NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

VII. PRINCIPLES ESTABLISHED 97
The Board has indicated that the manner in which the employer
has negotiated may be indicative of its good faith. In Matter of
National Licorice Company 58 the conduct of the employer at a conference,
which was completely dominated by the employer's president,
and at which "The union officials were to all intents and purposes
relegated to the position of bystanders and were permitted scant
opportunity to present their demands," was a factor which justified
the conclusion that the employer had not bargained in good faith.
And the Board has considered counter proposals so important an
element of collective bargaining that it has found the failure by the
employer to offer counter proposals to be persuasive of the fact that
the employer had not bargained in good faith. 59 In Matter of Globe
Cotton Mills," the Board pointed out that—
Although * * the respondent met with the Union representatives, received
proposals, accorded such proposals ostensible consideration, and engaged
in discussions of them, an analysis of this conduct compels the conclusion that
in fact the respondent did not recede from or alter in any material particular
its position of May 17. Throughout the conferences, the respondent not only
systematically rejected each and every Union proposal, including those which
were admittedly unobjectionable, but also persistently declined to make any
counterproposals. Counsel for the respondent argues in his brief that since
it expressed its views in open conferences and since its ideas were not acceptable
to the committee, it would have been a vain and foolish thing to submit
a formal proposal to the same effect. This argument has a surface plausibility
but the difficulty with it lies in the fact that while rejecting the Union's proposals
in open discussion the respondent not only did not give but in fact carefully
avoided any affirmative indication of possible terms upon which it would
he willing to agree. It is obvious that this technique was calculated to and
did make any productive negotiations impossible.
The Board concluded that—
The respondent's tactics in readily participating in discussions in which its
agents carefully avoided any semblance of agreement to proposed terms and
offered no suggestions for changes acceptable to them convince us that the
respondent only sought to give the appearance of obedience to Act without
ever entering into genuine collective bargaining.
In many cases, the Board has drawn inferences from the employer's
course of conduct after it was requested to bargain collectively,
which have supported a finding that the employer had
not entered into negotiations in good faith in a bona fide attempt
to reach a collective bargaining agreement.
Thus, in Matter of Leo L. Lowy," the employer called a meeting of
his employees on the day following a meeting with a union committee.
At the meeting with the employees, the employer attacked the union
and said he would not recognize it, and asked the employees to vote
on the question of remaining in the union, informing them that the
plant would be closed if they chose to do so. The employees voted to
remain in the union, and the employer then paid them off and dis-
58 Matter of National Licorice Company and Bakery and Confectionery Workers International
Union of America, Local Union 405, Greater New York and Vicinity, 7 N. L. B. B.
537.
n Matter of J. W. Beasley, Individually and Trading as Standard Memorial Works and
Granite Cutters' International Association; of America, Charlotte Branch, 7 N. L. R. B.
1069; Matter of Farmed" Package Corporation and United Veneer Box and Barrel Workers
Union, C. I. 0., 6 N. L. R. B. 601; Matter of American Manufacturing Company,1 Company
Union of the American Manufacturing Company; the Collective Bargaining Committee
of the Brooklyn Plant of the American Manufacturing Company and Textile Workers'
Organizing Committee, C. I. O., 5 N. L. R. B. 443.
6, Matter of Globe Cotton Mills and Textile Workers Organizing Committee, 6 N. L. R. B.
461.
al Matter of Leo L. Lowy, Individually. Doing Business as Tapered Roller Bearing Corporation
and International Association of Machinists, District No. 15, 3 N. L. R. B. 938.