CASE PROCESSING PROCEDURES;PROCEDURES BEFORE THE BOARD – Weight Given to ALJ's Proposed Decision: Findings, Conclusions, Credibility Resolutions

Single Topic for Decision 2184M

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While the Board will afford deference to the ALJ’s findings of fact which incorporate credibility determinations, the Board is required to consider the entire record, including the totality of testimony offered, and is free to draw its own and perhaps contrary inferences from the evidence presented. Here, the ALJ made no determination that testimony of one witness was more credible than that of another but relied on evidence that charging party contacted his union after the meeting to conclude that it was “more likely than not” that charging party requested a union representative at a meeting with his supervisor and was denied one. Since the record contains no evidence that charging party was aware he could or should seek union representation until after the meeting, Board finds that the evidence did not establish that he requested union representation during the meeting.