NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co

In NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co. (1969) 395 U.S. 575, the employer told his workers the company was in a precarious financial condition and the strike-hungry union would make unreasonable demands causing the plant to shut down and they would all be out of work. The court there held the statements were without support since no demand had been made by the union, there was no basis for assuming the union would have to strike to be heard and no evidence showed other plant closings were due to unionism. They were coercive threats. It said: "An employer, who has control over that relationship and therefore knows it best, cannot be heard to complain that he is without an adequate guide for his behavior. He can easily make his views known without engaging in '"brinkmanship"' when it becomes all too easy to 'overstep and tumble over the brink,' Wausau Steel Corp. v. NLRB, 377 F.2d 369, 372 (C.A. 7th Cir. 1967). At the least he can avoid coercive speech simply by avoiding conscious overstatements he has reason to believe will mislead his employees." ( NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., supra, at p. 620 23 L.Ed.2d at p. 582.) The United States Supreme Court made it clear that "an employer is free to communicate to his employees any of his general views about unionism or any of his specific views about a particular union, so long as the communications do not contain a 'threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.' " (Id. at p. 618 89 S. Ct. at p. 1942.) Gissel teaches that "expression or association that would otherwise be protected may be regulated if necessary to protect substantial rights of employees or to preserve harmonious labor-management relations in the public interest."