1943 - National Labor Relations Board

The N. L. R. A. in Practice: Unfair Labor Practice Cases 29spondent is not required to issue passes for the solicitation of membership."A number of cases which came before the Board during the fiscalyear 1943 involved the question of whether and to what extent anemployer may prohibit or -limit union solicitation or other activity oncompany time or property. The fact that the problem thus appearedand reappeared indicated that it was of general interest, and theBoard therefore felt it wise to evolve a clear and general policy forthe guidance of employers and labor organizations alike. The Board'spolicy was stated in Matter of Peyton Packing Company, 49 N.L. R. B.828, as follows:The Act, of course, does not prevent an employer from making and enforcingreasonable rules covering the conduct of employees on company time. Workingtime is for work. It is therefore within the province of an employer to promulgateand enforce a rule prohibiting union solicitation during working hours. Such arule must be presumed to be valid in the absence of evidence that it was adoptedfor a discriminatory purpose. It is no less true that time outside working hourswhether before or after work, or during luncheon or rest periods, is an employee'stime to use as he wishes without unreasonable restraint, although the employeeis on company property. It is therefore not within the province of an employerto promulgate and enforce a rule prohibiting union solicitation by an employeeoutside of working hours, although on company property. Such a rule must bepresumed to be an unreasonable impediment to self-organization and thereforediscriminatory in the absence of evidence that special circumstances make therule necessary in order to maintain production or discipline.The rule thus formulated by the Board is designed to protect therights of employees under the Act, but at the same time to discourageneedless interference with the uninterrupted production so vitalunder present wartime conditions. Since the decision in the Peyton• Packing case, the Board has in general followed the rule there announcedthat an employer may properly prohibit union activities during workingtime, but not during the employees' own time even though theyare on company property. However, the fact that a no-solicitationrule promulgated by an employer is by its terms applicable to employeeson company property even on their own time does not makeimproper the employer's discharge of an employee who engages inunion activity during working time.2The Board has also been faced in a number of cases with the generalproblem of whether anti-union statements made by an employer areprotected by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech orwhether such statements are violations of Section 8 (1) of the Act.Since the Supreme Court's decision in the Virginia Electric andPower Company case,' the Board has continued to hold that anti-unionstatements by an employer, when an integral phase of other anti-unionconduct, constitute interference, restraint, and coercion within themeaning of the Act. 4 This is particularly clear where the anti-unionstatements and conduct of the employer take place shortly prior to an2 Matter of Scullin Steel Company, 49 N. L. R. B. 405.N. L. R. B. v. Virginia Electric and Power Company, 314 U. S. 463.4 matter of Virginia Electric and Power Company, 44 N. L. R. B. 404.