Natona Mills, Inc.

236 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 6. The Respondent has not committed the following unfair labor practices alleged in the complaint : (a) Interrogation of employees as to union affiliations ; (b) threats and warnings to employees to refrain from assisting , becoming, or remaining mem- bers of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, CIO; (c) threats and warnings to employees to assist , become, or remain members of the Advisory Council; and (d) keeping under surveillance the concerted activities of employees. [Recommendations omitted from publication.] Natona Mills, Inc. and United Textile Workers of America, AFL, Petitioner. Case No. 4-RC-2595. April 18, 1955 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Thomas J. Walsh, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em- ployees of the Employer.' 3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen- tation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. The Intervenor has been the recognized bargaining representative of the employees involved herein. Its collective-bargaining agree- ment with the Employer, executed on March 3, 1953, was opened' by timely notice given by the Employer on October 26, 1954. Negotia- tion meetings were held in November and December 1954 and Janu- ary 1955, and final agreement was reached on January 12, 1955.3 Thereafter, the terms of the agreement were presented to the union membership by its branch president, Patrick, at a regular meeting on January 14, 1955, and approved unanimously. Plant Manager Weis- ler, for the Employer, received verbally official notification of the ap- proval on January 17 and proceeded to have the agreement prepared in written form.' The rate of pay increase covered by the agreement i Branch A-23, Lever Auxiliary Section of the Amalgamated Lace Operatives of America, herein called the Intervenor , was permitted to intervene at the bearing on the basis of a contractual interest. 2 This contract, effective until December 31, 1954, and automatically renewable there- after from year to year, contained an annual 60-day reopening clause. 8 Representing the Intervenor at the various negotiation meetings were Branch Presi- dent Patrick who attended all such meetings , Section President Winogrodzki who attended all but the first one, and various committee members who attended from a few to all meet- ings For the Employer , and present at all meetings, were Plant Manager Weisler together with the director of research and development and a vice president. 4 The fact of ratification by the membership first came to the attention of Weisler by means of a newspaper article published on January 15, 1955. 112 NLRB No. 36. NATONA MILLS, INC. 237 was put into effect and applied to the current period on January 24, 1955. On January 25 Weisler received the written copies of the agree- ment from the main office and called Patrick to his office where Pat- rick looked over the written contract and indicated it was in accord with their final agreement of January 12. Patrick suggested, how- ever, that the signing take place on Friday, January 28, when a sched- uled grievance meeting under the agreement was to take places be- cause the section president and several committee members were not then available. At the grievance meeting on January 28 Patrick indicated his desire that the contract be signed by all committee mem- bers at the same time and, since several members were still unavail- able, he preferred to postpone signing until Monday, January 31, 1955. This was agreed upon. At this time Patrick was given a copy of the written contract and he and the two committee members pres- ent again looked over the agreement whereupon Patrick stated that the papers were in accord with their understanding and "that sign- ing was merely a formality." About mid-morning on Monday, January 31, 1955, Section Presi- dent Winogrodzki called upon Weisler to take care of the complaint that Patrick was delaying the signing of the agreements During their conversation a Board agent called and informed Weisler that the instant petition had been filed that morning. Thereafter, shortly before noon, both Weisler and Winogrodzki signed the contract re- dating it from January 28 to January 31, 1955. That afternoon Pat- rick and several committee members came to Weisler's office at which time Patrick again stated that the contract was in accord with their understanding, but that they would not sign because they did not want the contract to bar an election.' On February 1, 1955, Weisler received the Petitioner's written demand for recognition and a copy 5 The new agreement continued in effect the terms of the old contract except for the pay increase and one other statement of understanding. OWinogrodzki worked a late shift at this plant of the Employer and Patrick had told him as he was leaving the plant on the morning of January 28 that he might be called in to sign the contract that day He had received no further word from Patrick and was not otherwise in touch with what had been occurring Although Patrick denied that lie told anyone he would make all the arrangements for the signing of the contract, by his official position in the branch and his conduct, he had led the other officials of both parties to believe that lie as doing so On Monday moining, between 8 and 8 15, as Weisler was arriving at the plant parking lot he noticed Patiick leaving the lot Weisler attempted unsuccessfully to hail Patrick in order to asceif aun what ai rangements had been made for signing the agreement Patrick waved and drove away After allowing sufficient time for Patrick to arrive home, weisler attempted to reach hun by telephone but was told it was not known where he could be reached that day Thereupon Weisler contacted Section President Winogrodzkr at the latter 's home around 9 a in Thus, as a result of weisler's call, and his expressions of annoyance with the delay in signing the contract, Winogrodzki cane to Weisler's office to rectify matters and to have the contract signed 7 Patrick testified that lie had been active on January 28, and at other tines between then and January 31, 1955 , obtaining signatures on authorization cards for the Petitioner. 238 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD of the petition.' On February 11, the Intervenor elected new officers and on February 13 the new committee members signed the contract. The Employer and the Intervenor urge this contract as a bar to the instant proceeding, relying upon the Board's decision in the Oswego Falls case.9 In further support of their position they contend that the circumstances in this case warrant the exercise of the Board's discretion in applying its administratively established contract-bar rules to prevent abuse of its processes or subversion of the purposes of the Act by the use of technicalities.10 The Petitioner relies upon the undisputed fact that the contract had not actually been signed at the time the petition was filed and the Board agent transmitted such information to the Employer.ll We note, from the foregoing and the entire record, that the Inter- venor, as the representative of the employees, and the Employer had bargained regularly through several months of long and arduous negotiations, averting strikes permissible at that time, and had reached complete agreement almost 3 weeks before the petition was filed. Additionally, this agreement had been ratified by the employees and this fact communicated to the Employer more than 2 weeks before the advent of the rival claim; the language of the drafted document had been approved by the president of the Intervenor, and a date set for affixing the signatures, almost a week earlier. Moreover, the new wage rates were put into effect before the written document was re- ceived and the parties had scheduled a grievance meeting. Thus, it is clear that the parties regarded themselves bound by the agreement and considered the signing of the contract as a formality to be accom- plished at their earliest mutual convenience. Indeed, it would appear that the contract would have been signed as scheduled on January 28, before the rival petition or claim, but for certain delaying tactics engaged in by the branch president whose admissions show that he was not acting in the interest of the parties to the agreement. 8 That same day several committee members indicated to Weisler that they and some other committee members wanted to sign the contract and requested an opportunity to persuade others to sign, but the committee did not return to Weisler's office at the ap- pointed time In this connection , other testimony indicates that a schism proposal was rejected by the membership before ratification of the agreement The Petitioner herein disclaims a schism On February 3, Patrick and several committee members, who were received by Weisler at their request, indicated they would sign if Weisler would consent to an election At this time Patrick characterized the situation as "a factual dispute in which the Company was in the middle " At another such conference on February 7, 1055, Patrick requested recognition from Weisler as representative of the Petitioner Both re- quests made by Patrick were refused by Weisler 9 Oswego Palls Corp , 110 NLRB 621. 101n this connection the Employer asks the Board to regard as an important considera- tion the fact that the signing of the contract was delayed only by the deception worked upon both parties thereto by an individual whose position presented him with the oppor- tunity to do so. 11 We find no merit to the additional argument advanced by the Petitioner that the con- tiact had not yet been executed because the committee members who signed it were not the persons vvho participated in the negotiations CLINTON FOODS, INC. 239 In applying its contract-bar rules the Board is primarily concerned with whether the contract imparts to the relationship of the parties a degree of stability which outweighs the right of the employees to a redetermination of bargaining representatives at that particular time.13 In the Oswego Falls case," the Board weighed these factors and resolved them in favor of stability and there found the contract, although not formally signed until the petition was filed, to be a bar. The circumstances in this case present an even more persuasive basis for such a finding here. Thus, throughout the previous contract period and the difficult period of negotiations which followed, when they could have expressed their desire for a change of representative, the employees continued with their current bargaining agent. In- deed, at the conclusion of negotiations, they ratified what had been accomplished by that representative on their behalf. The resultant agreement had been put into effect and the language of the written contract approved. All that remained was the ministerial act of placing signatures upon the agreed document, which was deliber- ately delayed by the branch president for reasons totally unrelated to any disagreement between the parties as to the terms or content of their contract. In view of the foregoing we do not believe that stabil- ity envisioned by the Act would be served by a redetermination of employee representatives at this time. Accordingly, we find that the current contract of the Employer and Intervenor is a bar to this proceeding and we shall therefore dismiss the petition herein. [The Board dismissed the petition.] MEMBERS RODGERS and LEFDOM took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Order. 'a See Nash-Kelv,nator Corporat ion, Body Plant #6, 110 NLRB 447 Footnote 9, supra Clinton Foods, Inc. and Local 514, International Chemical Work- ers Union, AFL. Case No. 10-CA-1707. April 19, 1955 DECISION AND ORDER On August 13, 1954, Trial Examiner Sidney Lindner issued his In- termediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the Respondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor practices and recommending that the Respondent cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy of the Intermediate Report attached hereto. The Trial Examiner also found that the Respondent had not engaged in certain other alleged unfair labor practices and recommended that the complaint be dis- missed with respect thereto. Thereafter, the Respondent and the 112 NLRB No. 37.