## Facts

- A representation election was held among production employees at General Shoe Corporation’s Pulaski, Tennessee plant to determine whether they wanted union representation by the Boot and Shoe Workers Union (AFL).
- The union lost the election and filed objections challenging the validity of the results.
- Before the election, company foremen visited employees’ homes and urged opposition to the union.
- On the day before the election, the company president met repeatedly with small groups of employees in his office and delivered substantially the same anti-union speech to each group.
- The Board found the conduct was not clearly an unfair labor practice under the NLRA’s § 8 standards but raised the question whether it nonetheless tainted the election atmosphere.

## Issues

1. Whether the NLRB may set aside a representation election based on campaign conduct that interferes with employees’ free choice even if the conduct does not amount to an unfair labor practice under NLRA § 8.
2. What standard governs whether pre-election conduct has sufficiently impaired the conditions necessary for a reliable test of employees’ representational wishes.

## Decision

- The NLRB held it may invalidate a representation election when surrounding conduct prevents a reliable determination of employees’ true desires, even if the conduct is not an independent § 8 violation.
- The Board articulated the “laboratory conditions” doctrine: election proceedings should approximate conditions “as nearly ideal as possible” to determine employees’ “uninhibited desires.”
- Applying that standard, the Board set aside the election and directed that a new election be held.

## Legal Principles

- In representation cases under NLRA § 9, the Board’s task is to ascertain employees’ free and uncoerced choice regarding collective-bargaining representation, not merely to count ballots.
- The Board may regulate and remedy “objectionable” election conduct that tends to interfere with employee free choice even when that conduct does not constitute an unfair labor practice under § 8.
- The validity of an election turns on whether the overall context created an atmosphere that reasonably tended to impair employees’ ability to make an unpressured choice, including factors such as supervisory involvement, setting, and timing near the vote.

## Conclusion

The NLRB established that representation elections must be conducted under “laboratory conditions” sufficient to measure employees’ uninhibited preferences, and it may order a rerun election when objectionable campaign conduct undermines that objective even without a proven § 8 unfair labor practice.


Gen. Shoe Corp., 77 N.L.R.B. 124 (1948)