Mead-Atlanta Paper Co.

832 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Mead-Atlanta Paper Company and Atlanta Printing Specialties & Paper Products Local No. 527, AFL-CIO, Subordinate to the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America, Petitioner. Case No. 10-RC-3954. May 7,1958 DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF RESULTS OF ELECTION Pursuant to a stipulation for certification upon consent election, dated October 1, 1957, an election was conducted on October 9, 19b7, under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director for the Tenth Region, among the employees at the Employer's Atlanta, Georgia, plant. At the conclusion of the election, the parties were furnished a tally of ballots which showed that of approximately 1,059 eligible voters, 1,028 cast ballots of which 367 were for Petitioner and 605 against. There were 56 challenged ballots, a number in- sufficient to affect the results of the election. Eight ballots were void. On October 14,1957, the Petitioner filed timely objections to conduct affecting the results of the election. On January 24, 1958, following an investigation, the Regional Director issued and duly served upon the parties his report on objections, in which he recommended that: Objections 1 to 5 and 9 to 13 be overruled; objection 7 be sustained; if necessary, a hearing be held on objections 6 and 8; and the election be set aside and a new election directed. The Employer filed timely exceptions to the Regional Director's recommendations. No other exceptions were filed. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel [Members Rodgers, Bean, and Fanning]. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa- tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. In agreement with the stipulation of the parties, we find that the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act : All employees in the Employer's Main and No. 2 plants and two auxiliary warehouses in Atlanta, Georgia, excluding all office clerical employees, cafeteria employees, lease machinery employees at Ells- 120 NLRB No. 110. MEAD-ATLANTA PAPER COMPANY 833 worth Street, technical employees, over-the-road drivers, professional employees, guards, and all supervisors as defined in the Act. 5. The Union based its objections to the election on 13 separate grounds. The Regional Director found no merit in 10 of them and recommended that these be overruled. As no exceptions have been filed with respect to these 10 objections, we hereby adopt the Regional Director's recommendations pro forma and overrule these objections. The remaining objections arise as incidents of talks by company representatives to various assemblies of employees and a few special instances of individual conversations with specific employees. On October 7, 1957, 2 days before the election, all the employees in the plant, over 1,000, were called to a general meeting in the plant where they were addressed by the president, Arthur Harris. Harris ex- plained the forthcoming election and set out the reasons why in his opinion the employees should not select a union to act as their bar- gaining agent. It is not alleged that any of Harris' remarks con- stituted threats or promises of benefit or constituted anything other than totally privileged expressions of opinion within the purview of Section 8 (c) of the statute. The employees were also called into the conference room in the plant to hear other talks by company representatives on the forth- coming election. At each of these meetings, some held before the principal mass meeting and others later, between 60 and 80 employees were gathered. Again each of these groups was addressed by the company president, who explained economic benefits then being enjoyed by the employees, the advantages to their well-being extended by the company in the past, the possible demands that might be made by a union and their consequent effects upon conditions of employ- ment, and further reasons why the Company believed the employees ought not select a collective-bargaining representative. With respect to these group meetings, also, there is no contention that company representatives made anything other than fully protected and privi- leged expressions of opinion. Of approximately 1,059 employees in this plant, about 550 are white and the rest Negroes. The groups invited into the conference room to hear the discussions described above constituted either all Negro or all white workmen. The reason for this fact does not appear affirmatively; for aught that appears the arrangement may have con- formed with departmental lines. When addressing the Negro groups the president is alleged to have called to their attention the fact that a number of unionized plants in the area had a lower ratio of Negroes to whites than was the case at the Employer's plant. Four employees assert that they were threatened by individual company representatives with economic loss in the event of a union 483142-59-vol. 120-54 834 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD victory, 1 on 2 occasions in private offices, 1 "at his work station," another "away from the work station of the employee," and the last at the foreman's desk. The respective supervisors involved in these minor instances denied having made any threats, promises, or any coercive statements to these four employees. One of the separate allegations in the objections is that even though the Company's statements to assembled employees were in no way coercive or improper, the mere fact that between 60 and 80 at a time were gathered in the conference room to hear the president's expres- sions of opinion was an improper interference with the election within the Board's recent decision in the Peoples Drug Stores case.' The Regional Director agreed and recommended that the election be set aside on this ground regardless of all other considerations. We are of the opinion that the Petitioner misconceives the import of our holding in the Peoples Drug Stores case and in the decisions which preceded it.2 There is nothing to indicate that the conference room in which these separate mass meetings took place is a private office or locus of mana- gerial authority in which the employees normally do not go. Nor does it appear that in the minds of the employees the conference room was viewed as a special location where management determinations of company policies are centered. Indeed, the very fact that as many as 80 workmen could congregate there for a general discussion is a strong indication to the contrary. More important, however, there is lacking in this case a critical element underlying the Board's theory of improper company influence in the cited cases. It is the isolation of individuals, or of small groups of employees, most often just a few, from the bulk of their fellow workmen into the locus of mana- gerial authority which supports the inference that company expres- sions of antiunion sentiment in these circumstances borders too closely upon coercive influence over their choice later expressed in the election. When employees are gathered to hear the views of company representatives respecting the election in open areas of the plant, where they are not unaccustomed to find themselves, there results free and open discussion with both management and employees enjoying the confidences and assurances which are normal aspects of collective and group activities. We see nothing in calling groups as large as 60 and 80 workmen to a general conference that suggests the isolation of a few from among the many so as to create an aura of special treatment directed to indi- viduals as distinguished from the employees as a whole. The mere fact that 80 may be smaller than 1,000 hardly suffices to take this case i Peoples Drug Stores, Inc., 119 NLRB 634. 2 See, for example , Economic Machinery Company, 111 NLRB 947, and Mrs. Baud's Bakeries, Inc., 114 NLRB 444. MEAD-ATLANTA PAPER COMPANY 835 out of the permissive rule respecting speeches to assembled employees and to bring it within the proscription against intimate innuendoes to a selected few. The Board finds it unnecessary to determine whether or not the personal interviews of 4 employees, 1 in a private office and 3 others away from a work station or at a foreman's desk, were of the type which the rule of the Peoples Drag Stores case was intended to reach. Where over 1,000 employees are involved in an election, we deem these incidents too isolated and insubstantial to have affected the results of the election so as to warrant setting the election aside. For the same reason we do not deem it necessary to conduct a hearing to determine whether the statements made at these interviews constituted threats, promises, or coercion. Accordingly, in disagreement with the Regional Director, we overrule the objection based upon the Employer's activ- ities in addressing its employees as an entire group or in the conference room meetings. The only remaining objection is the Petitioner's assertion that by calling attention to a lower ratio of Negroes to white employees in some organized plants, the company president distorted the issues of the coming election from the question of unionism to one of racial prejudices. The statement as made is not in dispute. The Regional Director nevertheless was of the opinion that evidence establishing the statement, standing alone, is insufficient basis for setting the elec- tion aside, for he recommended a hearing to inquire into the Com- pany's intent and to explore the question of whether such a statement is or is not a threat. On the facts as they now appear, and in view of the present posture of the investigation, we do not see sufficient reason for holding a hear- ing in this case. The facts are plain. Whether or not such a statement constitutes a threat is clearly and fully answerable on the face of the statement itself. As to the Employer's intent, unspoken so far as the detailed and comprehensive field investigation shows, it could neither convert an innocuous statement into a threat nor change a coercive one into a permissible expression of opinion. We hold that the statement in question does not involve misrepresentation, fraud, violence, or coercive conduct of the type heretofore held objectionable. We therefore find no merit in this last objection. Accordingly, as we find no merit in any of the objections filed by the Petitioner, we hereby overrule them all. [The Board certified that a majority of the valid ballots was not cast for Atlanta Printing Specialties & Paper Products Local No. 527, AFL-CIO, Subordinate to the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America, and that said Union is not the 836 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD exclusive representative of the Employer's Atlanta, Georgia, plant fir the unit stipulated by the parties to be appropriate.] MEMBER BEAN, concurring : I agree with the majority decision to overrule all the objections to the election in this case. With, respect to the separate allegation that the election should be set aside on the ground that the Employer dis- torted the issue of the election by an appeal to racial prejudice, I find no merit in the charge because I believe the Employer's statement was- not such a threat or attempt to create a racial dispute as to bring this case within the ambit of the issue considered in the recent Westing- house Electric case .3 As pointed out in the majority opinion, there is nothing to indicate that Negroes were deliberately separated from white employees for purposes of the conference room talks, or that an ulterior or improper objective was in the mind of company officials in any possible conscious arrangement. The statement does not deny the possibility that there- may not also be other organized plants in which the percentage of Negroes is greater than in this Employer's. Because it refers only to "some" unionized plants, it reasonably leaves the impression that other unionized plants employ a higher percentage of Negro employees. More significant, there is no indication of the reason why the reported ratio prevailed in those particular plants; any number of causes com- pletely unrelated to racial attitudes could as well explain the local' situations. Further, the statement makes no reference to the Petitioner and could therefore as well be taken as referring to the policy of other labor organizations. Nor does it voice any suggestion that any possible tendency on the part of unnamed unions towards disparate treatment of Negroes is the policy of the union involved in this case. And finally, it is clear that this statement was but a single comment uttered in the course of extended talks which the president made to^ each of the groups of assembled employees, during which he explained a great variety of matters pertaining to the pending election-all entirely proper and correct. In the light of these considerations, I do not agree with the Peti- tioner's contention that the Company attempted to invoke any racial sentiment among segments of his employees in order to affect the results of the election. Such a finding would require a number of inferences, not based on fact, which I am unwilling to make in the face of the complete investigation report and the total absence of any direct evidence supporting the Petitioner's devious construction of plain remarks. Without any material justification, I will not impute unwarranted motives to this Employer nor embark upon a search for improper conduct where none appears. 8 We8tinghouse Electric Corporation (Meter Plant), 119 NLRB 117.