International Harvester Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 29, 1951

94 N.L.R.B. 907 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY 907
INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY, MELRO.SE PARK WORKS and
PATTERN MAKERS' LEAGUE OF NORTH AMERICA, CHICAGO ASSOCIATION,
AFL. Case No. 13-RC-1814. May 29, 19.51
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Joseph A. Butler, hearing
'officer. The hearing 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 Act, the Board has
delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Reynolds].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. The petitioner seeks to represent all patternmakers and pattern-
makers' apprentices in the Employer's Melrose Park, Illinois, plant.
The Employer and the United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural
Implement Workers of America, CIO and certain of its affiliated
locals, on November 5, 1950, executed a master agreement covering
,employees in nine of the Employer's plants, including the production
and maintenance employees at Melrose Park, which the Intervenor,
UAW, Local 6, asserts is a bar to this proceeding.'
When the Melrose Park plant was opened it had no patternmakers.
Shortly afterwards, in February 1947, the Employer temporarily de-
tailed wood patternmakers from its Tractor Works, located about 4
miles away, to Melrose Park, where they worked about a year con-
structing wood models from blue prints and sketches. These models
were of a personnel carrier for which the Employer had a contract with
the Army Ordnance Department and the work was performed in a
restricted area set apart from the working area of the regular Melrose
Park employees. Throughout this period, and during later similar
details of patternmakers to Melrose Park that occurred intermittently
until 1951, the wood patternmakers remained on the Tractor Works
' As the result of an election conducted shortly after the opening of the Melrose Park
plant in November 1946, the Teamsters and the Operating Engineers were certified ;
respectively, as representatives of the outside truck drivers and of the operating engineers,
oilers, and firemen, and the Intervenor was certified as representative of all remaining
production and maintenance employees.
94 NLRB No. 135
908. DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
payroll and continued to be represented by the Pattern Makers League,z
receiving all increases negotiated for patternmakers at the Tractor
Works during that period.
When the Intervenor 's contract was executed on November 6, 1950,
the Wood patternmakers were working at the Tractor Works. On
November 22, 1950, all the wood patternmakers on the Tractor Works
payroll were again sent to Melrose Park on detail . On January 22,
1951, they were informed that they would be laid off at the Tractor
Works and reemployed at Melrose Park. The transfer did not in
fact take place until February 21, 1951, because the patternmakers
refused to accept it unless the Employer would assure them that they
would receive the same rate of pay as they had at the Tractor Works,
and that they would continue to be covered by the contributory pension
plan which the Pattern Makers League had negotiated for them at
that plant . The Employer agreed orally to their demands, and these
conditions of the patternmakers '• employment have been continued for
their benefit at Melrose Park. When they were first permanently
transferred , the Employer notified the Intervenor of this action, thus
complying with the provisions of the Intervenor 's contract requiring
that it be notified of the employment of new employees . The Em-
ployer, however , took the position that the patternmakers were not
within the Intervenor 's unit at Melrose Park. Although the Inter-
venor took the position that the patternmakers were covered by its
contract , it has made no attempt to enforce that contract 's checkoff
provisions against them , and they have continued to pay dues to the
Petitioner.'
As the classification of patternmakers is one which was neither in
existence at Melrose Park nor within the contemplation of the parties
at the time the contract covering that plant was executed , we find that
the contract does not bar a proceeding upon the present petition.'
We find that a question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of
Section 9 ( c) (1) and Section 2 ( 6) and ( 7) of the Act.
'Following a consent election in 1946, the Pattern Makers League was certified as
representative of a unit at the Tractor Works limited to wood pattern workers, the only
type of patternmaker then employed. In 1950 the Pattern Makers was selected in a
self-determination election held in a group of metal patternmakers then employed at the
Tractor Works, and was thereafter certified as representative of a unit including both
the wood and metal patternmakers at the plant See International Harvester Company,
Tractor Works, 89 NLRB 212
3 The pattern shop has been set up as a department in the engineering division. The
Petitioner and the Employer assert that as the Intervenor's contract expressly includes in
the contract one department of the engineering division, namely the "experimental
engineering shop" it necessarily excludes all other departments of that division. The
Intervenor contends that as the contract expressly excludes all salaried employees, it was
thus intended to cover all nonsalaried employees, and therefore includes the patternmakers
who are hourly paid.
-Victor Electric Products Inc; 79 NLRB 373; Dazey Corporation, 73 NLRB 788;
St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company, 59 NLRB 415.
FRUIT GROWERS SUPPLY COMPANY 909
4. Since the permanent transfer of the patternmakers to Melrose
Park, a separate department or pattern shop has been set up, where
they are engaged in constructing wooden models of future products
planned by the Employer. They have been given the classification of
"pattern and model maker-wood." No other patternmakers are em-
ployed in the plant. The Board recognized that the patternmakers
at the Tractor Works were a craft group, and found that they consti-
tuted a separate unit.5 At the hearing in the present case, the Em-
ployer testified without cpntradiction that in tjieir work at the Melrose
Park plant they are exercising an equal degree of craft skill.
We find that the patternmakers sought by the Petitioner in this case
may constitute an appropriate unit and may be separately represented
if they so desire. They may also appropriately form part of the exist-
ing production and maintenance unit at the plant. Accordingly, we
shall direct that an election be held in the, following voting group :
All wood pattern and model makers and apptetitices at the Employer's
Melrose Park, Illinois, plant excluding all supervisors as defined in the
Act. If these employees vote for the Petitioner they will be taken to
have indicated their desire to be represented in a separate unit. If
they select the Intervenor, that organization may bargain for them as
part of the unit that it presently represents.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
15 International Harvester Company, Tractor Works, supra.
FRUIT GROWERS SUPPLY COMPANY and NORTHERN CALIF. DISTRICT
COUNCIL OF LUMBER AND SAWMILL WORKERS, AFL, PETITIONER.
Case No. 20-RC-1265. May 29, 19,51
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Benjamin B. Law, hearing
officer. The hearing 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 Act, the Board has
delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Murdock and Styles].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
I Local 13-370 International Woodworkers of America, CIO, herein called the Intervenor,
was permitted to intervene on the basis of contractual interest.
94 NLRB No. 128.