Continental-Diamond Fibre Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 6, 1949

83 N.L.R.B. 1143 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter Of CONTINENTAL-DIAMOND FIBRE COMPANY,1 EMPLOYER,
and LOCAL 487, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF PULP, SULPHITE
AND PAPER MILL WORKERS, AFL, PETITIONER
Case No. 4-IBC-384.-Decided June 6, 1919
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before John H. Wood,
Jr., hearing officer of the National Labor Relations Board. The hear-
ing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial
error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Houston and Murdock].
Upon the entire record in this case the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The Petitioner and the Intervenor, District 50, United Mine
Workers of America,2 are labor organizations claiming to represent
employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer, within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The appropriate unit :
The Petitioner requests a unit of all production and maintenance
employees at the Employer's Newark, Delaware, plant, excluding
office, clerical, technical and sales employees, guards, and supervisors as
defined in the Act. In the alternative, and if the Board should find its
first request inappropriate, the Petitioner seeks to represent production
and maintenance employees at.both the Marshallton and Newark
1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing.
1 The Intervenor , although not in compliance with Section 9 (f), (g), and ( h) of the
amended Act, was permitted to intervene on the basis of its current contract with the
Employer.
83 N. L. R. B., No. 162. 1143
1144 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
plants of the Employer.3 The Employer opposes the request for a
single-plant unit, contending that a unit of both plants is the only
appropriate unit. The Intervenor contends that each plant comprises
a separate appropriate unit.
The Intervenor was certified by the Board as collective bargaining
representative for the Newark plant on December 15,1944, and for the
Marshallton plant on January 31, 1945.4 From then until May 5,
1947, the Employer and Intervenor entered into separate collective
bargaining agreements with locals of the Intervenor at each of the two
plants. However, on May 5,1947, the Employer and the two locals of
the Intervenor entered into a single joint collective bargaining agree-
ment covering both the Newark and Marshallton plants with identical
provisions as to wages, hours, and conditions of employment. In May
1948, the Employer and a joint negotiating committee of the two locals
signed a supplemental agreement granting an identical increase to
both plants.
The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of vulcanized fibre,
plastic, and laminated plastic products at its Newark and Marshallton
plants. The two plants are located approximately 4 miles apart and
vulcanized fibre sheets that are manufactured at Marshallton are
transported to Newark for processing. While there are separate
superintendents for each plant both are responsible to the vice presi-
dent in charge of manufacturing, whose office is in Newark. The pay
roll for both plants is made up in the Newark plant and policies gov-
erning labor relations at both plants are established by a single director
of industrial relations. The hiring of employees for both plants is
handled at the Newark plant by the personnel manager.
The record further demonstrates that there is an occasional inter-
change of employees between the two plants and employees' seniority,
for the purpose of computing vacation benefits, is retained by the em-
ployee when transferred from one plant to another .5 Employees at
both plants possess approximately the same skills, have many common
job classifications, and receive the same rates of pay.
In view of all these circumstances, including the interrelationship
of the operations of the two plants, the common working conditions,
and personnel control, and the fact that collective bargaining has
gravitated toward a two plant basis, we find that the employees of
both plants have a substantial community of interest, as a result of
8 At the hearing the Petitioner moved to amend its petition to provide for this alternative
request. Ruling on the motion was reserved to the Board . The motion is hereby granted.
* 59 N. L . R. B. 32 , and 59 N . L. R. B. 1367 . In neither of these proceedings did any
party contend that an appropriate unit should include more than the single plant involved.
5 Seniority is on a strict departmental basis and is lost when transferred to a new depart-
ment, whether the transfer occurs within a single plant or between the two plants.
11
CONTINENTAL-DIAMOND FIBRE COMPANY 1145
which they can best be represented in a single bargaining unit, as
requested in the alternative by the Petitioner.6
We find that all production and maintenance employees of the Em-
ployer at its Newark and Marshallton, Delaware, plants, excluding
office, clerical, technical and sales employees, guards and supervisors
as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION T
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by
secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than
30 days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and super-
vision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this case was
heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations-Series 5, as amended, among
the employees in the Unit found appropriate in paragraph 4, above,
who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately preceding
the date of this Direction of Election, including employees who did
not work during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vaca-
tion or temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have
since quit or have been discharged for cause and have not been rehired
or reinstated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding em-
ployees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine
whether or not they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective
bargaining, by Local 487, International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sul-
phite and Paper Mill Workers, AFL.
6 Matter of Bowers Battery and Spark Plug Company, Inc., 72 N. L. R. B. 1161 ; Matter
of Geneva Forge, Inc., 76 N. L. R. B. 497.
7 As the Intervenor is not in compliance with Section 9 (f), (g), and (h) of the amended
Act, it will not be accorded a place on the ballot.