NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

VII. PRINCIPLES ESTABLISHED 65
ers Union, affiliated with the Committee for Industrial Organization,
because its standard contract with employers in the trade provided for
lower wages than did a similar contract used by the American Federation
of Labor union. The company president told the employees
they "would have to join the C. I. O. or none at all." A floorlady
procured C. I. 0. membership cards and distributed them to employees
with the warning that if they did not sign the company
would liquidate. The company discharged some of the employees
who joined the American Federation of Labor union and refused to
deal with it. However, about the time this illegal assistance was to
close with the signing of a collective bargaining agreement between
the company and the Committee for Industrial Organization's affiliate,
that union stated that it might never sign. The Company thereupon
decided to and did form an 'independent" union, lent it vigorous
assistance, and a contract was made with the new organization. The
Board found that the company's entire course of action in assisting
the Committee for Industrial Organization's affiliate and the "independent"
union constituted a violation of Section 8 (1).
B. ENCOURAGEMENT OR DISCOURAGEMENT OF MEMBERSHIP IN A
LABOR ORGANIZATION BY DISCRIMINATION
Section 8 (3) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer—
By discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or
condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor
organization: Provided, That nothing in this act * * * or in any other
statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement
with a labor organization (not established, maintained, or assisted by any
action defined in this act as an unfair labor practice) to require as a condition
of employment membership therein, if such labor organization is the representative
of the employees as provided in section 9 (a) in the appropriate collective
bargaining unit covered by such agreement when made.°
1. DISCRIMINATION BECAUSE OF UNION ACTIVITY
In administering section 8 (3) the Board has been careful not to
"interfere with the normal exercise of the right of the employer to
select its employees or to discharge them." 64 And conversely the
Board has been equally determined not to permit in any case an unfair
labor practice within the meaning of this section to go unchallenged
"under cover of that right." 04 The Board has never held it to
be an unfair labor practice for an employer to hire or discharge, to
promote or demote, to transfer, lay off, or reinstate, or otherwise to
affect the hire or tenure of employ ees or their terms or conditions of
employment, for asserted reasons of business, animosity, or because
of sheer caprice, so long as the employer's conduct is not wholly or
in part motivated by antiunion cause. As stated in one case :
This Board does not attempt to interpret employers' rules or pass upon
their reasonableness. The only issue with which we are concerned is whether
Green had been discharged because of his Union activity * * a w
63 By section 9 (a). the representative designated by the majority of the employees
In the appropriate collective bargaining unit is the exclusive representative of all the
employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining.
'National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin steel Corporation. 301 U. S. 1,
45 (1937), reversing, 83 F. (2d) 998 (C. C. A. 5th, 1936), and enforcing Matter of Jones &
Laughlin Steel Corporation and Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers
of North America, etc., 1 N. L. R. B. 503.
Ibid.
• "Matter of Montgomery Word and Company, etc., and United Mail Order and Retail
Workers of America, 4 N. L. R. B. 1151.