Extract
Carlton College, 217 (1999)
Carleton College and Karl Diekman. Case 18-CA-
14336 April 30, 1999 DECISION AND ORDER BY MEMBERS FOX, LIEBMAN, AND BRAME On November 13, 1997, Administrative Law Judge William J. Pannier III issued the attached decision. The Respondent filed exceptions and a supporting brief. The National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the decision and the record in light of the exceptions and brief1 and has decided to affirm the judge's rulings, findings,2 and conclusions3 and to adopt the recommended Order. ORDER The National Labor Relations Board adopts the recommended Order of the administrative law judge and orders that the Respondent, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall take the action set forth in the Order. MEMBER BRAME, concurring. Although I agree with my colleagues and the judge that the Respondent violated Section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act by refusing to extend a contract to adjunct professor Karl Diekman because of Diekman's union activities, I reach this conclusion for the reasons stated below. The Respondent employed Diekman as an adjunct professor of clarinet and saxophone from 1983 until 1996. During the spring of 1995,1 Diekman and Eric Kodner, an adjunct professor of trench horn, formed an ad hoc adjunct faculty committee. The committee, which also included adjunct professor Lynn Deichert, conducted a survey of other adjunct faculty members seeking their opinions on working conditions. The ad hoc committee represented by Diekman, Kodner, and Deichert presented the concerns that the adjunct faculty raised in the survey at a regular faculty meeting on June 1. The members sought increased compensation and travel pay, the opportunity to negotiate the terms of annual teaching contracts and to attend music department meetings, and the chance to provide input into the music department curriculum. Stephen Kelly, who served as co-chair or chair of the Respondent's music department at all relevant times here, responded by expressing his concern about the economic effects on the applied music program if adjunct faculty were to unionize. 1 The Respondent has requested oral argument. The request is denied as the record, exceptions, and brief adequately present the issues and the positions of the parties. 2 The Respondent has excepted to some of the judge's credibility fin dings. The Board's established policy is not to overrule an administrative law judge's credibility resolutions unless the clear preponderance of all the relevant evidence convinces us that they are incorrect. Standard Dry Wall Products, 91 NLRB 544 (1950), enfd. 188 F.2d 362 (3d Cir. 1951). We have carefully examined the record and find no basis for reversing the findings. 3 In adopting the judge's finding that the Respondent's refusal to extend a contract to adjunct professor Karl Diekman violated Sec. 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act, we do not rely on the judge's statement that Diekman's threat to withhold reporting students' grades was akin to a sit-down strike or plant takeover. 1 All dates are in 1995, until otherwise indicated. When the next school year began that fall, the ad hoc committee decided to call itself The Adjunct Faculty Committee (TAFC) and conducted an election, with Diekman, Kodner, Deichert, Jim Hamilton, and Elizabeth Ericksen being elected TAFC's officers.2 Kelly then formed a separate adjunct faculty committee called the Adjunct Faculty Concerns Committee (AFCC) and held an election for officers at about the same time as the TAFC election. In a subsequent memorandum dated October 26, Kelly notified the adjunct faculty of the AFCC election results, labeled TAFC as a "non-Departmental Committee," and claimed, contrary to the credited evidence, that he was unaware of the TAFC election. In response, on October 30, TAFC sent a letter to Kelly protesting, inter alla, his "dismissive" characterization of TAFC. After the Respondent failed to make the improvements in working conditions that TAFC had sought, TAFC sent a 28-page memorandum in early March 19963 to the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC), which adjusts faculty grievances, complaining about terms and conditions of employment for adjunct faculty in the music department. The judge set out the details of that memorandum at section I,E of his decision and he found that the memorandum was protected activity under the Act at section II,A of his decision. On March 8, Kelly reacted to TAFC's memorandum by sending a handwritten note to Elizabeth McKinsey, the Respondent's dean of the college, stating that: "this memorandum represents a few good points surrounded by a sea of misinformation, vague charges, and red herrings. I assume FAC will not want to waste its and my valuable t...See the full content of this document
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