Bremerton Metal Trades Council
P.O. Box 448
Bremerton, Washington 98310
Phone 377-0811

August 14, 1974

Mr. A. L. McFall, 
Head Employee Management Relations Division 
Code 160, Bldg. 290
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
Bremerton, Washington 98314

Subject: Unfair Labor Practice Charges, A. L. McFall, R. Britten, F. F. Manganaro,  Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and unknown persons associated with management

Copies: A. L. McFall; R. Britten; F. F. Manganaro, Paul J. Burnsky,  (President Metal Trades Council, AFL-CIO), Allen B. Coats, (General Representative, Metal Trades Council, AFL-CIO),  Lee A. Holley, Esq., All Associated Unions and Shop Stewards

Dear Mr. McFall:

This is to notify you, on behalf of the respondent, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and the above management representatives who are either actively participating, or are lending their participation by failure to maintain proper discipline among management representatives, of the filing of the most serious of formal charges of unfair labor practices known to American processes of labor/management relations. This filing is in keeping with the provisions of Title 29, CFR, Part 203 et seq. United States Department of Labor.

The charges grow out of the unilateral revocation of the already established and peaceful procedure of allowing the Council representative his usual and weekly meeting with shop stewards on Wednesday, August 7, 1974.
Pursuant to your directions, and an established procedure, permission was requested and granted in early July 1974 to allow Council representative, Lee A. Holley, to attend the weekly shop stewards' meeting. Initially, this permission was granted with the shipyard exercising its prerogative to have an escort from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard police accompany him. Toward the end of July your office agreed this was unnecessary and it was arranged that a continuing per ...... with the undersigned to escort him. On each and every occasion when escorted by the assigned policeman or the undersigned, Mr. Holley went directly to the shop stewards meeting, conducted himself solely as a union representative with his only activity exercising his right of free speech as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Executive Order, and left the shipyard immediately following the meeting. On a number of occasions, he spoke to members of your office and never was a single indiscretion or complaint voiced and we understand you claim none.

On August 6, 1974, Mr. Holley returned from a trip to Alaska and worked late in the evening solely to attend a scheduled meeting for which permission had been granted previously within the shipyard premises. On August 7, 1974 he came to Bremerton expressly for the arranged meeting to discuss the illegalities of management activity in the Cobb case, another matter of unfair labor practice charges, and further to discuss his research on radiation poisoning. Minutes before he arrived and about an hour and a half before the scheduled meeting you issued a letter revoking the granted permission.

Let me make very clear and certain, lest you overlook the important fact, as your most recent letter seems to, that this case is not one involving the exercise of a discretionary right of whether or not to grant Mr. volley permission to enter the shipyard, but involves the issue of your revocation of privileges, which is not a discretionary right according to the negotiated agreement. Furthermore, Section 12 of Article VII, when it comes; to meeting with other council officials, does not entail any right to revoke; Section 13 of said Article, involving meeting with employees, entails revocation, not by any discretion but solely on two grounds: abuse or violation of security and if there is a violation of the latter the only remedy is requiring escort and not revocation.

You admit that neither abuse nor violation of security is involved. We demand to know the reason for your claimed exercise of discretion:

a. Have you been spying on the meetings as our President recently guaranteed that no such activity would be tolerated?

b. Are you attempting to curtail free speech?

c. Are you objecting because of the long line of illegalities and abuse of authority that Mr. Holley has brought to light?

d. What is the truthful reason behind the alleged discretion because discretion is merely arbitrary whimsy without rationale.

In any event, upon my telephone call to you, you admitted that you were merely acting as a front for another and had to check with that other unnamed person before you could clarify my questions.

Your actions and the actions of the hidden officials who either hid behind you, or refused to oversee that you follow the law are part and parcel of a long range of factual interference with representation of employees and the Council by Mr. Holley. Let us review the facts leading up to this filing:

1. Confidential papers were taken from the confidential files of shipyard employees who came to the Metal Trades Council Compensation Clinic and were allegedly used by Lt. Lawrie of the legal office, in his capacity as a private citizen, filed from his home, in answer to a lawsuit brought by Mr. Holley by filing them with the Washington Bar Association. His charges were false and two employees, Herbert H. Kiehn and John M. Parker, have asked for an investigation and action on the taking of confidential papers and use, of them against their own attorney and they have heard nothing.

2. Mr. Holley has written numerous letters to officials of the shipyard as representative and you have refused to answer them or to even acknowledge them. Many of these letters have pointed out criminal violations and you have refused to meet, with him. He has sought numerous meetings and has been ignored.

3. There are numerous instances where management officials have made false and defamatory statements against our representative, Mr. Holley, and he will document these along with employee witnesses.

4. A specific agreement was made to cease interference with his representation and it has been since violated on numerous occasions.

5. He has made very serious charges in an overwhelming number of instances and management refuses to even institute investigation of these; in those cases going to hearing, the most serious of abuses by management have been proven and there is a continuing refusal to insist upon law and order by supervision and a refusal to enforce discipline against management officials who have been violating federal law, the agreement and the Constitution.

These actions and the most recent action are a violation of the entire spirit of the Executive Order as provided in the preamble, specific violations and interference with Section 1(a) of the General Provisions, direct violation of Section 11(a)(b) and further violation of Section 19(a)(l), (2), (3), (5) and (6). Your actions are tantamount to a lock out and provocative of great pressure and strife.

We call for a full and fair investigation of the facts. This is an area where neither truth, the glue of government as our President has so aptly noted, nor past management indiscretions, may be suppressed.

By way of remedies, without limitation, we seek a meeting on shipyard premises of all members of the bargaining unit where full apology is made to the Metal Trades Council and its representative, Mr. Holley; we seek reasonable expenses of $500 to date which expenses are continuing due to the negligence attendant; we seek appropriate discipline of all those officials involved; we seek administrative leave for all shop stewards of 2 hours for each hour of interference in the first month of your continuing violations and a progressive ratio increased to 3 hours, 4 hours, etc. as each month passes with continuing violations.

We also suggest the necessity of establishing classes in American history and the history labor/management relations, and of understanding of the importance of agreements, law and constitutional rights, for attendance by management officials involved in the illegalities. We suggest that Mr. Holley, as part of the apology to him, and the Bar Association of this state, of which he is a representative also, be asked to instruct these classes as we have enjoyed them as part of the Olympic College program and believe that much of the waste, inefficiency, poor morale among employees and lack of enforcement of discipline among supervisors could be alleviated through education.

Prior notice of any meeting should be given to the undersigned and Mr. Holley in order that we may have available such witnesses, staff representatives, legal assistants and experts as may be in our discretion. We note in your past letter regarding the unfair labor practice charge against Mr. Longmate that you seem to wish to impose your will on who shall attend these meetings; we reserve our right to have such person or persons as we deem necessary in attendance at these and all other meetings.

You seem to misunderstand the nature of our request for Mr. Holley to attend on August 14, 1974. This required meetings with officials of the Council regarding this unfair labor practice. Accordingly, we need two hours administrative leave for each shop steward for important labor/management business on August 21, 1974 in order to investigate and undertake our processing of preparation for this case. Leave shall commence at 2:20 p.m. and all shop stewards and certain witnesses whose names we shall supply will be found at a meeting with our representative, Mr. Holley, at our office unless you designate an. appropriate secure facility at the shipyard. In the event you deny this request, we shall simply continue processing legal action until we have achieved meaning to the appropriate federal laws and constitutional guarantees involved.

Respectfully submitted,

William K. Holt
By order of unanimous shop stewards

WKH:dm