Labor Law – Labor-Management Relations Act – Interrogation Concerning Union Membership As an Unfair Labor Practice

Concerned about possible loss of Allied Trades Council approval if a union not a member of the council should be elected by Syracuse Color Press employees in a forthcoming representation election, the plant superintendent called five employees into his private office. He and the general manager questioned them concerning membership and meetings of the nonmember union, and about employee sympathy regarding that union. The nonmember union filed a complaint and the trial examiner of the National Labor Relations Board found a violation of section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, although he found no actual coercion of the employees. The NLRB adopted the examiner’s findings and petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for an enforcement order. Held, an enforcement order should issue, on the ground that the situation in which the interrogation was carried on contained elements of actual coercion. NLRB v. Syracuse Color Press, Inc., (2d Cir. 1954) 209 F. (2d) 596.