Missouri Research Laboratories, Inc.Download PDFNational Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsApr 1, 1974209 N.L.R.B. 952 (N.L.R.B. 1974) Copy Citation 952 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Standard Automotive Components, a Division of Missouri Research Laboratories, Inc. and Gerald J. Palmer. Case 26-CA-4794 April 1, 1974 DECISION AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS FANNING AND JENKINS On November 28, 1973, Administrative Law Judge Robert Cohn issued the attached Decision in this proceeding. Thereafter, the General Counsel filed exceptions and a supporting brief. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the record and the attached 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 Relations Board adopts as its Order the recommend- ed Order of the Administrative Law Judge and hereby orders that Respondent, Standard Automo- tive Components, a Division of Missouri Research Laboratories, Inc., Hope, Arkansas, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall take the action set forth in the said recommended Order. I The Administrative Law Judge found as a fact that the Respondent threatened Foreman Gerald J Palmer with loss of his job unless he instructed his wife, an employee of the Respondent, to refrain from union activities, and on that ground concluded, as a matter of law, that the Respondent had violated Sec 8(a)(1) of the Act because it had thereby illegally threatened "spouses" of employees. Absent exceptions, we adopt his findings in this regard DECISION STATEMENT OF THE CASE ROBERT COHN, Administrative Law Judge: Upon an original charge filed July 9, 1973,1 (subsequently amended August 20 and August 29) by Gerald J. Palmer, an individual, against Standard Automotive Components, a Division of Missouri Research Laboratories, Inc. (herein the Respondent or Company), the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, through the Regional Director for Region 26, issued his complaint and notice of hearing dated August 29. The complaint alleges, in essence, that the Respondent has, since January 9, engaged in the i All dates hereinafter refer to the calendar year 1973 unless otherwise indicated. practice of instructing Respondent's supervisory personnel to require their wives, who are employees of Respondent, to refrain from participating in union activities; that on or about April 23 it instructed the Charging Party, a supervisor, to require his wife to refrain from participating in union activities and threatened to discharge him if he failed to do so; and that, finally, on June 21 Respondent did terminate the employment of the Charging Party because he failed to require his wife to refrain from participating in union activities. By its duly filed answer, the Respondent admitted the jurisdictional allegations of the complaint, but denied the commission of any unfair labor practice. At the trial, which was held before me in Hope, Arkansas, on September 25, all parties were present and full opportunity was afforded them to introduce relevant evidence, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, to argue orally on the record, and to submit briefs. Oral argument was waived; however, helpful posthearing briefs were submitted by counsel for the General Counsel and by counsel for the Respondent which have been duly considered. Upon the entire record, including arguments of counsel and my observation of the demeanor of the witnesse2 I make the following: FINDINGS OF FACT 1. JURISDICTION Respondent is a corporation with an office and place of business located in Hope, Arkansas , where it is engaged in the manufacture and sale of automotive parts such as armatures , generators , and alternators . During an annual period the Respondent , in the course and conduct of its business operations , purchased and received at its Hope, Arkansas , facility products valued in excess of $50,000 directly from points located outside the State of Arkansas. During the same period of time , Respondent sold and shipped from its Arkansas location products valued in excess of $50,000 directly to points located outside the State of Arkansas. I find , as Respondent admits, that Respondent is now, and has been at all times material , an employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended (herein the Act). II. THE LABOR ORGANIZATION INVOLVED The complaint alleges , the answer admits , and I find that International Union, United Automobile , Aerospace and Agricultural Workers of America (UAW), Local 1091 (herein called the Union), is now , and has been at all times material , a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act. Ill. THE ALLEGED UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES A. Background At its Hope, Arkansas, plant, the Respondent employs 2 Cf Bishop and Malco, Inc, d/b/a Walker's, 159 NLRB 1159, 1161. 209 NLRB No. 158 STANDARD AUTOMOTIVE COMPONENTS 953 approximately 400 to 500 production and maintenance employees who are represented for collective-bargaining purposes by the Union. The Respondent's business, as previously indicated, is the remanufacture of automotive parts from previously used assemblies which are brought into the plant, disassembled, cleaned, repaired, repainted, reassembled, and tested. Gerald Palmer was employed by Plant Manager Bob Tolleson on August 1, 1972, as a foreman on the second shift. Palmer had strong credentials for the job having worked for General Motors for 21 years of which 19 years were in supervisory status. After a brief training period of several weeks in which Palmer became familiar with the Respondent's particular operations, i.e., rebuilding auto- motive parts, he became foreman on the night shift supervising some nine employees. Approximately a week after he was hired, Palmer, after consulting with Plant Manager Tolleson, hired his wife, Norma Palmer, who thereafter worked directly under his direct supervision. It should be noted that this was not an unusual circumstance at the Respondent's plant; the record shows that there were several supervisory personnel who had their wives or other family relations employed by Respondent. The job to which Norma Palmer was assigned was one which is included in the unit represented by the Union, and Norma Palmer joined the Union after her 45- day probationary period. It appears that in January, Respondent determined to transfer the general foreman of the second shift, George Damon, to the first shift. When Tolson asked Damon for a recommendation among the supervisors to be general foreman of the second shift, Damon recommended Palmer. Thereafter, on or about February 5, Palmer was promoted to general foreman of the second shift, which meant that he had "complete responsibility" therefor.3 B. Norma Palmer's Participation in the Union Meeting, and the Consequences Thereof For several weeks prior to April 20, the Company and Union had been engaged in contract negotiations looking toward the consummation of a new collective-bargaining agreement.4 The Union scheduled a meeting of its members on April 20 to be held at the City Hall in Hope, Arkansas, for the purpose of explaining the Company's contract proposals and thereafter voting to accept or reject them. Approximately 300 employee-members attended the meeting, and heard the union representative discuss the proposed contract. He thereafter opened the floor for 3 It should be noted, however, that the second shift was substantially smaller than the first shift in terms of numbers of employees it appears that the principal function of the second shift was to prepare the materials for production so that the first shift could have a ready supply the following day. * The existing contract between the parties was scheduled to expire on April 20. 5 For example , she asked if food stamps and low -mterest loans were available for fanulies who were hard -pressed because of a strike e The second employee who spoke at the meeting stated that "he hoped that anybody that voted for the strike , their family would starve." I General Foreman Damon testified that he had heard that Mrs Palmer had made some statement concerning employee benefits during a strike, and that he passed this information on to Tolleson. The latter testified that someone had told him that Mrs. Palmer was "quite active in union affairs," questions or discussion, and Norma Palmer was one of two employees who rose for that purpose. Mrs. Palmer, apparently feeling that the Company's offerings were insufficient, and further assuming that a strike would result if the employees rejected the proposed contract, asked several questions concerning the Union's plans for the employees' protection in such an event.5 The umon representative apparently did not directly respond to these questions but indicated that Mrs. Palmer had the wrong attitude and that the contract proposals were the best that could be secured under existing circumstances.6 At the close of the meeting, the employee-members, in a secret ballot election, voted to reject the proposed contract. Shortly thereafter, the foregoing conduct of Mrs. Palmer was reported to Plant Manager Tolleson.? The following Monday morning, April 23, several employee-umon members came by Mrs. Palmer's work station and discussed the matter of the contract proposals with her, which was observed by Tolleson. As a result, at approximately 2 p.m. on April 23, Tolleson called Gerald Palmer into his office to discuss the matter of his wife's activities. According to Palmer's testimony, Tollerson advised that he (Tolleson) knew that Palmer's wife was quite "active" in the Union; that he (Tolleson) could not do anything to her because she was represented by the Union, but he could, in fact, terminate Palmer if the latter did not "take care of her." Following the conversation, Palmer proceeded to his wife's work station and told her to "cool it" or he would lose his job.8 Thereafter, Norma Palmer did, in fact, curtail her activities on behalf of the Union and after some more negotiations the employees voted, on or about the end of May, to accept the contract. As previously noted, the day following the conversation between Tolleson and Gerald Palmer, the latter had a conversation with Supervisor Hughey Kidd as follows: Q. (By Mr. O'Leary) All right. Mr. Palmer, we were testifying I believe April 24th, the day after you talked to Bob Tolleson. Now, you spoke to Kidd; right? A. Yes. He came to me and asked me whether or not Bob Tolleson had told me that I had to get my wife out of the union or I was going to get fired and I said, not really in that sense of the word. He said-I said, I can understand Mr. Tolleson 's reason , because I said, we do share the same office and I said, being at bargaining time there's things that I would know that my wife shouldn't know if she's going to take an active part in the union . And so I said, I can understand his and that she was implying that the Company was not telling the truth concerning its financial situation 8 Tolleson , in his testimony, acknowledged being aware of Norma Palmer's activities at the union meeting , and was apparently upset that she did not believe that the Company was telling the truth when it spoke of its poor financial situation . However , he denied the threat to Gerald Palmer. Nevertheless , the latter was quite impressive as a witness and I am unable to believe that he fabricated that aspect of the conversation. Moreover , unlike the contention of Respondent in its beef (p. 13) 1 do not construe Palmer's testimony the following day with Supervisor Hughey Kidd to constitute a denial of having been so threatened by Tolleson. Furthermore , Mrs Palmer, thereafter, told employees that if she gave them advice as to the situation, her "husband would lose his job." Accordingly, to the extent that the versions differ, I credit Palmer 954 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD position. But I said, yes, in the sense of the word he did Analysis and Concluding Findings tell me that in one sense of it . And we walked away. Q. Well, did he say anything else to you? A. The only thing he stated is that he said in the past this has came up before and he walked away. Q. Did he explain what came up in the past before? A. He did explain to me that some of the other foreman's had been talked to about their wive's activities in the union. Q. Did he name who they had been talked to by? A. No, he did not. Although Hughey Kidd was not called as a witness, several supervisors of Respondent testified that they were never informed that their family members should not be active in the Union. Also, Tolleson denied that it was Respondent's policy to require that the spouses or family members of supervisory employees refrain from union activities. Indeed, his testimony is unrefuted that the mother-in-law of Supervisor Varner Kidd was more militant on behalf of the Union than Mrs. Palmer. C. The Reduction in Force and Layoff of Gerald Palmer As previously noted, the Company was experiencing financial difficulties during the Spring of 1973. The situation apparently became so severe toward the end of May that the president of the Company, a Mr. DeBlase, whose office is in St. Louis, Missouri, took over the actual operation of the Hope facility for several weeks. At that time, DeBlase ordered Tolleson to reduce overhead in an amount of approximately $100,000. This was to be accomplished by normal attrition with respect to nonpro- duction management personnel, and demoting production supervisors into rank-and-file production jobs. In his testimony, which is unrebutted on this point, Tolleson named a number of supervisory personnel who, during this period, either quit and were not replaced or were transferred to lesser positions. Of the three supervisors on the night shift, one, Art Dotson, was transferred to a guard's position and subsequently quit; Louis Hughes quit rather than take a lesser position, and Palmer was terminated on June 21. Varner Kidd, who was foreman over disassembly on the day shift, replaced the three supervisors on the night shift. Plant Manager Tolleson was the agent of Respondent who made the decision to terminate Palmer on June 21. He testified as follows as to his reason for the decision: Because we were cutting back and he was one of the less senior employees that we had and as far as I was concerned we had spent as much training time as we could and we had to keep other people. See if'algreen Co, 206 NLRB No. 15, and cases cited. 10 There was rather considerable testimony proffered by some of the Respondent's day-shift supervisors to the effect that Palmer did not perform his duties as general foreman on the night shift in a satisfactory manner However, Tolleson testified that he discounted these type of complaints, i.e , I have found that on or about April 23 Plant Manager Tolleson threatened Gerald Palmer concerning the latter's job unless he did something to curtail his wife's union activities. Since this threat, although made from one supervisor to another, was clearly intended as a conduit to employees and to influence an employee's conduct, it constitutes interference, restraint, and coercion within the meaning of Section 8(a)(1) of the Act .9 On the other hand, I am not convinced that the evidence preponderates in favor of the General Counsel on the allegation of violation of Section 8(a)(1), to wit: that the Respondent has engaged in the "practice of instructing Respondent's supervisory personnel to require their wives, who are employees of Respondent, to refrain from participating in union activities." In support of such allegation there is only the testimony of Gerald Palmer to the effect that Hughey Kidd, a fellow supervisor, when informed by Palmer of the threat, responded that it was not the first time it had happened. Other supervisory personnel, however, denied any such policy. In view of the relative vagueness of Kidd's assertion , I am constrained to find, as noted, that the General Counsel did not prove this allegation of the complaint by a preponderance of the evidence. Although the circumstances are rendered suspicious by the threat made by Tolleson to Palmer several months earlier, I am unable to find that the termination of Palmer on June 21 was other than a normal consequence of the economic constriction which Respondent was undergoing at the time. The following factors have entered into my conclusion on this matter: (1) Both Gerald Palmer and Norma Palmer immediately complied with Tolleson's orders; (2) there is no question but that the Company was undergoing rather severe economic troubles and that several supervisory personnel either quit, were laid off, or were demoted during this period of time; (3) although Palmer was generally well qualified by his experience and training in the automotive field, he was required to undergo training in the Respondent's particular field of remanufacturing of auto parts, and he clearly did not have as much experience in this narrow field as some of the other of Respondent's supervisors; 10 (4) the fact that since June, although Respondent has hired or rehired some production personnel, it had not (until the date of the hearing) rehired or repromoted any supervisors; and (5) there is no history of union animus on the part of the company nor any contemporaneous statement by Tolleson at the exit interview that the layoff was causally connected with the prior union activities of Norma Palmer. Therefore, I shall recommend that this allegation of the complaint be dismissed. the day people blaming the night people, and vice-versa, and that his only consideration in laying off Palmer was lack of work. Accordingly, I have given such testimony by the day shift supervisors little, if any, weight as respects the reason for the layoff STANDARD AUTOMOTIVE COMPONENTS 955 IV. THE EFFECT OF 1HE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES UPON COMMERCE The activities of Respondent, as set forth above, occurring in connection with the operations of Respon- dent, described 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 thereof. V. THE RFMEDY Having found that the Company has engaged in and is engaging in certain unfair labor practices affecting com- merce, I shall recommend that it cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative action in order to effectuate the policies of the Act. Upon the basis of the above findings of fact, and upon the entire record in the case, I make the following: Respondent to insure that said notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other material. (b) Notify the Regional Director for Region 26, in wasting, within 20 days from the date of the receipt of this Decision, what steps the Respondent has taken to comply herewith. IT IS- ALSO ORDERED that the complaint be dismissed insofar as it alleges violations of the Act not specifically found. 11 In the event no exceptions are filed as provided by Section 102.46 of the Rules and Regulations of the National Labor Relations Board, the findings , conclusions , and recommended Order herein shall, as provided in Section 102.48 of the Rules and Regulations , be adopted by the Board and become its findings , conclusions, and Order, and all objections thereto shall be deemed waived for all purposes. 12 In the event that the Board 's Order is enforced by a Judgment of a United States Court of Appeals, the words in the notice reading "Posted by Order of the National Labor Relations Board" shall be changed to read "Posted Pursuant to a Judgment of the United States Court of Appeals Enforcing an Order of the National Labor Relations Board." APPENDIX CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 1. Respondent is an employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 2. The Union is a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act. 3. By threatening the spouses of employees concerning the union activities of employees, the Company has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8(a)(1) of the Act. 4. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting commerce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 5. The Company has not engaged in unfair labor practices in any other respect alleged in the complaint. Upon the foregoing findings of fact, conclusions of law, and the entire record, and pursuant to Section 10(c) of the Act, I hereby issue the following recommended: ORDER i i Respondent, Standard Automotive Components, a Division of Missouri Research Laboratories, Inc., its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall: 1. Cease and desist from: (a) Threatening the spouses of employees concerning the union activities of employees. (b) In any like or related manner interfering with, restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. 2. Take the following affirmative action necessary to effectuate the policies of the Act: (a) Post at its Hope, Arkansas, facility, copies of the attached notice marked "Appendix." 12 Copies of said notice on forms provided by the Regional Director for Region 26, after being duly signed by an authorized representative of Respondent, shall be posted immediately upon receipt thereof, and be maintained by it in conspicu-. ous places, including all places where notices to employees are customarily posted. Reasonable steps shall be taken by NOTICE To EMPLOYEES POSTED BY ORDER OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD An Agency of the United States Government The National Labor Relations Board having found, after a trial, that we violated federal law in certain respects, we hereby notify our employees that: WE WILL NOT threaten the spouses of employees concerning the union activities of our employees. WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner interfere with, restrain, or coerce our employees in the exercise of the right to self-organization, to form labor organiza- tions, to join or assist International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), Local 1091, or any other labor organization, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, or to refrain from any or all such activities. STANDARD AUTOMOTIVE COMPONENTS, A DIVISION OF MISSOURI RESEARCH LABORATORIES, INC. (Employer) Dated By (Representative) (Title) This is an official notice and must not be defaced by anyone. This notice must remain posted for 60 consecutive days from the date of posting and must not be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material. Any questions concerning this notice or compliance with its provisions may be directed to the Board's Office, Clifford Davis Federal Building, Room 746, 167 North Main Street, Memphis, Tennessee 38103, Telephone 901-534-3161. Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation