Campaign Threats or Implied Promise of Benefit?

Did the employer statements constitute an unlawful threat or an unlawful promise in violation of Section 8(a) (1) of the LMRA? Why or why not?

The case study provides interesting views of how the company feels about their employees trying to organize. Section 8(a) (1) states that it is “unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7” (Baird, 1985), it seems clear that the employer’s statement constituted an unlawful threat. The statements read in such a way that it seems like the company was just pointing out facts, however, the specific statement “that the benefit package given our plant employees from the time the plant opened was better than those at other unionized plants owned by the company” (Holley, Jennings, & Wolters, 2009) suggests that the company wants to ensure that the employees understand that if they sign up with the union, their wages might be lowered.

The employer’s intent might have been to just provide the employees with the facts of what the bargaining might entail, but there was an implyed threat. The company was trying to influence their employees to not sign up with the union because if they did, it was not guarantee that the union would be able to negotiate better wages. The leaflets seemed to have worked because according to the case study, the union had 426 valid union authorization card signatures, but after the leaflets were distributed, that number dropped to 391 which meant that the union lost the vote. This signifies that the company wanted to overcome the impact of the union by trying to discourage the employees from voting towards unionization.

Did the questioning or statements by either supervisor Bates or Lofton constitute unlawful interrogation in violation of Section 8(a) (1) of the LMRA? Explain fully why or why not.

Supervisor Bates statements seemed non-threatening and are more of his opinion of what might...