About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

4 S. Ill. U. L.J. 475 (1979)
The National Labor Relations Board and Pre-Election Misrepresentations: From General Shoe to General Knit

handle is hein.journals/siulj4 and id is 485 raw text is: THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD AND PRE-ELECTION MISREPRESENTATIONS: FROM GENERAL SHOE TO GENERAL KNIT Obviously, a man's judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate false- hoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man. -Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1891-1968) Address to New York State Publishers The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as amended, estab- lishes the right of employees to organize among themselves in order to bargain collectively with their employer.' To protect that right, Con- gress has statutorily instituted measures to aid employees in the exer- cise of the right and to guard against its violation.2 Perhaps the most crucial of such measures, the one allowing for employee election of bargaining representatives,3 has been the source of much litigation before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the federal courts. The representation election process has evolved into a contest between organized labor and management forces, each striving to gain employee votes through various means of persuasion. The opposing parties usually conduct active campaigns to sway the employees in the exercise of their voting right for or against representation. These prac- tices have often resulted in campaign misrepresentations which inter- fere with employee choice in the election process. This paper will examine the past and current law regarding misrepresentations in pre- election campaigns, its effects on employee choice, and the changes in NLRB policies, tracing the development in the area from the early for- mation of review standards in the 1948 case of General Shoe Corp. 4 to the recent change of NLRB policy in General Knit of California, Inc. ,' decided in December, 1978. It is this author's position, as this paper will demonstrate, that the NLRB was correct in returning to its tradi- 1. 29 U.S.C. § 157 (1976). 2. Id. §§ 158-169. 3. Id. § 159. 4. 77 N.L.R.B. 124, 21 L.R.R.M. 1337 (1948). 5. 239 N.L.R.B. No. 101, 99 L.R.R.M. 1687 (1978).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most