Pabst Brewing Co.

DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Pabst Brewing Company and Brewery Workers Local Union No. 9, D.A.L.U., AFL-CIO. Case 30-CA-5459 January 14, 1981 DECISION AND ORDER BY MEMBERS JENKINS, PENELLO, AND ZIMMERMAN On September 15, 1980, Administrative Law Judge Karl H. Buschmann issued the attached De- cision in this proceeding. Thereafter, Respondent filed exceptions and a supporting brief. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the record and the at- tached Decision in light of the exceptions and brief and has decided to affirm the rulings, findings,' and conclusions of the Administrative Law Judge and to adopt his recommended Order. ORDER Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Re- lations Board adopts as its Order the recommended Order of the Administrative Law Judge and hereby orders that the Respondent, Pabst Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall take the action set forth in the said recommended Order. I Respondent has excepted to certain credibility findings made by the Administrative Law Judge. It is the Board's established policy not to overrule an administrative law judge's resolutions with respect to credi- bility unless the clear preponderance of all of the relevant evidence con- vinces us that the resolutions are incorrect. Standard Dry Wall Products. Inc., 91 NI3RH 544 (1950), enfd. 188 F2d 362 (3d Cir. 1951) We have carefully examined the record and find no basis for reversing his findings DECISION KARL H. BUSCHMANN, Administrative Law Judge: This case arose upon a charge, dated October 19, 1979. and a resulting complaint, dated December 4, 1979. The complaint alleged that the Respondent, Pabst Brewing Company, violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act ("the Act") by acts of unlawful interroga- tion and threats. Respondent filed an answer on Decem- ber 7, 1979, in which it admitted all jurisdictional allega- tions of the complaint, including the supervisory status of its employee George Rankin. A hearing on these allegations was held on May 19, 1980, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The General Counsel and Respondent filed briefs on July 24 and July 28, 1980, respectively. Based upon the whole record in this case and my observation of the demeanor of the witnesses, I make the following: FINDINGS OF FACT Pabst Brewing Company, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is engaged in the production of beer. It is admittedly an employer en- gaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. The Union, Brewery Workers Local Union No. 9, D.A.L.U., AFL-CIO, is admittedly a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act. In September 1979, an employee by the name of Mi- chelle Richlin sought the assistance of shop steward James Robinson. She complained that her supervisors, notably George Rankin "were out to get her, that they had been harassing her on the job." Robinson advised her to seek a transfer to a different division and to see Labor Relations Director Lewitzke. Richlin, however, was unsuccessful in obtaining an immediate transfer. Robinson then spoke to Bill Johnson, her immediate foreman, who indicated that he was under orders to keep her busy because she had poor working habits. There- upon, Robinson contacted George Rankin. He stated that Richlin had to be harassed into doing her job, and that he would try "to get her" before she would be able to effectuate a transfer. Robinson advised Richlin of his conversations with her supervisors, including Rankin's expressed intentions to get her, and suggested that she file a written grievance with her shop steward, or seek the assistance of Donald Pfaff, a fellow employee, in drafting a written grievance. On October 1, 1979, Richlin handed her handwritten grievance, consisting of about seven pages, to Donald Pfaff who proceeded to obtain the signatures of several employees who had witnessed the alleged harassing inci- dents. Included among the signatories on the grievance were fellow employees Donald Sackmaster, Natale Per- longo, and Gerald Camus On October 2, 1979, the griev- ance was handed to Joseph Strauss, the alternate shop steward. He signed it and forwarded it to Gene Martin, Respondent's distribution manager. Martin, in the pres- ence of Strauss, perused the document and subsequently gave it to Rankin with the comment: "You better go over this just to protect ourselves." On October 2, 1979, Rankin contacted several of the witnesses in an obvious effort to coerce them into with- drawing their signature from the Richlin grievance. For example, Donald Sackmaster, one of the witnesses who had signed the grievance, was in front of the main con- veyor in the shipping room, when Rankin approached him. According to Sackmaster, the following exchange occurred: A. He [Rankin] was very upset and wondering if I knew what I had signed. I told him to a certain extent I knew what I had signed, yes. Q. Okay. Anything else? A. He said that I could be liable for a liable [sic] suit and a slander suit. Q. For doing what? A. For signing this grievance. On the following day, October 3, Sackmaster obtained the grievance from Strauss. Sackmaster crossed his name 254 NLRB No. 58 494 PABST BREWING COMPANY off the grievance because, in his words, he "was threat- ened with a liable [sic] suit and slander suit." A similar incident occurred between Rankin and Gerald Camus. Camus testified as follows: A. Mr. Rankin approached me and he had the grievance in his hand and he asked me-he says, did you sign your name on this? I said, yes, I did; and he says, well, I went to my Company attorney. I talked to him and he says, you know that you could-anybody who would sign this could be sued for liable [sic] or slander, and I said, well, I says, George, I says, you have to do what you have to do and that was just about the end of the thing. A. Later on that following day I believe it was I walked-I got the grievance back again. Q. From whom? A. From Joe Strauss, and he says, I want you to initial-put your initial on the things that pertain to you in the grievance, and at that time when I says, well, I don't think I-I don't think I want to sign anymore on this thing. I said, I've been threatened from George--or George Rankin, I'm being sued. I said, I don't want to go along with it anymore. I'll scratch my name off of it. Another witness to the grievance was Natale Per- longo, who testified as follows about Rankin's conduct: A. Well, I was doing some sweeping up at my station there, one of my stations, and George came up to me where I was sweeping with the grievance in his hand and he pointed at the grievance, my name here. He was very upset and he just slapped right where my name was there and asked me if that was my signature and I told him, yes, that's mine. He leafed through the grievance and he pointed to one there and asked me if I witnessed that and I read it over and I said, no, I didn't wit- ness that but there's a number of them that I did witness in here. Q. Okay. A. And he said, I want information from my at- torney on this. He said, this is very slanderous, and he was very upset. He was talking in a loud voice and then he says, I'm going to get each and every one of you people with your signature on there in my office individually and to point out the griev- ances that you witnessed, and that's as far as it went. Then he left me. Perlongo removed his name from the grievance be- cause, according to his testimony, "Mr. Rankin had ap- proached me, told me this was slanderous and I want in- formation from my attorney, and I thought that he would sue me for liable [sic], so I told him, I don't want nothing to do with this grievance." Even Strauss, the steward, who had filed the griev- ance with Martin, and who had signed the grievance in his capacity as the shop steward, was approached by Rankin and questioned as to whether he knew what he had signed. Rankin threatened Strauss that he would be taken to court for signing the grievance. Thereupon, Strauss took the grievance back from Rankin but not before Rankin had made copies of it. Strauss informed James Robinson-the union steward who had earlier at- tempted to intercede between management and Richlin- that he would not pursue the grievance any longer. Rob- inson then went to Rankin's office and asked how he could simply refuse to accept the Richlin grievance. Rankin, in the presence of other supervisors, and in an arrogant and abusive manner, described the grievance as a joke with which he could sue the signatories for libel and slander. Robinson attempted to explain that the grievance was not funny, that he could attest to the truth of some segments in the document and that a grievance did not need the signatories of all witnesses to be han- dled in the usual fashion. With an obsene comment, Rankin simply ordered Robinson out of his office. Rankin's conduct in interrogating these employee-xit- nesses and threatening them with law suits succeeded in coercing them to withdraw their names from the griev- ance and directly interfered with the employees' rights protected by Section 7 of the Act, including the right to file and process a grievance. I have no difficulty in find- ing that Respondent violated Section 8(a)(1) of the Act. CONCLUSIONS O: LAW 1. The Respondent, Pabst Brewing Company, is an employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 2. Brewery Workers Local Union No. 9, D.A.L.U., AFL-CIO, is a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act. 3. By interrogating employees as to their participation in a grievance proceeding, Respondent violated Section 8(a)(l) of the Act. 4. By threatening its employees with a lawsuit because they had signed a grievance as witnesses, Respondent violated Section 8(a)(l) of the Act. THEt REMF) Having found that Respondent has engaged in certain unfair labor practices in violation of Section 8(a)( ) of the Act, I shall recommend that Respondent be ordered to cease and desist therefrom and from in any like or re- lated manner infringing upon its employees' Section 7 rights, and to take certain affirmative action designed to effectuate the policies of the Act. Upon the above findings of fact, conclusions of law, the entire record in the case, and pursuant to Section Although Rankin conceded in his testimrnon that he had alked to several of the employee-uitncsses ahboul he grievance. he denied hat he had threatenied or interrogated any )ne I have credited he consistel and plausible Itesimon5 of Sackmaster. Robinson Perlongo, Camus, Pfaff, and Strauss I arn convlinced that Rankin lied throughout his lesrimon 'The four itlilescs s\hould ohlously not have heen coerced inltl recmosing Iheir naitnis from the griea ane hb an\ of he commentis hlch Rankin claimred t hase made IFulrtilrnlmore. his les lil iiiy stash ;t tinlIes nconlss- tent ith that of Mi rtil l For c xample, Marlin's iestimmny and Rankin's ovin prior affidaIt -disputed Rankin' testimon) v that Martin asked him "to insesigate" the griecancc 495 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 10(c) of the Act, I hereby issue the following recom- mended: ()RD R2 The Respondent. Pabst Brrewing Company, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall: 1. Cease and desist from: (a) Interrogating or threatening its enmloyces for engag- ing in concerted activities protected by Section 7 of the Act. (b) In any like or related malner interfering with, re- straining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the right to self-organization, to form labor organizations, to join or assist the above-naimed or any other labor organi- zation, 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 such activi- ties. 2. Take the follo,,ving affirmative action which is nec- essary to effectuate the policies of the Act: (a) Post at its place of business in Milwaukee, Wiscon- sin, copies of the attached notice marked "Appendix." Copies of said notice, on forms provided by the Regional Director for Region 9, after being duly signed by Re- spondent's representative, shall be posted by Respondent immediately upon receipt thereof, in conspicuous 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. (b) Notify the Regional I)irector for Region 9, in writ- Ic ti e l ,11,t , xciepti ons arc lilcd as provided bh Sectionl 1)2.46 of tIh Rules and Regulations of the National I.abor Relations Board, the indings, conclusilons. aind recomllmended Order hcrein. shall, as prlovided illn Sec 10)2 4 of hc Rules and Regulations, h adopted by the loard and hccorle its dilldi , Cll c iclusolTs, ilill ()rdel, ii ll objecCills thereto shall bh dcmenid .valived for all purposes ing, within 20 days from the date of this Order, what steps the Respondent has taken to comply herewith. APPENDIX NOTIC To EMP.OYEIS POSlEiD BiY ORDER OF I HIi NATIONA LABOR REI ATIONS BOARD An Agency of the United States Government After a hearing in which all parties had the opportunity to present evidence, it has been decided that we violated the law. We have been ordered to take certain steps to correct our violation and have been ordered to post this notice. We intend to carry out the order of the National Itabor Relations Board and abide by the following: We notify you that the National Labor Relations Act gives all employees these rights: To engage ill self-organization To form, join, or help unions To engage in collective bargaining through a representative selected by you To act together for collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection To refrain from any or all these things. Wl,. Vl Ii NO()I interrogate our employees or threaten them because they engaged in concerted activities protected by Section 7 of the National l.abor Relations Act. Wt l Wll NOI in any like or related manner in- terfere with, restrain, or coerce you in the exercise of any or all of the rights described at the beginning of this notice PIiSI B[3REWING COMNPANY 496