West Point Manufacturing Co.

448 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD West Point Manufacturing Company (Lanett Mill) and Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO.' Case No. 10-CA-,0284. February 17, 1956 DECISION AND ORDER On October 31, 1955, Trial Examiner Stephen S. Bean issued his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding in which he dis- missed some allegations of the complaint and sustained others. To the extent here pertinent,2 he found that the Respondent had engaged in certain unfair labor practices and recommended that it cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy of the Intermediate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Respond- ent filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and a supporting brief. The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The rulings are hereby. affirmed. The Board has considered the Intermedi- ate Report, the exceptions and the brief, and the entire record in this case, and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recommenda- tions of the Trial Examiner, with the corrections and additions noted .below.' 'The AFL and CIO having merged, we are showing the affiliation of the Union accord- ingly 3 As no exceptions were filed to the findings dismissing certain portions of the com- plaint, such findings are hereby adopted pro forma. 3In section III, A, fifth paragraph, of the Intermediate Report, the Trial Examiner states that Haynes made certain comments with respect to union organizational efforts at a "special meeting of all supervisors." The record shows that, according to the testi- mony of Holly, Haynes made comments along the line referred to by the Trial Examiner at a special meeting of "secondhands " The Respondent's brief asserts that such meeting was confined to the secondhands and/or other supervisors in the spinning department. This assertion may well represent the fact, inasmuch as there is testimony by other super- visors that they had,no knowledge of the meeting referred to by Holly The record also shows, however, that regular weekly meetings of overseers were conducted , that Plant Manager Williams advised' overseers either individually or at one or more such weekly meetings of the Union's organizational efforts , and that overseers, in turn, transmitted to lesser supervisors (such as secondhands) the information and instructions imparted to them by Williams. While we correct the Intermediate Report in the respect above noted, we sustain the Trial Examiner's implicit finding that the Respondent wasaware of the Union's organizational efforts and of its employees' interest in'the same in Feb- .ruary, and that the Respondent's higher management officials so advised its lesser super- visors and gave the latter certain instructions as to how to cope with the situation. In section III, B, 1, second paragraph, of the Intermediate Report, the Trial Examiner 'inadvertently attributed to employee Russell Lawhon, the testimony given by employee George Stahlmgs as to interrogation by Secondhand Horace Knight. As Stahlings' testi- mony on this point is undisputed, we find that Knight asked Stahlings within 3 or 4 weeks after he had joined the Union if he had signed an application card. , Employee Russell Lawhon's testimony was that about 3 weeks after he had' joined the Union, Supervisor Roland Thompson asked him, in the presence of Supervisor Bill Smith, whether he (Lawhon) "had been' out to . . . the Union meeting," and that when Law- lion admitted he had been there, Thompson further asked him whether "there was a very big crowd out there " Although Thompson denied acts of interrogation in categorical terms, the Trial Examiner, in discussing Thompson's denial in connection with the testi- mony of other employees attributing interrogation to Thompson, did not find this4denial 115 NLRB No. 80. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 449, ORDER Upon the entire record in this case, and pursuant to Section 10 (c). of the National Labor Relations Act, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders that the Respondent, West Point Manufacturing Company (Lanett Mill), its. officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall : 1. Cease and desist from : (a) Discouraging membership in Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, or any other labor organization of its employees, by discriminatorily discharging or refusing to reinstate any of its employees or by otherwise discriminating in regard to their tenure or conditions of employment because of their membership in, or activ- ities on behalf of, any such labor organization. (b) Interrogating its employees concerning their union member- ship, sympathies, or activities, asking or inducing employees to re- voke their union-memberships and to request the return of their union authorizations, threatening employees with reprisal because of their union membership, sympathies, or activities, promising employees benefits on condition of their withdrawal of union membership or discontinuance of union activities, and threatening employees with the closing of its plant because of their concerted activities. (c) In any manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of their right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, or any other labor organization, to bargain collectively through represent- atives of their own choosing, to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other- mutual aid or protection, or in the exercise of their equal right to refrain from any or all such credible We therefore credit Lawhon's testimony and find that Thompson Interrogated Lawhon with reference to his attendance at a union meeting. Although we adopt the Trial Examiner's substantive determination, as to Elizabeth Danford, we note that the Trial Examiner refers to the fact that Danford's personnel file contains notations such as "rated-Excellent " Examination of the files discloses that such a notation with reference to Danford's capabilities as a worker was made'in 1945, and that more recent "excellent" notations had reference to her physical condition. We make no finding, therefore, that Danford was rated as an "Excellent" worker as of, or near, the date of her discharge. We note further, however, that Danford's separation form describes her performance as "average" in all the factors used by the Company in rating its employees, including her "get-along ability" with supervisors and fellow employees, her production, and her "interest in job " Such form also states that the Company "would consider" her for reemployment. We also note that such written reprimands as do appear in her file coincide, in time, with the beginning of union organizational activity in the plant We do not consider the foregoing as affecting the validity of the Trial Ex- aminer's conclusion as to the discriminatory nature of Danford's discharge. Likewise, in view of certain written reprimand records appearing in the personnel file of Benjamin Stone, we do not adopt the Trial Examiner's statement that Stone held the position of loom fixer "with no recorded indication of dissatisfaction until the time he was separated." We are 'nevertheless persuaded', as was the Trial Examiner, that Stone's ,discharge was discriminatory: We note, in this connection, that the only reprimand re- corded as to "Stone's "reading of newspapers" Is dated March 7, two days after Stone joined the Union, and was interrogated about his activity by Supervisor Thompson. 390609-68-vol. 115-30 450 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD activities, except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condi- tion of employment, as authorized in Section 8 (a) (3) of the Act. - 2. Take the following affirmative action which the Board finds will effectuate the policies of the Act : (a) Offer to Elizabeth Danford, Benjamin F. Stone, Elvin Smith, John F. Cole, James T. Simms, James C. Reed, Herman Crowder, and Genelle Tankersley immediate and full reinstatement to their former or substantially equivalent positions and make each of them whole for any loss of pay they may have suffered by reason of Re- spondent's discrimination against them in the manner set forth in the section of the Intermediate Report entitled "The Remedy." (b) Preserve and make available to the Board or its agents upon request, for examination and copying, all payroll records, social- security payment records, timecards, personnel records and reports, and all other records necessary to analyze the amount of back pay due and the rights of employment under the terms of this Order. (c) Post at its plant in Langdale, Alabama, copies of the notice attached hereto and marked "Appendix." a Copies of such notice, to be furnished by the Regional Director for the Tenth Region, shall, after being duly signed by the Respondent's representative, be posted by the Respondent immediately upon receipt thereof and be main- tained by it for sixty (60) consecutive days thereafter in conspicu- ous places, including all places where notices to employees are cus- tomarily posted. Reasonable steps shall be taken by the Respondent to insure that said notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other material. (d) Notify the Regional Director for the Tenth Region in writing, within ten (10) days from the date of this Order, what steps the Respondent has taken to comply therewith. The Board further orders that the complaint be dismissed insofar as it relates to Joe W. Lynn, Johnny M. Reeves, Jimmie H. White, and Gladys H. Smith. MEMBER BEAN took no part in the consideration of the above De- cision and Order. + In the event that this Order is enforced by a decree of a United States Court of Appeals, there shall be substituted for the words "Pursuant to a Decision and Order" the words "Pursuant to a Decree of the United States Court of Appeals, Enforcing an Order." APPENDIX A NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES Pursuant to a Decision and Order of the National Labor Relations Board, and in order to effectuate the policies of the National Labor Relations Act, we hereby notify our employees that : WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 451 WE WILL NOT discourage the membership of any of our em- ployees in Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, or any other labor organization , by discriminating in any manner in re- gard to the hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment of any of them. WE WILL offer to Elizabeth Danford, Benjamin F. Stone, Elvin Smith, John F. Cole, James T. Simms, James C. Reed, Herman Crowder, and Genelle Tankersley immediate and full reinstate- ment to their former or substantially equivalent positions without prejudice to their- seniority or other rights and privileges, and make each of them whole for any loss of pay suffered as a result of our discrimination against such employees. WE WILL NOT engage or attempt to engage in interrogating our employees concerning their union membership, sympathies, or activities, asking or inducing them to revoke their union member- ships, threatening them with reprisal because of their union mem- bership, sympathies, or activities or with the closing of our plant because of their concerted activities, or in promising them benefits on condition of their withdrawal of union membership or dis- continuance of union activities, or in any other manner interfere with or coerce them in the exercise of their right to self-organiza- tion, to form labor organizations, to join or assist Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and to refrain from any or all of such activities, except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agree- ment requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment, as authorized in Section 8 (a) (3) of the Act. WE WILL offer to the following -named employees immediate and full reinstatement to their former or substantially equivalent positions without prejudice to any of the rights and privileges they formerly enjoyed and make them whole for any loss of pay suffered as a result of the discrimination against them : Elizabeth Danford James T. Simms Benjamin F . Stone James C. Reed Elvin Smith Herman Crowder John F. Cole Genelle G. Tankersley All our employees are free to become or remain members of Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, or any. other labor organiza- tion, or to refrain from so doing except to the extent that this right 452 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD may be affected by an agreement in conformity with Section 8 (a) (3) of the Act. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY (LANETr MILL), Employer. Dated- --------------- By------------------------------------- (Representative ) (Title) This notice must remain posted for 60 days from the date hereof, and must not be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material. INTERMEDIATE REPORT AND RECOMMENDED ORDER STATEMENT OF THE CASE Upon a charge and an amended charge duly filed by Textile Workers Union of America, CIO, herein called the Union, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, herein called respectively the General Counsel and Board, through the Regional Director for the Tenth Region (Atlanta, Georgia), issued a complaint dated June 8, 1955, against West Point Manufacturing Company (Lanett Mill), herein called Respondent, alleging that Respondent has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices affecting commerce within the meaning of Section 8 (a) (1) and (3) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, .61 Stat. 136, herein called the Act. Copies of the charges and the complaint were duly served upon Respondent and the Union. With respect to the unfair labor practices, the complaint alleged in substance that on certain stated dates in violation of Section 8 (a) (3) and (1) of the Act Respond- ent discharged 12 named persons 1 because of their membership in and activities on .behalf of the Union and because of their engagement in concerted activities. The/ complaint further alleged that in violation of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act, Respond- ent interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the exercise of the-rights 'guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act by: (a) Interrogating its employees as to their membership in, sympathies for, and activities on behalf of the Union; (b). asking -and inducing its employees to revoke their memberships in the Union and by asking and inducing them to make written requests directed to the Union for the return of written authorizations which they had previously filed for the Union; (c) threatening its employees with economic reprisals because of their membership in, sympathies for,,and activities on behalf of the Union; (d) promising economic benefits to its em- ployees on the condition that they withdraw from membership in the Union and dis- continue their activities in its behalf; and (e) threatening employees that it would close its plant because of their concerted activities. Respondent duly filed an answer in which it admitted certain of the allegations but denied the commission of any unfair labor practices. Pursuant to due notice, a hearing was held at La Grange, Georgia, on August 1, 2, 3, and 4, 1955, before the duly designated. Trial Examiner, at.which the testimony of 74 witnesses was taken and 40 exhibits, varying in length from 1 to 44 longhand, typed, or printed pages of material, were received. The General Counsel and Re- spondent were represented by counsel" whose skill built a tight record. The assist- ant to its southern director appeared for the Union but did not participate in the in- terrogation of witnesses. Full opportunity was afforded all parties to be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, to introduce evidence, and to argue and file briefs. Due to delay in receipt of the transcript of evidence, briefs were not received from the General Counsel and Respondent until October 3. At the conclusion of the General Counsel's case-in-chief, Respondent moved to dismiss the complaint insofar as it alleged that Respondent had discriminated against Joe W. Lynn, Jimmie H. White, and Gladys H. Smith, none of whom testified at the hearing. , The General Counsel made, and I granted , a motion for the dismissal of I Elizabeth Danford John F. Cole James T Simms Benjamin F. Stone Johnny M. Reeves James C. Reed Joe W. Lynn Jimmie H. White Herman Crowder Elvin Smith Gladys H. Smith Genelle Tankersley WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 453 the allegations insofar as they referred to Lynn. I denied the motion to dismiss as to White and Smith, reserving the right of Respondent to renew it at the conclusion of the hearing. The motion was then renewed. It is now granted since it does not appear to me that on the record taken as a whole there is sufficient substantial evi- dence to warrant the conclusion that White and. Smith were discriminated against as alleged.2 Upon the entire record in the case, and from my observation of the witnesses, I make the following: FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OPERATIONS OF RESPONDENT West Point Manufacturing Company is ' and has been at all times material a corpora- tion duly organized and existing under the laws of the State of Alabama with its prin- cipal office and place of business at Langdale, Alabama, where in the usual and regu- lar course of its business of manufacturing textiles it annually sells and ships products of value in excess of $500,000 directly to its customers located outside the State. It is admitted and I find that Respondent is engaged in commerce within the mean- ing of the Act. II. THE LABOR ORGANIZATION INVOLVED It is admitted and I find that Textile Workers Union of America, CIO, is a labor organization admitting to membership employees of Respondent. III. THE ALLEGED UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES A. The campaigns for and against the Union Following an invitation extended late in February 1955 by employee Phillip Kelly, who was to become what Overseer J. W. Haymes characterized as "the ramroad [sic] of the Union," J. L. Smith, an organizer for the Union, came to Langdale where he remained about a week talking to employees individually and at a meeting at Kelly's home on March 1 attended by approximately 25 of them on the subject of organizing a union at Respondent's Lanett Mill where some 2,500 workers were employed. A second meeting , addressed by Ken Cramer , an assistant director of the Union, was held on March 5 at the Triple K. Hall. This meeting resulted in the formation of an "organizing committee" consisting of 46 employees of which group Kelly was elected chairman on March 8. A letter which had been drawn up at the March 5 meeting, but which bears the date March 11 and which was signed by the 46 employees, was forwarded to Respondent's president. This communication asserted a right to bargain collectively, pledged that the committee would conduct an organizing campaign on a high plane, and expressed the hope that Respondent would cooperate in avoiding discrimination , coercion, or intimidation in order that employees might be free democratically to decide for or against unionization without fear , confusion, and ill feeling. Previous to the date of this letter, Respondent had posted, the day of the night the first of its signatories was discharged on March 10 , a notice that employees engaging in solicitation for memberships or any other purpose while they or the employee solicited should be at work within the plant, would be subject to disciplinary action and/or discharge. Respondent's officials quite obviously were aware of the organizational effort some- time before the date appearing on the committee's letter. It is unlikely that the no- t At the hearing, discussion concerning the introduction into evidence of White's and Smith's personnel files took place It was agreed that a period of 10 days, until August 14, be reserved within which counsel could determine whether or not they might be offered. Nothing having been heard from counsel, these records are not in evidence The only admitted evidence concerning White is that in company with a number of. employees he signed a letter to Respondent's president (to be considered infra) indicating he was a member of the Union's organizing committee and that Foreman Harold Peek does not recall talking with White about the Union. The evidence directly related to Smith is that Phillip Kelly, employee and union leader, thought her name was mentioned by Mill Man- ager Frank Williams, did not remember agreeing or disagreeing that she was discharged for inability to run her job, remembered saying that she was the only one that had been fired In No 1 spinning department, and considered her a fair worker on a job upon which she had no more difficulty than other weavers at times, and that Overseer J. W. Haymes knew she was one of several helping Kelly organize the employees and a signer of the letter to Respondent's president indicating that she was a member of the organizing committee. 454 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD solicitation notice would have been posted had not Respondent learned before March 10 that union memberships were being solicited in the plant. The Union had sent out, to both supervisors and employees, a pamphlet entitled "Peace to Better Living" before the time in February when Kelly wrote to its Charlotte office requesting more information. Employee Benjamin F. Stone became active in the Union around March 5 and distributed 50 or 60 union membership applications in the plant. Immediately thereafter, in response to an inquiry by Roland Thompson, a secondhand, Stone stated he had procured signatures on applications and was going to get more. Em- ployee James T. Simms started giving out applications on March 5 and had distributed about 20 before the no-solicitation notice was posted. Employee Elizabeth Danford procured 15 or 16 signatures and gave out about 30 or 40 application cards in the plant before March 10. Employee Elvin H. Smith was also active procuring signa- tures in the plant before the notice was posted. From the testimony of several management representatives including Secondhand Lavell Holly, Secondhand Ranson L. Gaylor, Overseer J. Olin Bolt, Lubrication Engineer G. R. Wheeler, Thirdhand Homer Walls,3 Overseer Harold Peek, and Over- seer J. W. Haymes, it appears that in February, Haymes stated at a special meeting of all supervisors, at which Plant Manager Frank Williams was present, that a group of men was coming in trying to organize a union, that supervisors had seen men pass- ing out union pamphlets long before the no-solicitation notice was posted, that there was general talk in the plant before the organizing committee's letter was received that employees were engaging in union activities, and that about February 15 there were received by most of the supervisors "key" letters 4 containing information about the Union and whom to contact in the event the recipient was interested in joining it. Respondent's Executive Vice-President Joe L. Jennings wrote quite a lengthy letter to Respondent's employees; signed printed copies of which it is apparently agreed were distributed to them with their paychecks on March 10. This letter told the employees that: the statement made to them in 1946 that "we believe that the unionization of our plants would be against [their] interest, [Respondent'st interest, and the interests of [the] Community" still held true; Respondent does not want the Union in the Company, never has and never will; the Union had virtually destroyed the textile industry in New England where whole communities were wrecked and many mills had become vacant and cities had become industrial graveyards with hundreds of unemployed people; while union mills all over the country have been folding up, the Union and mills whose employees it represents have steadily agreed upon increases in workloads and cuts in wages; Respondent has not increased its workloads to the extent that union mills have; the Union has now come to Re- spondent's employees to see if it can get them to let it put in the same sort of dis- ruption as it has created elsewhere; and if employees do not want to risk the same results that hundreds of unemployed cotton mill employees in New England have been subjected to as a result of the Union's activity, they will express the sentiment that there is no place for the Union in Respondent's plant or elsewhere in its vicinity. In the recent case of Lux Clock Manufacturing Company, Inc., 113 NLRB 1194, the Board dealt with a case involving a speech to employees bearing a similarity, particularly in its allusions to the New England textile industry, to what Jennings wrote. In Lux Clock, the company president said, in that part of his speech which related to New England, that the textile industry has moved out of that area and had been afflicted with the blight of unionism. In the instant case, Respondent's vice president went considerably further in writing that the particular union which was seeking to organize the plant had virtually destroyed the industry in New England and, by going on to state that whole communities were wrecked, by stressing un- employment, and by concluding that it was the Union's purpose to get the employees - to allow it to create the same sort of disruption at Respondent's plant. In Lux Clock, the Board majority seems not to have discussed the statement that the in- dustry had moved out of the area due to what might be called a blight but confined itself to the statement that factories had been afflicted with a blight and felt that in view of other statements about a long-range view, the growth of the company and the obligation to bargain with the union, there was no violation of Section 8 (a) (1). The minority was of the opinion that the statements that in New England the textile industry had moved out because of the blight of unionism and that not much could be done with any factory afflicted with such a blight, when taken in a It was agreed by Respondent that overseers, seeondhands, and thirdhands are super- visors within the meaning of the Act. 4 This apparently was the same communication as that referred to by Kelly as the pamphlet entitled "Peace to Better Living" which led him to communicate with the Union in February. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY ' 455 conjunction with a later statement that the blight of unionism would hit the em- ployees exactly the same as the New England mills were hit, together constituted a threat of reprisal in violation of Section 8 (a) (1). The instant case is distinguishable from N. L. R. B. v. Enid Co-operative Cream- ery Assn ., 169 F. 2d 986 (C. A. 10), cited by the majority in Lux wherein the court held "an employer . surely may tell an employee that . . . it would not be beneficial for him to join a union if he makes it plain that such an employee has a free choice without fear of reprisal." [Emphasis supplied.] For here Jennings did not make that fact clear . It is distinguishable from Lux Clock where the com- plaint did not "not even allege that the Respondent engaged in any conduct other than Lux's speech-that indicated as little as an anti-union bent," and it was found that there was "absolutely no evidence of any other employer conduct pertaining to the employee's union activity." Here, the complaint alleges some 48 acts of interference and coercion , engaged in by numerous individuals (exclusive of those derivative from the allegations of discrimination), extending over a period of 2 months and , as will be seen , the record is replete with evidence supportive of many of such allegations . The majority said in Lux Clock, "We believe that the divid- ing line between an employer 's exercise of its freedom of speech right and those words and conduct intended to frustrate the will of employees should be deter- mined by viewing the entirety of an employer's statements and actions." This can mean no other than that here (unlike in Lux Clock where "the employer's conduct and statements were confined in time and subject to a single incident ,") the effect of Jennings' letter in the instant case should be determined by viewing the en- tirety of Respondent's statements and actions uttered and taken during 2 months in time. Looked at in this light, I have no doubt that Jennings ' letter was not an expression of Respondent's views protected by Section 8 (c) and that it impinged upon the employees' right to do as they pleased without fear of retaliation or ex- pectation of special benefit. The General Counsel did not choose specifically to allege that the letter was violative of the Act. The point was litigated only to the extent that the communi- cation was admitted in evidence without objection on the part of Respondent. I do not conceive that I am either requested or required to make a pro hac vice find- ing. To do so would add nothing to the order which I shall ultimately recommend. The letter is a part of the case, however, and assumes importance in sizing up the connotations of Respondent's entire course of conduct. On March 23, after nine employees admittedly had been separated from Respond- ent's employ between March 10 and 19, Kelly asked Overseer Haymes if he would recognize that Respondent had unjustly discharged a number of employees since the start of the campaign . Haymes replied that he had not fired anybody, to which Kelly replied he knew that to be so but knew also that Haymes had influence with the people who had discharged them . At Haymes' request, Kelly then talked to Plant Manager Frank Williams to whom he addressed the same inquiry as he had made of Haymes. Williams requested that Kelly return for an answer the follow- ing day. On the 24th, Williams stated he could not rehire or reinstate all the people who had been separated but that if they would file applications for (new) employ- ment he would give them the same consideration as though nothing had happened. Kelly testified that Williams then said, "If the people and you on the committee will cease union activities, I can promise there willl be no further discrimination against the employees at the plant ." Williams did not testify at the hearing. Haymes, however, testified that he was present at a conversation between Williams and Kelly, that at no point did Williams say that if Kelly did something there would be no further discrimination , and that the word "discrimination" was not used but Kelly did complain about a secondhand trainee. There is nothing in Kelly's testimony to indicate whether Haymes was present with him and Williams on either the 23d or the 24th . He did testify that Haymes was alone in his office (Haymes is over- seer of the spinning department) where he talked to him on the 23d and that he then went to the main office whence Williams invited him into his own office where the two talked together. Kelly further testified that on the 24th he first talked to Williams by telephone and then went, on Williams' request, to the latter's office where the second conversation between himself and Williams took place. Haymes did not refer to the statement asserted by Kelly to have been made by Williams on the 24th that strain due to union activity was causing bad work or the agreement, attributed to him , with Kelly's expression of belief to the effect that if the employees were allowed to vote their convictions without fear of discrimina- tion they would feel at ease and their work would improve. Whatever may have been the situation on the 23d, it does not seem that Haymes would have had any particular reason to be present with Kelly in Williams' office on the 24th where Kelly went in 456 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD response to Williams' suggestion during a telephone conversation between the two. Under these circumstances I am not convinced that Haymes' testimony refutes the fact that Williams and Kelly discussed the subject of discrimination on March 24. However, there is another feature of this particular aspect of the case that does satisfy me that Kelly's testimony (which I note was generally undenied and find was given in accordance with Kelly's honest conception of the facts) that Williams promised no further discrimination should not be taken to mean that Williams admitted that employees had been discharged in violation of the Act. After Williams told Kelly on the 24th that he could not hire and reinstate all the people who had been dis- charged, Kelly told the organizing committee that Williams would not agree that employees had been unfairly discharged and then, the same day, wrote Williams that "in view of the fact that you will not recognize that you have unjustly discharged a number of employees" the committee had determined to proceed with the organiz- ing campaign because it felt the Union would avert further similar charges. And so, upon no little reflection,5 I come to the belief that a fair reconstruction ,of what Williams probably said on the 24th was to the effect that assuming, without admitting, that employees had been discriminatorily discharged in the past, Kelly could rest assured that there would be no similar discrimination in the future if employees would discontinue their efforts to organize. Because there is no allega- tion in the complaint that Williams engaged in conduct of the character, I make no finding as to whether he, as certain lesser members of management and supervisors .are alleged to have done, violated the Act by promising employees benefits on the condition that they withdraw from membership in the Union and discontinue their activities in its behalf. What he did say to Kelly, however, is of more than passing significance with respect to the general attitude of Respondent toward its employees' union activities in the framework of its overall conduct. About March 31, Walter Croft, a secondhand in No. 3 weave room, posted the front page of a newspaper called the Valley Daily Times-News on the company bulletin board in smokehouse No. 3. Two other copies were posted in 2 other conspicuous locations where they remained from 1 to 4 weeks.6 The entire front page of the newspaper was filled with a pictorial article entitled "The Uniontown Story," apparently authored by Rev. Bob Nelson.? The illustrations consisted of seven scenes under which there were captions describing them as representing: a spinning room, where members of the CIO once worked, from which the equipment had been sold as secondhand machinery after closing due to labor trouble since which time the former employees are hungry and without work; a picker room which management had told employees because of labor trouble it would never try to operate again; a card room from which machinery had been sold and where CIO members, who are now living on State charity, once worked; a deserted home, with practically all the windows broken, representing a typical scene in the mill village at Uniontown from which occupants had moved to try to find work; a largely empty card room in a mill which former employees had begged management to reopen, promising they would never join a union again; and, an aerial view of the California Cotton Mill at Uniontown, which has gone out of business because of labor troubles caused by the CIO and which is typical of many other empty cotton mills that have been forced to liquidate for similar reasons. On March 31 this same homily ran in the Sylacauga News and was also published as an advertisement from the Valley Daily Times-News in the Sylacauga Advance. It does not appear who placed the advertisement or paid for the cuts. The Valley Daily Times-News is published in West Point, Georgia. It, the Advance, and the News, which are published in Sylacauga, Alabama, all circulate in Langdale and Lanett. G This feature of the case, as well as that relating to Jennings' letter, I realize has been labored It is no less or mole vital to a final resolution of the main issues as to whether or not Respondent violated Section 8 (a) (1) and (3) of the Act than scores of other obscure details, which, when taken in perspective and in relation to one another, should, as the sun gradually pierces the morning joist, finally emerge through the divergent and oft conflicting testimony of so great a cloud of witnesses to reveal a more plainly perceived pattern of polity To so elaborately verbally ruminate all the manifold minutiae would result in a report of inordinate length. The fact that this I shall refrain from doing should not import, however, that I have accorded any material aspect of the case merely desultory thought U Loom Fixer Hartman, called by Respondent, testified the article remained posted for about a month and that he saw lots of employees standing around reading it. 7 It is of more than passing interest that Kelly, the employee leader of the union forces, is, himself, an ordained minister of the Gospel. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 457 Abbreviated, the story went as follows: The writer does not want the good people of Lanett to be hurt and sees they are in danger; as a pastor and former cotton mill employee he went to Uniontown to see if he could straighten out church members where the CIO had caused trouble and so much suffering; the same thing that has happened in Uniontown, where the CIO caused the California Cotton Mill to close down and the owners had to sell all the machinery, could happen in Lanett were the CIO ever to be allowed in; the people who once worked in Uniontown are without work except for little extra jobs they can pick up and they and their children are hun- gry and unhappy and do not know what is going to become of them- it is one of the saddest situations he has ever seen; the people are on welfare but receive only a few butterbeans, a little cheese and butter, and some cottonseed oil shortening once a month; it is a heartbreaking sight to see these poor people line up once a month to get their meagre rations; an officer of the local CIO said it had $6,000 in its treasury but the parent union will not let the local spend a dime of it and has done nothing to help feed former members of the local except for a little help given to a favored few; an officer of the company said the mill was losing money and the owners decided to shut down and sell out after the CIO's last demand for 3 weeks' paid vacation and company payment of all insurance costs; after that and unemployment benefits had expired and the employees began getting hungry, about 95 percent of them told the mill officials they would go back to work and have nothing more to do with unions, but it was then too late; if the good people of Lanett could see the sad and ter- rible conditions in Uniontown they would do all in their power to prevent the CIO from ever coming to their town; 6 months ago nearly every mill family in Union- town owned an automobile but now not more than 4 still have their cars and have had to give up so much of their household furnishing and equipment; many chil- dren are not in school because their parents cannot buy clothing; the people are unhappy and the town is dead; some merchants have had to go out.of business; church members are broke and suffering; and things were bad enough in Alabama City in 1934 when a strike caused the Dwight Mill to close down for 90 days and in Manchester in 1937 when a strike caused the Callaway Mill to shut down, but never has he seen in all his life anything so sad and pitiful as it now is in Uniontown, it is simply awful. In conclusion, the apparent author admonishes that lest one thinks or is being told that if the CIO should come to Lanett there would be no strike, they should not be fooled, for he has never seen a union take over in a mill without a strike following and he begs the good people of Lanett not to take the risk of letting the CIO come in for he believes with all his heart there will come a time of regret, and he adjures them not to let the CIO in. The campaign continued for several weeks after the middle of March but ap- parently has been in no more than a quiescent state, at least since the filing -of com- plaint on June 5, 1955, the last complained-of act of Respondent having been alleged to have taken place in April. During the period of active campaigning, 2 meet- ings were held each day, union literature was openly distributed at the gate of the plant, and' the signatures of approximately 700 employees to membership applica- tions were procured. The Union's running attack bogged down when Respondent began to discharge a number of employees and by early April, when many mem- bers had quit the team under circumstances to be later revealed, it was being thrown for many a loss. B. The alleged interference, restraint, and coercion 1. The allegation that Respondent unlawfully interrogated its employees Employee Benjamin F. Stone's testimony that on the day he signed a union mem- bership card Secondhand Roland Thompson stopped him as he was going on his job and asked if he had attended the union meeting and if he had signed a card, and that a few days later while he was working Thompson and Secondhand J. W. Smith asked him if he were still in the Union and if the Union had promised him a raise, was undenied by Smith and but obliquely refuted by Thompson who at one junc- ture testified that he had never asked anybody if "they" were in the Union. Employee John F. Cole's testimony that on March 12 Secondhand Walter Croft asked him what he believed about the Union was undenied. Employee Genelle Tankersley testified that about 2 weeks before she was discharged on March 25, Secondhand (now super- visor) Robert Gunn asked her what she thought of the Union and on the Wednes- day before her discharge asked her if she was on the union committee. Gunn testi- fied he remembers two talks with Tankersley about the Union, that he asked her what she thought about its activity but does not recall what was said in the other con- versation. Employee Mauva Lee Morrison's testimony that Overseer Haymes asked 458 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD her if she had signed a card was undenied. Employee Margaret Harper testified that Secondhand Horace Gamble asked her if she had signed up for the Union and who signed her up (Gamble was not a witness) and her testimony that Over- seer Haymes asked her if her daddy knew she had signed a union card was undenied. Employee Raymond E. Tankersley's definite testimony that Secondhand Thompson asked him around March 7 what he thought about the Union and around March 15 why he wanted to get in the Union, was not specifically denied and is credited ,because it carries more weight than Thompson's mere generalization that he asked nobody if "they" were in the Union. Employee Russell Lawhorn testified that Secondhand Horace Knight asked about 3 or 4 weeks after he had joined the Union if he had signed an application card (Knight was not a witness); employee Frank Smith testified that after he had been checking pick clock seals in the presence of Secondhand Thompson the two met Secondhand Croft and Thirdhand Walls who asked him if he had been at the union meeting at Kelly's house. This testimony was denied by neither Croft, who admitted he talked to many employees about the Union, nor by Thompson. Walls testified that he does not believe he asked Smith a question like that, although he might have asked him how the Union was getting along, how many members it had, or what Smith thought of it, but he does not know exactly what was said to Smith because with all the looms running maybe he did not understand everything that was said. I credit Smith's testimony concerning these incidents. Smith also testified that Croft, or Walls, or both of them told him they had a person at every union meeting who reported what happened. Croft, who admitted he talked to many employees about the Union, testified he made no such statement. Walls testified he did not say it, and did not hear it said. It is doubtful if the matter of surveillance is strictly "in" the case' under the pleadings, although it was litigated; in any event, should it be felt important, I credit Croft and Walls' testimony, denying Smith's assertion, that neither admitted espionage. Employee James T. Whitaker testified that 2 days after he started to wear a union button, Thompson asked him why he got into the Union and what good he thought the Union would be. Thompson's testimony that although he had talked to em- ployees about the Union, he did not ask them if they were members, scarcely con- stitutes a denial of the testimony of Whitaker, that while wearing the union button Thompson asked him why he was a member. Employee James A. Kittrell's testimony that Supervisor Gunn asked several times how the Union was coming along finds support in the testimony of Gunn himself who stated he talked to something like 10 or 15 employees about the Union, asking them what they thought about it and how they were getting along. Employee Truman Gravitt's testimony that about 4 days after he,signed a union card Secondhand J. W. Smith asked him if anyone had re- quested him to sign him up was repeated by Smith. Employee Jesse F. Reese's testi- mony that Assistant Overseer Vester Dobson asked him if he had the employees all signed was undenied (Dobson was not a witness). Employee Dorothy Harris' testi- mony that Supervisor Gunn asked her after the Union started organizing in March if she had any part in it stands unrefuted.8 As thus recounted, Respondent's supervisors clearly made repeated inquiries of employees as to their membership in, sympathies for, and activities in behalf of the Union. Most of the testimony concerning these interrogations was undenied, much of it admitted by the supervisors themselves. Respondent's position with respect to this aspect of the case is summed up in the first part of Overseer Haymes' February statement to his supervisors "that the law was now they could talk to the employees about the Union if they wished...." The last part of the statement went on, ".. . if they did not threaten the employees or did not threaten to close the plant." The fallacy underlying Respondent's position (apart from the fact that there is no evidence that any instructions to supervisors were communicated to employees) is that it begs the question by assuming that under all the circumstances, this interrogation did not (as the law clearly says it must not in order to be protected; see Blue Flash Ex- press, Inc., 109 NLRB 591, infra) reasonably tend to restrain or interfere with the employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Act. Although in the interests of orderly exposition the subject of interrogation is treated first in sequence of the progressive paragraphing of the allegations as they are set forth in the complaint, it 8 There is other testimony such as Secondhand Luther Ray's that he asked Cole what the "CIO" on his button meant and Kelly's that Overseer Haymes asked him if he were through with the 'Union, which bears upon the general allegation that inquiries violative of Section 8 (a) (1) were made but which, being cumulative, it would be superfluous to discuss in detail for the purpose of arriving at a final conclusion. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING-COMPANY 459 will be seen as we proceed that many of the interrogations were accompanied with threats of reprisal and promises of benefits. In Blue Flash Express, Inc., 109 NLRB 591, where it was found that the employer made inquiries for the legitimate purpose of verifying the representation claim of a union, the Board held in a split decision that interrogation was not unlawful per se but that "The test is whether, under all the circumstances , the interrogation reasonably tends to restrain or interfere with the employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Act" and stated that "the rule which we adopt will require the Trial Ex- aminers and the Board to carefully weigh and evaluate the evidence in each case, but that is what the statute requires us to do. The only alternatives, both of which we reject, are either to find all interrogation per se unlawful, or to find that interrogation under all circumstances is permissible under the statute ." It seems clear that an ap- plication of these stated principles necessarily entails the weighing and evaluation of all the circumstances of, and all the evidence in, a case and the arrival at a conclusion respecting interrogation based on an overall perspective of the entire factual situation and the reasonable inference that may be drawn therefrom . Since the decision in Blue Flash, the Board has not hesitated to find acts of interrogation of the nature of those involved in the instant case to be violative of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act where they occurred in the context of other unfair labor practices.9 As has been shown in section III, A, above, Respondent expressed adamant opposi- tion to unionization , barred solicitation of union memberships while at work in the plant, while at the same time it allowed the posting there of antiunion propaganda urging employees to oppose the Union lest they become subject to the same sort of results as had overtaken employees by reason of the Union virtually having destroyed the textile industry in New England , wrecked whole communities, and folded up mills all over the country. When viewed against this backdrop and the unfair labor prac- tices which will be found upon consideration of succeeding allegations of the com- plaint to have been engaged in by Respondent, I am convinced that Respondent inter- rogated its employees as to their membership in, sympathies for, and activities in behalf of the Union in violation of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act and I so find. 2. The allegation that Respondent unlawfully induced its employees to revoke their memberships in the Union At the same time in April that Haymes asked Morrison if she signed a union card, he told her it would be best for her to write a letter and ask for its return. When Morrison said she did not know where to write Haymes told her that James C. Reardon would fix it or write it for her . Reardon (not to be-confused with M. M. Reardon, another loom fixer ) is a loom fixer who worked for Respondent in its No. 1 spinning room . A few minutes later Reardon came by and Morrison told him she wanted the card back . At Reardon's request she went to his house where he brought out a prepared letter addressed to the Union stating she wanted her card back. The letter which was then signed , but not posted, by Morrison was mailed on April 11. While the union campaign was in progress Secondhand Gamble asked Harper if she had signed up for the Union and who signed her up and told her Haymes wanted to talk to her the next morning . Harper saw Haymes as requested and after re- sponding to Haymes' question about her father's knowledge of her union membership, Haymes asked her to sign a letter to get out of the Union, stating that a man would get in contact with her the next day. Harper told Haymes she would not be at home then but that night while she was at work Reardon called her up the spinning alley and requested her to come to his house the following day. Meeting Reardon there, he handed Harper a prepared letter , addressed to the Union , which stated she did not wish to become a member and requested the return of the card. She signed but did not herself post the letter which was mailed on April 11, On an occasion when Thompson had told employee M. M. Reardon what the effect the comine in of the Union probably would be (a subject to be discussed in this subsection III, B , 2), Thompson said that he wanted to see about all the boys getting together , going to the office, and turning out the Union . About 45 minutes later Thompson was in the presence of Croft and they asked Reardon if he was ready to go to the office and give the Union up . Reardon said he would think it over. He took the hint and when he later found Overseer Whitman in the personnel office he asked Whitman about getting out . Whitman told him he would have to get out of the Union like he got in but if he needed any help to come back. There- after Reardon went to see Smith , the union organizer mentioned in the early part of this report , who gave him a card, other than the one he had signed , which Reardon 9 See , e g, Geo. Byers Sons, Inc, 111 NLRB 304-; Hammond Brick Company, 111 NLRB 1; Graber Manufacturing Company, Inc., 111 NLRB 167. 460 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD signed and upon which he also wrote Smith 's name. He then went to Whitman's own office and told Whitman he had the card . Whitman did not look at it but asked Reardon if he did not know what to do with it. Thereupon Reardon apparently de- stroyed the card. Thompson's version of this affair is somewhat confusing. Insofar as Reardon is concerned , Thompson's testimony could be taken to read that Reardon looked like he was distressed and despondent , had told other people he wanted to get out of the Union, and on being referred to him told him he wanted to sign a paper to get out ; and that Thompson said he knew nothing about a paper but the thing for Reardon to do was to see Whitman . I am satisfied that Reardon's account is, more accurate than Thompson 's and that his approach to Whitman was due to Croft's and Thompson's importunities and certain -promises which are to be related in their proper turn. Following certain statements to him by Secondhands Dobson and Holly, either discussed above or to be discussed in the succeeding subsection, and after he had talked the situation over with his wife and with Kelly, employee Jesse F. Reese asked Haymes to help him get his card back. Haymes told Reese he was surprised he ever "fooled" with the Union and referred him back to Kelly, but that afternoon Supervisor Vess Hamel told Reese that John Seymour wanted to see him. Seymour is an employee in Respondent's twisting department and is president of what is. known, perhaps euphemistically , as the "Citizens' Committee." 10 Haymes testified that Seymour told him the committee had been "reactivated" and he wanted to do all he could to keep the Union out. Overseer Whitman testified there had been an article in the Valley Daily News-Times that Seymour was president of the com- mittee. Reese went to Seymour who told him to see "Bubbles" Johnson , a Lanett lawyer. Johnson dictated, and Reese signed, a letter of resignation from the Union which requested the return of his authorization card. About March 15, Thompson asked Raymond Tankersley why he wanted to get in the Union and why he did not go out and talk to Whitman about getting out., Tankersley's reply to the second question was that he had signed the letter to Re- spondent's president and did not think it would do him any good to see Whitman. Then Thompson made a certain promise of work to Tankersley that will be de- tailed in the second following subsection of this report . Following this conversa- tion, Tankersley encountered five secondhands , Croft , Walls,ii Thompson, Davis, and Gunn , in the smokehouse . They all tried to get him to go out and see Whit- man about getting out of the Union . Davis said if he were Tankersley he would throw away the union button . As Tankersley was leaving work the same day both Davis and Gunn again asked him if he was going to see Whitman. Tankersley's wife was discharged on March 28 . This discharge, it will be recalled, was one of sev- eral alleged in the complaint to have been in violation of the Act. The following day Tankersley decided he had better get out of the Union and went to see Whit- man who told him he would have to get out the way he got in but that if he needed any help he knew where Tankersley could get some. He then went to the union hall where he was told he could not get his own card back but he procured a blank application, signed his own, and wrote Smith 's, name on it and took it to Whitman 2 days after he had first talked with him. Whitman was talking to his secretary in the office and when Tankersley showed him the card he laughed and told him to tear it up . This Tankersley did. Thompson's testimony relative to these various incidents described by Tankersley is the same as, and no more clear than , that relating to the overtures made to Reardon that he should resign . Croft made the blanket statement that he never asked anyone to take himself out of the Union . No reference was made to Tankersley, however, in Croft's testimony nor was it made in the testimony of Walls or Gunn , although the latter stated 4 or 5 employees asked him how to get out of the Union and he told them they would have to see Whitman . No secondhand named Davis was a witness; the only person of that name who testified was Frank Davis, a loom fixer, who was not interrogated about Tankersley. Whitman, who testified that a-number of em- ployees came to him stating they thought if they did not get out of the Union they would be discriminated against and that a total of approximately 10 or 12 letters of resignation from the Union were prepared for employees in his office , was not interro- gated concerning Tankersley. Upon consideration of the various ramifications of the incidents here in question , I am satisfied that Tankersley 's account was substan- tially accurate. Employee Lucille Meggs was approached by Secondhand Horace Knight, about 10 days after she had signed for the Union, with the questions whether there was not ^u The only "citizens" referred to in the record are both employed by Respondent. n Walls, as has already appeared , was a thirdhand WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 461 something she wanted to talk about and was she sure she did not want to talk to him about something. Meggs then went to Haymes and told him she had decided that she had done the wrong thing and wanted the card back. Haymes informed her he could not get it back but he could see one of the citizens of Lanett (the Citizens' Commit- tee), mentioning Seymour and Reardon, and they would procure it. That night Meggs went to the home of Reardon where there was a previously prepared letter, addressed to the Union, saying that she had changed her mind and requesting the return of her card; Meggs signed, but did not post, the letter. It was mailed on April 9. Knight did not testify. Haymes who testified that 6 or 7 letters of resignation from the Union were written in his office, and that a good many employees were advised to check with the Citizens' Committee, mentioned no employee by name.12 The courts have repeatedly held that it is "objectionable conduct" for an employer to have "interested itself in any way in the matter of revocation of authority previ- ously given by any of its employes to the Union to represent them." Coca-Cola Bottling Company of St. Louis v. N. L. R. B., 195 F. 2d 955, 957 (C. A. 8); The Red Rock Company and The Red Rock Cola Company, 84 NLRB 521, 524, enfd. as mod. on other grounds 187 F. 2d 76 (C. A. 5), cert. denied 341 U. S. 950; United Biscuit Company of America, Union Biscuit Division, 101 NLRB 1552, 1558-1568, enfd. 208 F. 2d 52, 55 (C. A. 8), cert. denied 347 U. S. 934; Poultry Enterprises, Inc., 102 NLRB 211, 224, enfd. 207 F. 2d 522, 525 (C. A. 5); N. L. R. B. v. Charles R. Krimm Lumber Co., et al., 203 F. 2d 194, 195-196 (C. A. 2). This case can not be fragmentized by sealing off its various facets, one from the other. When Respondent's conduct is viewed in its entirety there inescapably emerges a picture of a large scale solicitation of employees to abandon the Union with threats of reprisals if they did not and promises of benefits if they did. Many of these threats have been related. More will be. There is convincing evidence that em- ployees not directly solicited to resign felt impelled to do so in the face of what they considered (and not erroneously) coercive and discriminatory conduct. A few ex- amples of these threats, promises, and resultant fears will suffice: (1) Croft's state- ment to Cole that he was cutting his own throat by following the wrong crowd; (2) Thompson's statement to Reardon that if the Union came in the mill would probably shut down; (3) Holly's statement td Reese that if the Union got in the Company was going to shut the mill down; (4) Thompson's statement to Whitaker that if he would withdraw he would see he had a job as long as Thompson remained a secondhand; -(5) Kittrell's having signed a letter of withdrawal because he was scared of losing his job; and (6) Griffin's decision to get under cover when Tankersley was fired.13 On the basis of the facts which I have found, and my conclusions concerning their significance, I am convinced that the General Counsel has sustained his burden of proving that Respondent interfered with and coerced its employees by asking and inducing them to make written requests directed to the Union for the return of their -authorizations to the Union and that this conduct was violative of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act. 3. The allegations that Respondent unlawfully threatened reprisals and to close its plant and promised benefits These three allegations are so interrelated as to be susceptible of joint consideration. It appears, without contradiction, that on April 10 Dobson told Kelly he had been a good hand, that he had previously given instructions to start training him to "There is additional cumulative testimony such as that of employees Bobbie L. Owens, George Stallings, Lonnie Robinson, James H. Jones, Robert Watson, James T. Whitaker, Ollis Turner, James A. Kittrell, and Leon Griffin, to the effect that they were importuned, induced, or assisted by management in requesting the'Union to return their previously signed authorizations, which would merely prolong this report and which it is unneces- sary to discuss in detail or make specific findings upon for the purpose of arriving at a - final conclusion. '3I have touched upon the need of treating such issues as interrogation and the pro- curement of,withdrawals in the light of concomitant threats and promises and related ,incidents. . The method of writing this report according to the sequence of allegations ob- viously requires occasional anticipative reference to findings ^especting•allegations yet to be considered This makes for a certain awkwardness of expression, but on balance, I believe the advantage inherent in the chronological method more than compensates for the confusion a completely commingled recitation of but loosely connected facts might create. I only point out here that there are forthcoming further findings of threats and promises which will support the conclusion that Respondent's conduct respecting the letters of with- drawal took place in a context of interference, restraint, coercion, and discrimination. 462 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD become a 'secondhand, and that he would-have had good prospects for the future were it not for Kelly's union activity. Haymes agreed with Kelly that he told Kelly he thought it best for him to get out of town and testified that his reason for saying this was the disturbance he caused particularly between 2 boys, I of whom became upset due to Kelly's union activities. Stone testified that about March 7-which was before the no-solicitation notice was posted-Thompson came along when he was talking to Slim (L. S.) Finley. As Finley walked away, Thompson asked what the men were talking about. Stone told him they had been talking about the Union. Thompson then said, "If you don't stop that kind of thing you are going to lose your job." Although Thompson was not asked about this incident, there are two notations in Stone's personnel file signed by Thompson that Stone had been seen reading a newspaper and off his job talking to Finley, that he volunteered the information that he was talking about the Union and that he was a member of the CIO, and that Thompson warned Finley if he failed to keep the looms running or read another newspaper on the job he would be fired. It is clear that there was mention made of the Union during this conversation. A witness' testimony under oath and subject to cross-examination is frequently more impressive than a statement appearing in an exhibit. It is improbable, in view of Haymes' instructions to supervisors that they could talk to employees about the Union but not threaten them, that Thompson would have written a record admitting that he had told Stone that if he did not stop talking about the Union he would lose his job. I am inclined to believe that Thompson did not make in his notations a full disclosure of all that was said by him when Stone either told him he was talking about, or was a member of, the Union. I am somewhat perplexed by the meaning of the phrase "that kind of thing" as used by Stone; whether it implies merely talking on the job or talking about the Union on the job. But in view of the abundance of evidence that Respondent had iio rule proscribing talking while at work, it is, I believe, a fair inference that the phrase in its context implies union talk. It is ,somewhat strange that, in a case tried so well as this, Thompson would not have been interrogated on the subject if he had not, or were to testify that he had not, made a statement substantially in accord with Stone's account. This is one of a multitude of close questions of credibility with which the case abounds. A reading of the record and its comparison with this report will disclose a number of instances where claims of conduct made by employees have not been adverted to. The reason for this is that I have not been satisfied such claims have been proven and con- sequently, since they do not support the complaint, discussion would be useless. In this instance, in view of what has been said above and a number of other statements of similar import which it is clear to me that Thompson made to employees, I resolve the question of credibility in favor of the General Counsel. On March 12, Croft had a long talk with Cole concerning the latter's connection with the Union, saying among other things that he was following the wrong crowd- mentioning names-and cutting his own throat. Cole stated he thought unions were good for the people. Croft said that when Cole finished his course in business administration-which Cole was taking mornings before going to work at 3 p. m.- and went out looking for a job, management would find out Cole's opinions for the people and would not want anyone with those opinions. Croft also said if there were an election and the Union should win, the Company could close down and move its machinery elsewhere. Croft, who posted one of the copies of "The Uniontown Story," testified that he had talked to many employees about the Union, that he did not tell Cole that he was cutting his own throat about the Union, that he never repeated to anyone the mill would close, and that it was beyond his capacity to know that even 1 week ahead. I have previously found, largely on the basis of Croft's denial, that he probably did not tell employees that the Company had a representative who attended and reported back what happened at union meetings. By no means do I feel all his testimony was in distortion of the truth. It will be noted that Croft did not deny the relatively trivial accusations that he told Cole he was following the wrong crowd and would not be wanted by manage- ment if he entertained prounion beliefs. But when it came to the crucial subject of closing the mill down he at least indirectly denied Cole's assertion. I say "indirectly" because the latter's testimony was that Croft said the mill could close whereas Croft testified he never repeated to anyone that the mill would close. Croft made no reference in his testimony to Cole's further assertion that he said the Company could move its machinery elsewhere if the Union should win the election. I was impressed with Cole's attitude of candor as he appeared before me. I cannot believe that out of whole cloth he named the names of the members of "the wrong crowd" which he said were mentioned by Croft. Assistant Overseer Carl W. Huckabee, Croft's superior, testified that he talked to Cole a good bit and that in his opinion WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 463 he was fair to him and he'was a good boy. He also attested to Cole's honesty by paying him the left-handed tribute of saying that plenty of looms were improperly aproned and it was "unusual" for a man who was responsible to admit it as did Cole. Croft, as a loyal member of Respondent's supervisory staff, of course found himself in a difficult position when called upon to admit or deny conduct going to the fundamentals of the case. He was saved from the necessity of testifying con- cerning accusations of making statements of more or less innocuous character. But when he was required to defend his Company from real peril, I fear his sense of loyalty and dependence dimmed his inclination clearly to distinguish fact from fiction. I am satisfied that Cole's testimony concerning this incident is not afflicted with a similar myopia. Employee Herman Crowder testified concerning an incident involving his third- hand whose name he first stated was "Pellington" or "Fennington" and whom he subsequently called Pennington. Employees Herron and Reed testified that there was a thirdhand named Dock Pembleton-which person is expressly named in the complaint. It is obvious to me that the thirdhand mentioned by Crowder is Pemble- ton. About 2 weeks before March 26, when Crowder was wearing a union button, Pembleton told him the button meant communism and that no Communist should be allowed to work in the mill with decent people. The following day Pembleton told Crowder he was going to have to run him off if he did not stay on the job and that it was "not the damn button" he was wearing that was causing him to be that way. Employee Elvin H. Smith testified that Secondhand Thompson told him (Smith) that he did not want to see something happen like happened in Lagrange where they had seen women and kids go hungry in 1933 on account of the union. (Thompson's version was that he told Smith, "I have seen enough union activity that I don't want any part of it. . . . What would happen if you all did organize that plant? They would shut it down if they didn't run it like you wanted when i was a kid up there. They shut that one down.") Employee Garland Sherrer testified he heard this conversation but did not remember exactly how it went but Thompson did' tell Smith if the mill were to go union, they would shut it down. Around the first week of March, Thompson said to Sherrer, in the presence of em- ployee Thadeus Kellum, that if the mill went union it would shut down. When Sherrer expressed doubt about the mill closing if the stockholders continued to make money, Thompson asserted that if a person in Birmingham, whom he named, said for the mill to shut down, it would shut down.. (In referring to Sherrer's testimony Thompson stated that he told him he was surprised that he was working for the Union but he knows no Birmingham stockholder, he had no authority to tell anyone that the Company would close, and he did not tell Sherrer that the Company would.) A few weeks after he signed a union card Thompson told M. M. Reardon, during the course of the conversation related earlier, about getting the boys together and seeing about turning out the Union and that if the Union should come in, the Com- pany would probably close down or he would lose his job or probably lose his house and his children would go hungry. After Reardon began to wear his union button, he observed that Thompson was watching him at work more closely than previously. At the end of the conversation Thompson told him that if he would get out of the Union, he would no longer make it hard for him. Thompson, who, as had already been pointed out, made a general assertion that he had neither said the mill would close if the Union came in nor promised anybody a permanent job if he should with- draw from the Union, and attempted to explain away several other conversations with employees , including Hugh Reardon , was not interrogated concerning M. M. Reardon's testimony. Employee Jesse F. Reese testified that about March 8, Secondhand Lavelle Holly called him to his porch and talked to him about the Union, that the next week Holly told him that if the Union come in the Company was going to shut the mill down, and that the following day Holly told him that he knew he (Reese ) was in the Union. Holly testified that he did not call Reese to his porch, that Reese came over, and that Reese did not say anything to him on that occasion . Holly made no reference to Reese's testimony concerning two subsequent conversations with him and Holly's assertion he knew of Reese's allegiance to the Union , although he did deny that he had a conversation with him in which he told him if the Union were brought into the mill the Company would shut down. This but partial denial of Reese's testimony fails to convince me that Reese's testimony should be disbelieved . Holly, of course, knew that if Reese 's severest accusation that he threatened closing went unchallenged, the effect might be most damaging. About the third week of March, the first day employee T. L. Herron wore a union button, Secondhand Pembleton told him he thought he was a better man than that and asked him to pull off the badge. Pembleton talked with Reese nearly every day 464 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD for about 3 weeks. On one occasion he talked about wars going on overseas and folks back home joining unions and on another occasion told Reese he had a chance to fire him. The coercive implication of these statements under the circumstances of this case is quite apparent. About 2 days after Whitaker started to wear a union button, Thompson came up to him while he was cutting out a warp and, during the previously alluded-to conver- sation in which he asked Whitaker why he got into the Union, stated that if Whitaker would sign a paper getting out of the Union he would see that he had a job as long as Thompson remained a secondhand. When Whitaker manifested a degree of skepticism, Thompson replied that he would hold up his right hand and swear that as long as he was a secondhand Whitaker would have a job in Lanett Mill and that he would quit himself before he fired him. Thompson's version of this incident was that he told Whitaker and another employee they need have no fear of being "run off," that they could keep their jobs so long as they ran them right, and that any supervisor would be foolish to "run -them off." Thompson's testimony, even if it were fully to be believed, does not meet the factual issue posed by whatever con- flict there may be between his and Whitaker's testimony. The latter was talking about a promise of permanent retention; the former about an assurance against fu- ture discharge. I am satisfied that Thompson's statement-whatever its precise words-was meant and understood to imply that if Whitaker should not quit the Union he could apprehend being fired, but if he should get out he could anticipate continued employment. During the course of the previously related conversation when Croft and Walls made inquiries of employee Willie H. Baker relative to his interest in the Union, Croft told Baker that he was a good hand, had a good record, and he wanted Baker to stay on. Croft then accompanied Baker to the office where he was shown his own record and those of Crowder and employee Clarence Stanford which Croft said he wanted to compare with Baker's. In the context of the unlawful inquiries made of Baker and the subsequent suggestion that the advent of the Union might cause the mill to shut down and result in Baker's losing his home, Croft's statement that he wanted Baker to stay on constituted a readily discernible threat of reprisal if he should adhere to the Union and promise of benefit if he should abjure it. (Croft did not deny he had told Baker he wanted him to stay with the Company. His denial that he told employees that if the Union came in the mill would or probably would shut down, has already been discussed at considerable length. Rediscussion of it here should not be necessary.14 As shown in the above findings, Respondent's supervisory personnel on many occasions threatened employees with reprisals for union activity and promised them benefits if they refrained from such activity. There can be no doubt that Respondent thus engaged in the kind of interference, restraint, and coercion proscribed by Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act. Therefore I find that, as alleged, Respondent: (1) Threatened its employees with economic reprisal because of their membership in, sympathies for, and activities in behalf of the Union; (2) promised economic benefits to its employees on the condition that they withdraw from membership in the Union and discontinue their activities in its behalf; and (3) threatened its employees it would close its plant because of their concerted activities. C. The alleged•discrimination The basic question raised by the discharges of 9 employees remaining out of the 12 whom it was alleged to have been discriminated against must be answered by 14 There is additional testimony such as employee Bobbie L. Owens' that Dobson told -him the first day he wore a union button that he did not think he was that kind of a boy and asked him whether he had ever heard of the loafer system-thus possibly implying that workloads would be increased due to the Union ; employee Russell Lawhon's testimony that his supervisor, Bill Smith-referring to the fact that Lawbon belonged to the Union-asked him what he would do when he joined a big armed club and went around burning up people's houses ; and employee George M. Reed's testimony that Pembleton told him that he did not believe that people trying to organize the mill had much respect for their buddies killed overseas, which' bear upon the allegations of threats and promises violative-of Section 8 (a) (1). To make findings respecting all such testimony would, I feel, be supererogatory. Regardless of whether or not such testimony should be found in accord with the truth and whether or not a conclusion of unlawful interference, restraint, and coercion should be premised on the facts found, the ultimate result would be the same as .that reached upon consideration of the. testimony specifically discussed in this report WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 465 determining the motive for such action. The General Counsel contends that Respondent's true reason was the union membership, sympathy, interest, assistance, or other concerted activities of the persons who were discharged . Respondent ascribes entirely different reasons. It is well settled, of course, that union membership and activity do not immunize an employee against discharge but it is equally well established as the Fifth Circuit has said in N. L. R. B. v. W. C. Nabors Company, 196 F. 2d 272, 275, that an employee's unionism sometimes discloses the real motive actuating an antiunion employer in dis- charging such an employee notwithstanding other asserted reasons. In the language of Chief Judge Hutcheson (N. L. R. B. v. Kibler-Camp Phosphate Enterprise, 216 F. 2d 113, 115 (C. A. 5) ), It is, and always has been clear . . . that a discharge ostensibly for cause must, in order to be protected as such , be in reality for cause and that a trumped up or synthetic discharge for cause may not be used by the employer as a shield and buckler to protect him against discharge , the real, the dominant motive of, the moving cause for , which is anti-union discrimination.15 The Fourth Circuit has said in N. L. R. B. v. English Mica Company, 195 F. 2d 986, 987: Whether, in view of all the circumstances , the discharges were in good faith for the reasons given or whether these were mere pretexts for discharge on the real ground of union membership and activity was a question to be decided by the Board upon the conflicting evidence and the conflicting inferences to be drawn therefrom. . . . As we said in Hartsell Mills Co. v. N. L. R. B., 4 Cir., 111 F. 2d 291, 293: It must be i emembered, in this connection, that the question involved is a pure question of fact; that, in passing upon it, the Board may give con- sideration to circumstantial evidence as well as to that which is direct; that direct evidence of a purpose to violate the statute is rarely obtainable. .. 16 It is in obedience to these principles that I must apply the law to the facts and the reasonable inferences to which they give rise and determine upon the basis of all the circumstances of the case , and the rational implications derived from them, what was the real and dominant motive which actuated this antiunion employer in discharging these nine employees . The evidence is often in diametrical conflict . Few findings may readily be made on uncontradicted testimony . The grain must be winnowed from the tares and weighed in the light of the various witnesses ' power and oppor- tunity accurately to observe the extent of their self-interest and their appearance and attitude while testifying. In many instances , but far from in all, I shall refer-as I have in treating the allegations of coercion-to statements of witnesses at variance with those of others upon whom I shall rely in making findings and undertake at least to sketch my reasons for according such reliance I do not credit some testimony from either side. This and other evidence that seems to lack reliability or probative- ness or substantiality I shall not dwell upon. This is not a "mass discharge" case to which an easy escape and facile formula of disposition may be applied . I must in effect decide nine individual cases. They will be taken up chronologically. While doing so I shall endeavor always to be restrained by the knowledge that a more recep- tive ear is naturally lent to an accusation than to a denial and that the truth is a sensi- tive companion, difficult to catch up with and likely to flee if suspicion appears. . Elizabeth Danford, who is 30 years old, was first hired as an inexperienced worker by Respondent on March 22, 1943, at the age of 18 and put to work for 2 months as a spooler learner. She became a general helper within 3 months and worked steadily with the exception of 6 weeks from June 8, 1943, to March 1, 1944, when she quit. A son was born to her on September 9, 1944. She returned to work in June 1945 as a battery hand and apparently continued in the constant employ of Respondent in that capacity until she was discharged on March 10, 1955. Her employment records con- tain such notations as "attitude 0. K ," "rating-excellent," and "rated excellent." Danford attended a meeting of the Union at a hall on March 5 and thereafter all but one of the meetings held at employees' homes. She circulated about 30 or 40 union application cards, I of which she had signed, among employees at the plant and procured some 15 signatures . She was the first signatory to "the letter to the Presi- See also N L I? B v Brady Aviation Corporation, 224 F 2d 23 ( C. A. 5). n See alao N. L B B v Moss Planing Mill Co , 206 F 2d _557 (C A 4) 390609-56-vol. 115-31 466 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD dent." On,March 7, Danford told her foreman, Harold L. Peek, that she was 100 percent for the Union. About 12:30 a. in. on March 10 Secondhand Luther Ray told all the battery hands including Danford that they should not carry filling from one box to another. About 10- to 30 minutes later, Luther returned and said he had seen her carrying filling since he had told her not to. Danford replied that if she was carrying filling she was not conscious of it and that she had been doing so for 9 years and could not break such a habit in 5 minutes. Ray testified that Danford said she had the habit and had always 'carried filling and always would. Danford was sent to the office and dis- charged forthwith.17 There is little doubt that the practice of carrying filling by hand is likely to cause a mixing of fillings which is one of many causes of the produc- tion of seconds and that the better practice is to transfer filling directly from marked boxes to the batteries. Overseer Whitman testified that he discharged Danford because Ray complained she had been reprimanded frequently for the same offense of "carrying filling [which] is [against] a standard rule in Lanett's weave room" and he "saw fit to discharge her for violation of company rules." In view of this statement of one of the mill's very top executives it becomes appropriate to turn to the evidence to see if there was a standard rule respecting the carrying of filling and, if so, whether the real and domi- nant motive behind Danford's discharge was the rules' claimed violation or whether the purported infraction was trumped up into a synthetic cause. Danford's testimony that she had carried filling for 9 years and that Ray had helped her carry it many times not only from loom to loom but from one alley to another was undenied. Equally unrefuted was a mass of evidence coming from both sides that carrying filling was a frequent and usual occurrence. For examples, attention is drawn to the testimony: of Genelle Tankersley that she and all battery hands carried filling; of Raymond Tankersley that it is a common practice for bat- tery hands to carry filling and it is still being done; of Herron that filling is carried from one loom to another when it runs out and is still being carried, he himself has toted it to help a battery hand get caught up and nobody ever told him about a rule against it; of Reed that carrying filling is a practice in the mill; of Whitaker that there is nothing strange about carrying filling; of Kittrell that most battery hands carry filling; of Baker that he has seen employees carrying filling every night; of Gravitt that he has seen employees carrying filling and see it recently and that he saw his battery hand carry it the day before he testified at the hearing and employees have always carried it; of Osborne that he has often seen employees carrying filling and saw it done as late as the night before he_ testified at the hearing; of Harper that he has seen battery hands carrying filling and it is done very day; and of Hamby that the night Danford was discharged Ray-newly promoted to secondhand-came by and said not to carry filling from one box to another, but he has seen employees carrying filling, and all battery hands tote it, that since he received the instructions from Ray he has carried filling but has tried to break the longstanding habit, that he does not know how long there had been a rule, and that he reckons the battery hands did not pay any attention to it. In view of the testimony of these 12 witnesses, I am unable to credit the testimony of Secondhand Ray that a rule against carrying filling by hand had been in effect ever since he had worked for Respondent. Certainly, assuming the existence of such a rule, there has been no apparent attempt to enforce it throughout the years until about the time of the commencement of the union activities in which Danford took so prominent a part. It goes without saying that an employer may discharge an employee for any reason, good, bad, or indifferent, or for no reason whatsoever with- out violating the Act, providing his reason is not one proscribed by the Act. If it were a fact that Respondent imposed upon this excellently rated young woman the harsh penalty of discharge for doing the same thing as had habitually been done by all other battery hands it would be utterly improper for the Board to penalize Respondent because it discharged her for a bad reason. Rather, what must be determined is whether under all the circumstances the reason Respondent assigns for its action was the genuine reason or a cloak put on to cover a starker reason. Considering all of the manifold factors and overall perspective of, the case, I cannot escape arriving 17 There is testimony that about February 23 and March 1 Danford had been warned about mixing filling in the batteries by carrying it by hand Danford testified that she had not been reprimanded but sometime before March 10 there was some mixed filling in the batteries she tended which was looked at by Ray and Peek, that Peek asked, her why she mixed it and she replied she did not know, it just got mixed, and Peek rejoined that if it weie a common practice with Lei he would turn her across his checkered apron N WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 467 at the conclusion that Respondent seized upon an otherwise tolerated work method on the part of Danford as a pretext for ridding itself of an active union adherent.18 Benjamin F. Stone, who is 35 years old, was first hired by Respondent in 1939 or 1940 and left his employment as a general helper on October 31, 1941 , to enter self- employment. He returned to work for the Company on October 8, 1943, as a weaver. Apparently the period of work, if any, for himself was of short duration as he was occupied throughout most of the 2-year period he was away from the Com- pany working for other concerns as a weaver, a painter, and an explosive loader. He was separated for military service on January 3, 1944. This service was completed in the late winter or early spring of 1946 and Stone was cleared for employment by Respondent, again as a weaver on April 12, 1946, and reemployed on April 22. With the exception of 11/2 months in 1947 when he took a fling at, and lent his hand to, the diversified fields of insurance and interior decorating, Stone continued to work regularly for Respondent from April 22, 1946, until he was discharged on March l1,-1955. Although there is some indication that his work as weaver was not entirely satisfactory on three occasions in 1947, 1949, and 1950 , he was given, some- time subsequent to October 23, 1950, what was probably a promotion to the posi- tion of loom fixer which he held with no recorded indication of dissatisfaction until the time he was separated . The only performance rating appearing in Stone's em- ployee work record prior to March 11, 1955, and that in 1947, is that he was marked "average" in all respects by an overseer on a form providing for the circling of estimates of production , quality, "get-along" ability, interest in job , knack of helping, leadership , willingness, and use of spare time ; the printed ratings being "poor," "below average," "average ," "above average," and "excellent " During the period of his employment Stone's hourly wage grew from 19 cents to $1.53. Stone first became active in the Union at the March 5 meeting when he signed a membership card . Thereafter he handed out 50 or 60 applications to employees in the plant. He volunteered as a member of the organizing committee and signed its letter to Respondent's president , as has , already been noted. Thompson asked him the day he signed the union card if he had been at the meeting and if he had signed. Stone replied that he had attended the meeting, had signed for membership, and added that he had procured signatures of other employees and was going to get some more. Later, before March 11, the previously mentioned inquires by Thompson as to what Stone and Finley were talking about and by Thompson and Smith as to what the Union had promised him took place. On March 11 , Stone, whom Whitman the following day told Cole was on the committee list and a mem- ber of the wrong crowd, went to work at 3 p. in. He saw that there was one flag up on a loom (indicating the loom needed the attention of a fixer ). When he got to the loom he found that the flag was down but there was a note on it that the bristles were out of the shuttle. He took one shuttle to the workroom, rebristled it, returned to the loom, put the shuttle in, and started the loom up. He then went down the alley to see if anything was loose on the looms that needed tightening. Stone testified that while doing this he noticed a newspaper on a box which the filling boy had just piled up. Seeing that the paper was about to bunch off the loom, Stone picked it up and was about to stick it down inside the filling box so that it would not drop off into the left -off when Thompson walked up to him and said he was going to have to pay him off for reading the paper , an act which Stone denied he engaged in. Stone was not allowed to finish his shift but was sent or taken to the office where Thompson told Whitman and Huckabee that Stone had been reading a paper. Stone again denied it and said he did not think he was being treated right. The subject of Stone having talked with Finley on March 7 was brought up and when Stone asked to see the paper which he had seen Thompson write up at that time, he was told that it had been destroyed . At the conclusion of the conversation Whit- man looked up and said that as far as the Company was concerned it was through 18 In making this finding , I do not rely upon the fact that Danford was the leadoff signer of the organizing committee's letter. Although she signed this communication before her discharge, it was not proved that Respondent had received it before the night of March 10 or the early morning hours of March 1 1 and hardly satisfactorily shown that it was in Respondent's possession by the time Danford talked with Whitman during the daytime of March 11, when the latter refused to rescind Ray 's action in sending her home the pre- vious night, although Danford told him she was not sure that she was carrying filling at the time of her discharge and asked him why it took him 9 years to lay her off when she had been carrying filling ever since she cause to work and did not suppose that there was .i'battery'liand in the mill who had not mixed filling at one time or the other. 468 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS,BOARD with him then and forever Subsequently, Stone appealed to Mill Manager Wil- liams who told him to come back after he had heard Whitman's side of the story. Whitman called another meeting after that at which Stone was discharged, ap- parently the day following Stone's interview with Williams, and went further into the situation. Thereafter Stone again saw Williams who told him that he and Whitman had decided Stone was dissatisfied with the job. Whitman testified that it is not against the rules to read a newspaper,19 but he discharged Stone because he thought he was neglecting his job by reading a news- paper because the thing occurred right after a shift change when loom fixers' ac- tivities should be devoted to their jobs. He also testified that he was in the room at the time Stone's job was running but did not observe that there were flags on the job, although supervisors told him that they were flying. The testimony as to whether there were flags on the looms at the time Stone was sent off the job and as to whether he was reading a newspaper at the time is con- flicting. It needs scrutiny. Huckabee testified that several days-maybe a couple of weeks-before March 11 he had seen Stone reading a paper twice just after the shift started up but did not think much about it then, but when he later saw him doing the same thing a third time he told Thompson it looked bad for a loom fixer to sit around reading a newspaper and that Stone could not have inspected the fillers which he is supposed to do at the start of a shift. Thompson testified that after Huckabee talked to him he told Stone of the conversation and asked him if he did not know his job came first to which Stone replied he did know it, that on March 11 somewhere around 3:15 or 3:20 he saw Stone reading a paper, that there were three flags up, that he walked up to him saying "Frank, you don't be- lieve snakes will bite," and that he then got the attention of Whitman who was a little piece away and told him he wanted to let Stone go. Herron testified he was standing right at the end of his job when Stone was discharged, that he did not see Stone reading a newspaper but did see him pick it up unfolded when it was about to fall off the box, and that Stone started to fold it up but had not completely done so until Thompson came up. On the other hand there is the testimony of Mary Jane Rogers (who asserted that she had had arguments with Stone, that at one time he had told her he could run her off her job by tearing her looms down, that she did not like him at the time he said it but did not particularly dislike him at the time of the hearing) that Stone had been reading a newspaper or had it open in his hands for 3 or 4 minutes, she would say, before Thompson came up. Rogers also testified that at the time she had three flags up but was not disturbed by the fact that Stone paid no attention to them. Also to be weighed is the testimony of Sarah Huckabee, aunt of Assistant Overseer Huckabee and wife of a nonunion loom fixer also working in the plant (who as- serted that she did not like the Union and most certainly did not appreciate Stone's request that she join it and that she told him if she had a place of business and some- body should tell her how to run it she would close it and Respondent could do the same thing), that she saw Thompson walk up and there was Stone reading a news- paper but she did not know whether Stone had been reading it for a long time or just a split second before she saw him.20 Witness after witness repeated the fact that reading newspapers in the plant is a frequent occurrence. In view of Respondent's final position that it was not for read- ing a paper that Stone was discharged but for reading to such an extent that he was neglecting his work, it is not necessary to expatiate upon the subject of reading alone. Respondent could not plausibly have taken the position that reading papers was for- bidden in the face of the fact of the postings of "The Uniontown Story" in the plant during the height of the union activity. Although the record-quite naturally-does not show how many of Respondent's 2,500 employees looked at these newspapers during this period of excitement and agitation in the 3 places where they were posted, there is evidence that they were widely read and it would be hard to believe differ- ently. It scarcely could be expected that there were not a large number of employees who took some time away from their work to read the article in this emotional epoch and that in the aggregate hundreds of man hours, which otherwise would have been 19 It was brought out during the Respondent's cross-examination of employee Frank Smith that after Stone was fired, Smith was ieading a paper when his job was caught up and Thompson told him not to read on the job and that he did not want to have to dis- charge him on account of reading a newspaper z' 13uckabee, who has worked at the mill since 1909, knows of no one except Stone who has been fired in connection with reading a newspaper. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 469 devoted to production, were lost.21 No one other than Rogers testified that Stone read or looked at the newspaper-if he did read or look at it-for more than an ex- ceedingly short time on March 11 . Witnesses' estimates of the length of time are prone to be notoriously unreliable. There is no one who has tried many motor vehi- cle accident cases who has not heard witnesses estimate the time he had a car under observation before a collision in terms of minutes although it is certain that under the physical conditions of speed and distance the time could not have extended over more than a period of seconds. In this instance I am unable to place reliance upon the 3-4 minute estimate arrived at "just by the expression" by this determined and obviously biased lady. Neither am I impressed with the argument to the effect that although it was permissible for Stone to read at such times as looms did not require his attention, his reading at the particular time at the beginning of a shift when it is necessary to inspect the looms constituted a neglect of his job. Thompson and Rogers testified that Thompson found Stone reading sometime about 3:15 or 3:30.22 This testimony is in accord with Stone's that before he picked up the paper he had made the usual start-of-shift inspection, had taken a part from a loom, carried it to the shop, repaired it, and replaced it on the loom. During this period he also, accord- ing to Rogers herself, had turned the pick clock for her. The "critical time of the day, which was right after shift change" referred to by Whitman, had passed if Stone had been reading a paper at this time he would have been doing nothing other than Assistant Overseer Huckabee testified he liked to see a loom fixer do because he could feel his job had been done 23 and what Thompson testified was a usual thing when a man's job is up. The very form of Respondent's first employee work record respecting Stone shows that it was contemplated that employees would have spare time and Stone was rated on the factor of how he used it. It is singular that among all the looms assigned to Stone for attention it should just so happen that the only ones which are claimed to have been flagged were those tended by the prejudiced Mrs. Rogers whom Stone had just completed assisting, and that on Rogers' looms, and on hers onP three faults should have been discovered in so short a time. However that may be, if any failure instantaneously to fix the flagged looms could have re- sulted in so severe a production loss as Respondent would have one believe it would, it is difficult to understand why, instead of ordering Stone immediately to repair them, Whitman should have told Thompson "to carry him to the office" leaving the looms unrepaired and still running. Certainly loss of production such as it is claimed that Stone (as well as Simms and Reed) occasioned was of no great moment to Croft when he spent 2 hours attempting to pry Cole away from the Union, while the latter was protesting that his job was getting behind. It is an anguishing experience for any employee of long standing to be forever dis- charged by his employer if he feels in his own heart that his discharge was unlawful. It also is a distressing thing to an employer to be required to reinstate an employee whom he sincerely believes was discharged for lawful reasons. While considerations of sympathy or hardship must not play any part in determining whether or not an employee has been discharged in violation of law, they point up the fact that it is of just as grave importance in deciding such an issue not peremptorily to cast aside an employee's claim as it is not capriciously to shrug off an employer's defense. Em- ployee and employer stand equally before us. Both claim and defense must be fully and conscientiously studied and weighed. This I have attempted to do to the best of my ability. Justice to both parties demands no less. Considering all the evidence as a whole, together with Respondent's hostility toward the Union, its awareness of Stone's union activities, the dubiety of his being discharged for allegedly engaging in conduct recognized as showing that an employee has attended to his work, and the lack of resolute proof that he was neglectful of his job, I cannot escape arriving at the conclusion that Respondent seized upon a bit of normally accepted conduct which 11A careful reading of this "story" (General Counsel's Exhibits Nos 13 and 13-A), together with the material describing the illustrations, by the average reader, would, I believe, consume about 5 minute,; Doubtless the time required by people of slight educa- tional advantages would be considerably greater s7 As indicative of the unieliabihty of Rogers' testimony sic testified at one place that Stone staited reading about 3 0% :in(] at another place „nat Thompson dlsco%eled him reading about 3 30 There is no hint or claim that Stone read on more than one occasion on March 11 If these pacts of Rogers' testimony were to be believed, it would have to be found she underestimated the time lie read by about 23 or 24 minutes. 211-luckabee's testimony that Stone could not have completed his inspection 5 nnnutes after 3 seems reasonable but it has no seal hearing bete since the fact is that the news- paper incident took place at least 10 minutes and perhaps as long as 25 minutes after 3 05. 470 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD it wanted to believe Stone engaged in as a pretext to rid itself of a union adherent in one of its attempts to polarize the union movement . That this attempt was not with- out success is evidenced by the flight from the Union after Stone and other prounion employees were gone. Elvin H. Smith, who is 40 years old, was first hired on January 27, 1941, and worked for Respondent over 14 years until he was discharged on March 14, 1955. Respondent says he was fired for violating an established uniformly enforced rule against smoking more than two times a shift. The General Counsel claims he was discharged because of his union activities. Smith signed a union card on March 5. Union meetings were held twice a week and he attended all of them. Before the no-solicitation notice was posted he pro- cured other employees' signatures. He signed the letter to Respondent's president showing that he was on the organizing committee. It will be recalled that Thomp- son told Smith that women and children had gone hungry in Lagrange on account of the Union. Previous to 1947, smoking had been forbidden in the slashing department where Smith worked. That year the employees were informed that they would be allowed to smoke in the restroom. The practice of smoking there continued until February 10, 1955. It is quite apparent that employees sometimes went to that room before February and thereafter to another location, which will be described hereinafter, and smoked more than twice each shift. There is considerable testimony however to the effect that many of the employees understood that the practice was to be limited to twice each shift. It appears that no employee had ever been penalized before March 14, 1955, for smoking more than twice a shift in the department where Smith worked. A smoking stand or booth(s) was installed in the slashing department on Febru- ary 10, 1955. There is evidence the secondhands were instructed that there would be no more smoking in the restroom but that henceforth employees might smoke in the booth. Smith testified that Secondhand Gaylor told him both before and after February 10 that he could smoke twice a shift, that he smoked a cigarette around 5 p. in , 1 about 7 p. in., and 1 about 9 p. in. on the night he was discharged, and that he had on 1 occasion smoked 3 cigarettes with Gaylor himself. Gaylor tes- tified that he informed all employees working under him, including Smith, that two smokes per shift would be allowed in the stand, but no longer in the restroom where a No-Smoking sign was put up, and that if any of them were caught smoking ,more than twice he would have to discharge him. He did not deny Smith's testimony about having smoked 3 cigarettes with him at 1 time. Other evidence as to whether there was a widely promulgated rule and, if so, how assiduously it was enforced, coming from rank-and-file employees called by the General Counsel who were in a position to know something about the subject, was that: of Cole that there was no rule against smoking so long as the employee's job was caught up; of Crowder that the employees smoked when they felt their jobs were in such shape as to allow it and that when his secondhand went away from his job he would go and get a puff off a cigarette; of Sherrer that he has smoked as often as 4 or 5 times a day and does not recall anyone (in supervision) telling how many cigarettes but some employees had said (the Company) did not want them to smoke but 2 a shift; of Reese that he never heard of any rule limiting smokers to 2 cigarettes a night and had himself smoked, and seen others smoke, more than 2 a shift; of Raymond Tankersley that he knows of no rule regarding limitation to 2 cigarettes a shift; of Herron that he never heard any rule about smoking only 2 cigarettes a shift and that he smokes more than twice a night but not a whole cig- arette each occasion because he does not have time; of Pitts that he has not seen anybody going into the smoking stand over twice and does not know how many times those that did go in smoked once they were there; of Reed that he never heard of any company rule against smoking and has smoked, and seen other em- ployees smoke, more than twice a shift; of Whitaker that he knows of no rule against smoking while on the job and that he smokes more than 2 cigarettes on a shift; of Kittrell and Baker that they know of no rule against smoking in the plant; and of Gravitt, Osborne, and Griffin that they have seen other employees smoking on the job in the plant and that there is nothing uncommon about it. Evidence from rank-and-file employees called by Respondent was that: of Eulas Bailey that he was told when he went to work there would be just 2 smokes a shift, he was told by Secondhand Chester Estes when the smoking booth was put in that the rule would be as usual, that he only goes to the stand twice but may smoke more than 1 cigarette each time, and that the rule did not say how many cigarettes but how often an employee went to the stand; of Claude Barnette that the rule before the stand was installed was 2 smokes per shift, that when it was put up Estes told him that the WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 471 rule regarding smoking would be the same as always, that before the stand was erected he probably smoked 3 times a shift but was' never reprimanded for, or caught doing, it, and that since the stand was put up he has not smoked more than 2 cigarettes per 8-hour shift; of George Howell that when smoking was first permitted in the restroom employees were not told how many times they could smoke there, that about 8 or 10 years ago there was a notice put up that smoking was being abused and that "he" said employees were permitted 2 smokes a shift, and that when the booth was erected Gaylor told him not to smoke in the restroom but to use the stand and take 2 smokes a shift; of Morton Bridges that Gaylor mentioned smoking from time to time, that when the smoke booth was installed Estes told him the same-rule would apply there, and that he had smoked more than twice a shift in the restroom and had not been reprimanded for it or seen doing it by a supervisor so far as he was aware of but had not taken any chance by smoking more than twice in the stand; of Burt Spanks that Gaylor told him not to smoke anymore in the restroom but to go to the booth, that if he were caught once smoking more than 2 cigarettes a shift he would be sent out for a week, and that he imagines that if he were caught 2 or 3 times he would be fired; of Marvin Howell that Gaylor told him when employees were first allowed in the restroom they could smoke 2 cigarettes a shift but did not tell him what would happen if they should smoke more than twice and that he never heard any complaint about excessive smoking; of Jessie Harper that he smokes 4 or 5 times a night in the smoking booth and guesses others do the same if their work is caught up and that there is nothing wrong about doing it; and of Dorothy Harris that she knows of no rule about smoking other than that it is allowed in the smoking booth and forbidden in the restroom. Digesting this summary, 15 employee witnesses called by the General Counsel, several of them coming in involuntarily, testified to the general effect that either they had never been told anything about smoking or that such instructions as they received were not enforced, and 5 out of 8 employee witnesses called by Respondent testified that they had been told not to smoke more than twice a shift and, of the remaining 3, 1 testified that the penalty for violating the instructions was a week's suspension, another that he was told of no penalty, and the third that he smokes 4 or 5 times a night, conduct which is not wrong if one's work is caught up. The weight of the testimony is adverse to Respondent's claim of the uniform en- forcement of a rule by discharge or temporary layoff. Indeed, Gaylor testified that Smith was the only man he had seen smoke more than twice since the booths were put up but he had reprimanded two or maybe half a dozen for smoking before that time Gaylor's claim that he had told Smith and others that anyone caught smoking the third time would be discharged finds little support in the testimony of the em- ployees-so many of whom stated that they were never advised what the penalty for excessive smoking might be. Respondent relies upon an excerpt from the testimony of Barnette to establish the fact that Gaylor stated the penalty would be dis- charge. The persuasiveness of the quoted testimony is allayed by Barnette's other testimony; i. e. "Q. Up to the present time he has said nothing to you about the smoking rule, is that correct? A. That's right." In any event, Barnette was testi- fying, whether correctly or otherwise, about what Gaylor said to him, not to Smith or the other employees. Without necessarily discrediting any of the testimony of the some 23 employee witnesses who testified on the subject, it seems quite clear to me that the actual situation was that some of them had been instructed not to smoke more than twice a shift, more had not been informed of any rule respecting the number of times they might indulge, and most of them had not been told anything about the im- position of any specific penalty. Before March 1955 there had been four occasions, going back as far as June 27, 1946, when Smith had been reprimanded. Gaylor told him, after he had engaged in the second of two fights with other employees, that "any further trouble from him in any way" would result in his being discharged. Yet he was not discharged when thereafter on November 25, 1950, he came to work when he had been drinking nor on March 5, 1954, when he left his job without permission and was caught climbing the plant fence. But he was discharged when he engaged in an act, which to say the least, was no more serious misconduct than fighting (to, which one would suppose, the chastening tune of a broken nose), reeling to work, or slipping away from it. Respondent states in its brief that Smith had been warned about the con- dition of his job and his frequent absences from the job on many occasions. The record does not support this contention. With the exception of the incident having to do with drinking there is no evidence that he had been warned or censured during nearly 5 years from November 25, 1950, until he was criticized for failing to leave drop wires for work on frames on March 9 and 10, within 4 or 5 days after he 472 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD joined the Union and started attending its meetings. Gaylor testified that through- out a period of 10 years Smith never refused to do what he asked him' to do, that he kept his job up, and that he was always willing to do what the supervisor asked him to do. Whatever may have been Smith's shortcomings as an-employee during his younger days of intractability, they were invariably tolerated, and threats that he would be discharged if he should cause any further trouble were not carried out when he did again engage in misbehavior of a serious character. Respondent would seem to have it that quite suddenly in March 1955, this employee, whose willing services it had enjoyed and whose spells,of belligerence and perversity it had endured for 14 years, became unbearable. Not until he showed himself active in the Union and became known as a member of its organizing committee, a regular attendant at its meetings, and a canvasser for members at the mill, did Respondent again begin to laden Smith's personnel file with complaints and find his deportment intolerable. It is of course fundamental that an employer has the right to manager its own business and that the discharge of an employee incidental to that right is unim- peachable. But where, as here, it is apparent that a discharge allegedly pursuant to the right to run one's own affairs was in fact, as I find it was, a discharge in con- sequence of an employee's union affiliation and activities, Section 8 (a) (1) and (3) of the Act is violated. John F. Cole came to work for Respondent at the age of 19 on June 30, 1950. He is by far the best educated person among the several alleged to have been dis- criminatorily discharged, having been graduated from high school and having con- tinued his studies by attending courses in an endeavor to procure a degree in busi- ness administration during his spare time from Respondent's employment. After working for 6 months, Cole entered military service and upon his separation re- turned to work for the Company on November 9, 1953, as a general helper and continued until he was discharged on March 15, 1955. Respondent insists that Cole was discharged because he refused to- follow in- structions and caused damage to a roll of cloth. The General Counsel claims that as it is clear that Cole was interrogated regarding his union activities and threatened with economic reprisals if he persisted in them, the reasons Respondent advance for the discharge are pretextuous and that as a matter of fact he was discharged in viola- tion of the Act. Cole joined the Union about March 9, attended all but one of its meetings, signed the committee letter to the company president, and procured signatures to applica- tion forms. Croft's statements about Cole following the wrong crowd, cutting 'his own throat, and the Company's moving need be retold here. On March 12, Cole was reprimanded for the second time for failing to change filling and style tags. About 3 days later, the day Cole first wore a union button, Croft and Huckabee showed him a roll of cloth spotted with oil which they said had been called to their attention by a note from Secondhand Luther Ray.24 The previous night Cole had changed an apron on one of the looms. Either Croft or Huckabee said the damage had been caused by a short apron 25 Cole was forthwith taken to the office and given a time slip. Huckabee told him he could return the following day as possibly Whitman might consider putting him back to work. Cole did see Whitman who, after looking over a notice Huckabee prepared which stated that Cole had made one mistake after the other and had admitted that on account of his outside studies he did not get ample sleep, announced that he saw no reason to reverse Huckabee's decision to separate him. Huckabee testified that there was nothing unusual about having short aprons, that he imagined plenty could be found on looms right at the time he was testifying, and that Cole did fair work but because of his short experience at the trade he was no expert. Croft testified that (before he had put on a union button) Cole had made two pick gear mistakes which, in one sense of the word, are more serious than putting on a short apron and that normally a person would be discharged for a pick gear mistake but not for installing an improper apron unless he did it de- liberately. As against Respondent's contention that its reason for this discharge was accumulative, it is persuasively significant that Cole was merely reprimanded St Although a witness. Ray did not testify about the incident -Cole admitted the mistake of not changing the filling and pick geais With respect to the accusation that he put on an unsuitable apron he is reported to have said to Croft and Whitman that he figured it was long'enough This subject was explored with relent- less detail in the interrogation of Roy Oliver, Gwin E Feiner, Frank S. Davis, and Third- hand Homer Walls with but meager results, about all of import having been-discovered being that looms are dressed in shoit aprons every once in awhile and no one othei than Cole is known to have ever been supposedly flied foi such abbreviated draping WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 473 for derelictions ordinarily calling' for discharge before management was aware of his committee membership , but fired for his actual or assumed part in creating a frequently occurring condition which does not call for discharge after his union allegiance became known and was persisted in despite Croft's attempt at dissuasion. I am convinced that this discharge of yet another known member of the union organizing committee was but one more pick of the warp and woof of the winding sheet woven for the Union.26 Johnny M. Reeves worked for the Company from August 23, 1939, until March 17, 1941, when he entered the military service; from January 28, 1946, until March 29, 1951, and from August 5, 1953, until he was laid off on March 16, 1955. Respondent says he was laid off on account of a reduction in force ; the General Counsel claims that he was discharged for his union activities. Reeves joined the Union (signed a card) about March 5 and attended all the meetings which were held in the morning. The lubrication group of employees in which he worked is a separate department under the supervision of the lubrication engineer. Originally he had done lubrication work in the spinning room on a temporary basis while the regular oiler was out on sick leave . There was an opening in the weave room and Reeves was assigned there when the regular oiler whose place he had been taking in spinning returned to work. He was dissatisfied in the weave room and when an opening became available, he was transferred back to spinning. In November 1954 there was a change in cleaning schedules , necessitating a readjustment of the work force among the oilers. Reeves was offered a choice of a second shift job as a spinner or a first job as a weaver. He preferred to give up the first shift job, the shift on which he was working, rather than go to the weave room . New equipment had been ordered for the spinning room during the winter of 1954-55 and by the middle of February half of the frames in the spinning room had been equipped with new rolls. These were antifriction rolls which required less frequent cleaning -than those they replaced . The cycle for spindle cleaning was 8 month"s. instead of 4 months, so that a change in cleaning schedules was necessary. This change in equipment started several months before the union campaign. On February 14, 1956, the Respondent's assistant manager issued the following instructions: Since we have purchased antifriction top rolls for the 64 frames in No. 3 Spinning Room and delivery has begun on these to the extent that at the present time you have equipped approximately i/2 of these frames with middle and back Clean Draft rolls, I would suggest that you get with Ed Penley and have him rework your oiling jobs. With the installation of the antifriction rolls on these frames and the fact that you have been able to change the fre- quency of oiling the antifriction spindles from a 4-months to an 8-months cycle, it would indicate that we should be able to eliminate at least one Spinning Room oiler. After the jobs and schedules were studied it was found that the crew of 8 in the spinning room could be reduced to 7. The lubrication engineer reviewed the records of the spinning room crew, having in mind terminating any employee in the group who might be doing unsatisfactory work. However, he could not make a selection on that basis because they were all functioning well. He then checked length of service and found that Reeves was the junior in the spinning room in length of continuous employment. The schedule and the fact that he had less length of service than the other oilers in spinning was explained to Reeves. There was no other vacancy available as an oiler. All the other oilers were also advised about the new schedules and the reason for the reduction in force. There remain only seven oilers in the spinning room and there have been no hires since Reeves was terminated. Since then there has been only one person hired as oiler, and that was in the weaving department. Lubrication Mechanic Slagle testified that he was present at the conversation between Reeves and Wheeler, the lubrication engineer, in which Reeves was offered a job in weaving in November 1954, and Reeves replied that he "didn't want the weave room under no condition." `m Among other members of the organizing committee, less persevering than Cole, who remain in Respondent's employ are Reese, Owens, Whitaker, Kittrell, and Griffin who to outward appearance resigned from the Union under the circumstances of company sug- gestion, urging, assistance, or pressure with which we are now familiar It will be re- called that "rani-road" Kelly left the Company after he was told it would be advisable for him to get out of town 474 DECISIONS OF- NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Unlike the previously discussed employees, whom I have found were unlawfully discharged, Reeves neither was a member of the organizing committee, wore a union button at work, nor solicited memberships. There is no evidence that any .supervisors discussed union matters with him. That an abnormally large number of employees for a given period-and union members at that-were discharged dur- ing the height of the union campaign and that Respondent engaged in numerous acts of interference, restraint, coercion, and discrimination at about the time it discharged Reeves.is not sufficient, in the absence of further evidence, to warrant the conclusion that the allegation of unlawful discrimination against Reeves has been sustained. James T. Simms went to work for Respondent on July 9, 1951, as a general helper in the cloth room. He signed a union card about March 5, attended all the union meetings, procured the signatures to cards of about 20 employees before the no- solicitation notice was posted, but did not procure signatures nor solicit memberships after it was posted, and started wearing a union button about 4 days before Respond- ent discharged him on March 19, 1955, for the asserted reason of being off the job, talking, and hindering other help Simms' personnel folder contains only one "warn- ing" record between July 9, 1951, and March 11, 1955. That is a notation that he was told to stop talking to the inspector too much because it was slowing down pro- duction. But the folder does contain four notations of objections raised to his con- duct- on March 11, 14, 17, and 19, 1955 The March 11 entry notes that a press operator told a supervisor that Simms was bothering him about the Union. The subsequent entries are to the effect that inspectors reported that Simms talked to them and they were worried and nervous; that Simms was found talking to an inspector and told he would have to stop hindering the help and if it happened again he would be discharged; that Simms was seen talking to the calendar man, by the overseer, who told the secondhand that Simms had not stopped hindering the help; and that on March 19 after he was seen talking to the calendar man 27 at 9 a. m. and 10:30 a. m. he was discharged, at which time Simms protested that the main reason for his discharge was because he wanted a union, and that he had never been repri- manded about anything else as long as he had been working. I credit Simms' testimony that all he said to the calendar operator at the time Secondhand W. T. Dailey discharged him was, "Boy, these women sure are running the cloth off." (I make the same reflection concerning Dailey's estimate that the conversation lasted "I would say couple minutes, or two or three minutes, something like that" as I already have with respect to Rogers' estimate of the length of time Stone was asserted to have read a newspaper Regardless of this, even if Simms had talked to Cantrell for 5 minutes he could not have interfered materially with his work if Dailey's testimony, that a roll runs 5 minutes before being doffed, is to be be believed:) Insofar as Respondent has hinted that Simms was also discharged for violating Respondent's rule against solicitation, I refer to my finding of fact based on his own testimony that he engaged in no solicitation after the posting of the notice. Beulah White's testimony is more susceptible of meaning that Simms propositioned her some time before the barring of solicitation during the workweek ending Friday, March 11, than it is if he did so after the ban was imposed during an 8-day week peculiarly beginning on a Friday and running through a Sunday. There is no indication in the March 11 "warning" notice that Simms talked to inspectors about the Union. Respondent's attempt to draw a distinction between talking with other employees and interfering with their work is not impressive. The real distinction Respondent makes, I believe, is that between talking to employees about the Union and merely talking to them. Supervision was told what Simms was talking about and knew what he was doing in behalf of the Union before solicitation was ordered stopped. Neither Dailey nor Overseer Morgan (so far as appears from the latter's reports), who was ill at the time of the hearing, knew what he was talking about after that time. It requires but little insight to infer that Respondent apprehended he might be continu- ing to recruit union members and that this explains the sudden appearance of the many warning reports after March 11 in Simms' otherwise virtually unblemished record. The interference with the work of a great number of employees due to read- ing the antiunion message in "The Uniontown Story" could not have been other than a hundredfold, even a thousandfold, greater in the aggregate than that occasioned by whatever brief remarks Simms had made to a few of them The former conduct. Respondent found unobjectionable; indeed it facilitated it at a time that it says there had come about so marked a decrease in production and increase in seconds over the preceding months, such a low ebb of production and so great a flow of complaints r Cantrell, who was not a witness. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY- 475 regarding quality, that it was necessary to take steps to increase efficiency, to start a program to improve quality and production, and to start a drive to correct employees' inefficiency and neglect and their leaving their jobs by congregating in discussion or otherwise. . By a majority of 17 to 1, White alone dissenting, 17 supervisors and rank-and-file employees, including Secondhand Dailey, testified that Respondent had no objection to, or rule against, employees talking to one another. • According to White herself she had conversations with other employees and would talk to Simms several times a day. she does not know whether they talked for sec- onds or minutes and only one of these conversations had to do with the Union. Scarcely can it be said that the following testimony of White furnishes convincing proof that Simms engaged, while at work, in disruptive or time-consuming solicita- tion of his matrilineal coworker on this one occasion: Q. When he talked to you about the Union, he didn't show you any card. Is that right? A. No, but he did tell me, he says "Aunt Beulah, I have got a pocketful of them." That is exactly what he said. Didn't you, Jimmy? On all the evidence, as well as upon the circumstances directly attending Respond- ent's treatment of Simms, I am of the belief that his discharge, ostensibly for cause, was not in reality for cause but rather a trumped up or synthetic discharge for cause. I find that the real and dominant motive of, and the cause for, Simms' discharge was Respondent's antiunion discrimination. James C. Reed went to work for Respondent the day after his 16th birthday on June 5, 1946, and remained in the Company's employ for nearly 9 years with but brief'interruptions, the longest of which was when he was in military service in 1951 and 1952, until he was discharged ostensibly for "violation Co. rules" and "solicita- tion in mill CIO union memberships in violation of Company policy" on March 25, 1955. Reed signed a membership card about March 7, attended union meetings, passed out union circulars, and wore a union button in the plant. Reference has been made to Huckabee's expression of disapproval of the fact that Reed wore the button. Reed testified that while he and employees Henry Crowder (not to be confused with Herman Crowder) and Hamby were eating their suppers at about 1:20 a. m., at Crowder's request he gave him a card and that while Crowder was signing it on the wall, he stood in the hall between the cloth room and the weave shed and asked Hamby, who had not started back to his place of work, to wait a minute so they could go back together into the weave room. When the card was signed, Reed took it and the three men went inside to work. Thereafter Night Supervisor Harold Peek, whom Reed had not seen during the episode, came up and said he had been in the doffing room and had seen Crowder sign the card, stated that was not the wise thing to have done, and told Reed and Hamby, who was also wearing a union button, that they were fired. Reed went outside to his car and was waiting for Hamby when Peek came up and asked him to hand over Crowder's card. Peek's version of the incident is that on the night of March 26 he saw Reed, Crowder, Hamby, 'and employees A. C. Pepper and R. C. Colby eating lunch in the hallway between the weave and cloth rooms. He then went to the yard, entered the cloth room, and stopped at the door to the hall where the men were still eating to see what he could hear. The conversation was largely about the CIO and 'he could hear most of it. After Pepper and Colby left, Hamby started to open the door and leave when Reed asked him to wait a minute until he got a card signed before going back to work. Crowder signed the card, gave it back to Reed, and the three went to the weave room. Then Peek in company with Secondhand Ray talked to Reed in the smoking room where Reed said he was aware of the antisolicitation rule and knew he had violated it. Ray then told Reed and Hamby to "go out" and return later to see Whitman 28 It is important to recall that the antisolicitation rule proscribed solicitation in the plant by any employee while he is at work of any other employee while he is at work. Let us figure out, whether Reed, while he was at work, solicitated Crowder, while he was at work. Peek testified that he knew of no definite time in which to eat; a lunch wagon comes to each department and normally stops there about 15 minutes while employees gather around it, get what they want, eat it, and then go about their business. 0 Peek further testified that Whitman decided Hamby had not done any soliciting and exonerated him i 476 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD As appears from Reed's testimony the three men were no more than finishing their supper when Crowder signed the card . Even assuming that Hamby had headed back to work or, arguendo, going further, that he was performing work at a time when an actual solicitation for membership took place (and the evidence goes no further than that Crowder asked for a card-which is certainly not a "solicitation" on Reed's part), the fact remains that the interchange took place between Reed and Crowder at a time when they were not at work , regardless of what Hamby may have been doing. Therefore it is difficult to follow Respondent 's emphasis on Peek's testimony, that after Hamby had started back to work Reed asked him to wait a minute until Crowder signed the card or to attach any relevancy thereto. As the rule proscribes solicitation while either precator or precatee is at work and it is clear that if anything that may accurately be called a solicitation was made it took place at a time when neither Reed nor Crowder were at work , it must be that the rule was not infracted. Although Peek's signed warning record and Reed's separation notice, both dated March 26, 1955 , refer only to the incident with Crowder and Respondent's evidence is indicative of an assertion of the fact that the ground for Reed 's discharge was his conduct on that date, Respondent in its brief seems to argue that two additional supposed derelictions contributed to itsodecision to fire him and refers to the evidence of employees Harper and Huddleston . The former testified that maybe a couple of times when Reed was tying on a warp on his job he would ask him if he were ready to sign a card, that it would just take him a minute, and that he reported it to Peek. It appears likely that the inquiry or inquiries Harper reported to Peek took place more than 10 days before Reed 's discharge because an "employee warning record," dated March 15 and signed by Peek, reports that Harper told him Reed had been to him at his job and in the smoking booth and asked him to sign a union membership card . In view of Harper's statement, far remote from the fact, that the antisolicita- tion notice had been up 3 weeks before Reed talked to him (it was posted only 2-or possibly 3 working days before Peek reported Harper told him he had sometime earlier been approached by Reed ), I can place little reliance on Harper's testimony that Reed solicited him subsequent to its posting . In any event, no "warning" about this was given to Reed and no disciplinary action was taken. Harper further testified that there were a couple of times he knows of that Reed asked him if he were ready to sign 'and the last time was the night Reed got discharged . There is no claim that at any time before he was discharged did Harper tell anyone that Reed had impor- tuned him that very night. Obviously then, any present asserveration that any solicitation of Harper on March 26 played a part in the decision of Respondent to get him discharged that day is illaqueative . Similarly, although Huddleston testi- fied Reed asked him about joining the Union, about a week before he was dis- charged, since he also testified that he neither reported the incident to his supervisor nor told anybody about it, any solicitation of Huddleston by Reed could not have been a ground for the latter's discharge. The reason advanced by Respondent for the abrupt discharge of this man with whom, so far as his personnel file discloses, it never had found occasion to be dissat- isfied during the 10 years of his employment until the height of union activities in which he was a participant, does not stand up under scrutiny. The cause must be found elsewhere. I find that the reason was Respondent's opposition to the union activities of this employee whom it feared was an unregenerate union advocate and suspected would continue to seek support for the Union so long as he remained in its employment. Because of this conclusion, it happily becomes unnecessary to consider the possibly exceedingly close question of whether or not Respondent discriminatorily misapplied a no-solicitation rule which has been so arduously argued by both counsel. Herman Crowder , who was born August 5, 1911 , first went to work for Respondent at its Langdale plant in 1924 at the age of 12 or 13. He does not remember, and the record does not disclose, how long he remained there this first time but it does appear that he worked in Valway Mill from 1928 to 1933. As it also appears that Crowder finished the 9th grade it is a reasonable assumption that sometime between 1924 and 1928 he attended school for 2 or more years, it being improbable that he had gone to school more than 6 or 7 years before 1924. Hence it is doubtful if his .first employ- ment as a young boy at Shawmut Mill was of long duration . There is no evidence concerning where Crowder may have worked between 1933 and 1937, but it is estab- lished that he started working a second time for Respondent at Langdale Mill in 1937 and continued as a weaver in Respondent's employ there and in its Shawmut and Lanett Mills until he was discharged on March 26 , 1955, 31 years after he first started working for Respondent and 18 years after his second entry into the employment of the Company. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 477 Crowder signed a union card on March 5, attended all the meetings on his shift, and began to wear a union button about 2 weeks before his discharge. It will be recalled that at about this time Thirdhand Dock Pembleton told Crowder that the union button meant communism, that no Communist should be allowed to work in the mill with decent people, that be was going to have to run him off if he did not stay on the job, and that it was not the union button that was causing him to be that way. The General Counsel's interpretation of the evidence relating to, and his argument concerning, Crowder runs as follows: It strains the imagination to arrive at the con- clusion that this employee, after more than a quarter of a century of service, should be terminated for inefficiency as claimed by Respondent. Respondent presented rec- ords to support its contention that he was discharged for low production and high seconds, but these records reveal that there were numerous other employees with lower production and higher seconds than Crowder and that, during the last week he was employed, 7 out of 21 weavers had higher seconds than Crowder. It is thus conclusively demonstrated that the reason asserted for Crowder's discharge has no validity, and it is clear that he was discharged for his union affiliation and activities and for no other reason. Respondent's appraisal of the testimony and argument in support of its position that Crowder was discharged as a result of his own negligence and improper per- formance is that: On one occasion Secondhand J. W. Smith found 9 out of his 36 looms producing seconds, which was more than Smith had ever seen a weaver have on his looms; Crowder admitted a prior 3-day layoff in the fall of 1954 for producing seconds and warnings for carelessness and leaving his job; he was warned on March 11 about second quality cloth off his job and told quality must improve or he would be replaced; whether the seconds found on March 26 were caused by Crowder's own acts or by fault in the looms, it was his responsibility to shut them down and flag the fixer; although the secondhand pointed out 9 defects Crowder refused to recognize them as such; half the flaws were due to the looms and half to Crowder's failure to do his job properly; Crowder's excuse was that he had a backache due to an injury 2 weeks earlier; Respondent's medical examiner, Dr. Austin, reported, following an examination 3 days after Crowder's discharge, a diagnosis of no apparent disability and recommended referral to the patient's family physician, Dr. Norman, for exami- nation, treatment, and further study thereafter; Dr. Norman reported the opinion that it was inconceivable that a traumatic injury could give rise to such symptoms without more positive physical findings; Denny, a fixer on 10 of Crowder's looms, testified there were 2 or 3 days, around the-time the union was organizing, during which Crowder stayed in the smoke booth most of the time; and Hartman, the other loom fixer, testified Crowder claimed the secondhand "had it in for him," that he had not stayed on the job, and consequently was having trouble with it. There is no question but that Crowder was especially active in behalf of the Union and that Respondent was aware of his interest. The fact is apparent not from Pemble- ton's observations alone. Employee Denny and Secondhand Smith, upon whom Respondent particularly rely to establish its defense of a discharge for cause, testified as follows concerning the notoriety of Crowder's activities: Q. [To Denny] It was pretty well known that Mr. Crowder was active in the Union is that correct? A. Who could miss it? Q. [To Smith] When did you learn that Mr. Crowder was interested in the Textile Workers Union? A. . . I went on an assumption basis that he was because he was signing them up left and right. . When I saw his button as a committee man, then I definitely knew he was on the committee. Q. When did you see his button with relation to the day of his discharge? A . . . . About three weeks I guess. Q . . . there is considerable testimony that buttons were not worn in the plant until March 16th, that would be a period of only 10 days. A. I will go along with you. . . . Crowder testified credibly that although Smith showed him 8 or 10 of what Smith claimed were things wrong he never saw any of the material come back as seconds, he did not find a single thing wrong, and, as he thinks he had been a weaver long enough to know what a defect in cloth is, he would not call anything that Smith showed him a defect. He further testified that he was having some trouble with his looms with a resultant production of seconds in cloth other than that shown him by 478 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Smith, which was caused by the difficulty he had in getting Loomfixer Brad Hard to fix the looms. It is quite apparent that during his 2 penultimate workweeks Crowder turned out more than an average amount of seconds , yet during this period there were 2 other weavers the first such week and 3 others the second such week , out of a total of 19 each week, whose percentage of production of seconds was greater than his. During the second of these weeks his seconds were but six-tenths of 1 percent greater than 2 additional fellow weavers. The records would seem to show that the General Counsel understated by 3 the number of weavers having higher seconds than Crowder during his last week of employment when Respondent apparently would have it that he produced an intolerably high number of seconds, as they disclose that the number was 10 of them rather than 7 out of 20 who did so. If we were to go back for a period of 10 weeks before the third last week of Crowder's employment to the first week of January 1955 , we would find that during each week there was an average number of over 6 weavers whose percentage of seconds exceeded Crowder's . During 2 weeks only in this period a notation of "good" was made opposite the names of certain weavers . Two employees were awarded this citation twice and seven others, including Crowder, received it once. Twelve did not receive it at all. Crowder, who recognizes that he was not pleased with the amount of seconds coming from his looms for a period around the middle of March, attributed the fact to the handicapping effect of a back injury as well as to his loomfixer's lack of coopera- tion.29 Respondent belittles the physical condition as a factor in the case mainly by pointing to the reports of two physicians that they could find nothing to account for Crowder's complaints. Apart from the facts that the medical reports are not "evi- dence" in the usually accepted sense of the word , that the physicians were not witnesses subject to cross-examination , and that doctors can sometimes be wrong, it is clear that when Crowder was sent to Respondent 's clinic by his secondhand on March 10, he gave a history of having been struck by a shuttle , was found to have signs of contusion over the right upper lumbar region , and advised to return for heat treatment the next day if he had pain. He continued to have back soreness and took medication but did not return to the clinic because nothing had been done for him the first day. It was not until 19 days later that he was examined by the Company's medical direc- tor who obtained a history that Crowder continued to have pain in the lower back and that although he had worked each shift he had been unable to do as much work as usual because of this condition. X-rays of the back revealed an old localized arthritic condition which the medical director stated was above the area of complaint. He reported that examination of the back did not reveal any real evidence of hematoma and that no definite muscle spasm was present . Seventeen days after Crowder's examination by the medical director, Dr. Norman wrote a report that Crowder com- plained to him on March 31 that he had had a low back pain of 2 or 3 weeks duration, that physical examination on March 31 revealed no marks, discoloration, or deform- ities, that other signs were negative , and that in his opinion a traumatic injury could not give rise to Crowder's symptoms without more physical findings. Crowder or his looms produced more than the average number of seconds during the period immediately after his March 10 accident . There is no way of telling how much of this occurred right after he sustained his injury, on March 10, 11, and 12. This situation continued into the week ending March 19 but, as we have seen, became greatly improved during the following week. Such a course is entirely consistent with Crowder's claim that for a period after his injury of March 10 he was so handi- capped by its effects that he had not been able to do as well as-usual. It is also indica- tive of a gradual and not prolonged recovery. It is not in the least surprising then, that 3 weeks or more after his injury the doctors should not find "any real evidence of hematoma," nor "definite muscle spasm," nor "marks, discolorations, or deformities." Denny's testimony that for 2 days Crowder spent most of the time iri the smoke booth around the time when the Union was organizing cannot be believed. In the first place, it is scarcely conceivable that Crowder could have done so without having been discovered by supervisors who also frequented the booth or that he would not have been penalized, at least reprimanded, for absenting himself from work. In the second place, Crowder could not possibly have been away from his work for 2 days of a 5- or 6-day week without the amount of his production having suffered. Yet an inspection of percent production columns of the weavers' records shown in the mar- 29 It appears that weavers were charged for seconds, that this was considered inequitable, and that it was one of the reasons employees joined the Union hoping it would correct the situation. WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY ' 479 gin 30 reveals that during the 5 weeks from that ending February 26 until the week he was discharged, Crowder's average production was fairly up to the norm and in excess of that of his fellow workers . Of course, if it could be correctly imagined that Crowder did no work for most of the time for 2 days in 1 week without super- visors knowing it, Respondent cannot now claim that this conduct formed a part of the asserted "improper performance of his job " which it alleges was the reason for his discharge. Assuming the accuracy of his secondhand's description of the state of Crowder's job on a single occasion, "one swallow maketh not a summer, nor one ill-wind a winter." Crowder was probably not the best weaver in Respondent's employ; nor was he the worst. As has been seen, the company records themselves indicate that the performance of other employees, during this particular time when Respondent says special corrective steps were being taken to get the percentage of production up to a normal operating standard and the quality of fabrics back to accepted standards, was inferior to Crowder's. Yet while he alone was fired it does not appear that others with poorer or no better records were even wrist-slapped for their similarly equally nefarious shortcomings. An "employee work record" form on which Overseer Whitman appraised Crowder's performance provides spaces for rating five selected factors on a scale ranging from "poor" to "excellent." Crowder's work was evaluated as "below average" in 2 and "average" in the other 3 factors . In this form Whitman expressed a willingness to consider reemploying Crowder . I believe that an overall and undistorted estimate of Crowder's worth is not far removed from that spelled out in Respondent's own records and that he is a good average weaver. I am unable , however, to agree with Respondent's argument that this man, who has aged beyond his years in its drab and toilsome service, at any time became such an inefficient and intentionally negligent a weaver that he could no longer be tolerated in its employ. In my opinion the reason ascribed by Respondent for its action was feignedly ad- vanced. I am convinced that Crowder was discharged because of his union affiliation and activities. Genelle Tankersley, to the subject of whose discharge we have at long last arrived, first worked for Respondent at its Langdale Mill 31 and then came to work in the Lanett Mill on March 24, 1942. There is confusing evidence that she was out of work some time before she returned on May 14, 1950, and that she was given a 90-day leave on February 2, 1954, because there was no work avail- able. She was first a warphand but had become a weaver a fairly long time before her discharge on March 28, 1955. Tankersley signed a union card on March 5, 1955, and attended the organizational meetings. She is the wife of employee Raymond Tankersley, about whose coercion at the hands of Davis, Thompson, and others and about whose resignation from the Union, a day or two after his wife had been discharged, findings have been made.32 It will be recalled that in reply to Secondhand Gunn's inquiry, Tankersley told him she thought the Union was a good thing and that later on the Wednesday be- fore she was discharged Gunn asked her if she were on the committee and she replied that she was not. The General Counsel argues that Respondent's claim that Tankersley was dis- charged for "excessive second quality cloth produced on job as compared to other shifts on same job based on six-week average" is pretextuous and that Respondent was primarily motivated in discharging her because of her union affiliation and activities. He lays emphasis upon a comparison which he says shows that Tankers- ley had a greater production percentagewise than Foster, another employee who worked on the same group of machines at another time, that Tankersley replaced -'Week ending 2-26 Ci owder 92 21 , Hawkins 88 31 ; Chappell 88 42 Week ending 3-5 Crowder 92 68, Yai biongh 90 23 ; Heath 90 92 Week ending 3-12. Ciowdei 92 96, I1a«kms 88 78; Shadix 9013 Week ending 3-19, Crowder 93 55, Hawkins 89 78; Shadix 89.69. Week ending 3-26 Ciowdei 92 65 . Hawkins 89 49 ; heath 90 10 The date she first entered Respondent's employment is not disclosed The statement that she woiked at Langdale fioni February 2, 1952, to March 24, 1942, is obiiously ill error If the earlier (late should be Febiu,tiv 2, 1942, Tankeisley would have been 25 at the time, if it should be 1932 sbe would h,is e been but 15 There is a note in Tankersley's "sepaiation notice" that she thinks she was dischaiged because of the Union since her husband was on the committee Raymond T.uikei iey's nephew. Billie Tankersley, signed the committee letter and the name "W D Tankersley" appears as i siguei on the copy tlieieof iihich is all exhibit in the case Raymond testi- fied that lie signed the "committee papers." 480 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD this employee because of the latter's low production, and that after Tankersley was discharged this same lower producing employee, Foster, replaced her. Respondent's view of the evidence and its assertion relative to the reason for Tankersley having been discharged is that: a secondhand made written reports that he had told her that her seconds were too high and that he wanted her to show im- provement; she said she was doing the best she could; the production records from February 19 to March 16 show that her production record was below that of 2 weavers on the 2 other shifts on the same loom and continued to get worse; al- though Tankersley and another employee testified that poplin is more difficult to run than other types of fabric, her record was worse than before most of the poplin had been taken off; the production of seconds' records of weavers show that the efficiency of weavers varies from day to day; compared to a room average of 4.15 percent over a 14-week period, Tankersley's average was 7.7 percent, Foster's was 5.3 percent, and Chappell's was 6.1 percent; there was evidence that her poor work was caused at least in part by her neglect of her job, witnesses having testified Tankersley was not found on the job as much as other weavers, wouldn't watch her loom like the others, and stood around and talked quite a bit; there was more re- pairing of pickouts on her looms during the last 2 weeks she was there than before; Respondent's supervisors had no knowledge of her union activities; and she was separated because of a poor record which became progressively worse, not in viola- tion of the Act. In order to determine the facts and the actual reasons for Tankersley's discharge, it seems necessary to explore the evidence somewhat more thoroughly than have the parties in their briefs. Loomfixer Ollis Turner testified that Tankersley wove on the job for which he was fixer for about 2 months and that 6 weeks after, he would say, she went to work on it, Gunn told him Tankersley was going to make a good weaver. Warpman Tollie J. Osborne testified that Tankersley wove poplin on looms on which he tied the works for about 5 or 6 weeks before her discharge, that poplin was hard to weave, that previously Foster had worked on this same job and did not run as much production as Tankersley did and had been taken off the job and put on work as a battery hand, that after Tankersley was placed on the job the production figures increased, and that Tankersley remained constantly on the job and told him that for 2 or 3 nights she didn't have time to eat her lunch. Loomfixer Leon Griffin 33 testified that at a time when she had come on his job, Gunn walked up to him once or twice and said Tankersley was doing good, that poplin is mighty difficult to weave and apt to produce more seconds than other material. In a somewhat different tenor, employee Lena Dollar testified that: She would not think Tankersley's work was good, as a lot of time she was talking to the ones who were for the Union; part of her (Dollar's) job is to clean up the seconds; she would not have to spend a good bit of time on Tankersley's job because of seconds and did not necessarily find more misdraws and doubles on Tankersley's job than on those of the other weavers; and she would think that Tankersley's production was less, and her seconds were more, than Foster's. Gunn (while not denying Turner's and Griffin's testimony and admitting that he remembered two conversations with Tankersley about the Union, asking her what she thought of its activities and saying he had other employees with records right along with hers) testified he recommended her discharge because of too many seconds and too little production. Gunn further testified that he took Foster off the looms because she was having high seconds and low production and put Tank- ersley on them and that after Tankersley was fired he put Foster back on the job; that some weeks others may have had second records just as bad as Tankersley's; and that poplin might be a little more difficult to work on than other material. This business of selecting excerpts from mathematical computations and then insist- ing they prove or disprove an employee's ability can be overdone. Respondent con- '-fidently presses upon me statistics indicating that Tankersley was a poorer worker than 2 employees who worked on the same looms, but on different shifts, but disre- gards the figures disclosing that during the weeks Foster worked on the same shift, looms, and material as did Tankersley, her weekly production percentage was 82, 80, 75, 79, and 78 while Tankersley's was 82, 81, 84, 87, and 92, and that during the last 2 weeks Tankersley worked, when practically no more of the poplin, which Overseer Whitman testified should cause no more seconds than any other fabric, ^3Aiiffin also testified that after Tankersley and a number of employees had been fired he told «'hitman lie was ready to quit fooling with the Union On direct examination he said his decision was brought on and on ciose-examination he said it was not brought on, because Tankersley had been fired WEST POINT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 481 was being woven, her percentage of production was 92 which exceeded by 4 per- cent Foster's best record during all but 2 weeks from January 1 through April 2. Likewise, the General Counsel has relied upon the fact that during many weeks , Tankersley's production record was considerably better than that of several other weavers working on her shift, while ignoring the fact that during other weeks she was among the lowest on the totem pole. The point to bear in mind is not whether Tankersley was the worst or among the worst weavers in her room but whether in fact she was discharged for inefficiency as Respondent claims. It is not incumbent upon Respondent to show that she was in- ferior to all others to establish its claim. Rather the burden is on the General Coun- sel at all times to show that Tankersley was discharged because of her support of the union. There is no merit in Respondent's contention that it was unaware of this sup- port. As I have found she told Gunn that she believed in it. It is apparent from the testimony of Supervisor Peek, Secondhand Thompson , and others that department heads and supervisors were informed by Whitman of the names of the signers of the organizing committee's letter and that some of the names were illegible. It was natural, and Gunn does not deny it (he merely testified he did not recall what was said during his second conversation with her ), that when the name of two Tankersleys ap- peared on the letter he should ask Mrs. Tankersley if she was a member of the com- mittee in which the family name was doubly involved. Having this knowledge of Tankersley 's approval of the Union , and her kin's spon- soring of the organizing effort , a suspicion arises that she was selected for discharge, rather than someone of the other no more demonstrably efficient weavers who were opposed to the Union, because of the fact that she favored it. However, even though Tankersley might have been among the best weavers and the only union member on her shift, the mere fact that she was singled out for discharge while poorer weavers were retained would not necessarily establish the General Counsel's contention. If one were to segregate the evidence solely relating to Tankersley from that applying to the case as a whole the issue would no more than hang in the balance . Then there would be suspicion alone, solving nothing. That the truth may not take cover when suspicion lurks, Tankersley's demission must be considered in the context of the case as a whole and in the light of the entire pattern of Respondent 's conduct. A Board majority stated in Delta Finishing Company (Division of J. P. Stevens & Co., Inc.Plant No. 3), 111 NLRB 659 (a case cited , and quoted from, by Re- spondent), in partially reversing this Trial Examiner who did not take into considera- tion conduct in a previous case arising more than 6 months earlier between the same parties which the Board had not found to have been unfair labor practices at the time he issued his Intermediate Report: Nor do we agree with the Trial Examiner that Street 's remarks were isolated. For, not only do they reflect the Respondent's conceded policy to discourage membership in the Union , but also demonstrate a continuation of Respondent's pattern of coercive conduct in which Thomas and another supervisor (Baker) engaged and which was litigated in Case No. 11-CA-588... . The Board pointed out that it has, with judicial approval, consistently evaluated a Re- spondent's acts in the light of his prior conduct and cited cases including Brady Avia- tion Corporation, 110 NLRB 25, affd. 224 F. 2d 23 (C. A. 5). The remarks and conduct which I have found were coercive were virtually con- current with Tankersley's discharge . They together form a pattern being woven on the same loom. Evaluating , in the light of its other unfair labor practices, Re- spondent's discharge of this now 39-year -old woman who had spent most of her mature life in its employment and had apparently been regarded as a satisfactory worker until she became recognized as a deterrent to the success of a policy of dis- couraging union membership, a design of discrimination becomes distinct. IV. THE EFFECT OF THE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES UPON COMMERCE The activities of Respondent set forth in section III, above , occurring in connec- tion with the operations of Respondent as set forth in section 1 , above, have a close, intimate, and substantial relation to trade, traffic, and commerce among the several States, and tend to lead to labor disputes burdening and obstructing commerce and the free flow of commerce. V. THE REMEDY Having found that Respondent has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices affecting commerce , it will be recommended that it cease and desist there- 390609--56-vol 115 32 1 482 DECISIONS OF 'NATIONAL LABOR' RELATIONS 'BOARD from and take certain `affirmative measures designed to effectuate the policies of the Act.. By interrogating employees concerning their membership in, sympathies for,' and activities on behalf of the Union, by asking and inducing employees to revoke their memberships in the Union and to make written requests directed to the Union for the return of authorizations to the Union, by threatening employees with reprisal because of their membership in, sympathies for, and activities on behalf of the Union, by promising benefits to employees on condition that they withdraw mem- bership from the Union and discontinue their activities in its behalf, and by threat- ing employees that it would close its plant because of their concerted activity, Re- spondent has evinced an effort to thwart the self-organization of its employees and deprive them of their rights under the Act. Having thus found, I will recommend that Respondent cease and desist from engaging in such conduct. ' Having found that Respondent discriminated in regard to the hire and tenure of employment of Elizabeth Danford, Benjamin F. Stone, Elvin Smith, John F. Cole, James T. Simms, James C. Reed, Herman Crowder, and Genelle Tankersley, I will recommend that Respondent offer each of them reinstatement to their former or substantially smiliar positions without prejudice to their seniority or other rights and privileges. I will further recommend that Respondent make each of them whole for any loss of pay suffered as a result of the discrimination, by payment to each of them of a sum of money equal to that which he or she normally would have earned as wages from the date of the discrimination to the date of offer of re- instatement, less his or her net earnings during such period. The back pay shall be computed on a quarterly basis in the manner set forth in F. W. Woolworth Company, 90 NLRB 289, and Respondent shall make available to the Board, pay- roll and other records necessary to the determination of the amounts due. In view of the nature and extent of the unfair labor practices committed, I am persuaded that Respondent's conduct indicates a purpose to defeat the self-organiza- tion of its employees and that a danger exists that in the future Respondent, unless restrained, will engage in other unfair labor practices. Accordingly, in order to make effective the interdependent guarantees of Section 7 of the Act, I will rec- ommend that Respondent cease and desist from in any manner infringing upon the rights guaranteed in said section. N. L. R. B. v. Express Publishing Company, 312 U. S. 426. As the evidence does not establish that Respondent unlawfully discriminated against Joe W. Lynn, Johnny M. Reeves, Jimmie H. White, and Gladys H. Smith, I shall recommend dismissal of the allegations concerning them. Upon the basis of the above findings of fact, and upon the entire record in the case, I make the following: CONCLUSIONS OF LAw 1. The Union is a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2 (5) of the Act. 2. Respondent, by interrogating employees concerning their membership in, sympathies for, and activities on behalf of the Union, by asking and inducing em- ployees to revoke their memberships in the Union and to make written requests for the return of authorizations to the Union, by threatening employees with re- prisal because of their membership in, sympathies for, and activities in behalf of the Union, by promising benefits to employees on condition that they withdraw membership from the Union and discontinue activities in its behalf, and by threaten- ing employees that it would close its plant because of their concerted activity, in- terfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the exercise of rights guar- anteed in Section 7 of the Act, thereby engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act. 3. Respondent by discriminating in regard to the hire and tenure of employment of Elizabeth Danford, Benjamin F. Stone, Elvin Smith, John F. Cole, James T. Simms, James C. Reed, Herman Crowder, and Genelle Tankersley, thereby discour- aging membership in -a labor organization, has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8 (a) (1) and (3) of the Act. 4. The above unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting commerce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 5. Respondent has not discriminated in regard to the hire and tenure of employ- ment of Joe W. Lynn, Johnny M. Reeves, Jimmie H . White, and Gladys H. Smith. [Recommendations omitted from publication.]