Union Approach to Health and Safety: - United Steelworkers

900 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
6 This factual background is intended only to provide some of the
key facts on which my analysis is based. I fully agree with the
judge’s findings of fact, and I have not attempted to present an exhaustive
picture here.
‘‘dealing’’) with it and it will not usurp the employees’
exclusive right to choose a representative by such bargaining
or dealing. In this case, I find that the Respondent
did manipulate the safety and fitness committees
to inhibit employees’ free choice. The Respondent
undermined the freely chosen bargaining agent by establishing,
tacitly recognizing, and bargaining over
mandatory subjects with employer-controlled employee
representation committees. Thus, I find that the Respondent’s
domination of the operation and administration
of the safety and fitness committees and the bypassing
of the Union violated Section 8(a)(2) and (5).
The lesson to be gleaned from the violations found
and the allegations dismissed here is simply that, under
current law and precedent, employers cannot establish
and use employee committees with the flexibility, discretion,
and authority inherent in the creation and use
of a management tool and lead employees to believe,
either directly or indirectly, that the ‘‘management
tool’’ is the employees’ tool.
2. Factual background 6
The DuPont Deepwater plant employs over 3500
employees and produces over 750 chemical products.
The Union, the membership of which is limited to
Deepwater employees, has represented clericals and
production and maintenance employees at the facility
for 50 years.
Until 1987, the Deepwater plant’s safety program
was administered through area safety committees composed
solely of managerial personnel. The committees
planned monthly safety meetings in the various areas
of the plant, and exercised the authority to award compensation
such as cash, tools, shirts, and the like to
employees as an incentive to safe work habits. Employees
occasionally expressed dissatisfaction with the
small value of the incentives; the Union successfully
negotiated increases in the value of the items several
times.
In 1984, the Respondent instituted a personal effectiveness
program for employees (PEP), which encouraged
decision-making through consensus. The Respondent
used PEP as its organizing principle when, in
1987, it revamped its safety committees to include unit
employees as members. PEP provides a parliamentary
structure for meetings and goal-setting in which every
group has a ‘‘facilitator’’ (chairperson) and a ‘‘resource’’
(adviser) who, between them, exert extensive
control over the group’s agenda and the conduct of the
meetings and one of whom is invariably a member of
management. PEP requires that all group members, including
the managerial members, agree on any decision
made by the group, whether the decision be to
clarify policy, to propose a new way of handling a
problem, or to decide on a problem-solving strategy.
Thus, as the judge found, no employee proposals could
leave the committee without the assent of the management
members.
The management/employee area safety committees
operate independently of each other, but share some
features: managers serve on each committee; management
decides which employees who volunteer for the
committees would serve on them; the continuation of
the safety committees is dependent on management,
which can abolish them at any time; employee members
serve on the committees for indefinite periods,
without rotations; and management provides all funds
for the activities of the committees. The Respondent
also provides meeting places and equipment, pays the
employee members for their time, and has authorized
the committees to use electronic mail to communicate
with employees. 7
The committees’ activities differ, despite their common
characteristics. For example, the Central Safety
Programs Committees has developed monthly safety
information programs and established safety awards.
The Antiknocks Area Safety Committee has urged unit
employees to inform committee members of their safety
problems and touted the committee as ‘‘the fastest
way to get things fixed’’; the committee took employee
complaints and concerns to management for
correction. The Antiknocks Committee is one of the
most successful and efficient of the employee committees.
It has arranged for improvements in the procedure
for handling welders’ protective clothing and secured
a new, better-ventilated welding shop for a welder
after the Respondent denied the Union’s repeated attempts
to get the welder’s complaints about the ventilation
in the shop corrected. The committee also,
often on information from unit employees, got potholes
repaired, personnel assigned to clean air hoses, and
new procedures in the handling of safety garments put
into place, to name only a few of the goals it achieved.
When it learned of or observed safety hazards, the
Antiknocks Committee tried to correct some situations
itself; when it could not, a member presented the problem
to the supervisor or manager in the area on the
committee’s behalf. If the problem was not resolved
there, the committee would pursue it to higher levels
of plant management.
All of the safety committees decided on safety
awards to employees in recognition of or to encourage
safe work habits. These awards ranged in value from
the nugatory (e.g., sunglass holders) to the substantial
(e.g., breakfasts, dinner dances, evenings on the town,
corduroy jackets, cash awards of $50 and $25, and
7 Deepwater employees were forbidden to use electronic mail for
union business or messages.