General Motors Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 25, 1951

92 N.L.R.B. 1589 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

In the Matter of GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, BUICK MOTOR DIvi-
SION, EMPLOYER and HARRY L. SYMONS, AN INDIVIDUAL, PETITIONER
and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT ANDS
AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA, UAWWr-CIO,
UNION
In the Matter of GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, A. C. SPARK PLUG`
DIVISION, EMPLOYER and BERNARD A. DRAVES, AN INDIVIDUAL, PETI-
TIONER and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT
AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA, UAW-CIO,
UNION
Cases Nos. 7-RD-74 and 7-RD-80.-Decided January 05, 1951
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon petitions for decertification duly filed, a consolidated hearing
ill these cases was held before Cecil PeIrl, hearing officer. The hear-
ing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error
and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in these cases, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The Petitioners, employees of the Employer, assert that the .
Union is'no longer the representative of the employees designated in
the petitions as defined in Section 9. (a) of the Act.
The Union, a labor organization, is the certified and currently recog-
nized representative of the Employer's employees.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the following reasons
In Case No. 7-RD--74 the Petitioner seeks to have the Union decer-
tified for. a'unit consisting of all the timekeepers at the Employer's.
Buick plant in Flint, Michigan. The Union contends that this unit is.
inappropriate, on the ground that these employees have long been
represented by it as part of a larger unit under its master agreement
with the Employer. The Employer is neutral.
.,The Employer's timekeepers at the Buick plant 1 are spread out inn
small groups throughout its 12 plant buildings among other plant
' About 40 in number.
92 NLRB No. 240. 15891,
1590 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
employees. Each group works under an immediate supervisor who
reports to the general time supervisor who in turn reports to the gen-
eral time and payroll supervisor. These employees perform the usual
duties associated with this occupational classification. They record
and balance the hours worked by the employees in the plant to which
they are assigned. Their hourly rates are neither the highest. nor the
lowest of the Employer's hourly-rated clerical employees, with whom
they share the same privileges and benefits.
In 1940, the Union was certified as the representative of the Em-
loyer's production and maintenance employees in the Buick plant.
he timekeepers and other hourly rated clerical employees were spe-
cifically excluded from the unit. In 1943, the Union was certified as
the collective bargaining representative of all the Employer's hourly
rated clerical employees, including timekeepers. Thereafter a memo-
randum of understanding was executed between the Employer and
the Union which brought these employees under the terms of a mul-
tiplant master agreement for the production and maintenance em-
ployees. Certain matters, such as hours of work and seniority, were
left to be negotiated with the Employer by the local union's shop com-
mittee for the employees in the hourly rated clerical unit.. Since
that time succeeding master agreements and memoranda of under-
standing have been executed by the Employer, the Union,. and the
local. The latest of such agreements was to expire on May 30, 1950.
It is thus apparent that the timekeepers are only a part of a larger
factory clerical group with whom they possess common interests, and
with whom they have been represented for a number of years in the
same bargaining unit. We find it unnecessary to determine whether
or not these factory clericals may have been merged by collective bar-
gaining into a broader production and maintenance unit, for in either
event it is clear that the timekeepers do not constitute a separate unit
appropriate for purposes of this decertification proceeding. We shall,
therefore, dismiss the petition in this case.2
In Case No. 7-RD-80 the Petitioner seeks to decertify the Union
as representative of the plant equipment designers and senior and
junior layout men 3 at the Employer's A. C. Spark Plug Division in
Flint, Michigan. The Union asserts that these employees do not
constitute a separate unit appropriate for purposes of the decertifica-
tion proceeding. The Employer is neutral.
The plant equipment designers work in the works engineering de-
partment. They are supervised by a plant equipment designer-super-
3 Boeing Airplane Company, 78 NLRB 795. Cf. Buick Motor Division, General Motors
Corporation, 90 NLRB No. 270.
2 About 10 employees are involved in this petition.
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION 1591
visor who reports to the works engineer. The junior and senior lay-
out men work in the master mechanics' department which is headed
by the master mechanic. Although separately supervised, these em-
ployees together are concerned with, the placing and arrangement of
plant machinery and equipment to achieve its most efficient operation.
The layout men assist the plant equipment designers by first preparing
a template, a small scale plant view of the machinery or equipment
to be moved and placed. The plant equipment designers then esti-
mate the cost involved in the moving and placing of equipment or
machinery, design devices for moving- and handling it, and supervise
its installation.
As in the previous case, the Union was certified in 1940 as repre-
sentative of a unit of production and maintenance employees at the
.Employer's A. C. Spark Plug plant in Flint, Michigan, from which the
employees involved in this case were excluded. In January 1944, the
Union was selected in a consent election as representative of the Em-
ployer's draftsmen 4 in the works engineering department, and a
memorandum of understanding was executed by the Employer and
the Union whereby these employees were brought in under the terms
of the multiplant master agreement. Certain local matters were left
to be negotiated with the Employer by the local union's shop com-
mittee on behalf of these employees.
The record indicates that the technical employees as to whom de-
certification is here sought are but a small segment of a larger group
of technicals in this plant, with whom they share common interests
but who apparently are not likewise represented by the Union. In
the Mountain States case,-9 the Board held that, where the unit sought
in a decertification proceeding includes all employees similarly classi-
fied-who are represented by the union, such unit is not rendered inap-
propriate for purposes of decertification by the omission of a few such
employees who have remained outside the scope of union representa-
tion. In the present case, those whom the Union does not represent
constitute the greater part of the plant's technical employees, and
those among whom an election is sought are a small minority of the
group that would, for purposes of a representation proceeding, be
found to constitute an appropriate unit. It is unnecessary, however,
to determine whether the omission of so large an unrepresented techni-
cal group is in itself sufficient ground for dismissing this decerti-
fication petition, because here there is another compelling reason for
The designations for the employees in this case were adopted in 1945 as a result of a
War Labor Board finding . The employees mentioned in the 1944 certification involve the
same categories as those in this proceeding.
5 Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company, 83 NLRB 773. See also Kelsey
Hayes Wheel Company, 85 NLRB 666.
1592 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
denial of a decertification election. In this case, the record is not
such as to persuade us that the employees as to whom decertification
is sought have.been merged by fhe history of bargaining into any
broader unit, either under the master multiplant contract or at the
local plant level. Thus here, unlike the situation in Mountain States,
the Union's success-in an election directed upon this petition would
result in its certification as representative of the plant equipment
designers and senior and junior layout men in a separate unit, a result
that we could not sanction because a unit limited to these categories
is clearly inappropriate.6 We shall therefore dismiss the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petitions in these consolidated cases
be, and they hereby are, dismissed.
CHAIRMAN HERZOG and MEMBER REYNOLDS, dissenting in part only :
We agree that the petition in Case No. 7-RD-74 for a decertifica-
tion election among the timekeepers at the Employer's Buick plant
should be dismissed for the reasons stated in the decision. We would
not, however, dismiss the petition in Case No. 7-RD-80 involving the
plant equipment designers and senior and junior layout men at the
A. C. Spark Plug Division. We would have directed an election to
afford these employees an opportunity to express their desire as to
whether the Union should continue to act as their bargaining repre-
sentative.
Unlike the timekeepers in Case No. 7-RD-74, the equipment de-
signers and layout men in, Case No. 7-RD-80 appear to constitute all
the employees in similar or related classifications who are represented
by the Union at the plant in which they are employed. We agree with
our colleagues that the Board would not make an initial finding, on
a petition for certification, that these latter categories alone con-
stitute an appropriate unit. We do not believe, however, that for the
purposes of this proceeding, the unit is so defective in principle as to
preclude the conduct of a decertification election, or even the certifi-
cation of the Union 7 if its assertion of majority status should be
Compare the Mountain States and 'Kelsey Hayes cases, supra. Those cases did not
involve this issue, because there- the union 's success in the election did not mean that it
would be certified , but merely that it might continue to bargain for the employees involved
as part of a larger unit of which they had been a part.
We regard as unsound our dissenting colleagues ' suggestion that our unit criteria be
revised in the light of what the parties may do as a consequence of our unit determination.
7 As a matter of procedure, the Board has not always deemed itself precluded from
directing a decertification election merely because of the impossibility or undesirability
of certifying the union in the event of its success . Early in its administration of the
amended Act, the Board decided that it was possible to conduct a decertification election
even where the incumbent union had not complied with the filing requirements of Section
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION 1593
vindicated at an election. This is. particularly so in the light of the
parties' original agreement upon this unit for purposes of the 1944
consent election, and the history of bargaining predicated on the
Union's success in that election.
.Apart from the possibility that this Union or some other labor
organization might at some unforeseeable time in the future file a
petition to represent these employees in a broader technical unit-an
event which this record gives us no reason to anticipate-ti dismissal
of this proceeding will completely forestall all opportunity of these
employees to express their desires as to continued union representation.
We find it ironical that, although our colleagues base their decision
to deny an election solely on the ground that it might result in certi-
fication of the Union in an inappropriate unit, the practical effect of
their decision is to compel employee acceptance of the Union, and
thus to perpetuate collective bargaining in the very unit that the
majority deems to be inappropriate for such purposes.
Under all the circumstances appearing in Case No. 7-R;D-80, and
as the plant equipment designers and layout men are the only techni-
cals in the A. C. Spark Plug plant that are represented by the Union,
we would grant the petition for a decertification election.
9 (f) and (h) of the Act. Harris Foundry cf Machine Company, T6 NLRB 118. In this
and following cases, the Board provided that if the union should be successful in the
election and still had not complied , the Board would not issue it certification to the union,
but would merely- certify the arithmetical results of the election . In the present case,
although we do not regard the nature of the unit as precluding certification , we neverthe-
less believe that some similar provision, denying certification to the Union would in fact
he preferable to the foreclosure of opportunity to these employees to express their choice
as to continued union representation that will result from dismissal of this petition.
929979-51-vol. 92--102