National Labor Relations Board v. Anchor Rome Mills, Inc.

228 F.2d 775
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMarch 8, 1956
Docket19-51046
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 228 F.2d 775 (National Labor Relations Board v. Anchor Rome Mills, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Labor Relations Board v. Anchor Rome Mills, Inc., 228 F.2d 775 (5th Cir. 1956).

Opinion

BORAH, Circuit Judge.

This case is before the Court on petition of The National Labor Relations Board, seeking enforcement of its order 1 requiring respondent, Anchor Rome Mills, Inc., to cease and desist from certain unfair labor practices and to take specified affirmative action which the Board found would effectuate the policies of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. 2

The material facts which give rise to the two charges filed against respondent are these: The Textile Workers Union of America, C.I.O., certified bargaining representative of respondent’s employees, failed to reach an agreement with respondent on the terms of a new contract and on March 18, 1948, approximately 350 employees went out on strike. The respondent had little difficulty replacing the strikers and plant operations continued.

In another proceeding 3 the Board found the strike to be an economic one. Accordingly, the Board held that respondent should not be required to reinstate the strikers' to their former positions if to do so would require the discharge of replacements.

The initial charge in this case was filed on November 18, 1949, and served on November 23, 1949; it contains the following allegations: “The Employer, in order to discourage membership in a labor organization, on, before and after May 15,1949, 4 discriminated in regard to the hire and tenure of employment and to the terms and conditions of employment” of 346 named strikers, respondent’s former employees, and further that by these and other acts and conduct, within the past six months, “the Employer had interfered, restrained and coerced its employees in the exercise of their rights as guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act.” A second charge was served on respondent on May 24, 1950, which, in broad language identical to that in the first charge, set forth respondent’s discrimination on and after November 20, 1949, and “within the past six months”, against Ellen Langham, a non-striker former employee. On March 31, 1953, the General Counsel issued a consolidated complaint which set forth the days in the year 1949 on which the 346 named strikers applied for reemployment and in which it was alleged that “on or about January 14, 1949, and at all times thereafter, Respondent refused to reemploy’” the named persons “because of their membership in and activity on behalf of the Union, and because they engaged in the strike * * *” Further discrimination was alleged in that one Minnie H. Mize, a non-striker former employee “in *778 or around February, 1949, July, 1949, March, 1951, and at various other times,” applied for “reinstatement or reemployment” and that respondent refused in “February, 1949, and at all times thereafter,” to reemploy her because of her membership in the Union and particularly because her husband and her father engaged in the strike. Similar allegations were made as to Ellen Langham, the person named in the second charge.

On November 25, 1953, the trial examiner issued his intermediate report and his findings of fact, conclusions and recommendations were based solely upon the evidence relating to acts occurring on and after May 23, 1949, the six-months cutoff date preceding the date on which the first charge was served. The Board adopted the trial examiner’s report with the additions and modifications to which we shall hereinafter refer. In summary, the examiner’s findings were: That there was a surplus of textile labor in the area; that respondent maintained a valid practice of “hiring at the gate” through a personnel office — did not keep a formal application file — that applicants were required to apply in person for interview and no applications by telephone were accepted. That it was respondent’s general practice to hire applicants who were under fifty years of age, but it sometimes deviated from that rule. That preference in employment was given to employees in a lay-off status and to relatives of its employees. That the personnel director frequently posted a “No Help Wanted” sign to discourage applicants but more than 100 persons appeared seeking work on each of the three mornings a week scheduled by the personnel office for interviews. That during the period aforementioned, the personnel director made inquiries and statements to at least five striker-applicants which had a tendency to discourage the strikers from applying for reemployment; and that this conduct on his part clearly evinced respondent’s ■intent and policy not to reemploy any former striker. 5 The examiner further found that the filling of vacancies in respondent’s plant were peculiarly within its knowledge and control; that as to non-strikers whom it desired to hire, it frequently tendered vacant jobs to them long after they had applied in person for employment, but that respondent never followed this practice as to striker-applicants. He also found that the refusal to hire Minnie H. Mize and Ellen Langham was based upon their relationship to strikers and because of their sympathies for the Union and the strike. The trial examiner made detailed findings as to the number and classification of vacancies filled after May 23, 1949, and likewise an analysis of the job qualifications of and dates of personal application for unconditional employment by the former employees. Specifically, he found (1) that following the personal applications for employment by sixty-two of the named applicants job openings were available which each was qualified to fill, and (2) that absent a discriminatory policy, respondent would have considered the applications of sixty former strikers and of Minnie Mize and Ellen Langham for present or future employment as it did in the case of numerous non-strikers. The Board, in general agreement with the examiner’s analysis and findings, observed: “In our opinion, it was the continued operation of this discriminatory policy and not the lack of vacancies at the time of application that affirmatively prevented the 60 former strikers who applied * * * from receiving employment. Moreover, under the circumstances herein, we believe that, once having made their application for employment * * * it was not necessary for the 60 strikers thereafter to repeat the useless gesture of applying again and again in order to establish the Respondent’s responsibility for the discrimination practiced against them.” The Board in agreement with the trial examiner found that the re *779 spondent had violated the Act with reference to Minnie H. Mize and Ellen Lang-ham, relatives of strikers, by extending “its discriminatory policy against former strikers to such relatives.”

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Bluebook (online)
228 F.2d 775, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-anchor-rome-mills-inc-ca5-1956.