direct elections for all officers, while top officers ofthe auto workers and steelworkers are elected by delegates. An- other disagreement stems from the use by the auto work- ers of a public review board, made up of ministers and professors who handle appeals when union members challenge elections for improprieties. A spokesman for the machinists said the auto workers would not give up the board and the machinists couldn’t agree to have it.

Campaign Workshop

Question by a New Manager A recent case cautions employers on the importance

of carefully training new managers about what they can and can’t say during a union election campaign. In this case, Health Management, Inc., 326 NLRB No. 67, a recently hired district manager asked employees what the complaints were that had led them to become in- volved in a union campaign. The manager stated that she wanted to know the employees’ issues so that she would have an opportunity to address their concerns without the necessity for them to go to a union.

During the same organizing drive, a manager asked an employee, “Why would you want to negotiate through a union when you can give the company a try?”

When the union charged that these questions con- stituted unlawful conduct, the company tried to defend itself by arguing that one of the managers was new and trying to orient herself to issues in the workplace. This was not a legitimate defense in the eyes of the NLRB. Nor was it a legitimate defense that the other manager’s question had been asked of only one employee. This case is another warning to employers of the Board’s ex- tremely rigid view on workplace interrogations during an organizing campaign. Any such statements or ques- tions are viewed by the Board as an implied promise to remedy grievances without the presence of a union, conduct that the Board views as unlawful.

Little Things Mean a Lot in an Election Campaign

A recent case illustrates just how trivial are the issues that can draw an unfair labor practice charge from a union. Several weeks before the election, the employer placed a coffeemaker and a water cooler for use

by employees in a trailer located closer to the employees’ work area than the building from which coffee and water were previously provided. When the union lost the election, it filed an objection that the employer’s reloca- tion of the water and coffee was an unfair labor practice that tainted the election and asked the NLRB to order a new election. Shockingly, the NLRB hearing officer agreed with the union that the employer’s conduct was objectionable.

Showing some common sense, the NLRB reversed the hearing officer. It found that employees had always had access to coffee and a water cooler, although previ- ously these had been located somewhat further away. Additionally, it found that the coffeemaker and water cooler had been installed to accommodate supervisors and that the water cooler was installed merely for the purpose of providing water for use in making coffee, because the trailer to which the coffeepot and water cooler were moved had no independent water supply. Moreover, only one pot of coffee had been made between the date that the coffeemaker was installed and several weeks later, when the election was held.

The fact that the employer had to litigate such a miniscule change and that a hearing officer actually sided with the union serves notice to all campaigners to exercise extreme care whenever making changes, how- ever slight, during the preelection period. Allegany Ag- gregates, Inc., 327 NLRB No. 123.

To be distinguished, however, would be a case where an employer provided or changed access to coffee or water as a direct result of soliciting employee grievances and in response to that solicitation ofgrievances. In such a case, the Board would almost certainly rule the em- ployer had tainted the election. H

Mqjor Union Victory in the South

The June win by UNITE at Fieldcrest Cannon textile plants in North Carolina with more than 5,200 workers is the largest single union victory ever in the South, a region that is less unionized than any other in the nation. The victory caps an intense struggle the company has waged against unionization for decades. The company had won four previous elections going back more than 20 years. “It feels like we just organized G.M.,” Bruce Raynor, the union’s organizing director,

0 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

6 Management Report /September 1999