The Kohler Strike: Union Violence and Administrative Law by Sylvester Petro

Author:Sylvester Petro [Sylvester Petro]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-61016-120-6
Publisher: Henry Regnery Company
Published: 1961-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

3. The Striking Shell Department Employees

The NLRB gave scant attention to the question of the legality of the termination of the employment of the striking shell department employees. In fact, rather than explain how the termination was an unfair labor practice, the Board simply adopted the trial examiner’s conclusion that it was; and it similarly avoided the problem of demonstrating a casual relationship between the termination and the prolongation of the strike. This is what the Board said:

. . . the Board finds, in agreement with the trial examiner, that on or about July 1, in violation of . . . the Act, [the company] discriminatorily discharged the striking shell department employees, . . . for the sole reason that they were on strike, and that the [company] thereafter discriminatorily failed to offer them reinstatement on the same basis as those nonstrikers similarly situated. The Board also finds, in agreement with the trial examiner, that in June [the company] violated . . . the Act by discharging the striking temporary employees and by transferring the nonstrikers to other departments without notification to and without negotiation or consultation with the Union as their exclusive bargaining representative. The Board also agrees with the trial examiner’s finding that these unfair labor practices contributed to the prolonging of the strike. . . . While the Board agrees with the trial examiner that the [company’s] discharge of the striking temporary shell department employees and the transfer of nonstriking shell department employees to other departments without prior notification to and without prior negotiation or consultation with the Union in June may not have directly prevented the reaching of a contract agreement in June, such unlawful conduct does further demonstrate the [company’s] lack of good faith during the June negotiations.

The facts, already stated generally in Chapter 3, are these. Employment in the shell department was temporary and known by everyone concerned to be tied to the government shell contract. Moreover, by the terms of the 1953 collective agreement between the union and the company, the company reserved the right to transfer or release all temporary employees “whenever there is no work available for them in such temporary department.” As early as March 2, not only before the strike but even before anyone knew that there would be a strike, the Kohler Company announced to both the union and the temporary employees that both the shell department contract and their employment would terminate on June 30. Thus it would be correct to say that the employment of the temporary shell department employees was actually terminated on March 2, to be effective as of June 30—indicating as clearly as possible that the shell department employees were not discharged because they had gone on strike.

During the June negotiations the parties discussed the shell department employees, with union and company both acting on the assumption that their employment would be formally terminated on June 30, in accordance with the company’s March announcement. Thus the union proposed that the shell department employees

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.