NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

96 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
representative's majority support. We cannot permit the purposes of the Act
to be thus circumvented."
In Matter of Sunsh,ine Mining Company 54 the Board said, in ordering
the employer to bargain collectively:
* * * the respondent by its refusal to accord the Union recognition forced
it to resort to a strike, thereby causing it to alienate a number of its members.
To recognize these renunciations, therefore, as defections in the Union's majority
status on August 2, 1937 [the date of the strike], would be to permit
the respondent to use the fruits of its unfair labor practices in refusing to bargain
on June 28 and July 9, 1937, as a defense to its refusal to bargain on
August 2, 1937. Thus the respondent, by two evasions of the At, would be
permitted to build up a defense for.a third evasion of the Act. This, we have
held, cannot be done.
2. FAILURE TO NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH
Since a bona fide attempt by the employer to reach an agreement
with the representatives of its employees is essential to collective bargaining,
55 the Board, in each case, has examined the dealings between
the parties and has scrutinized the activities of the employer during
the course of the negotiations in an effort to determine whether the
employer has been bargaining in good faith.
Matter of Atlas Mills, Inc.," is illustrative of the Board's approach
and method of analysis. In that case, the Board said:
There is no doubt that the respondent negotiated with the respresentatives
of Local 2269, meeting with them, receiving proposals, and putting forward
counter-proposals of its own. But there is equally little doubt that if the obligation
of the Act is to produce more than a series of empty discussions, bargaining
must mean more than mere negotiation. It must mean negotiation
with a bona fide intent to reach an agreement if agreement is possible.' Negotiations
with an intent only to delay and postpone a settlement until a strike
can be broken is not collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 8 (5)
of the act * * S.
The present record persuades us that the respondent did not bargain in good
faith with Local 2269. The discharges which met the first request to bargain;
the delays and postponements, 57always at the instance of the respondent's
representative, that characterized the negotiations once they were begun ; the refusal
to sign a written agreement ; the constant changes in the basis of negotiations,
each time further away from the desires of Local 2269; the efforts made
by one of the respondent's agents while the negotiations were still going on
to win the higher paid leaders away from Local 2269, break the strike, and
avoid the necessity to bargain at all; these are not indicia of a bona fide
effort to reach an agreement. Rather they suggest a design, facilitated by the
youth and inexperience of the striking employees, to use the negotiating process
as a strikebreaking device.
53 See also Matter of Sunshine Mining Company and International Union, of Mine, Mill
and Smelter Workers, 7 N. L. R. B., 1252; Matter of Burnside Steel Foundry Company
and Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers of North America, Lodge No.
2719, 7 N. L. R. B. 714; Matter of Missouri-Arkansas Coaoh. Lines, Inc., and The
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 7 N. L. R. B. 186; Matter of Fansteel Metallurgical
Corporation and Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers of North
America, Local 66, 5 N. L. R. B. 930.
,4 Matter of Sunshine Mining Company and International Union of Mine, Mill, and
Smelter Workers, 7 N. L. R. B. 1252.
65 In the absence of this element of good faith on the employer's par; any negotiations
that take place must inevitably be fruitless and cannot prevent resort to industrial warfare
as a method of settling disputes.
58 Matter of Atlas Mills, Inc. and Textile House Workers Union, No. 2269, United Textile
Workers of America, 3 N. L. R. B. 10.
57 Cf. Matter of Jacob A. Hunkele, trading as Tri-State Towel Service of the Independent
Towel Supply Company and Local No. 40, United Laundry Workers Union, 7 N. L. R. B.
1276, and Matter of Bemis Bros. Bag Company and Local No. 1838, United Textile Workers
of America, 3 N. L. R. B. 267, where the employer's dilatory and evasive tactics were
noted. In the latter case, however, because the union did not represent a majority of the
employees in an appropriate unit the Board found that the employer had not retused to
bargain.