Extract
National Furniture Manufacturing Co., Inc., 834 (1961)
DECISION AND ORDER
On June 9, 1961, Trial Examiner Ramey Donovan issued his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the Respondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor practices and recommending that it cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the Intermediate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Respondent and the General Counsel filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and supporting briefs.134 NLRB No. 84.NATIONAL FURNITURE MANUFACTURING CO., INC. 835Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a threemember panel [Members Rodgers, Fanning, and Brown].The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Intermediate Report, the exceptions and briefs, and the entire record in this case, and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the Trial Examiner, with the following modifications.THE REMEDYThe Trial Examiner found that the Respondent violated Section 8 (a) (3) and (1) of the Act by discriminatorily discharging employees Calvin Belt, James Crane, Howard Dunn, Daniel Hughes, Clarence Sims, and Carvel Dillback, and he recommended that the Respondent be ordered to offer Belt, Crane, Dunn, Hughes, and Sims reinstatement to their former or substantially equivalent positions and make them whole for losses in pay by reason of the discrimination. As to Dillback, the Trial Examiner recommended that this employee be granted backpay but did not order his reinstatement.As reasons for withholding the reinstatement remedy from Dillback, the Trial Examiner noted (1) that on January 8, 1961, when Respondent's general manager, Mosier, attempted to hand a letter to Dillback, Dillback made a vulgar remark showing 'an unnecessarily disrespectful attitude toward the general manager,' and (2) that in December 1960, Dillback had adversely affected Respondent's sales by telling a customer of the Respondent that there had been changes in personnel at Respondent's plant, that keymen had been laid off, that the whole organization was turned upside down, and that if the Respondent did not do well at the January furniture show it was going to discontinue the making of furniture.We disagree with the Trial Examiner's conclusions with respect to the foregoing conduct. The issue here is not whether Respondent could have discharged Dillback for using offensive language to his superiors or for his statement to Posey relative to his employer's business prospects. Rather, it is whether such conduct has made Dillback unemployable by the Respondent, so as to excuse Respondent from the duty of remedying its unlawful discharge of Dillback by reinstating him to his former position. While we do not approve of Dillback's mode of expression to his superior officers, we note that such mode of expression is not at all unusual in work-a-day associations among industrial workers. It is also a fact that tempers are aggravated and attitudes hardened in the stress and strain of hotly contested labor disputes. In these circumstances we do not view Dillback's statements to his superiors 1 as so unpardonable to warrant.denying him reinstatement on that basis. Nor do we find that the Posey incident is a sufficient basis for such action. That incident occurred some time before Dillback's unlawful discharge and, while Respondent may not have discovered it until after the discharge, it remains an isolated instance. No similar instances were established on the record. Not only was it isolated, it was from all appearances an unpremeditated remark made by a truckdriver in response to a complaining customer's general query as to what was going on at the Respondent's plant. In these circumstances, Dillback's remarks hardly warrant characterization as those of an insider with special knowledge of the Respondent's business prospects, nor do they come within the area of these statements involved in the Jefferson Standard Broadcasting case 2 which the Supreme Court found, in agreement with the Board, warranted treatment as an attack 'made by the Com pany's technical experts upon the Company's products.' Accordingly, in view of all the circumstances, we find that it will not effectuate the policies of the Act to deny reinstatement to Dillback, and we shall accordingly order Respondent to offer him immediate and full reinstatement.' ORDERUpon the entire record in the case, and pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders that the Respondent, National Furniture Manufacturing Company, Inc., Evansville, Indiana, its officers,.agents, successors, and assigns, shall :1. Cease and desist from :(a) Discharging employees because they have exercised their .rights under ...See the full content of this document
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