NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

IV. PRINCIPLES ESTAISLISUEL-ED 53
An interesting instance of employer support to labor organizations
which the employer favored was presented in Matter of American
Enka Corporation and Textile Workers Union No. 22429 (AFL) .62
After the issuance of a Board complaint charging the company with
having dominated certain bargaining committees which had been
established in its plant, the company notified its employees of its
willingness to defend these committees and polled the employees on
whether or not it should oppose the Board's proceeding, in a manner
clearly revealing its partiality for the committees. .
At times the subservience of a labor organization to the will of
the employer is plainly revealed by its actions. Thus, in Matter of
Delaware-New Jersey Ferry Company, 63 two bargaining committees,
originally formed at the employer's suggestion as a buffer against
outside unions, became wholly inactive on the suspension of organizational
activity by the outside unions. But when such activity was
renewed, the committees were revived and were again used as a vehicle
for .thwarting the membership campaign of the outside unions to which
the employer was opposed.
A striking illustration of the use by an employer of a companydominated
union as a component of its effort to crush an outside union
is presented in Matter of Ford Motor Company. 64 While the plant
was shut down following a discriminatory lock-out to discourage membership
in the outside union, an unaffiliated labor organization, called
the Blue Card Union, came into existence. Aided by companyinspired
statements that membership in the Blue Card Union would
be a condition of reemployment, the Blue Card Union organizers
succeeded in gaining many recruits. When the plant reopened, the
Blue Card Union was in effect given "the employer's prerogative of
hiring employees." Further to impress upon the employees its approval
of the Blue Card Union, the company rewarded the more prominent
adherents of the organization with wage increases; it also installed
a cafeteria and a parking lot at the mere request of the favored
union. These tactics resulted in the apparent displacement of the
outside union and the purported substitution of the Blue Card Union
as the bargaining representative of the employees reinstated.
. Equally successful in preventing employees from exercising their
right to self-organization were the employer tactics pursued in Matter
of Weirton Steel Company and Steel Workers Organizing Committee,65
in which an employer-dominated representation plan 66 was but-
82 27 N. L. R. B., No. 171, enfd in American Enka Corp. v. N. L. R. B., 119 F. (2d) 60
(C. C. A. 4)
"Matter of Delaware-New Jersey Ferry Company and United Marine Division Local
No. 333 (A. F. L.). 30 N. L. R. B., No. 120.
u Matter of Ford Motor Company [Kansas City, Mo.] and International Union United
Automobile Workers of America Local Union No. 249, 31 N. L. R. B., No. 170.
C6 32 N. L. R. B., No. 179.
" In reviewing the facts impelling it to find that the plan was company-dominated,
the Board stated :
"In sum, the respondent formed the Plan ; procured its adoption by employees ; determined
its essential nature, as an unaffiliated organization in which participation, and
the chances of control, by the rank and file employees, are reduced to a minimum ; during
the crucial formative period, had express authority to veto amendment of the Plan and
to terminate It; participated in administering the Plan and amending the governing Instrument;
subsidized the Plan by large annual and other payments to it, by payment of a
salary to the Plan chairman while he devoted his entire time to Plan business, by payment
of a special monthly salary to the employee representatives, by other special payments
to them, by payment of special compensation to Plan election committeemen, and
by permission to the employees to engage in Plan activity on company time and property ;
delegated management power to it in connection with the special watchmen and the