1 - National Labor Relations Board

70 Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board
potency of strikes as a weapon and the effectiveness of the union seeking to
represent his employees. It is, however, a different matter when the employer
leads the employees to believe that they must strike in order to get concessions.
A major presupposition of the concept of collective bargaining is that minds
can be changed by discussion, and that skilled, rational, cogent argument can
produce change without the necessity for striking. When an employer frames
the issue of whether or not the employees should vote for a union purely in
terms of what a strike might accomplish, he demonstrates an attitude of
predetermination that bargaining itself will accomplish nothing. . . . Policy
considerations dictate that employees should not be led to believe, before
voting, that their choice is simply between no union or striking.
In a union deauthorization election case 89 the Board considered
employer statements concerning the possible effects of deauthorization.
In urging employees to vote "no" or refrain from voting,
the employer asserted that the loss of the union-security provision
through an affirmative deauthorization vote might mean that
the union's international might lose interest and the local's charter
be withdrawn, there would then be no union contract or union
at the plant, and the employer would then be free to increase
benefits. The Board refused to set aside the election and found
that the statements "did not prevent voters from comprehending
the question upon which they were voting, and that they were
not precluded from expressing a free choice in the referendum,"
but "merely clarified for the employees the actual issues in the
election by pointing to a result which well might emerge from
the contemplated deauthorization election."
c. Election Atmosphere
In several cases the Board was called upon to decide whether
a pervasive election atmosphere precluded employees from expressing
a free choice on the question of representation by a
union. In Al Long , 9° the Board set aside the election where "a
general atmosphere of confusion, violence, and threats of violence"
occurred during the critical period prior to the election. The
Board found that the anxiety and fear of reprisal rendered a
fair election impossible. The election was 'conducted in the face
of an "often violent" and "emotion-filled" strike which included
extensive property damage, threatening calls, bomb threats, and
unruly conduct on the picket line. In reaching this conclusion
the Board did not deem it significant that the interference could
not be attributed to one of the parties. As stated, "it is not
material that fear and disorder may have been created by indi-
Sierra Electric, 176 NLRB No. 63.
"1 173 NLRB No. 76.