubordination; that
Alma Powers was first given a 3-day disciplinary layoff, then
discharged , because of the poor quality of her work over a
substantial period of time; that Rhema Mullins, who at the
time of the hearing was on leave of absence because of an
industrial accident , was not discharged but was merely trans-
ferred from one job to another in order to meet Respondent's
business requirements ; that Ruby McDonald was discharged
for taking an unauthorized leave of absence; that Becky
Boyer and Margaret Clinton were discharged because of their
poor efficiency in production; and that Rose Conrad volun-
tarily quit during the course of an interview where her effi-
ciency , was being discussed.
B. Acts of Interference, Restraint, and Coercion
1. The evidentiary facts
The record is replete with evidence that Respondent, from
the very inception of the Union 's organizational drive in
December 1972 up to the date of the representation election
on March 16 , 1973, and to a more limited extent even beyond
that date, engaged in an extensive course of interrogation
regarding the union sympathies and activities of its em-
ployees, made veiled as well as overt threats of reprisal
against union adherents and of plant closure in the event of
union success in the election and coercively encouraged em-
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP 549
ployees who had signed union cards to seek withdrawal of
their cards from the Union . Although most of the unlawful
conduct is attributed to Don Nelson , the general foreman in
charge of the second or night shift , other higher-ranking
management officials, including Vice President Leonard
Trinkle, former Plant Manager Doug Dunker (who was ter-
minated by Respondent on March 7, 1973), and Manager of
Manufacturing Roger Liston (who voluntarily left Respon-
dent's employ about June 1) were also involved
Some credibility issues are presented but much of the evi-
dence regarding the alleged 8(a)(1) violations was not denied
at all or, if denied , the denials were so broad or in such
general terms as to make it doubtful whether the witness had
in mind certain specific interrogation or statements attributed
to him . Where the General Counsel and Respondent's wit-
nesses have testified regarding the same conversations or
events, I have carefully weighed their differing versions in the
light of the self-interest of each witness , the apparent consist-
ency and reliability of their testimony as a whole, and their
demeanor while testifying , as well as the plausibility of their
testimony in the context of admitted facts, in resolving what-
ever inconsistency or conflict which may appear in the tes-
timony.
Special mention at this point will be made of two of the
witnesses , Pat Fischer , the quality control girl on the second
shift , who was a principal witness against Respondent in
connection with the alleged 8(a)(1) violations , and second
shift General Foreman Nelson , who is alleged to have played
a major role in Respondent 's antiunion campaign. Fischer, by
reason of the nature of her work , had frequent contacts with
Nelson and other management representatives She was,
throughout the preelection period , openly and, I believe,
genuinely antiunion and procompany in her sentiments, will-
ingly cooperating with management in its effort to defeat
unionization of the plant, and even , on her own initiative,
thinking up ways to combat the Union She left Respondent's
employ, angry with all management representatives, on May
21, 1973, as a result of Respondent 's denial of her request for
a transfer to the day shift but she does not appear to have
remained angry long, for only a few days after her departure,
she assisted General Foreman Nelson 's wife in the purchase
of a surprise birthday gift for him and attended the party in
his honor on May 24. She served as a company observer at
the representation election on March 16 and on the same day,
after the election , she wrote and, with lead girl Eaton's help,
circulated among other employees for their signatures a glow-
ing endorsement of local management representatives, which
was later mailed to Respondent 's president , Boyd. She, never-
theless, claims that she had become "disillusioned " for about
a week or two before the election when she realized that
management was "harassing people." On the day after she
quit her job , she got in touch with the Union and soon there-
after gave statements to the Union or to Board agents in
support of unfair labor practice charges which had been filed.
Respondent contends that Fischer had a retributive motive in
testifying . Even if it be assumed that her motive in testifying
was revenge , this does not necessarily mean that her tes-
timony is untruthful Her motive , like the self-interest motive
of most witnesses , is a factor to be considered and I have
considered her possible motives. Nevertheless , Fischer did
testify in convincing detail , stood up well under cross-exami-
nation , and impressed me on the whole as a reliable witness
I have credited her testimony where it is undisputed by spe-
cific evidence to the contrary and where there are conflicts in
the testimony , I have carefully weighed the testimony of each
of the witnesses to determine which version is most accurate
or whether the truth lies somewhere in between
General Foreman Nelson , as already mentioned , did not
specifically deny most of the alleged 8(a)(1) conduct at-
tributed to him by Fischer and other witnesses . His accounts
of those incidents to which he did testify were not, for the
most part, necessarily inconsistent with the accounts of his
accusers. Nelson , on the whole, impressed me as seeking to
avoid telling an untruth.
Let us turn now to the evidence regarding specific alleged
acts of interference , restraint , and coercion.
According to the credited testimony of employee Ethel
Brown , not specifically denied, in about mid -December 1972,
Don Nelson , general foreman in charge of the second shift,
came to her and another employee, Pat Triplett, as they were
working on the wrapping line and stated that he wished to ask
them something in confidence. He then inquired whether
they knew of any union activities going on . Nelson explained
that several employees had told him about receiving tele-
phone calls from a CWA organizer Brown informed Nelson
that she knew nothing about the union activities and, having
an unlisted telephone number , had not received any tele-
phone call from the Union.
About January 8, Respondent 's president , Boyd , accom-
panied by Vice President Trinkle, came to the plant and
addressed the employees. He told them , among other things,
that the Company had been in business for 27 years, that it
had many plants, none pf which had ever been organized by
a union , and that the Company and its employees had settled
their own differences and had no need for a union Vice
President Trinkle made a similar speech to the employees
around the first of February. He told them that before open-
ing a plant in Farmington , "We had searched several areas
and we had picked Farmington and we had a lot of confi-
dence or we wouldn ' t have spent half a million dollars build-
ing a plant , and we were hoping the employees would have
confidence in Wabash " Soon after he had completed the
speech , employee Rose Blum came to the office and asked
him, "Can you tell me that if the Union gets in are you going
to close the plant?" Trinkle replied, "Rose, we have an obliga-
tion to our customers and we will do what we feel is best to
take care of our customers." He added that "If Farmington
didn't want them, they would have to go somewhere that
did " Blum told Trinkle that she had a family to take care of,
that she needed her job, that she liked her work and that "she
certainly hoped that we stayed there."'
In late January or early February , after attending the first
union meeting , employees Dee and Waller went to General
Foreman Nelson's office and asked him what was going to
take place According to Dee's undenied and credited tes-
timony, Nelson told them that , "If a union got in , we would
all be out of a job, that they would probably close the factory
down."
I The findings in the above paragraph are a composite account of the
mutually corroborative and credited testimony of Trinkle and Blum
550 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
On the Monday following the Union 's first meeting with
Respondent 's employees , second shift quality control girl Pat
Fischer was called to Respondent 's office for an interview
with Plant Manager Doug Dunker and General Foreman
Nelson . Dunker asked her if she had gone to or knew about
a union meeting held on the preceding Friday night. Fischer
relied that a friend had told her on Saturday that there had
been such a meeting but that she had not known about it
before then. Dunker asked if she knew who had attended and
she replied that she did not know.'
About a week later (apparently on February 10), according
to Fischer , when she arrived at work , Dunker met her in the
plant cafeteria and said that there was something in the office
that he wanted her to do, then walked off Fischer immedi-
ately went to the office and asked the office girl, Pritchett, if
she had any idea what Dunker was talking about. Pritchett
then showed her a letter addressed to the National Labor
Relations Board , stating that the employees whose names
were signed below had changed their minds and wanted the
union cards which they had signed returned to them The
names and addresses of a number of employees on the first
or day shift appeared below the body of the letter Pritchett
requested Fischer to make a copy of the body of the letter and
take it to the second shift employees for their signatures.
Fischer did make a copy of the body of the letter'
Later the same evening , according to Fischer 's undenied
and credited testimony , she had a conversation in the office
about the letter with Manager of Manufacturing Roger Lis-
ton and Nelson . She asked Nelson the significance of having
card signers get their cards back and he explained that if a
sufficient number of employees requested their cards back,
there would be no representation election . Liston added that
if there was an election and the Union won, the plant would
close or would move; that the plant was not making any
money and could declare bankruptcy and that sooner or later
the Union people would be out of a job. Liston told Fischer
that neither he nor Nelson could go out in the plant and say
these things but that Fischer could because she was not an
agent of the Company and would not be acting for the Com-
pany. Nelson told Fischer that he knew she needed her job
2 The findings in the above paragraph are based on the credited testimony
of Fischer Nelson, who was named by Fischer as being present at the
interview , was not questioned and did not testify about it Dunker, who was
terminated by Respondent on or about March 7, 1973, gave very rambling
and general responses to most of the questions asked him about his conver-
sations with Fischer While he did purport to place one of the conversations
with her as occurring on February 5, it is clear that he was not testifying
about the same occasion mentioned by Fischer , but, instead , about a later
occasion after Fischer had attended a union meeting
3 Pritchett , though called by Respondent as a witness , was not asked about
and did not testify regarding her role in the above account Dunker testified
that on one occasion in February when Fischer came in and asked , "What's
new'?," he told her that the girls on the first shift were circulating a petition,
asking for a return of the union cards they had signed , that she responded
"OhT" smiled, and said, "Good, I'm going to see what this is all about," then
went to the office Dunker testified that he could not recall saying anything
further about the document I believe that Fischer's version of the incident
is more accurate than that of Dunker If Dunker had not told her that he
had something in the office he wanted her to do, as Fischer testified, how
would she have known that she should go to the office as a result of the
information imparted to her Her account of her statements to Pritchett
upon entering the office (which I accept as accurate since Pritchett did not
dispute this testimony) discloses , moreover , that Fischer was uninformed of
what Pritchett had waiting for her
and was going to do everything she could to help the
Company
Following her talk with Nelson and Liston , Fischer started
soliciting signatures on the card withdrawal letter. She first
asked each employee she solicited whether that employee had
signed a union card , and if the employee replied in the affirm-
ative, Fischer would tell the employee that she thought the
employee had made a mistake; that the plant would close if
the Union got in and all the employees would be out of a job;
and that the company officials had told Fischer that the plant
was not making any money . Three of the employees Fischer
talked to signed the withdrawal letter on the first evening
Fischer solicited them and she mailed it to the National
Labor Relations Board. The next week, about February 14,
two more employees came to Fischer , expressing a desire to
sign the letter . Fischer composed another letter, from mem-
ory of the first, and those two employees signed it . Fischer
then left the letter in the office on Pritchett's desk for Pritch-
ett to mail. Nelson, observing it there, told Fischer that she
should not place it on Pntchett 's desk but should mail it
herself, for some of the union people might see it and charge
the Company with the responsibility for it since Pritchett was
responsible for mailing things out for the Company.'
Among the employees who signed the union withdrawal
letter prepared by Fischer was Cadwell . Cadwell had at-
tended the first union meeting on or about February 2, 1973,
signed a union card , and agreed to serve on the Union's
organizing committee . Shortly thereafter Cadwell went to
Nelson 's office , informed him that she was going to have to
leave her job because or pregnancy, and inquired about
whether she could return to work after her baby came. Nel-
son told her that she had not been employed long enough to
be entitled to pregnancy leave or a leave of absence and that
she would have to quit her job, then reapply for work later.
He assured her that the Company always considered former
I do not regard as inconsistent with Fischer's testimony related above
certain other testimony by second shift lead girl Sharon Eaton , corroborated
by Nelson , that after learning from the first shift lead girl, Bobbie Hinkle,
that first shift employees were being solicited to ask for a return of their
union cards , Eaton went to Nelson (accompanied , she believed , by Fischer)
and asked for permission to circulate such a letter on the second shift
Nelson gave his permission , explaining they had as much a right to cam-
paign as the union people
s Soon after the first evening on which Fischer had solicited signatures on
the withdrawal letter, one of the employees told her she had heard that the
Union had filed charges against her for soliciting during company time
Fischer thereupon went to the office, and , according to her testimony,
reported what she had heard to Personnel Director DeBonneville , Liston,
and Nelson , explaining that she was frightened DeBonneville laughed and
told Liston that he could not see that Fischer was doing anything she was
not supposed to be doing Liston explained that unfair labor practice charges
could be filed against the Company but not against her personally since she
was only an employee and had a right to engage in antiunion activities He
asked her what she had been telling the girls She told him that she had been
telling them the plant would close if the Union got in and the union people
would be out of jobs and that the plant was not making any money, and
asked Liston if that was not what he had told her to say He replied , " If you
say I told you to say that, I will deny it to the end " Liston contends that
DeBonneville was not present at this conference I find it unnecessary to
resolve this conflict for I find nothing unlawful in what DeBonneville is
alleged to have said Indeed , on the basis of the findings outlined above
(which are based on that part of the composite testimony of both Fischer
and Liston which I credit), I do not believe that Liston's statements con-
stituted an unfair labor practice either This conversation , however, does
show an awareness by Liston of Fischer 's activities which he had previously
suggested that she engage in
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP.
employees for rehire if there was an opening in their job
classification.'
After Respondent received a letter from the Union, dated
February 6, 1973, listing members of its organizing commit-
tee, Nelson, according to Fischer's credited testimony, sought
out Fischer and requested her to try to persuade Cadwell to
withdraw from the Union's organizing committee, explaining
that he knew she was going to need her job back after her
baby came and that in his opinion she did not stand a chance
of getting it back so long as she was on the organizing com-
mittee. Fischer relayed this information to Cadwell and, in
addition, told her that the plant would close if the Union got
in, that the plant was not making any money, that the Union
people would be out of a job, and that she should think of
herself, for she would be needing her job after her baby was
born. Cadwell thereupon signed the union withdrawal letter
which Fischer was circulating and, at Fischer's suggestion,
went to see Nelson to tell him what she had done'
According to Nelson, Cadwell told him that Fischer had
talked her into signing the petition to get her union card back,
"that it was her decision, that she felt her chances of getting
her job back would be much better if she withdrew," and that
another reason for withdrawing from the Union was that the
campaign "was getting pretty dirty, pretty violent, people
were mad at each other , people that used to be friends were
now enemies" and that she "just wanted out of the whole
mess." He further testified that he again assured her that the
Company always considered people for rehire in the classifi-
cation they were in when they quit. I credit Nelson's tes-
timony in this respect. I also credit Cadwell's testimony, not
specifically denied by Nelson, as to some other things said
during this interview. Nelson told her that he had been
shocked to see her name on the organizing committee list and
that she would never be able to get her job back if she voted
for the Union. He also stated "that he couldn't come right out
and say, 'I want you to go out and tell everybody in the plant
that if they vote union or if they sign organizing committee
cards that they will lose their jobs, but this in effect will
happen."' He told her that he would appreciate her letting
people know this but cautioned her not to do it "on company
time because we could all get in trouble for that."
Cadwell's baby was born on February 19. Shortly there-
after, on being told by Pat Fischer that Nelson wanted her to
telephone him at the plant collect, from St Louis where she
was then living, Cadwell did call Nelson According to her
credited testimony, not specifically denied by Nelson, he told
her that he would like to get her qualified to vote in the
March 16 representation election and asked if she would vote
against the Union if he got her qualified. She promised that
she would and he assured her that if she did, she would get
her job back later. He asked her to keep in touch with him.
Nelson's testimony, not necessarily inconsistent and which I
also credit, is that when Cadwell called, she mentioned that
6 The account of this interview is based principally on Nelson's testimony
I do not believe that the Union was mentioned at that time, as Cadwell
testified Cadwell appeared to have been confused as to the dates upon
which certain statements were made and I have not credited all of her
testimony regarding the conversations about which she testified
7 At either this or an earlier conference with Nelson, he gave Cadwell an
address to which she could write to get her union card returned , but on being
assured by Fischer that her signing of the withdrawal letter would accom-
plish the same purpose, she never wrote to the Union
551
Pat Fischer had talked to her about the possibility of getting
qualified to vote in the election, and that Nelson stated that
he would talk to Respondent's counsel about this possibility
and get back to her He further testified that he did check
with Respondent's counsel and thereafter did try to get her
qualified to vote but was unable to do so because of the
closeness of the time between Cadwell's telephone call and
the date of the election.'
Between early February and the election on March 16,
Respondent, acting chiefly through Nelson, carried on an
extensive campaign to ascertain the union sympathies of the
employees and to discourage their union adherence. Nelson
kept a list of second shift employees on his desk or in his
pocket and from time to time in February and March would
ask procompany employees Fischer, Walter, Dee, and Eaton
about whether certain employees were for or against the
Union and would mark "C" beside the name of an employee
believed to be procompany and "U" beside the name of an
employee believed to be prounion. There was a blank beside
the names of those concerning whose union sympathies Nel-
son was uninformed Fischer was in a particularly good posi-
tion to give Nelson information of this type, not only because
she had attended at least two union meetings , but also be-
cause, in circulating the union withdrawal letter she inter-
viewed about 30 employees, asking each if she had signed a
union card, then requesting signatures on the letters only if
an employee admitted having signed a union card. On some
occasions, Nelson discussed the list with Fischer alone and on
other occasions employees Eaton, Waller, or Dee were pre-
sent. On one occasion he asked Dee whether her close friends
Storie and Brooks were for the Union or for the Company
and when she replied that she did not know, he asked her to
find out. She then talked to them and reported back to Nelson
that they were not for the Union at that time. He asked Dee
and Waller about several other employees and whether they
would find out who was for and who was against the Union.
He also asked Dee whether employee Carr had asked her to
sign a union card and she replied that he had not.'
In similar vein, Nelson requested Fischer, before the elec-
tion, to report to him about any employees making deroga-
tory statements about Respondent, about him or about mem-
bers of management or about the quality of work being
produced. He told her that whenever she saw prounion em-
ployees Brewer and Carr talking; she should go over to them,
inspect their work, and break up their conversation. He told
her that he was "building a case against them." Thereafter
when Fischer found some defective work and erroneously
attributed it to Brewer, the latter accused Fischer of planting
the bad work on her. Fischer reported the incident to Nelson
8 Subsequent to the election, Cadwell sought reemployment with Re-
spondent, informing Nelson that her doctor was releasing her to return to
work on March 19 She had not been rehired by the date of the hearing,
according to Nelson, because Respondent had no need for more line testers,
the work which she had formerly done
9 The above findings are based on the credited testimony of Fischer and
Dee Nelson did not deny the matters to which they testified Waller did
not testify Eaton, a lead girl, still working for and very loyal to Respondent,
testified that she did not hear management ask Fischer about the union
sympathies of other employees Eaton did not impress me as a frank witness
in this and in some other respects and I do not credit her testimony insofar
as it conflicts with that of Fischer or Dee
552 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and Liston. The latter remarked: "Well, it may not be such
a bad idea, after all."
About a week before the election Nelson told Fischer that
if the Union became the employees' bargaining representa-
tive, he would no longer ask people to do things but, instead,
would tell them; that employees would see a complete change
in him and that he was "no longer going to be a nice guy."
Liston also warned Fischer of adverse working conditions
with which employees would be faced under a union. He told
her that the employees were taking too much for granted. As
an example, he stated that if the Union won and obtained a
contract, the employees would not have the air conditioning
and heat they were then enjoying if such matters were not
included in contract terms. As another example, he stated
that at present if a girl hurt her foot and needed the use of
her foot to do her regualr work, Respondent would transfer
her to another job which would not require the use of her
foot, but if there were a union in the plant, the girl would be
sent home instead of being transferred.1°
According to Fischer, on the Friday before the first union
meeting which she attended, Liston came to her and asked
whether she was going to the union meeting on the following
day and Fischer replied that she had not planned to go.
Liston then told her, "Well, I want you to go and ask a couple
of questions for me." One of the questions concerned who
would pay the employees' salaries when they were out on
strike. Fischer did go and ask that question." According to
Eaton, Fischer came to her on the day before the union
meeting and stated that they had been instructed by manage-
ment to go to the meeting. Eaton expressed skepticism as to
whether they had been expressly instructed to go and went
to the office to verify Fischer's statement . She asked Plant
Manager Dunker, in Liston's presence, if she and Fischer
were instructed to attend the meeting. Dunker stated that he
had given no such instructions. Liston stated that if she
wanted to go to the meeting, it was her privilege, but cau-
tioned her to be careful if she went because it was well known
that she and Fischer were procompany. Eaton then reported
back to Fischer that they had not been instructed to go.
Fischer replied that she had the impression that they had to
go and that if they did not, they would be taken off their jobs
as quality control and lead girl, respectively, and "be put back
on the lines." Liston testified that he never "instructed" any
employee to attend a union meeting but that Eaton o one
occasion asked if she and other employees "could" attend and
that he had assured her of her right to do so but had cau-
10 The findings in the above paragraph are based on Fischer 's credited
testimony. Liston conceded that he had compared the favorable working
conditions, including air conditioning, which Respondent had at its Farm-
ington plant, as compared with less favorable working conditions in union-
ized plants with which he was familiar, and that someone else in the coversa-
tion may have said the things attributed to him, but that he did not say what
would happen to those benefits if there was a union at Farmington. I am
satisfied , however, that the point he was making was that present benefits
might be taken away unless expressly provided for in a union contract and
that Fischer's account is substantially accurate.
11 Fischer testified that she believe the date of the meeting was February
24, but I am satisfied from the testimony of Sharon Eaton, who went with
her to the meeting , and from the testimony of Liston that he was not at the
plant on February 23, that the correct date was on or before February 10,
the date placed by Eaton. Eaton recalled that Fischer did ask a question and
that the Union's organizing committee list, including Cadwell's name was
read off at the meeting. Cadwell left Respondent's employ on February 16.
tioned that they should be careful if they went . Upon a careful
consideration of all the evidence , I am satisfied that Fischer's
account of what Liston asked her to do is accurate , except as
to her estimated date , that she not unreasonably interpreted
Liston 's request as an instruction and that Eaton 's account of
her conversation with Dunker and Liston is accurate . Liston,
I believe, was not as frank with Eaton as he had been with
Fischer and , in addition , may have been reluctant , in bun-
ker's presence , to acknowledge having done something he
knew he could not lawfully do.
On the Monday morning following her first attendance at
a union meeting and of her asking at least one of the questions
posed by Liston , Nelson and Dunker followed her to the
office . Dunker asked her whether she had attended the meet-
ing, who was there and what promises had been made.
Fischer told them what had taken place.
A few days before the election , at the end of the second
shift, Liston joined four of the employees , Fischer, Probst,
Eaton , and Francis , at the Shell-Chateau Cafe, where these
employees customarily had coffee or food when they finished
their work . All of these employees at that time were antiunion
in their sentiments . On this occasion the Union and the elec-
tion were discussed . According to Fischer's credited tes-
timony , Liston told the employees , among other things, that
Respondent 's president , Boyd, when hiring him as manager
of manufacturing , told him that if a union ever got into any
one of Respondent's plants , Liston would be out of a job; that
he, Liston was worried about his job; that the plant was not
making any money and he would be out of a job if the Union
got in ; that it would be easy to shut the plant down and move
it and that Respondent would get rid of the union people.
Liston did not specifically deny making these statements at-
tributed to him by Fischer and professed not to recall the
specific statements he made . He conceded , however, that the
subject of plant closure undoubtdly came up because "This
was the general concern of the people down here" and that
over 50 times during the preelection period , he had been
asked , "If the Union gets in, will the plant close?" His stand-
ard reply , according to Liston, was: "Frankly, I am not in a
position to make that decision . I don 't decide whether the
plants are open or whether the plants are closed . I just try to
run them and make money at it."12
A majority of Respondent's employees voted for the Union
in the March 16 election but due to challenges to some of the
ballots and objections filed by Respondent and an appeal to
the Board from the Regional Director 's rulings on the objec-
tions, the Union was not certified until July 31 , 1973. The
record shows that during the pendency of the investigation of
the challenges and objections and the appeal to the Board,
Respondent continued its coercive course of conduct.
12 Eaton, one of the employees in the group at the cafe, purported not to
recall the details of the matters discussed. She testified, however, that Liston
joined the group at Fischer's invitation and not, as Fischer testified, that he
asked if he could join them. Eaton also testified that Liston paid their check
for the food and drinks consumed over their protest because, as Fischer
stated, if the antiunion people learned about it, they might interpret it as
bribe. Fischer, on the other hand, testified that when Liston paid their
checks, he asked them not to tell anyone he had been with them and paid
their checks because his action might be interpreted as a bribe. I do not
consider these details improtant and shall not attempt to resolve the credi-
bility issues presented by these conflicts in testimony.
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP.
According to the undenied and credited testimony of em-
ployee Dee, about 2 days after the election , Nelson told her
that he had very hard feelings against those employees who
were for the Union and that "he was out to get the Union
people, all of them ." This statement was made to Dee in the
presence of employees Waller , Fischer , and Eaton.
Shortly after the election , in about April , according to the
undenied and credited testimony of Fischer , Nelson and Lis-
ton asked Fischer her opinion as to whether the Union would
win if a rerun election were held. Fischer expressed the view
that the Union would win Thereafter in April or early May
when work on Respondent 's 3520 Model transformer was
slowing down , Fischer reported to Nelson that some of the
girls on the night shift were asking why there was no work
on those transformers coming in . She inquired of Nelson as
to what explanation she should give the girls . He told her to
tell them that the 3520 transformer would no longer be in
production , adding that if they were told that , some might
start looking for other jobs and that Respondent , in that way,
would get rid of some of the union people. He told her that
in order to lead the employees to believe the plant was clos-
ing, she could also tell the girls, that he, Nelson , had his house
up for sale and was looking for another job. Fischer later
learned that Quality Control Manager Yaukovitz was nego-
tiating with Zenith for a new type of transformer to supplant
the 3520 Model but did not know on May 21 , 1973, when she
left Respondent 's employ, whether Respondent had a con-
tract with Zenith for the new type of transformer."
2. Conclusions regarding Respondent 's acts of interference,
restraint , and coercion
The facts outlined above demonstrate a flagrantly coercive
attempt by Respondent to defeat attempts by the Union to
organize its employees and a further attempt to insure a
defeat of the Union in the event Respondent should prevail
in its objections to the election and a rerun election should be
held
The interrogation of employees by General Foreman Nel-
son and Plant Manager Dunker as to the union sympathies
and activities of fellow employees and as to what took place
at union meetings and the documentation by Nelson of infor-
mation gathered from such employees as to the union or
company sympathies of night shift employees ; the solicitation
by Corporate Manager of Manufacturing Liston of an em-
ployee to attend a union meeting and ask questions for him,
clearly constituted coercive interrogation and solicitation of
employees in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.
" The above findings are based on the credited testimony of Fischer, not
specifically denied by Nelson He did testify that several different people,
including Fischer, on different occasions expressed concern over the slow
down of work on the 3520's and that he told them the transformer was being
phased out and that Respondent had another job coming behind it I do not
regard this testimony as a denial of the testimony of Fischer described
above I think it more likely that, on reflection, he decided to give employees
inquiring about the matter a frank explanation Nelson also credibly testified
that on another occasion when he explained to Fischer that Respondent was
having difficulty getting transformer covers from Dryco because of Dryco's
labor problems, she said "Well, wouldn't it be nice if the Union people
thought we were making transformers some place else9" On the latter occa-
sion it would seem that Fischer was only continuing to cooperate with
Respondent, as she had done throughout the preelection period, in Respon-
dent's antiunion drive
553
Likewise manifestly unlawful were the overt as well as
covert threats by Liston and Nelson of plant closure, of dis-
charge of union supporters, and other forms of reprisal
against employees should they select the Union to represent
them ; Liston's statement to close employee friends, before the
election , that he would lose his own job if the Union won, the
covert threats by Vice President Trinkle to lead employees to
believe the plant would close in the event of a union victory,
the request by Dunker that an employee circulate the union
withdrawal letter among night shift employees; and the threat
by Nelson, subsequent to the election, that he was "out to get
the Union people."
Nor can there by any question about the unlawfulness of
the use by Liston and Nelson of employees as Respondent's
agents in the dissemination of threats of plant closure and
other reprisals, causing employees to fear that they would
lose theirjobs or not be reemployed should the Union win the
election or if they continued their adherence to the Union, or
in the use by Nelson (while Respondent was in hopes that its
objections to the election would result in a rerun election) of
an employee to disseminate a rumor that Respondent was
discontinuing the manufacture of certain transformers at
Farmington and that Nelson had his house up for sale and
was looking for another job-in order to lead the employees
to believe that the plant was closing because of the Union's
success.
Respondent seeks to avoid responsibility for some of its
coercive conduct, such as threats of plant closure and other
reprisals communicated to employees by Fischer by claiming
that she had a right to express her views and that Respondent
had no affirmative obligation to assure the employees, in
response to their questions , that no employer reprisals would
result from their union activities I need not decide what
Respondent's obligation would have been in this regard had
its management representatives refrained from making coer-
cive threats themselves As I have found, early in the Union's
campaign , Corporate Manager of Manufacturing Liston told
employee Fischer, in Nelson's presence, that the Farmington
plant was not making any money and that if the Union won,
the plant would close and the Union people would be out of
jobs He also told Fischer that he and Nelson could not
lawfully go out into the plant and say these things but she
could because she was not an agent of the Company and
would not be acting for the Company Nelson later made
similar representations to employee Cadwell, and he told
employee Dee early in the union campaign that if the Union
got in , the employees would be out of a job and the plant
would probably close. Liston having made the threats of plant
closure to an employee he knew was strongly procompany
and antiunion, and suggested that she broadcast this threat
to other employees, he was in effect making Fischer Respon-
dent 's agent in disseminating the threat and Respondent is
responsible for the spread of the rumor of plant closure
It is against this background that one must view the re-
sponses Trinkle, Liston, and Nelson to questions asked them
by employees as to whether the plant would close in the event
of a union victory. When employee Blum asked Vice Presi-
dent Trinkle this question , he gave the equivocal reply that
Respondent had an obligation to its customers and that Re-
spondent would do its best to take care of its customers,
adding that if Farmington did not want Respondent, Re-
554 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
spondent would go somewhere else. This statement, I find,
was intended to convey the message that if the Farmington
employees voted the Union in, Respondent would interpret
their action as a decision that Respondent was not wanted
and that Respondent would then move its plant. Trinkle did
not reassure Blum even when she told Trinkle that she needed
her job, liked it and hoped that Respondent would stay in
Farmington. Liston testified that on about 50 occasions dur-
ing the preelection period employees asked him: "If the
Union gets in, will the plant close?" and that his standard
reply was: "Frankly, I'm not in a position to make the deci-
sion. I don't decide whether the plants are opened or whether
the plants are closed. I just try to run them and make money
at them." Nelson similarly testified that on several occasions
employees had asked him if the plant would close if the Union
got in and that he would reply that he was only the general
foreman and did not make such decisions. Since Respon-
dent's management representatives had initially stated that
th6 plant would close in the -event of the Union's success and
had suggested that Fischer spread the word to this effect,
Respondent not only ratified and adopted Fischer's actions in
his behalf, but compounded the coercive impact of its threats
by giving the equivocal answers to which its representatives
testified and in failing to reassure its apprehensive employees
against employer reprisals in the event of a union victory.
Dal-Tex Optical Company, Inc., 152 NLRB 1317, 1322
(1965), enfd. 378 F.2d 443 (C.A. 5 1967); Litho Press of San
Antonio, 211 NLRB 843 (1974).
Respondent's conduct in the respects outlined above
clearly constitutes violations of Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.
C. The Alleged Discrimination Against Employees
1. General considerations pertinent to most of the alleged
discriminatees
In appraising Respondent's conduct alleged to be unlawful
discrimination against the seven employees named in the
complaint and determining Respondent's motivation for the
actions which it took against them, due regard must be given
to the production and quality problems under which Respon-
dent's new plant was operating as well as to Respondent's
coercive and threatening conduct already described and all
other circumstances shown in the record which may fairly be
considered to shed light on Respondent's true motives. !4
Since most of Respondent's conduct alleged to be dis-
criminatory arose from its asserted attempts to improve the
efficiency of its operations, it is appropriate at the outside to
describe briefly the situation with which Respondent was
faced in the operation of its newly established plant.
Respondent is engaged in the manufacture of power trans-
formers for Zenith Radio Corporation for use in television
sets. After first starting a training course on June 6, 1972, for
winders in a store front in Farmington, it began operating its
manufacturing plant in early August, recruiting its work
force from employees in the area who were inexperienced in
14 Insofar as Respondent in its reply brief appears to argue that the entire
record must not be considered in determining Respondent 's motiviation for
taking actions alleged to be in violation of Sec. 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act,
such argument is rejected as being without merit and not supported by the
authorities Respondent cites.
transformer manufacturing operations. Respondent adopted
at the Farmington plant efficiency standards for its various job
operations which had been established and applied at its
McHenry, Illinois , plant where the Zenith power transform-
ers had formerly been manufactured. It did not, of course,
expect its new untrained employees to operate at 100-percent
efficiency immediately. During the first few months of its
operations, Respondent's overall plant efficiency was only
about 20, 30, or 40 percent of its standard. For the month of
October 1972, the overall plant efficiency was only 44.9 per-
cent.
In early November 1972, Jim Calvin, then Corporate Per-
sonnel Manager for three of Respondent' s plants with head-
quarters in Wabash, Indiana, conferred with Doug Dunker,
then plant manager at Farmington, about the necessity of
improving the efficiency and attendance at the plant. In a
letter from Calvin to Dunker, dated November 7, 1972, Cal-
vin referred to the matters they had discussed and mentioned
that in order to improve efficiency and attendance, "it might
become necessary to replace some operators who are not
performing at a satisfactory level and/or whose attendance is
poor" and suggested that Dunker talk with employees in-
dividually about their deficiencies and how they might be
helped, that a note be put in the file of each employee so
interviewed and that some time should thereafter be allowed
for some improvement before taking further action. This was
the pattern, in general , which was thereafter followed before
disciplining employees not performing to Respondent's satis-
faction. Pursuant to this policy Dunker, in November and
early December, called to his office and talked to a number
of the employees about their efficiency and/or their attend-
ance in an attempt to find out the reason for their deficiencies
and try to help them. Although Respondent does not appear
to have informed the employees of the policy stated by Calvin
to Dunker, or to have informed employees interviewed of any
notes placed in their personnel files, Dunker in fact followed
that policy and made such notations.
The overall plant efficiency increased from 20, 30, and 40
percent in the early days of the plant's operation to 61.1
percent for the month of December 1972 and to 70.6 percent
for January 1973. It dropped to 58.8 percent for the months
of February and March 1973. For April it was 71.9 percent,
for May 68.8 percent, for June 72.3 percent, for July 50.3
percent, for August 54.9 percent, for September 65.8 percent,
for October 68.4 percent, and for November 75.7 percent. In
May and June Zenith was in the process of changing its
transformer models and during the lull caused by this change,
layoffs in June and July of the newer employees in some job
groups occurred. Production of the new models commenced
about mid-June. Calvin explained that there was a period of
low production when the old models ran out and the new
models had not yet started. There is also evidence that a drop
in efficiency resulted from employees having to become ad-
justed to work on the new models. There is further evidence
that production was affected by a shortage of materials
caused by materials lost in transit to the Farmington plant.
In partial explanation for the low efficiency level of the
plant for sometime after the plant opened, Calvin testified
that it takes longer to train a group of new employees when
a plant opens than it would take to train a single new em-
ployee in a well-established plant since management repre-
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP
sentatives at a new plant do not have time to give each opera-
tor the individual attention needed to train him. Even the lead
girls at the Farmington plant, whose duties included assisting
and training new operators, were hired initially as operators
and had to learn their jobs from scratch Although Respond-
ent maintained on its bulletin boards a chart showing the
efficiency progression standards for each job so that in-
dividual employees could judge whether their production effi-
ciency was meeting Respondent's standards for the length of
their experience on the job, Respondent did not attempt to
enforce these standards at first because there were an insuffi-
cient number of people available to train the new employees
so that they could meet the standards As time went on,
however, Respondent did attempt to devote more time to
training and to point out to individual operators certain un-
necessary steps they were taking which slowed down their
production.
I have no doubt that Respondent's officials were genuinely
concerned about the failure of the new plant to meet the
efficiency standards brought to it from the McHenry plant as
quickly as they had expected On March 7, 1973, Respondent
asked for the resignation of its them plant manager, Dunker,
because, as he explained, he had failed to get things done as
fast as higher management desired. He was replaced tem-
porarily by Corporate Personnel Manager Calvin from cor-
porate heaquarters in Wabash, Indiana, until the present
plant manager, Henry Kinkaid, was employed on June 18,
1973 While acting plant manager, Calvin, about May 10,
delivered a speech to the employees on the subject of plant
efficiency and attendance. He also posted in the plant weekly
dunng the month of May a daily operations report showing
the efficiency plantwise and by departments for the last day
of each week, and wrote on the reports appropriate comments
to spur the employees to make greater efforts to improve their
efficiency
On August 17, Vice President Tnnkle came to the plant
and addressed the employees on the subject of the plant's low
production He told the employees that Respondent was be-
hind schedule, that its sole customer, Zenith, was beginning
to cancel orders and warned that Respondent would have to
cease operating if it lost its customer. He stated that Respond-
ent was starting an active program of policing the efficiency
of each department and that, starting with the employee in
each department having the lowest efficiency, Respondent
would review the employee's past and present performances
He warned that if the employees did not bring their efficiency
up, they would be replaced
Tnnkle's speech was followed on August 23, by a letter
from Respondent's corporate president, William F Boyd, to
each employee, repeating, in substance, much of what Tnnkle
had told them. Boyd stated, inter alia.
I would like to say initially and emphatically that this
letter has nothing to do with the union or the union
organizing activities. What I have to say is something
that must be said about a problem which must be re-
solved irrespective of whether we have a union in Farm-
ington or we don't have a union, whether you will be
represented or you will not be represented by a union.
He also told them:
555
Beginning within the week, we will began a program to
do what we can to assist employees in reaching accepta-
ble levels of productivity The employees not able to
achieve acceptable levels of productivity with this assist-
ance and who are not available for work on a regular and
consistent basis will have to be replaced.
On the same date Vice President Trinkle returned to the
Farmington plant and began interviewing some of the in-
dividual employees whose production was low and warned
them that they would be replaced if they did not improve.
Also in August, Respondent brought in its industrial engi-
neer, Wayne VanNess, to timestudy work on the new model
transformers and he passed on to the plant manager his obser-
vations as to unnecessary steps being taken by some operators
which tended to slow down their production. Management
representatives or the lead girls instructed the employees how
to eliminate unnecessary movements or steps and thereby
increase their production and new employees thereafter hired
were trained to work without taking the extra steps some of
the older employees had been taking.
It is against this background of Respondent's production
problems as well as Respondent's strong opposition to the
Union that the charges regarding each of the seven alleged
discriminatees will now be considered.
2 The individual alleged discriminatees
a. Rhema Mullins
Mullins, the Union's chief steward, whose union activities
were well know to Respondent, was never discharged. The
General Counsel contends that Respondent discriminated
against her to discourage union membership by twice trans-
ferring her to the job of wrapping where she was required to
work under lead girl Bobbie Hinkle, with whom Respondent
knew that she did not get along personally.
Mullins was hired as a winder on September 25, 1972, but
following breast surgery, a few weeks later, was transferred
to the job of wrapping. This transfer was prior to the com-
mencement of any union activities at the plant and was for
the purpose of accommodating Mullins so that she would not
have to lift her arms while recuperating from her surgery.
During the first few months of the plant's operation Re-
spondent found it necessary to concentrate on production to
supply Zenith's requirements and dunng this period it per-
mitted a large number of defective transformers to accumu-
late, without interrupting production to repair them In
November Respondent set up a repair department to repair
these scrap transformers in order that they might be sold.
Four employees-Brewer and Waller on the night shift and
Williamson and Mullins on the day shift-were assigned to
the repair department By February 12, the pile of scrap
transformers had been substantially reduced and Respondent
no longer needed four employees to do that work. At that
time Respondent had need for two additional wrappers, one
on the day shift and one on the night shift, and it transferred
two of the repair girls who had previous wrapping experience
back to the wrapping operation-Mullins on the day shift and
Waller on the night shift. Shortly thereafter the remaining
night shift repair girl, Brewer, was also transferred from re-
556 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
pairs, leaving only Williamson on the day shift continuing to
do repair work . By the date of the hearing even Williamson
was needed only part time at repair work and rotated between
that and her former assembly line job
Mullins joined the Union in late January 1973 and became
very active in its behalf, personally signing up about 58 other
employees in the Union She liked the repair work job which
she was doing and strongly protested being transferred back
to wrapping , accusing Respondent of transferring her from
the repair job because of her prominence in the union move-
ment Personnel Manager Calvin explained to her that the
reason for her transfer was that there was a slackening of
repair work to be done and that he needed her at wrapping
work . Mullins told Calvin , "You know I don't want to work
under Bobbie Hinkle," the lead girl over the pick, connect,
and wrap line . Mullins had previously complained to Plant
Manager Dunker and to Calvin that four of the girls had
reported to her that Hinkle had made uncomplimentary and
vulgar remarks about her, but Dunker and Calvin did noth-
ing about Mullins' complaint because, as Calvin explained,
Mullins refused to divulge the names of her informers and
Respondent could not check on the accuracy of the reports
After about a week at wrapping , Mullins was transferred
back to repairs but on the same day injured her left index
finger and went to a doctor When she returned the next day,
she was put to work at wrapping for 1 day, then on the solder
pot, which is next to the wrapping operation , for 1 day. Her
injured finger became worse and she was thereafter off from
work for a month or more. When she returned , she was
placed on the solder pot, work which she liked , despite the
fact that it, like wrapping , was under lead girl Hinkle's
jurisdiction 11 On May 5, Hinkle put her back on wrapping
work which she continued to perform until she was granted
a leave of absence on October 1 , for an operation on her
injured finger . She was still on a leave of absence at the time
of the hearing in this case
The General Counsel 's contention that Mullins' transfer
from the repair job to wrapping , over her protest , and her
later transfer from the solder pot to wrapping , was dis-
criminatonly motivated appears to be based principally upon
the undenied and credited testimony of employee Fischer
regarding a conversation she had with Respondent 's quality
control manager , Yaukovitz , in early February . Yaukovitz
told Fischer that he was going to have Mullins transferred
from the repair job to lead girl Hinkle 's line because he knew
that Hinkle and Mullins did not get along and hated each
other . Yaukovitz predicted that Mullins would quit her job
rather than work under Hinkle but that if she did not, she
would probably have difficulty meeting Respondent 's effi-
ciency standards because of her newness on the job and would
probably be fired for that reason . He added "that he would
get rid of that son-of-a-bitch one way or ther other." Re-
spondent contends that Yaukovitz is not a supervisor within
the meaning of the Act and that it should not be held respon-
sible for statements made by him I am convinced , however,
from all the evidence that he responsibly directs the work of
15 Mullins testified that although the solder pot job was also under Hink-
ie's jurisdiction , that job did not require as much communication with or
dependence on Hinkle as did the wrapping job Mullins complained that
there were times when Hinkle would not bring her sufficient supplies for
Mullins to work with on the wrapping jog
both the day and night shift quality control girls as well as
that of testers and repair girls, and is therefore a statutory
supervisor and also that he is a responsible management
representative . 16 Nevertheless , Yaukovitz did not himself
have the authority to decide what job Mullins was to be
transferred to and I am convinced that his remarks to Fischer
constituted idle chatter and speculation , or perhaps wishful
thinking . Moreover , although Yaukovitz ' remarks did indi-
cate personal animosity toward Mullins, there is no evidence
that this animosity and his desire to get rid of her had any-
thing to do with her union activities.
There is also undenied and credited testimony by employee
Pinson that before Mullins was transferred form repairs to
wrapping , she overheard lead girl Hinkle tell Liston : "We are
going to have to move Rhema [Mullins] She is talking to the
packers" (who worked near the repair line), and that Liston
nodded his head . The implication which Pinson apparently
sought to draw was that Hinkle , a nonsupervisory employee,
wanted Mullins moved because Mullins was probably trying
to promote the Union among the packers and that Liston
agreed . This is not the only inference which can reasonably
be drawn from what Pinson overheard and saw . Hinkle might
merely have been concerned that Mullins was interfering with
the work of the packers by talking to them and Liston, by
nodding his head , could have been agreeing with this thesis
or he could merely have been indicating that he heard or
understood what Hinkle said.
Regardless of whether Yaukovitz or other company repre-
sentatives might have liked to retaliate against Mullins be-
cause of her aggressive support of the Union , I am not per-
suaded that they in fact did so. It is undisputed that the repair
girls were catching up on repairing the accumulation of defec-
tive transformers , that management was under pressure to
reduce indirect labor costs such as that on repairs , and that
Respondent needed two wrappers , one on each shift, and no
longer needed four repair girls by February 12. It was only
logical for Respondent to transfer back to wrapping , repair
girls who had previous experience at wrapping . The repair
girl on Mullins' shift who was retained on repairs , William-
son, had no previous wrapping experience Moreover, she,
like Mullins, was a member of the Union 's organizing com-
mittee and Respondent had been apprised of this fact in the
Union 's letter of February 6, informing Respondent of the
identities of employees on the organizing committee. I find no
basis for concluding that Respondent was discriminatorily
motivated in effecting Mullins' transfer to wrapping on Feb-
ruary 12. Nor do I find any basis for concluding that her later
return from the solder pot back to wrapping was motivated
by considerations other than Respondent 's need for her ser-
vices at the various jobs from time to time. Indeed , although
Mullins testified that she considered the solder pot job "the
best job in the plant," she concededly did not tell manage-
16 As quality control manager , Yaukovitz was not answerable to local
plant management representatives but only to higher corporate manage-
ment He is responsible for the quality of the transformers produced by the
Farmington plant He has an office, builds and maintains test boards and his
own test gear , keeps records of bad work produced by employees and puts
hold tags on their work when it does not meet Respondent's standards He
transmits to the plant manager or general foreman his reports on the defec-
tive work of the various employees and is consulted by the plant manager
and general foreman regarding decisions to discharge employees with whose
work he is familiar
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP 557
ment that she liked that type of work. Under all the circum-
stances, I find that Respondent did not violate Section 8(a)(3)
and (1) of the Act by transferring Mullins to wrapping work.
The General Counsel further contends that in late August
when Respondent was engaged in trying to improve plant
efficiency, it harassed and engaged in discriminatory treat-
ment of Mullins, because of her prominence in the Union, by
having her work timestudied upon three occasions, and that
it required her as well as another union adherent, Rose Con-
rad, to use their fingers, instead of needle nose pliers-as they
had formerly done-to bend lead wires and instructed them
to use less tape in protecting their fingers from hot solder. I
am convinced that the union activities of Mullins and Conrad
had nothing to do with these work instructions. As Plant
Manager Kinkaid explained, the use of pliers had been cus-
tomary in wrapping the old model of transformers having
heavy gauge leadwires but on the CVT (Constant Control
Transformer) models being produced in August, the heavy
gauge leadwire was no longer being used, and the use of pliers
to bend the wires merely slowed down production. It is true
that Respondent's industrial engineer, VanNess, came on
three occasions to study the wrapping job on CVT transform-
ers which Mullins was performing, but this, as VanNess ex-
plained, was because on the first occasion he found Mullins
performing a number of unnecessary operations and had to
request Kinkaid to instruct her how to Wrap the coils, and
that on the second occasion about a week later, Mullins
became upset and ill and went home before he could complete
the study. On the third occasion, after Mullins had been
properly instructed, she worked at a level of 100-percent
efficiency. I am convinced that Respondent was not attempt-
ing to impose more arduous working conditions on Mullins
than on other employees and that Mullins was unduly sensi-
tive and suspicious in believing that she was being dis-
criminatonly treated.
b. Ethel Brown
Respondent contends that it discharged Ethel Brown on
April 4, 1973, for insubordination in refusing to come to the
office for a talk when requested first by Nelson, then by
Liston to do so." It is the General Counsel's contention
that Respondent's defense of discharge for insubordination
might reasonably be sustained if only Brown's conduct al-
leged as insubordination be considered but that an examina-
tion of the course of treatment of Brown from the time she
joined and became active in the Union will sustain a finding
that Respondent provoked Brown's apparent insubordinate
conduct and that her discharge for refusing to go to the office
was pretextual.
Brown was employed on September 8, 1972, on the night
shift as a picker but after a month was transferred to, the
17 Respondent also contends , with respect to Brown as well as to Alma
Powers, that the original charges regarding them having been previously
dismissed, the General Counsel could not properly reinstitute those charges
and include their names in the amended complaint I find, in view of addi-
tional evidence which allegedly came to light subsequent to the dismissal of
the original charges, that it was within the permissible discretion of the
General Counsel to include their names in the amended complaint Cf Swift
Service Stores, Inc, 169 NLRB 359, 361 (1968)
wrapping operation on one of the pick, connect, and wrap
lines (The operations were performed in that order)
Although she was not aware of any union activities at the
plant in December 1972 when General Foreman Nelson
asked her confidentially whether she had heard of such activi-
ties, she signed a union card on February 4, 1973, and became
a member of the Union's organizing committee on February
10. About March 1, she started wearing two union buttons,
one on each lapel of her blouse, and did so during the remain-
der of her tenure with Respondent After Brown's union
sympathies became known, there developed an antipathy be-
tween Brown and Pat Fischer, the second shift quality control
girl, whose antiunion and procompany activities have already
been described. According to Brown, Fischer began checking
her work more carefully than theretofore and started harass-
ing her by asking her questions about the Union as Brown
was working. In March, before the election, Brown went to
the office, complained to Nelson that Fischer was harassing
her by asking her why she joined the Union and wore a union
button and by inspecting her barrels and commenting on her
work. She asked Nelson to keep Fischer "off [her] back."
Nelson then called Fischer to his office and instructed her not
to harass anyone. Lead girl Eaton reported to Nelson later
that evening that Fischer, angry about the reprimand, had
threatened that she would "get even with that bitch," Brown.
For a few days thereafter, according to Brown, Fischer stayed
away from her, then again started checking her barrels "with
a fine tooth comb "
On one occasion in March, subsequent to the election,
Nelson and lead girl Eaton brought some coils to her and
mistakenly accused her of having failed to size them. When
Brown pointed out that the markings, though similar to hers,
were not in fact hers, Nelson accepted her explanation.
Brown, however, seemed to feel that there had been an at-
tempt to frame her
Brown appears to have been working under considerable
strain or nervous tension for some time prior to her termina-
tion. According to Brown, shortly after she started wearing
her union button, her helper or fellow wrapper on her line,
Doss, quit and Brown was required to wrap alone, except on
a few occasions when a wrapper from another line was as-
signed to help her temporarily. This, Brown testified, slowed
her down because she had to wrap as well as pull an arbor
off each coil, whereas, when she had a helper, the helper took
off every other arbor To make matters worse, most of the
pick and connect operators on the night shift were new em-
ployees and they were sending an unusual amount of defec-
tive work down the line to her.
On the night of April 4, the new pickers and connectors
were switched from the No. 20 Models on which they had
been working to a No 14 Model on which they had not
worked before. Quality Control Manager Yaukovitz had
asked Brown to watch the coils carefully for wrong connec-
tions which the new connectors may have made and Brown
found a lot of wrong connections that night This situation
slowed down Brown's production and coils which she had no
time to wrap were piling high in the trough She described
herself as a "nervous wreck" when she noticed Nelson and
Liston watching her performance. After the supper break at
7.30 that night, a wrapper, Brewer, from another line was
assigned to help Brown.
558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Shortly after Brewer began helping Brown, Nelson asked
Brown to come to the office. She replied, "No, sir, I won't go
to the office, I'll speak with you here at my machine or up
at the eating area at the table but I won't go into the office "
Nelson , told her , "I said in the office." Brown repeated that
she would not go to the office and added that "if he had ass
chewing to do, to do it right there " Nelson left and a few
minutes later Liston came to Brown and said , "Ethel, I hear
that you were asked to come to the office and you refused."
When she affirmed that this was true, he told her, "Well, then
I suggest that you clock out " Brown did so
Brown explained at the hearing that she refused to go to
the office because it was glass enclosed, that the production
workers could see what was taking place inside and that she
had seen other employees who had been called into the office
emerge either crying or looking disturbed. She did not, how-
ever, explain to Nelson or Liston her reason for refusing to
go to the office, claiming that she did not have an opportunity
to explain . She assumed that Nelson intended to reprimand
her about her production, not only because she was aware of
the fact that on that particular night her production was low
but also because Nelson had theretofore told her in March
that she had not been putting out her quota since Doss had
left.
Nelson , at the hearing, confirmed Brown 's assumption that
he had intended to talk to her about her production. He
testified that he had noticed a drop in Brown 's efficiency
about 2 weeks before her termination and had discussed with
Liston the efficiency problem on the pick, connect, and wrap
line. At that time the efficiency for the pickers and connectors
was determined by the productivity of the wrappers, that is,
the production efficiency of each picker and connector could
only be as high as the average efficiency of the wrappers on
their line. Nelson and Liston decided that Nelson should talk
to each of the two wrappers on the line-Brown , who worked
on the line regularly , and Brewer , who was assigned to the
line from time to time Nelson did call Brewer to his office
and talk to her after he had sought unsuccessfully to have
Brown come to his office. He testified that it was not his
intention to discharge either wrapper when asking them to
come to the office.
I have no doubt that Brown was genuinely upset and be-
lieved she was being unjustly treated at the time she was
summoned to the office on April 4, but I find no basis in the
record for inferring that Respondent was discriminating
against her or attempting to provoke her for union reasons.
Her conduct in refusing to obey the summons to the office
was clearly insubordination and good cause for discharge. I
find that Respondent did not violate Section 8(a)(3) or (1) of
the Act in terminating her employment.
c. Alma Powers
Powers was hired on August 14, 1972, as a winder. She was
given a 3-day suspension on April 4, 1973, allegedly because
of an excessive amount of defective work produced After
returning to work and, pursuant to her request, she was
transferred from the night to the day shift, where she was
placed on a type of winding machine which Respondent con-
sidered more simple than that on which she had formerly
worked. Respondent contends that the quality of her work
did not improve after her return from the layoff and that she
was therefore discharged on April 27 The General Counsel
contends that Powers was first laid off, then discharged, be-
cause Respondent believed that she was a supporter of the
Union.
Actually, Powers did not join the Union until after her
discharge. Prior thereto she had collected and read both
union and company handbills in an attempt to decide which
way to vote in the March 16 election, and on one occasion
she had obtained a copy of a sample union contract from one
of the employees when Nelson was only about 20 feet away
and facing in such a way that he could have seen the passing
of the document to Powers. Powers was one of the employees
questioned by Fischer as to whether she had signed a union
card when Fischer was soliciting signatures to the union with-
drawal and Powers at that time told Fischer she had not
signed a union card When Nelson questioned Fischer, how-
ever, as to whether Powers' sympathies were procompany or
prounion, Fischer stated that she believed Powers was proun-
ion. It is upon these slender threads that the General Counsel
bases his argument that subsequent to the election, in which
a majority of the votes cast were for the Union, Respondent,
guessing that Powers was probably prounion, decided to get
rid of her, first by suspending, then discharging her, for sus-
pected union sympathies, with poor workmanship as a mere
pretext
I cannot accept this thesis Even Fischer, one of the Gen-
eral Counsel's principal witnesses in the case against Re-
spondent, testified that the quality of Powers' work was
"poor" on several occasions when Fischer inspected her work
and that "she did make mistakes often "18 Dunker, who was
plant manager until March 7, testified that he not only had
problems with Powers because of the quality of her work but
also because of her inability to get along with other em-
ployees, especially after Andrea Pritchett, who had less seni-
ority than Powers, was selected over Powers to be lead girl
on the night shift when the former lead girl left.19 He and
Nelson had discussed these problems with Powers and
Pritchett in January Dunker had discussed with Quality
Control Manager Yaukovitz the fact that Powers had more
defective work tickets than any other winder on the night
shift and on one occasion Yaukovitz had suggested firing
Powers, but Dunker had rejected the suggestion. Dunker had
also talked to Nelson on several occasions about Powers'
work.
About a week before Powers' layoff, Nelson and Yaukovitz
had talked to her about one of her defective coils and consid-
erable time was spent attempting to discover the reason for
the defect On April 3, Yaukovitz cautioned Powers to watch
18 Respondent has not asserted low production efficiency as figuring in
the decision to discipline, then discharge Powers Although her first step
progression increase in pay (accompanied by a silver dollar signifying she
had reached 100 percent efficiency for the first time) was held up for 10
weeks , she does not appear to have had any serious production problems
19 Powers testified that Nelson told her when Pritchett was made lead girl
that she, Powers, had been his first choice and Powers had said that she did
not want the added responsibility of the lead girl job Nelson 's statement to
Powers at that time , whether to assuage any hurt feelings at being passed
over for the promotion or because he had not yet become aware of any
inordinate amount of defective work being produced by her, is not inconsist-
ent with later disciplinary action taken against Powers when her defective
work came to light
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP
her work because he did not want to have to call her into the
office. On the same day Yaukovitz showed Nelson two write-
ups on Powers' defective work which he had just discovered.
Nelson then pulled her file and found a stack of "hold"
tickets reflecting defective windings by Powers He thereupon
discussed with Calvin the fact that she had more writeups
than any other winder. He proposed and Calvin approved a
disciplinary layoff for her. He then called Powers to the office
and, in the presence of Yaukovitz, showed her the two write-
ups just discovered and told her there were a dozen more in
her file and that he was giving her a 3-day layoff because of
her defective work. He stated that if she did not improve
when she returned, she would be terminated. He also told her
that he was cracking down on bad workmanship and was
starting with her as an example to the other employees
Prior to her layoff Powers had requested a transfer to the
day shift, complaining that lead girl Pritchett had not treated
her as fairly as she had the other winders and had not given
her the help or instructions given to the others. After Powers
returned from her layoff, Respondent granted her request for
a transfer to the day shift. The quality of her work did not
improve, however, and on April 27, after one of the other
winders called lead girl Cox' attention to a bad wind made
by Powers, Cox found six sticks (with 12 coils on each stick)
which Powers had over wound and took them to Yaukovitz.
He in turn took them to Calvin Powers was then called to
the office and in a conference with Calvin, Liston, and
Yaukovitz, was discharged. Liston explained to her how
much her mistakes were costing Respondent-$48 for each
defective stick. She asked if she could not repair the defective
coils and Calvin told her that he did not want time spent on
nonproductive work. She then asked if she could not be trans-
ferred to some other job and Calvin replied that Respondent
was not hiring any employees at that time but that he would
be glad to give her "a reference for dependability and effort."
The General Counsel suggests that evidence by Respon-
dent's representatives about Powers' defective work should
be discounted because no records regarding such defects as
compared with defects produced by other winders was intro-
duced. However, Respondent offered during the hearing to
make available to the General Counsel any pertinent records
and the General Counsel did not choose to introduce any
such records himself
I have no doubt, in view of all the evidence, including that
of Powers herself, that she was first laid off, then discharged,
as Respondent's representatives told her, because of the
excessive amount of defective work which she was producing
and that her union sympathies, even if Respondent was aware
of them, had nothing to do with its decision. The complaint,
as to her, will therefore be dismissed.20
d Ruby McDonald
McDonald was hired by Respondent on October 4, 1972,
and worked as a tester and packer until August 7, 1973, when
she left work because of illness. She was discharged on Au-
20 The findings summarized above are based for the most part upon
mutually corrobative testimony of Powers, Fischer, Calvin, Dunker, Nelson,
and Cox I do not credit that part of the testimony of Powers and the
testimony of employees Helms and Walbert about the comparative amounts
of defective work produced which is inconsistent with my findings above
559
gust 20 for the asserted reason that she took an unauthorized
leave of absence, in violation of a company rule which re-
quires an employee to inform Respondent of the reason for
an absence by the end of each third day of absence. The
General Counsel contends that Respondent had no clearly
defined rule which it had imparted to its employees and that
McDonald's discharge assertedly for violating Respondent's
absentee rule was a pretext to hide Respondent's true motive,
which was to rid the plant of a union advocate.
McDonald had experienced ill health of one kind or
another since early in the year 1973. She was ill between
February 1 and 28, and in a hospital for 9 days. It was while
in the hospital that she signed a union card. The extent of her
union activities thereafter appears to have been the wearing
of a union pin on election day.
On the second day of her February absence, she had
brought from her doctor a statement requesting that she be
excused from work until further notice. It was her under-
standing at that time that bringing in this type of note would
make it unnecessary to call in every 3 days to report the
reason for her absence.
McDonald was again absent during early June because of
illness. On the second or third day of her illness she called the
office and reported to Pritchett that she was ill. Pritchett
informed her that she would have to have a doctor's certifi-
cate before she could return to work and McDonald protested
that she had never heard of such a rule. At that point, Pntch-
ett turned the call over to Calvin, who was then acting plant
manager. When McDonald returned to work after a week's
absence on that occasion, Calvin summoned her to the office
to discuss her attendance record, including her long absence
in February, to explain Respondent's procedure for reporting
absences and furnishing doctor's certificates, to discuss her
efficiency and to inquire as to the reason for her frequent trips
to the restroom. According to Calvin, he told her that if she
was off 3 days, she should call in by the end of the third day
and let Respondent know when she expected to return to
work and that if she expected to be absent "for any period of
time over 3 days" she should get a doctor 's statement.21 In
response to Calvin's inquiry as to the reason for her frequent
trips to the restroom, she explained that she had a colon
problem Calvin told her that she would have to have this
corrected. She thereafter consulted her doctor and took medi-
cation which alleviated the ailment but.did not cure it, for
even during the hearing the problem persisted.
On Tuesday, August 7, McDonald became sick while at
work and was granted permission by then Plant Manager
Kinkaid to go home, stopping on the way to see her doctor.
Kinkaid asked her to let him know what the doctor's diagno-
sis was. She called Kinkaid the next day and told him, accord-
ing to her testimony, that the doctor had instructed her to
stay off from work for several days because of the pressure
on her neck from a displaced vertebra and inflamed liga-
ments. According to Kinkaid, she reported in this telephone
call that she would be back on Friday, August 10. She re-
21 Calvin testified that Respondent has several rules and policies regarding
absences and that he could not remember their exact wording The only rule
posted at the plant and produced at the hearing was one in a pamphlet
entitled "Rules ) Rules' Rules )" and the one relating to absences reads
"Absence Without Notifying Company (If for 3 days or more, considered
automatic quit) "
560 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
turned to her doctor on August 10 and on the same day again
called the plant and reported to a person whom she believed
to be Pritchett that she was still ill and unable to return to
work. On Tuesday, August 14, she had laryngitis and could
not talk. At her request, her husband called the plant and
reported to Pritchett that McDonald was still ill and would
be unable to report for work for the rest of the week. Pritch-
ett, pursuant to prior instructions from Kinkaid, told Mr.
McDonald to hold the phone while she summoned Kinkaid.
Mr. McDonald held the phone for a short time but hung up
before Kinkaid arrived at the other end Mr. McDonald re-
ported to his wife that the phone had apparently gone dead.
It was not until almost a week later, on Monday, August
20, that McDonald again called the plant to report that she
was on the way to see her doctor and would report back to
work when he released her. Kinkaid told her that she had
already been terminated on August 14. She offered to bring
in a doctor's certificate but he stated that he did not need it
for she had already been terminated. According to Kinkaid
he told her she had been terminated : "because she told me on
Friday the 10th that she would be in, she did not come in, she
did not call " He testified that company rules require that any
one absent 3 days should at least call in and should have a
doctor's statement after the third day
There can be no question but that McDonald had a very
bad absentee record due to her health problems and that at
least her failure to call the plant to report on her absences
between August 14 and 20 was a violation of Respondent's
reporting rules about which she had previously been apprised
in June . I am convinced , moreover , that Kinkaid understood
McDonald in her telephone call on August 8, to say that she
would be back at work on Friday, August 10; that he did not
receive the telephone message taken by someone in the office
that day when McDonald called and left word that she was
still ill and unable to report to work;22 that he was upset and
inconvenienced by her failure to report to work and that, as
he testified, he decided to terminate McDonald on August 14
for failing to report to work on August 10 as he understood
her to say she would and for failing to comply with company
rules regarding the reporting of absences It is immaterial
whether his recollection or McDonald 's is the more accurate
as to what McDonald told him on August 8. The question
before me is whether Kinkaid in discharging McDonald was
motivated by antiunion considerations and I am persuaded
from all of the evidence that he was not. Indeed, the record
does not show that Kinkaid, who was employed by Respond-
ent subsequent to the election, or any other representative of
Respondent, even knew of her union sympathies. The com-
plaint insofar as it alleges McDonald 's discharge to be in
violation of Section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act must therefore
be dismissed.
22 McDonald had to make toll calls from her residence to Respondent's
plant and her telephone bill introduced in evidence shows that a telephone
call from her residence to the plant was, indeed, made on August 10 Pritch-
ett, on the other hand , credibly testified that she was in a hospital and not
at the plant on that date and I must conclude that someone substituting for
her talked to McDonald but neglected to convey McDonald ' s message to
Kinkaid
e. The discharges of Boyer, Clinton, and Conrad
The discharges ' of Becky Boyer, Margaret Clinton, and,
Rose Conrad occurred in late August 1973 in connection
with a course of action instituted by Respondent to improve
the overall efficiency of the plant's operations. Each of these
employees had overtly evidenced their support of the Union
subsequent to the Union 's certification on July 31 , and it is
a fair inference that Respondent knew of their loyalties to the
Union prior to terminating them The General Counsel as-
serts that each was discriminatorily terminated because of her
union sympathies and support , in violation of Section 8(a)(3)
and (1) of the Act, and also that the terminations were a result
of unilaterally established more stringent standards and poli-
cies instituted by Respondent in violation of its duty to bar-
gain with the Union and were therefore in violation of Section
8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act. It is the General Counsel's conten-
tion that whether the terminations be viewed as violations of
Section 8(a)(3) or (5) of the Act, an appropriate remedy
would be reinstatement , with backpay.
(1) Becky Boyer
Boyer was hired on April 2, 1973, and was discharged on
August 23, allegedly because of inefficiency in her produc-
tion . This was the reason asserted by Respondent 's counsel
early in the hearing Later in the hearing Respondent added
as another reason for discharging her its asserted belief that
she had engaged in a work slow down Still later in the
hearing Respondent asserted as another reason that her at-
tendance was chronically poor.
Although hired as a picker, she was transferred after 2 or
3 weeks to the job of connecting. 23 In late May, at the end
of her first 8 weeks of employment, she received the progres-
sion pay increase awarded employees who meet Respondent's
efficiency standards and at that time then Acting Plant
Manager Calvin told her she was being given the raise be-
cause of high efficiency and that he believed that she was one
of Respondent 's better employees because she was not"absent
and because she kept her efficiency up. He also commented
that she seemed to like being a connector better than being
a picker and asked her whether she would "just as soon stay
and have the job classified as connector." She replied that she
would
Due to material shortages and a changeover in a model of
transformer being produced, Boyer was laid off during the
last week of June and for all of July (Layoffs were on the
basis of seniority). Although she was called back to work for
3 or 4 days in July, she did not return to work on a regular
basis until August 1. When called back for the 3 or 4 days in
July, she was assigned to picking on a line other than the one
on which she later worked at the time of her discharge.24
23 Employee Pinson , who worked with Boyer as a connector , estimated
that Boyer was transferred to connecting about 2 weeks after she was hired
Vice President Trinkle estimated that Boyer had worked at picking for
"about a month or more" after she was hired Respondent offered no records
to support Trinkle's testimony I am satisfied that the testimony of Boyer
and Pinson is more accurate in this regard
24 The parties stipulated at the hearing to the accuracy of the dates to
which she testified she was laid off Her attendance card, identified as
Respondent's Exhibit 77 and received in evidence as G C Exh 26, does
(Continued)
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP
Shortly after she returned to work on a regular basis about
August 1, she was assigned to various types of work but
principally to picking.25 When assigning Boyer to work
other than her regular connecting job after she returned from
the layoffs, Plant Manager Kinkaid told her that the pickers
on the new line could not keep up with the connectors and
that as soon as the pickers got used to picking the new type
of coil, he would transfer her back to her connecting job.
Respondent had two picking lines on the first shift In the
line to which Boyer was assigned she worked with Lee (who
had been a picker since August 21, 1972), Belleville (a picker
since September 11, 1972) and Ball (a picker since November
8, 1972) on a new model transformer called the CVT. All of
these pickers were producing way below Respondent's effi-
ciency standard before Boyer was assigned to help them and
on her first day as a picker when her production efficiency
was only 18 percent, their's was only 23 percent each. All
gradually improved however .21
As already noted, Vice President Trinkle on August 17, in
a talk to all the production employees, told them that Re-
spondent was starting a program to police the efficiency of
each department, starting with a review of the present and
past performances of the employee in each department hav-
ing the lowest efficiency, in an attempt to get the employees
to bring up their efficiency and that he would replace those
who failed to do so. On that occasion, Trinkle also told the
employees that he would return to the plant in about a week.
He did return on August 23, and at that time called in the
day shift pickers on the CVT line on which Boyer had been
working for a conference with himself and Kinkaid. Boyer
was absent because of illness on that day and only Lee, Ball
and Belleville were present. According to Trinkle, he re-
viewed with them their past and present performances, telling
them that he could not understand how their efficiency could
drop from the 70 percent area a month or a month and a half
before to about 35 percent He also told them that he could
not understand how two of them (referring to Lee and Ball)
had turned in exactly the same production during the period
between August 1 and 18, as was shown on the record he had
before him. None of those present volunteered any explana-
tion.
On the same day, according to Trinkle, he reviewed with
Kinkaid the efficiency and absentee record of Boyer not only
for the period of August 1 through 18, which he had Kinkaid
prepare for the pickers but also Boyer's efficiency and absen-
tee record during the beginning period of her employment
when she was also working as a picker, and found that her
attendance was chronically poor. Trinkle further testified
that Kinkaid had informed him that he, Kinkaid, had talked
not show any layoff for July and the "8[ 's]" appearing in four of the columns
for that month apparently reflect the days on which she worked rather than
her absences
25 Thus, for a day or two after she returned, she did assembly work,
building and gunning the transformers She later was taken off picking
temporarily and assigned for a few days to her old connecting work and on
another occasion to wrapping and to work on the solder pot
26 In the 9 days Boyer worked at picking between August 1 and 20, the
last day she worked, her average efficiency was 32 6 percent, with a high
of 46 percent, in the 14 days Lee worked as a picker during the same period,
she averaged 41 1 percent, with a high of 45 percent, in the 12 days Ball
worked as a picker during this period, she averaged 37 8 percent, with a high
of 46 percent, and in the 15 days Belleville worked as a picker during this
period, she averaged 35 1 percent, with a high of 47 percent
561
to Boyer about her attendance and warned her that it would
have to improve.27 On the basis of these facts, her poor effi-
ciency and poor attendance records, Trinkle testified he di-
rected Kinkaid to discharge Boyer.
Kinkaid corroborated Trinkle's testimony only in part. He
testified that he and Tnnkle had examined only his own
tabulation of the efficiency and absences of the four pickers
for the period of August 1 through 18. He acknowledged that
he had not checked Boyer's timecard to ascertain the number
of absences which he recorded on his tabulation but had
instead interpreted the "A['s]" appearing in an efficiency
record book kept by Pritchett to mean absences and had
counted as absences between August 1 through 18, the four
"A['s]" found in Pritchett's efficiency record book. Pritchett
explained that "A" merely means that no production card
was turned in and it could result from an employee doing
nonproductive work (which is not unusual) as well as from
an absence. Boyer's timecard shows that she was absent only
1 1/2 days between August 1 and 18. This was the occasion
when she left work and went to her doctor because of an eye
injury
Kinkaid, in an apparent attempt to support Trinkle's tes-
timony that he had talke 3 to Boyer about her absenteeism,
stated that on August 1 (which would have been the day she
returned from her layoff of over a month and was assigned
to work on the new CVT transformer) he called the four
pickers into his office and talked to them about their effi-
ciency and excessive absenteeism Since this was Boyer's first
day on the job as a picker on the CVT's, anything he may
have said to the group could hardly have been considered a
criticism of Boyer's production or attendance record. After
she had been working on the CVT's for about a week Kinkaid
did tell Boyer individually and also the other pickers to slap
the adhesive insulating tape on the coils instead of pressing
and rubbing tape on or "making love to it" as he expressed
it, but this appears to have been a mere instruction as to how
they could improve their efficiency rather than a reprimand.
Kinkaid further testified that, on August 21, he admonished
the four pickers against talking when he noticed them talking
and neglecting their work and that about an hour later, he
noticed Boyer still talking to the others and he again told her
to stop talking Respondent's records, however, show that
Boyer was working in another department that day and was
not on the picking operation. If any such incident occurred,
it could not have been on that day.
Kinkaid called Boyer at her home on August 23, while she
was at her doctor's office and when she later returned the call,
he told her, according to Boyer's credited testimony, that she
was being terminated because of her inefficiency She dis-
puted this accusation and told Kinkaid that she was a connec-
tor and not a picker, but that even as a picker, she had kept
up with the other girls. Her statement that she kept up with
the other girls was undoubtedly a reference to the fact, to
which she and Lee freely testified at the hearing, that the four
pickers had been helping each other out and that when one
picker fell behind in production, another would give part of
27 1 do not credit Trinkle's testimony regarding Boyer's alleged poor
attendance record, for Boyer had a perfect attendance record in April when
she first worked as a picker and between August 1 and 18, the period
covered by the record before Trinkle, Boyer had been absent for only 1 1/2
days when she left work because of an eye injury-as Kinkaid knew
562 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
her production to the one needing it, so that all would have
substantially the same production at the end of the day. The
purpose of this practice-which had been in effect long before
Boyer joined the group-was to insure that if one of them got
into trouble because of production, all would be in trouble.
Boyer and Ball, whose production was substantially the same
any way after Boyer gained a little experience on the new
model of transformer, helped each other out. It is after Boyer
testified about this practice that Respondent amended its
answer to allege that another reason for Boyer's discharge
was its belief that she had engaged in a slow down in produc-
tion. Boyer denied that she or any of her fellow pickers were
engaging in a slow down and the evidence does not support
such an inference.28
A careful analysis of the evidence raises many questions
concerning Respondent 's motivation in assigning inefficiency
as a reason for discharging Boyer . It should not be forgotten
that Boyer had spent most of her time with
Respondent-part of April, all of May, and until her layoff
in the last week of June-working as a connector, a job which
she liked and at which she appears to have been highly effi-
cient, and that there is no evidence of any inefficiency by
Boyer during the first 2 or 3 weeks of her employment when
she worked as a picker on a model of transformer which
preceded the CVT.29
Since Respondent did not know at the time of discharging
her that since August 9 the other pickers on her line had
accepted her into their production sharing practice, it must
have been relying on her production efficiency records as
accurately reflecting solely her own production when analyz-
ing them A careful evaluation of all the evidence available to
Respondent does not show that Boyer's production at the
time of her discharge was out of line with that of other pickers
on the CVT transformer. Boyer had worked for only 9 days
on that model of transformer and in that period, despite the
interruptions caused by frequent temporary transfers to work
in other departments and her assignments to nonproduction
work, as well as her absences of 3-1/2 days because of illness,
she had improved her efficiency from 18 percent on her first
day on the job to 43 and 40 percent on her last 2
days-an improvement of over 50 percent after only working
9 days.
The other pickers working with her had been picking on
the new CVT model transformer since the beginning of its
production in June and none of them had improved their
28 Lead girl Hinkle credibly testified that as early as May, June and July,
she had talked to Calvin and then to Kinkaid about the fact that some of
the pickers were turning in identical production counts and that " they pretty
well admitted that they were helping each other out on the line The
girl that would do more would help the girl that wasn't getting as many "
Management did not appear to be sufficiently concerned to investigate and
put a stop to this practice at that time indeed, prior to the making of certain
time studies on the pick, connect, and wrap jobs in about May, it had been
Respondent's practice to divide the total production on each of those jobs
by the number of employees on the job to arrive at their production effi-
ciency
29 Following her raise in pay in late May and the high praise of her work
by Calvin, Boyer continued to perform her connecting job in a highly effi-
cient manner, according to two coworkers, Pinson and Barnhouse And
while performing the gunning and building operation in August, she per-
formed at over 100 percent efficiency Subsequent to Boyer's discharge,
Respondent tried out a number of employees as a third connector to join
the team of Pinson and Barnhouse before finding one that was satisfactory,
but it did not recall Boyer
efficiency percentage at the rate Boyer had improved hers.
Two new pickers on the night shift-Sedebottom and
Spencer-who, like Boyer , started picking on the CVT's on
August 1 had average efficiencies of only 26.6 and 22 7 per-
cent , as compared with Boyer 's average of 32.6 by the date
of her discharge , though Sedebottom and Spencer had
worked 16 and 14 days respectively , as compared with
Boyer 's 9 days at the picking operation . If Boyer had not been
discharged and had continued to improve at the same rate she
had been progressing , it would not have taken her long to
reach 100 -percent efficiency . Calvin testified that a picker
should be able to meet Respondent 's standards in 12 to 14
weeks. There was no reason to believe that Boyer could not
have done so, even if her early experience on the old model
transformer on which she worked for 2 or 3 weeks in April
is added to her 9 days in August . It would not seem fair,
however , to count her brief picking experience months earlier
on another model of transformer in measuring her expected
efficiency progression on the CVT, for, as former Manager of
Manufacturing Liston testified , after a break of even so much
as a month , a picker has to start learning all over again
Respondent 's official publication entitled "Viewpoint,"
dated August 7, 1973, states with respect to the Farmington
plant:
This operation is presently in the process of changing its
lines over to the 1974 models This necessitates new
setups on the winding machines , pick-connect and as-
sembly lines and final test . When employees get oriented
to the new models, production will begin to flow
smoothly again.
Calvin , though not the author of these statements, agreed
with their accuracy except to the extent that the second sen-
tence might imply that new equipment was being used. He
explained that the same equipment and tools are used and
that "we adjust it for wire length and that sort of thing." He
conceded the accuracy of the statement that when the em-
ployees become oriented to the new models , their production
would begin to flow smoothly again . When Boyer joined the
three more experienced pickers on the CVT line on August
1, production obviously had not yet begun to flow smoothly
again but it did improve steadily and at an even more rapid
pace after Boyer 's discharge and after some changes were
instituted to make the picking operation more simple. For
example , not only did the flow of work to the line become
more steady but the lead girl or material handlers started
stacking the pickers work for them , the amount of tape re-
quired to be used on the coils was greatly reduced, the wrap-
pers took over the sizing job which the pickers had formerly
done ; and Respondent started using colored nongdhesive pa-
per or ribbons to help the pickers more easily locate anchor
tape where the wire they pick comes out
A circumstance which Respondent has not sought to ex-
plain and which points as much as anything else to a conclu-
sion that the reasons assigned by Respondent for discharging
Boyer were not the true reasons is Respondent 's departure
from its standard operating procedures in effecting Boyer's
discharge As already noted , Calvin , when corporate person-
nel manager , had clearly spelled out for the plant manager
orally as well as in writing the procedures to be followed
before any employee was to be fired for inefficiency or poor
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP.
attendance. The plant manager.was first to talk to -the em-
ployee individually about her deficiency and how she might
be helped, a note regarding such action was to be placed in
the employee's personnel file, and then only after the em-
ployee had been given sufficient time for improvement should
any further disciplinary action or discharge occur Trinkle's
speech to the employees on August 17, too, makes clear that
he contemplated talking to the low producers individually,
then giving them a chance to improve before taking any
disciplinary action This had been the policy which Respond-
ent, in general , actually did follow both before and after
Trinkle's August 17 speech. Respondent did not talk to
Boyer individually about her efficiency or her absen-
teeism-except to praise her in both respects when giv-
ing her a wage increase in May. If it had, it would have had
to face an explanation of the fact that she was not even
properly classified as a picker but was instead a
connector;30 that she had improved her production effi-
ciency by more than 50 percent during the 9 days in August
when she worked on the new model of transformer despite
the frequent transfers to other jobs which tended to interfere
with production efficiency progress; that during the 2 days
she worked as a picker subsequent to Trinkle's speech, her
production was substantially above her average; that in view
of her lack of experience at picking in general and on the new
model in particular, her production was perhaps not properly
subject to criticism; and that her attendance record in general
was good.
The only plausible explanation in the record for Respon-
dent's discharge of Boyer under the circumstances described
above is its desire to rid the plant of a strong and active union
supporter who could influence the vote of other employees
should a rerun election ever be ordered. Boyer joined the
Union about June 1, and became a union steward shortly
before being fired. On June 18, the day Kinkaid became plant
manager , she, along with Union Steward Mullins, two other
employees and a few ex-employees, picketed Respondent's
plant and distributed union circulars, in the clear view of
Kinkaid and Calvin, for the purpose, as she testified, of let-
ting the new manager know that the Union was the em-
ployees' representative. Following Trinkle's speech on Au-
gust 17 in which he told the employees, inter aka, that he was
going to interview the individual employees in each depart-
ment who had the lowest production efficiency and thereafter
replace those who failed to improve, Boyer told her fellow
pickers while working with them that she was convinced that
Trinkle's speech was prompted by the Union's attempts to
bargain , pointing out that Respondent had been requested to
respond by August 15, to the Union's request for information
for bargaining purposes. As she made this statement, she
became aware that Calvin was behind her, explaining to a
new employee how the picking operation worked. When
Boyer looked at him, the expression on his face led her to
believe that he had overheard her. (He did not deny that he
had overheard her.) Thereafter, on August 23, Respondent's
30 Kinkaid conceded at the hearing that an employee working as a connec-
tor as long as she had been working, should have been classified on Respon-
dent's records as a connector Moreover, he did not deny telling her on
August 1, when asking her to work with the pickers, that she would be
transferred back to connecting as soon as the regular pickeis had become
accustomed to picking the new type of coil
563
president, Boyd, sent the Farmington employees a letter, tell-
ing them at the outset that what he was about to say had
nothing to do with the Union, then proceeding to reiterate
what Trinkle had-told the employees on August 17.
I am convinced and find on the basis of the entire record,
including Respondent's coercive and threatening antiunion
conduct both -before and after the election, that all of the
asserted reasons given toward the beginning of the hearing
and those added later during the hearing for Boyer's dis-
charge were pretextual in nature and that the true reason was
her union support and activities. The discharge was therefore
in violation of Section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act.
(2) Margaret Clinton
Clinton was hired by Respondent on June 22, 1972, as a
winder, Respondent's most skilled and highest paid produc-
tion job, and was discharged on August 29, 1973, for the
alleged reason that her production efficiency was too' low.
This was also the reason asserted by Respondent's counsel
early in the hearing. The General Counsel contends that
Respondent was motivated by antiunion considerations trig-
gered by the fact that Clinton was wearing a union button on
her blouse when called to the office on August 28, by Vice
President Trinkle and Plant Manager Kinkaid for an inter-
view about her efficiency.
During the preelection period Clinton had been antiunion
and had solicited other employees to wear procompany in-
signia. She went to a union meeting and signed a card around
August 1, however, and thereafter asked the winders with
whom she worked to join the Union She did not wear a union
pin until August 28. On that and the following day, when she
was discharged, she wore it prominently displayed on her
blouse.
Although Clinton was considered by Blum "real good"
and had produced in the high 90's to 100-percent efficiency
on the primary wind, which she liked to do, she was not, in
general , considered a big producer. Her production some-
times vaned substantially as she was transferred from one
winding machine or type of winding'to another, according to
her fellow workers, Asbury and Blum and her lead girl, Cox.
Their testimony indicates that she was perhaps an average
producer. She had produced in accordance with Respon-
dent's production requirements and received her first two
progression raises after the normal periods of work. But her
third raise which could have been granted about January 2,
1973, was held up until mid-May because she -had failed
before then to meet the standard then required of her. She had
been called to the office and admonished to improve both her
efficiency and her attendance record upon several occasions
during her 14 months tenure with Respondent. Former Plant
Manager Dunker characterized her as a talkative person and
testified that in the spring of 1973, before he left Respondent's
employ, he had admonished her not to visit so much and had
told her to get back to her job. Her fellow winder , Blum, also
characterized her as a big talker. -
About August 1, Plant Manager Kinkaid called her into
his office and told her that she would have to improve her
efficiency. He accused her of playing around a lot and she
conceded that she might have been doing that sometime. He
also told her that she talked too much and that was the reason
564 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
why her efficiency was down. He said that she would have to
get her efficiency up or she would have to be replaced. When
he told her to "get back there and work," she stated that she
would "
When Trinkle came to the plant on August 23, and re-
viewed with Kinkaid the-efficiencies of the winders as shown
on Kinkaid's compilation of the relative efficiency and ab-
sences of the 16 winders on both shifts between August 1 and
18, he decided not to interview Clinton because her efficiency
was shown on the compilation to be 68 percent which (ex-
cluding the new ones) was higher than that of five other
winders whose efficiencies were, respectively, 48, 62, 49, 40,
48, and 44 percent. He and Kinkaid did not talk to Belcher,
the winder having the lowest efficiency, because she had just
been transferred to the CVT transformer and had not had
sufficient time to improve her productivity but did talk to
Richardson, the next lowest.
About August 20, Clinton was transferred to the new big
CVT transformer and her efficiency, too, dropped
drastically-hers perhaps even more than most of the others
transferred to the new model because she was placed on a
secondary wind which she had never performed before on any
of the other models. On the first day, her efficiency dropped
from 68 to 23 percent and although it thereafter improved,
her average efficiency on the CVT was only 34 percent when
she was called to the office for an interview with Trinkle and
Kinkaid on August 28.32 Kinkaid credibly testified that he
and Trinkle had not called her in to fire her but only to see
if they could help her to improve her efficiency-as, indeed,
Respondent' had successfully done with Clinton in the past
and as it was doing with some of its others in its current
campaign to improve efficiency
During the August 28 interview, Trinkle told her that she
was not putting out her share of the work and asked what she
would do if she had a bag of rotten potatoes. She replied that
she would salvage what she could and get -rid of the rest.
Trinkle said that he had quite a few rotten potatoes and
would have to start getting rid of them. He warned that if her
efficiency did not improve in a week, he would have to termi-
nate her." She explained that she had been working on the
new CVT for only about a week and had not had time to work
up speed. He replied that she was one of the oldest winders
and should be able to make 100-percent efficiency on all the
models 34 'T
31 The above account is Clinton's credited version of the interview Kin-
kaid testified that he did not make any written memorandum of the occasion
as Respondent normally does in reprimanding employees, but that he talked
to her about her efficiency and her absenteeism and that she said that she
was doing the best she could
32 According to lead girl Cox, the efficiencies of Respondent's best wind-
ers, Hamm, Blum, and Asbury had likewise plummeted downward when
they were first transferred to the CVT models, but after 2 or 3 days they had
brought their efficiencies up to the 70's and 80's percent Blum, one of
Respondent's best winders, who worked for 5 days on the big CVT in July
and has since been working on the small CVT, testified that her efficiency
dropped to about 30 or 35 percent at the beginning but she had worked up
to about 50 percent at the end of 5 days
33 According to Trinkle, he'told her Respondent would review her effi-
ciency again in 2 or 3 weeks to see what progress she had made
"The above account is based on Clinton's credited testimony-sub-
stantially undisputed insofar as it goes I also find, in accordance with
Kinkaid's credited testimony, that during the interview Clinton remarked
that she did not like working on the CVT model and that she was doing
Since it was about quitting time, Clinton checked out and
went home following the interview. On the following day,
August 29, during her 11 to 11:30 luncheon break, she talked
to a group of the winders with whom she worked and her lead
girl, Cox, about Tnnkle and Kinkaid, who had interviewed
her on the preceding day, berating them and referring to them
as "s o.b.'s" and in other uncomplimentary terms. Her voice
was sufficiently loud that Trinkle and Kinkaid, observing her
from their glass-enclosed office 15 or 20 feet away, could hear
her voice. Kinkaid testified that he could not hear what she
said but Trinkle testified that he could hear part of
it-that part in which she referred to management in vulgar
terms.
Cox testified that some of the girls complained that Clin-
ton's language was bothering them while they were eating
lunch but she did not name any employee who did complain.
The same kind of language, according to Clinton's uncon-
troverted testimony, had theretofore been used by Cox herself
and by two of the other employees in the luncheon group.
Cox testified, and Clinton denied, that Clinton continued to
use some of this language even after she returned to her work
station. I believe that Clinton probably did continue her
tirade very briefly for it is undisputed that soon after the
luncheon break, Cox went to Tnnkle and told him that some-
thing would have to be done about Clinton's cursing because
she was getting loud, was disturbing the other girls, and they
did not like it. She also told him that Clinton was calling him
and Kinkaid names.35 Trinkle told Cox that he and Kinkaid
would "take care of the situation in a 'little bit "
Trinkle thereupon discussed with Kinkaid the disturbance
which Clinton had allegedly caused and asked Kinkaid to
check her efficiency for that morning Kinkaid did so Trinkle
then instructed Kinkaid to discharge her Kinkaid sum-
moned Clinton to his office at or about 3:30 that afternoon
and told her, in the presence of Trinkle and Calvin, that
management had reviewed her efficiency for that morning,
that she had not improved, and that management felt that in
view of her statement that "she was doing the best she could
do," it would be a waste of time to continue with her. Clinton
protested that she had been told on the preceding day that she
had a week in which to bring up her efficiency and that if she
were given the time promised her, she might be able to do
better. Calvin told her that a check of her efficiency at noon
that day had shown that she had not improved and manage-
ment believed that she was not going to put forth sufficient
effort to do so. No mention was made of the report manage-
ment had 'received about her verbal attack against manage-
ment during her luncheon period and shortly thereafter.
Actually, Clinton had improved her efficiency on the last
day of her employment. Respondent's records show that her
efficiency for August 29, up to the time she was fired, was 45
percent. This would seem to be a substantial improvement
over the 30 percent for the preceding day when she was
the best she could I do not credit Trmkle's testimony that she said she
was doing all she was going to do
35 Cox also testified regarding statements made by Clinton on the day
before she was fired which Clinton denied making on that date but admitted
making on several occasions 2 or 3 months prior to her discharge when she
would get very aggravated Since there is no evidence that these statements
were ever reported to management representatives, they could not have
influenced management's decision to discharge Clinton and I need not
resolve the conflicts
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP. 565
reprimanded and over her average of 34 percent during the
approximately 8 days prior to her discharge when she was
working on the second wind of the CVT, a wind which Kin-
kaid testified she had never before worked on Her 45 percent
efficiency for August 29, moreover, was, according to Tnn-
kle, about the same as that she had made by noon, when he
had her efficiency checked.
The General Counsel argues that the explanation for Re-
spondent's change of heart and discharge of Clinton on the
day after promising her a week in which to bring up her
efficiency, and despite the fact that she had increased her
production by one-third over the day before, lies in the fact
that Clinton on August 28 and 29, displayed her union sym-
pathies for the first time by wearing a union button on her
blouse. Tnnkle, Calvin, and Kinkaid each testified that he did
not notice or did not recall her wearing a union button but
I think it highly unlikely that none of them would have
noticed this insignia prominently displayed on her blouse
during the August 28 and August 29 interviews and worn by
her for the first time. 36
If Respondent was not motivated at least in part by anti-
union considerations in discharging Clinton, why did it tell her
that she was being discharged because she had failed to im-
prove her production efficiency on August 29, when it knew
that she had improved substantially on that date? And why
did it continue to assert that this was the only reason even
when explaining its defense early in the hearing? If the salty
language used by Clinton in fact was the motivating factor,
why did Respondent not tell her this and give her an oppor-
tunity to present her side of the report before discharging her,
and why did not Respondent assert this as a reason,at the
hearing? The nearest that Respondent ever got to indicating
that her language had anything to do with the discharge was
Trinkle's testimony at one point that he and Kinkaid after
checking her efficiency, and finding it no better than on the
preceding day, decided that "due to her efficiency and her
conduct," they would have to get her out of the plant."
In this case, like that of Boyer, Respondent departed from
its standard operating procedure in effecting Clinton's dis-
charge. This procedure required that an employee be given a
reasonable opportunity to improve following an interview in
which Respondent seeks to ascertain the reason for low effi-
ciency and to help the employee improve. Clinton had been
promised a week, according to her testimony and that of
Kinkaid, and 2 or 3 weeks, according to Trinkle, in which to
show improvement. She had shown substantial improvement
in 1 day
In view of the patently false reason for her discharge as-
signed to her on August 29 and later asserted at the hearing,
36 In its brief, Respondent suggests that Clinton may have purposely worn
her union button on August 28, expecting to be called to the office about
her production and hoping in some way that the button might protect her
Her motive in wearing the union button is immaterial The display of union
insignia may not cloak an employee against vulnerability to discharge for a
lawful reason but it can be relevant to show employer knowledge of an
employee's union sympathies where it becomes necessary to consider that
element in determining motivation for employer action
37 Language such as that used by Clinton on August 29 was not uncom-
mon at the plant, as Respondent's officials undoubtedly knew In addition
to the three luncheon companions named by Clinton as having used similar
language, there is evidence in the record that lead girl Hinkle, quality con-
trol girl Fischer, and even Quality CoMrot Manager Yaukovitz had used foul
language
I must conclude that the true reason for her discharge was the
display of her union support by the wearing of a union button
on her blouse on August 28 and 29 This may have been
particularly galling to Respondent since, prior to the election
she had evinced procompany sympathies by wearing and
soliciting others to wear procompany insignias . I find that
Clinton's discharge was in violation of Section 8(a)(3) and (1)
of the Act.
(3) Rose Conrad
Conrad was employed by Respondent as a picker on Sep-
tember 15, 1972, and almost 3 months later was transferred
to wrapping, which she continued to do until the end of her
employment on August 30, 1973 She either quit, as Respond-
ent contends, or was discharged, as she asserts, in connection
with Respondent's criticism of her production The General
Counsel contends that she was discharged, or constructively
discharged, because of her union activities and also because
of a unilateral imposition and enforcement by Respondent of
more stringent production standards in late August 1973
Conrad had signed a union card in January 1973 and at-
tended three or four union meetings. She wore a union button
during the last week of her employment. She worked at the
same wrapping table, face to face with Mullins, the Union's
chief steward, during the period when Mullins was wrapping,
including August, when both were assigned to the new CVT
model transformer. She also normally ate lunch with Mullins.
Conrad had never been a big producer On December 7,
1972, almost 3 months after she had been hired, former Plant
Manager Dunker talked to her about her low production as
a picker and expressed the view that she would never make
a good picker. She agreed. Dunker then transferred her to the
wrapping operation. She testified that most of the time while
on wrapping, she was an average producer and no evidence
was adduced to the contrary It is undisputed, however, that
in August when she was assigned to wrap on the big CVT,
her production dropped and that she was the lowest producer
of all the wrappers during the first 18 days of August She and
Mullins were then the only wrappers on the big CVT but
other wrappers worked on the older models.
When Conrad and Mullins were assigned to wrap on the
large CVT transformer about August 1, they continued to
perform the wrapping operations on it in the same manner
they had performed the wrapping on the older type of trans-
former. On this job Conrad's average efficiency for the period
of August 1 through 18, was only 38 percent and Mullins' was
only 44 percent.38 The efficiency of Moyers and Yancheck
for the same period while wrapping on the older type model
was an average of 60 and 45.5 percent, respectively
On August 21, Kinkaid had a discussion with both Conrad
38 Respondent did not introduce any records showing the daily produc-
tion efficiency of Conrad and other wrappers for that period, as it did for
Boyer and other pickers, and it is impossible to tell from the only record it
did produce-a compilation entitled "connecting" and apparently including
connectors as well as wrappers-the extent, if any, which Conrad improved
her production after first being placed on the CVT model transformer There
is a suggestion in the record, however, from the testimony of Trinkle that
he ordered a time study of the CVT wrapping job on August 29, because "the
girls were running 50 and 60 percent," that the only wrappers then on the
line, Conrad and Mullins, had substantially improved their 38- and 44-
percent averages
566 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and Mullins about what he believed were unnecessary steps
they were taking on the CVT. He told them that they should
discontinue using pliers to hammer the solder joints down
and should use their fingers instead since on the CVT the wire
was not as heavy as that on the older type transformers and
a discontinuance of the use of pliers could double their pro-
duction . He also told them on this or on other occasions that
they were cutting too much off the wires, that they were
soldering too much , that they were using too much tape on
their fingers when they did use the solder and that it was
unnecessary to have a finger 's width between wires as Quality
Control Manager Yaukovitz had instructed them to have
On August 28, Conrad was called to the office for an
interview with Trinkle and Kinkaid . Trinkle told her that he
believed that she was capable of doing her job but that she
was not trying . Conrad stated that she believed that she was
trying and was doing the best she could . Trinkle stated that
if she did not get her production up, she would be terminated.
On August 29, Respondent had its industrial engineer,
VanNess, make a study of the method followed by Conrad
and Mullins for the wrapping operation on the CVT
model . 3° He at first refused to make the study because he
found that Mullins and Conrad were taking what he believed
were unnecessary steps which could not properly be allocated
to the job. It was only after Kinkaid stood over them and
instructed them as to how the job should be done, eliminating
the unnecessary steps, some of which they were apparently
still taking , that VanNess made the methods test and found
that each had produced at the rate of 100 -percent or more
efficiency.
Later the same day, Conrad was called to the office for an
interview with Trinkle and Kinkaid about her production.
Trinkle asked if she were having any problem with the job
which Respondent could help her with. He told her that
during Respondent 's review of her method of working while
the job was being studied , she had exceeded 100-percent effi-
ciency and that he thought that she could do the job She
stated that she was doing the best she could and if that was
not good enough , then she would have to quit . She expressed
surprise when informed that she had made over 100 percent
on the timestudy test . At the hearing Conrad testified that she
believed she had done "sloppy" work in trying to speed up
her production while being timed
On the following day, August 30, after lead girl Hinkle
asked Kinkaid whether she could put another wrapper on the
CVT's because the assembly line was running out of work, he
told her that the present wrappers would just have to get the
work done . Immediately thereafter he went to Conrad's work
station and inquired about how she was doing. When she
informed him that she had wrapped 250, he told her that she
should have wrapped 350.4° She reiterated that she was do-
39 About 6 months prior thereto he had run a test on Conrad's work on
the older model of transformer and found that she was producing at 100-
percent efficiency
40 Since Conrad had produced over 100 percent of Respondent's effi-
ciency standard while being timestudied on the preceding day and Respond-
ent was taking the position that she should be making 100 percent, it is a
fair inference that the 350 figure mentioned by Kinkaid would have been
100-percent efficiency If that be so, the 250 which she had wrapped would
represent 71 percent of Respondent 's production standard-a very substan-
tial improvement over her 38 -percent average during the first 18 days of
August
ing the best she could. Kinkaid told her that she must im-
prove and that he had a line below hers that was running out
of work. As Kinkaid turned and went back to the office,
Conrad started crying and told lead girl Hinkle that she could
not take the pressures she was feeling at the plant as well as
at home any longer and that she was going to the office and
tell Kinkaid that she was quitting . Hinkle tried to calm her
down and dissuade her from quitting but she insisted that due
to her nerves and high blood pressure she feared that working
under the continued pressure would cause a stroke and that
she was going to quit She followed Kinkaid to his office.
She testified that Kinkaid, Trinkle, and Calvin were in the
office when she arrived and gave the following account of
what transpired:
I told them I was doing the best I could , that I was no
super woman , and I felt I had been pushed beyond my
abilities , and I felt I couldn 't meet the high quota they
set for me because of my nerves . I told them I wasn't
quitting , that I would leave it up to them , and Roy
[Kinkaid] said he had to do what he had to do, and he
handed me my check and terminated me.
According to Kinkaid. "She came to the office and stated
that due to her high blood pressure she was extremely nerv-
ous, she just couldn ' t do the job and she was going to quit,"
and that Kinkaid told her "that she would just have to do
what she felt was right for her." She then left the office In
view of Hinkle's uncontroverted testimony that Conrad had
insisted just before following Kinkaid to the office that she
was going to tell Kinkaid that she was quitting, I am per-
suaded, as Kinkaid testified, that she told him that she was
going to quit. It is nevertheless clear that Conrad's quitting
was involuntary and occasioned by the pressures put upon
her, under threat of discharge, to meet production standards
which she felt were impossible for her to meet in view of the
nervous strain she was under.
The question before me is whether Respondent, by insist-
ing Conrad immediately meet the standards which it had set
for her on the new model CVT transformer on which she had
been working only since about August 1, was motivated by
antiunion considerations, as the General Counsel contends,
or solely by business and economic considerations, as Re-
spondent contends.
About August 21, when Kinkaid realized that Conrad and
Mullins were applying to the big CVT certain work move-
ments used on the older model coils but which were unneces-
sary on the new model, he could reasonably have attributed
their low production efficiency to the extra work they were
making for themselves He did, however, on that date give
them instructions about how to eliminate at least some of the
unnecessary steps they were taking. They apparently did not
heed his instructions for, as he and Respondent 's industrial
engineer discovered on August 29, they were then using the
same methods for wrapping on the big CVT which they had
used on the older models. With Kinkaid standing over them,
instructing them , and seeing that they performed as in-
structed, each produced at 100 percent or more of Respon-
dent's standards and Kinkaid could feel assured that they
were capable of meeting the standards and that the standards
were correct. When checking on Conrad's efficiency on the
next day, after being told that the assembly line, which de-
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP.
pended on the wrappers' production, was running out of
work, Kinkaid found that Conrad was producing only about
two-thirds of what he expected of her and told her that she
would have to improve. Conrad, of course, may have had
difficulty in unlearning her old methods and consistently
applying the new and less time-consuming methods so re-
cently taught her. I have no doubt that she was working
under a nervous strain and felt that she was approaching the
breaking point. However, there is no evidence in the record
that Kinkaid knew of her health condition until she told him
when explaining her resignation. I am not persuaded that
Respondent was discriminatorily motivated in accepting her
resignation under the circumstances rather than urging her to
stay at the expense of a possible health hazard. The fact that
Conrad, a union member since about the beginning of the
Union's organizational campaign , and a close associate of the
Union's chief steward, began wearing her union button dur-
ing the last week of her employment are not in and of them-
selves sufficient to establish such a discriminatory motiva-
tion, despite Respondent's open hostility to the Union and the
fact that it was concurrently resisting its obligation to bargain
pursuant to the Board's certification of the Union. Accord-
ingly, I conclude that the General Counsel has not sustained
his burden of proving an antiunion motivation, even if Con-
rad's somewhat involuntary resignation be considered a con-
structive discharge-and I do find it to be a constructive
discharge.
There remains to be considered the General Counsel's fur-
ther contention, treated next, that even if Conrad's termina-
tion is not found to be a violation of Section 8(a)(3) of the Act,
that it must be found to be an element of Respondent's 8(1)(5)
violation.
(4) The General Counsel's contention that Respondent's
unilaterally imposed program of policing its employees'
efficiency, constituted an unlawful refusal to bargain, an
appropriate remedy for which would be a requirement
that Respondent reinstate , with backpay, the employees
terminated pursuant to this program and bargain about
their situations
Let us now consider the General Counsel's further conten-
tion that even if discriminatory motivation is not proven as
to Conrad's termination, her constructive discharge was so
much a part of and interwoven with Respondent's unlawful
refusal to bargain with the Union, that Respondent should be
required to reinstate her, with backpay, and bargain about the
newly announced program of policing the efficiency of in-
dividuals, in order to remedy Respondent's unlawful refusal
to bargain. I find merit in this contention.41
As already pointed out, Respondent's corporate personnel
manager , Calvin, had instructed then Plant Manager Dunker
as early as November 1972, before the advent of the Union,
to make a serious effort to improve production as well as
attendance by discussing these matters with offenders in an
effort to help them. He told Dunker at that time that "it
might become necessary to replace some operators who were
not performing at a satisfactory level and/or whose attend-
ance is poor." These instructions to local plant management
41 The General Counsel makes the same argument with respect to Boyer
and Clinton and the same principles are, of course , applicable to them.
567
were, however, apparently never communicated to the em-
ployees and although local plant management did from time
to time talk to individual employees as well as to groups of
employees in an attempt to increase production, there is no
evidence of overt threats of discharge for low production,
and, indeed, no evidence that any employee was ever dis-
charged for that reason prior to the program announced by
Trinkle on August 17, to police the efficiency of individual
employees. Calvin conceded that while he was acting plant
manager; he never mentioned possible discharge or a discipli-
nary layoff to the individuals to whom he talked about their
production. Kinkaid, whom Calvin trained as the new plant
manager, was, prior to Trinkle's announced Company policy,
so reluctant about pursuing a tough production policy that he
did not even make written notations for the files of those to
whom he talked about their production problems.
Vice President Trinkle admittedly had never injected him-
self personally into direct contacts with individual employees
prior to August 17. Any discussions about disciplining em-
ployees in connection with production problems had been
confined to discussions with local plant management. Trink-
le's announcement to the employees on August 17, reaffirmed
in President Boyd's letter of August 23 to the employees, that
Respondent was starting an active program of policing the
efficiency of individual employees and discharging those who
did not bring their efficiency up to Respondent's satisfaction
was a new policy insofar as the employees could discern and,
indeed, was at least a hitherto unenforced policy insofar as
management was concerned. The sudden imposition of such
a stringent disciplinary procedure was clearly a change in the
working conditions of Respondent's employees and was a
matter concerning which the employees had a right to have
their union represent them. It may well be, as President Boyd
stated in his letter of August 23 to the employees, that the
decision to institute this policing program had nothing to do
with the union organizational activities or whether the Union
represented them, but this was a subject about which Re-
spondent was required to bargain with the Union. The Union
had been certified on July 31, as the employees' bargaining
representative and had requested certain information regard-
ing the employees' conditions of employment preparatory to
arranging a bargaining conference and had requested this
information by August 15. Respondent had replied on Au-
gust 21, that it would not furnish the requested information
or otherwise recognize or bargain with the Union, whose
certification it was contesting.
The questions which might well have arisen and been re-
solved concerning this program and Respondent's action un-
der it are illustrated by certain contentions made by the Gen-
eral Counsel in his brief regarding the circumstances under
which Boyer, Clinton and Conrad were terminated. He as-
serts, e.g., that Respondent's methods and practices for tabu-
lating the employees' efficiency are unreliable but even if the
records be accurate, numerous factors over which the em-
ployees had no control explain a diminution in production.
Among these factors were ( 1) numerous transfers of em-
ployees from one job to another during the summer of 1973,
with a resulting drop in productivity, both collectively and
individually, while employees became adjusted to and profi-
cient in their new assignments or while they readjusted to
their former jobs when returned to them; (2) Respondent's
568 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
unfamiliarity with appropriate production standards for the
new big CVT model, resulting in unrealistic and unreachable
standards, (3) the fact that production cards, on the basis of
which Respondent determined individual productivity could
be and often were inaccurate ; (4) the fact that workers and
machinery stood idle because lost trucks full of materials
failed to arrive at the plant and the fact that at times produc-
tion was slowed down by defective machinery ; and (5) the
fact that there were changes in the job requirements which
required older employees to unlearn older methods and learn
new methods which were taught the employees more recently
hired . 42 Except where necessary to consider the 8(a)(3) alle-
gations of the complaint , I have not sought to analyze and
draw conclusions regarding these factors pointed out by the
General Counsel. Those are matters about which the Union
may wish to bargain with the Respondent in connection with
the information requested in its letter of August 28 to Re-
spondent.
Respondent having acted unilaterally and refused to bar-
gain about its stringent production efficiency program, in
violation of Section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act, Conrad, as an
individual , was deprived of her right to have the Union repre-
sent her. Respondent 's application of its new production pro-
gram to her was one of the respects in which Respondent
failed and refused to bargain , in violation of Section 8(a)(5)
of the Act. In order to remedy this unlawful refusal to bar-
gain , Respondent must insofar as possible restore the status
quo ante to1Conrad by offering her reinstatement , with back-
pay, and bargain with the Union about Respondent's new
efficiency program and its application to Conrad and other
employees. Fibreboard Paper Products v N.L.R.B., 379 U.S.
203, 215-217 (1964), Amoco Chemicals Corporation, 211
NLRB 84 (1974); Frontier Homes Corporation, 153 NLRB
1070, 1072-73 (1965), enfd. 371 F.2d 974 (C.A. 8, 1967),
Wilkinson Manufacturing Co, 187 NLRB 791, 796 (1971),
modified on other grounds 456 F.2d 298 (C A. 8, 1972); The
Dalf Corporation, d/b/a Hoffman Bros., 188 NLRB 319, 324
(1971).
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. By coercively interrogating employees regarding their
knowledge of union activities , the union sympathies and ac-
tivities of fellow employees , and what went on at union meet-
ings; soliciting or requesting employees to find out the union
or company sympathies of employees and documenting the
information so obtained to categorize its employees as pro-
union or procompany; by requesting an employee to attend a
union meeting and ask questions posed by a management
representative; by soliciting employees to report the identity
of employees making derogatory remarks about management
representatives ; by requesting an employee to assist in the
circulation of a petition to obtain employee withdrawal of
their union cards; by threatening plant closure or removal,
the discharge of union supporters and other forms of reprisal
against employees should they select the Union to represent
them ; by threatening that an employee would not be rehired
42 Respondent adduced evidence that several new employees , trained and
assisted in using the most efficient methods , made phenomenal production
records, far in excess of progress Respondent normally expects of new
employees
unless she withdrew from the Union and promised to vote
against the Union in the election ; and by seeking , after the
election , to create the impression that the plant was in the
process of closing down because of the union victory at the
polls; Respondent has interfered with , restrained , and co-
erced its employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed
under Section 7 of the Act, in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of
the Act.
2. By discriminating in regard to the hire and tenure of
employment of employees Becky Boyer and Margaret Clin-
ton because of their union sympathies and activities , thereby
discouraging membership in the Union , Respondent has en-
gaged in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of Sec-
tion 8 (a)(3) and ( 1) of the Act.
3. By constructively discharging employee Rose Conrad in
connection with the enforcement of a unilaterally promul-
gated program of policing its employees ' production effi-
ciency, in violation of its obligation to bargain with the em-
ployees' certified bargaining representative about the
promulgation and enforcement of such program , Respondent
has engaged in an unfair labor practice within the meaning
of Section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act.
4. The aforesaid unfair labor practices affect commerce
within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
5. A preponderance of the credible evidence does not show
that Respondent violated the statute by discharging or other-
wise discriminating against employees Ethel Brown, Alma
Powers, Rhema Mullins , or Ruby McDonald , or by engaging
in any other alleged unfair labor practices not specifically
found herein.
THE REMEDY
It having been found that Respondent has engaged in un-
fair labor practices in violation of Section 8(a)(1), (3), and (5)
of the Act, my recommended Order will require that Re-
spondent cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirma-
tive action necessary to effectuate the policies of the Act.
To remedy the discriminatory discharges of Becky Boyer
and Margaret Clinton , in violation of Section 8(a)(3) and (1)
of the Act, and the discharge of Rose Conrad as a result of
applying to her Respondent 's unilaterally promulgated pro-
duction efficiency program, in violation of Section 8(a)(5) and
(1) of the Act, Respondent will be required to offer each of
these employees immediate and full reinstatement , without
prejudice to her seniority and other rights and privileges, and
make each whole for any loss of earnings she may have suf-
fered by reason of her discharge, with backpay computed on
a quarterly basis, plus interest at 6 percent per annum, as
prescribed in F W. Woolworth Company, 90 NLRB 289
(1950), and Isis Plumbing & Heating Co., 138 NLRB 716
(1962).
Since in my initial decision in this case, issued on February
11, 1974, and adopted by the Board on April 30, 1974 (210
NLRB 462 ), Respondent was ordered to bargain with the
Union , upon request , a broad bargaining order in this supple-
mental decision will not be necessary . However , inasmuch as
I have found herein that Rose Conrad 's constructive dis-
charge resulted from and was a part of Respondent 's unlaw-
ful refusal to bargain by unilaterally promulgating and apply-
ing to Conrad and other employees a stringent new
WABASH TRANSFORMER CORP. 569
production efficiency program, a specific bargaining order,
limited to this feature of Respondent's refusal to bargain, is
appropriate as an added remedial measure
Upon the foregoing findings of fact and conclusions of law,
upon the entire record, and pursuant to Section 10(c) of the
Act, there is hereby issued the following recommended.
ORDER 41
Wabash Transformer Corp., Subsidiary of Wabash Mag-
netics, Inc , its officers , agents, successors , and assigns, shall-
1 Cease and desist from:
(a) Coercively interrogating employees regarding their
knowledge of union activities , regarding the union sympa-
thies or activities of fellow employees , or regarding what goes
on at union meetings
(b) Soliciting or requesting employees to find out and re-
port back to management the union or company sympathies
of fellow employees and/or documenting the information
obtained to categorize its employees as prounion or procom-
pany employees.
(c) Requesting any employee to attend a union meeting and
ask questions posed by management representatives
(d) Soliciting employees to report the identity of employees
making derogatory remarks about management representa-
tives.
(e) Requesting any employee to assist in the circulation of
a petition to obtain employees ' withdrawal of their union
cards.
(f) Threatening plant closure or removal , the discharge of
union supporters , or other forms of reprisal against em-
ployees should they select the Union to represent them
(g) Threatening not to rehire any employee unless she with-
draws from Communications Workers of America,
AFL-CIO, or promises to vote against said labor organiza-
tion in an election.
(h) Seeking to create the impression that the plant is in the
process of closing down because the employees have selected
the Union to represent them.
(i) Discharging or otherwise discriminating in regard to the
hire or tenure of employment of employees because of their
union sympathies or activities
(l) Unilaterally, without consultation with the Union, pro-
mulgating and applying a new program of-policing the pro-
duction efficiency of its employees.
(k) In any other manner interfering with, restraining, or
coercing employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed
under Section 7 of the Act.
2. Take the following affirmative action necessary to effec-
tuate the policies of the Act.
(a) Offer Becky Boyer, Margaret Clinton, and Rose Con-
rad reinstatement to their former jobs, or, if such jobs no
longer exist, to a substantially equivalent position, without
prejudice to their seniority and other nghts and privileges,
and make each whole in the manner set forth in the section
of this Decision entitled "The Remedy "
(b) Upon request, bargain collectively with Communica-
tions Workers of America, AFL-CIO, about the promulga-
tion of any new program of policing the production efficiency
of its employees, including the program first announced to its
employees on August 17, 1973, and the application of such
a program to Rose Conrad and other employees in the bar-
gaining unit
(c) Preserve and, upon request, make available to the
Board or its agents, for examination and copying, all payroll
records, social security payment records, timecards, person-
nel records, and reports, and all other records necessary to
analyze the amount of backpay due under the terms of this
Order
(d) Post at its Farmington, Missouri, plant copies of the
attached notice marked "Appendix "44 Copies of the notice
on forms provided by the Regional Director for Region 14,
after being duly signed by an authorized representative of
Respondent, shall be posted by Respondent immediately
upon receipt thereof, and be maintained for 60 consecutive
days thereafter, in conspicuous places, including all places
where notices to employees are customarily posted Reason-
able steps shall be taken by Respondent to insure that the
notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other
material.
(e) Notify the Regional Director for Region 14, in writing,
within 20 days from the date of this Order, what steps Re-
spondent has taken to comply herewith.
IT IS ALSO ORDERED that the complaint be dismissed insofar
as it alleges unfair labor practices not herein found.
43 In the event no exceptions are filed as provided by Sec 102 46 of the
Rules and Regulations of the National Labor Relations Board, the findings,
conclusions, and recommended Order herein shall, as provided in Sec
102 48 of the Rules and Regulations, be adopted by the Board and become
its findings, conclusions, and order, and all objections thereto shall be
deemed waived for all purposes
"" In the event that the Board's Order is enforced by a Judgment of a
United States Court of Appeals, the words in the notice reading "Posted by
Order of the National Labor Relations Board" shall be changed to read
"Posted Pursuant to a Judgment of the United States Court of Appeals
Enforcing an Order of the National Labor Relations Board "