J. - National Labor Relations Board

70 FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARDattributable to the respondent. In Matter of General ChemicalCompany and District #50, United Mine Workers of America,Divi,sion, 73 the Board arrived at a similar determination with respectto head operators who occasionally delivered orders of their respectiveforeman and assistant foremen to other employees.The Third Annual Report discusses in detail the various types ofactivity which the Board considers in determining whether an employerhas engaged in an unfair labor practice within the meaningof section 8 (2). 80 The Board has had occasion to consider thesetypes of activity in numerous cases decided during the last fiscalperiod. Only the more interesting cases involving such activity aredealt with in this discussion.In a number of cases, the Board had occasion to make a furtherstudy of employee representation plans in their traditional form.In Matter of Servel, Inc. and United Electrical, Radio and MachineWorkers of America, Local No. 1002, 81 the Board summarized themany elements of interference, support and domination frequentlycontained in such a plan :The plan as formulated and put into operation in 1933, while affordingrepresentation for presenting employee complaints and requests to the respondent,ignored completely the broader aspects of self-organization andcollective bargaining. The plan made no provision for group assemblage andmeeting of employee members to discuss in a body matters affecting wages,hours, and other working conditions. It made no provision for group decisionupon a course of action or for group instruction to plan leaders. Onthe contrary, the plan as devised foreclosed such discussion, decision, andinstructions. The council functioned insulated from collective action of itsconstituency and attended by the management's representative. Moreover,what measure of representation the plan afforded was subject to employerrestraint and control, direct and indirect. Membership, and hence representation,was an attribute of employment rooted in the respondent's will to employ,not a matter of self-organization. Councillorship was closed to non-employeesand terminable by dismissal of the incumbent or his transfer to another votinggroup. Meetings of the council were in the presence of the management'srepresentative. The procedure for handling employee grievances was solengthy and involved such repeated submission to different employer representativesas to invite early capitulation. At one stage in the procedure, thatinvolving inability of the councillor and the management's representative tosettle a complaint, presentation of the grievance to the succeeding respondent'srepresentative was to be made not by the councillor alone but by joint actionof the councillor and the management's representative. Elections and councilmeetings were held on the respondent's property, and in other ways the operationof the plan depended upon the respondent's financial and other support.The plan could not be amended without the respondent's approval and couldbe terminated by its individual act. In short the plan as conceived and establishedby the respondent was an organization entirely its creature, capableof affording a degree of entployer-controlled representation, but preventing truecollective bargaining.And in Matter of Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limitedand Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers ofAmerica, Local No. 5, 83 the Board described the place of the old-lineemployee representation plans in the history of industrial relationsas follows :"8 N. L. R. B. 269."At pp. 112-118.n 11 M. L. R. B. 1295."Cf. Matter of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company and Industrial Unionof Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, 8 N. L. R. B. 866, modified and enforced,Newport News Shipbuilding f Drydock Company v. N. L. R. a, 101 F. (2d) 841 (C. C. A.4) reversed and Board order enforced in full by the Supreme Court on December 4, 1939."11 N. L. R. B. 105, petition to review filed March 2, 1939 (C. C. A. 1). •