1 - National Labor Relations Board

116 Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board
In Sinclair, the Board had found that the employer's communications
to the employees had conveyed the message that
the company was in a precarious financial condition, that the
"strike-happy union would in all likelihood have to obtain its
potentially unreasonable demands by striking, the probable result
of which would be a plant shutdown, as the past history
of labor relations in the area indicated, and that the employees
in such a case would have great difficulty finding employment
elsewhere. Applying the standard outlined above, the Court held
that the Board was reasonable in concluding "that the intended
and understood import of that message was not to predict that
unionization would inevitably cause the plant to close but to
threaten to throw employees out of work regardless of the
economic realities."
D. Union Fines for Exceeding Production Ceilings
In Scofield, 15 the Supreme Court affirmed the Board's holding
that the union did not violate section 8(b) (1) (A) of the Act
by imposing, and bringing court suits to collect, fines against
members who violated a union rule prohibiting the acceptance
of immediate payment for production in excess of a ceiling rate.
The Court noted that, under its prior decisions interpreting
section 8(b) (1) (A), 16 a union is free "to enforce a properly
adopted rule which reflects a legitimate union interest, impairs
no policy which Congress had imbedded in the labor laws, and is
reasonably enforced against union members who are free to leave
the union and escape the rule." It found that these conditions
were satisfied in Scofield.
Thus, the Court noted that there was no showing that "the
fines were unreasonable or the mere fiat of a union leader, or
that the membership of [the disciplined employees] in the union
was involuntary." The Court further found that the union ceiling
rule served a legitimate union interest, guarding against competitive
pressure which would endanger workers' health, foment
jealousies, and reduce piece rates and the work force. Moreover,
the union rule neither impeded collective bargaining, nor was it
in derogation of the collective-bargaining agreement. The union
had never refused to bargain about the ceiling, and at various
" Scofield v. N.L.R.B., 394 U.S. 423, affg. 393 F.2d 49 (C.A. 7), which sustained 145 NLRB
1097.
"NLRB v. Industrial Union of Marine & Shipbuilding Workers, 391 U S. 418, Thirtythird
Annual Report (1968), pp. 135-136; N.L.R.B. v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 175,
Thirty-second Annual Report (1967), p. 138.