## Facts

- Sewell Manufacturing Company operated garment plants in Bremen and Temple, Georgia, and a union sought certification through a consent election.
- The NLRB conducted a secret-ballot representation election on July 21, 1961; the union lost by a wide margin, and challenged ballots could not affect the outcome.
- The union filed timely objections alleging the employer used propaganda appealing to racial prejudice and thereby affected election conditions.
- About two weeks before the election, the employer mailed employees campaign materials featuring interracial-dancing photographs and captions linking the CIO and fair-employment measures (FEPC) to racial integration.
- The employer also mailed a reproduction of a newspaper front page depicting interracial dancing and content associating union activity with “race mixing” and integration controversies.
- An Acting Regional Director recommended overruling the objections as permissible campaign propaganda, but the Board granted review and focused on the racial content, imagery, and local context.

## Issues

1. Whether the employer’s racially charged campaign communications were an impermissible appeal to racial prejudice that interfered with employees’ free choice in a representation election.
2. Whether such conduct required the Board to set aside the election and direct a second election.

## Decision

- The Board sustained the union’s objections in relevant part and set aside the July 21, 1961 election.
- The Board directed that a second election be conducted under NLRB supervision.
- The Board found the employer’s use of interracial imagery and associated messaging was calculated to inflame racial prejudice rather than inform employees on legitimate issues relevant to the election.

## Legal Principles

- Representation elections must reflect employees’ “free and untrammeled choice”; conduct that materially distorts the voting environment warrants setting aside the results.
- Racial or ethnic matters are not categorically barred from campaign discussion, but a party assumes a substantial burden to ensure any racial discussion is truthful, temperate, and presented in a manner that permits reasoned employee judgment.
- “Invidious” or inflammatory racial appeals—especially those designed to arouse fear, hostility, or baseless prejudice—will generally vitiate an election and justify a new election without requiring proof of actual vote impact.
- The Board evaluates both content and form, including the use of visual symbolism, timing, and local conditions, to determine whether campaign material constitutes an impermissible appeal to prejudice.

## Conclusion

The NLRB ordered a rerun election after determining that the employer’s electioneering used racially inflammatory imagery and messaging to exploit racial prejudice, undermining the conditions necessary for employees to make a free choice; only accurate, restrained, and genuinely informative discussion of race is permissible in NLRB election campaigns.


Sewell Mfg. Co., 138 N.L.R.B. 66 (1962)