National Labor Relations Board v. A. J. Tower Co.

Background

A company and a union agreed to a secret-ballot election supervised by the labor board’s regional director to decide union representation at the company’s plant. The payroll as of April 21 was used to make an eligibility list. After the May 5 vote produced a 116–114 tally for the union, the employer learned that one voter, Mrs. Jennie A. Kane, may have left the job before the election and challenged her vote days later.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether the Board may refuse post-election challenges to a voter’s eligibility in a consent election. The majority upheld the Board’s long-standing policy that challenges must ordinarily be made before or at the polls so elections remain final and secret. The Court said that this policy is a reasonable procedural rule within the Board’s discretion, does not strip the Board of power to find an employer guilty of refusing to bargain, and that exceptions exist if officials or parties knowingly hide a voter’s ineligibility.

Real world impact

Employers and workers who use consent elections must protect election rights before or during voting, because later-discovered ineligible votes usually cannot overturn results. The decision affirms the Board’s authority to treat certified election results as final and to order employers to bargain when those results stand.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Jackson dissented, warning the ruling leaves anti-union employees unprotected and urging post-election challenges when irregularities may have changed the result.