Lever Brothers Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 26, 1951

96 N.L.R.B. 448 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

448 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
LEVER BROTHERS COMPANY and UNITED GAS, COKE AND CHEMICAL
WORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO, PETITIONER. Case No. 1-RC-$$24.
September 26,1951
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Robert E.
Greene, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hear-
ing 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 Petitioner and Local 116, International Chemical Workers
of America, AFL, the Intervenor, are labor organizations claiming to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. No 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, for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit composed of all production
and maintenance employees at the Employer's Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts, plant, including employees in the Waltham, Massachusetts,
warehouse. The Employer and the Intervenor contend that a master
contract executed by them on March 14, 1950, as amended by supple-
mental agreements executed on June 20, 1950, and November 13, 1950,
is a bar to this proceeding.'
The March 1950 master contract provided for a 1-year term and
covered the Employer' s Baltimore , Edgewater, and St. Louis plants 2
and also provided that
any present or future plants of the Lever Brothers Company,
the workers of which designated the Union [the Intervenor] as
their collective bargaining agent, shall automatically come under
this agreement.
On May 25, 1950, the Intervenor, following its designation as bargain-
ing representative in an election conducted pursuant to a consent elec-
I The Employer also contends that the requested single-plant unit is inappropriate and
that only a multiplant unit embracing the Cambridge plant together with its plants at
Baltimore , Maryland , Edgewater , New Jersey, and St. Louis , Missouri , is appropriate. The
Intervenor did not take a definitive position on this issue . In view of our finding on the
contract bar issue , we deem it unnecessary to pass upon this contention.
2 Although the Cambridge employees have been embraced by similar agreements executed
during the preceding 4-year period , their representatives withdrew from the 1950 joint
plant contract negotiations before the execution of the mater contract.
96 NLRB No. 60.
LEVER BROTHERS COMPANY 449
tion:ab eement executed by all the parties herein, was certified as the
bargaining representative of the Cambridge employees sought herein.
Thereafter, the Employer and the Intervenor executed the June sup-
plemental agreement mentioned above, which provided for the, in-
clusion of the Cambridge employees within the coverage of the March
1950' master contract. On' June 29, 1950, this amendment was ap-
proved by the Cambridge plant membership. On November 13, 1950,
.the Employer and the Intervenor executed,-the second supplemental
agreement, which likewise amended the March 1950 contract, provid-
ing for certain wage increases and extending its term until March 17,
1952. This supplement, although disapproved by a majority of the
employees of the Cambridge plant, was nevertheless ratified by a
majority of the employees in the four plants covered by the March and
June 1950 agreement and thereupon became effective. The petition
herein was filed on April 26,1951. As the petition was not filed until
after.the execution of the March 1950 contract and the June and No-
vember 1950 supplements, these contracts, if validly applicable to the
employees of the Cambridge plant, would normally bar an election
among these employees.3
In support of its assertion that the March 1950 contract and the
June and November 1950 supplemeiital agreements do not bar t:iis
proceeding, the Petitioner contends that (a) the inclusion of the
Cambridge operations within the coverage of the master agreement
resulted in a material change in the unit for which the Intervenor was
certified in May 1950 thereby under Board precedent,4 rendering the
March and June contracts ineffective; (b) the June supplement is
likewise invalid because the Intervenor's Cambridge plant membership
had no knowledge whatever of the merger proposition at the time they
voted to ratify that agreement; and (c) the action of the Cambridge
employees in disapproving the November extension agreement nulli-
fies that contract insofar as this proceeding is concerned. We find
no merit in these contentions.
With respect to the Petitioner's first contention, there was, in fact,
no change accomplished in the Cambridge certified unit. Unlike the
situations involved in the cases cited in the Petitioner's brief where
actual changes occurred in the composition of the Board-certified
units,5 here the contracting parties merely achieved a merger of a
3 Although , under the Board's contract bar principles , the November 1950 agreement
might be regarded as a "premature extension" of the March 1950 contract, the petition
was not timely filed with respect to the March 1950 contract 's expiration date and therefore
would be barred by the November 1950 extension . Moreover , as•the 'November 1950 agree;
ment was executed well within the certification year at the Cambridge plant, it would in
any event constitute a bar to this petition for representation of the Cambridge plant
employees.
4 Savannah Electric and Power Company , 48 NLRB 33; The Mathieson Alkali Works,
.51 NLRB 113.
See cases cited in . footnote 4.
450 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
smaller unit into a larger group which has a strong community of in-
terest in the subject matter of collective bargaining, such as the Board
customarily finds an appropriate unit .6
As to the contention that the June supplemental agreement was
not validly ratified because the employees who voted did not know
that they were approving the merger of the Cambridge unit into the
multiplant contractual unit, it is the practice of the Board in repre-
sentation cases, at least so far as the question of the bar to a proceed-
ing is concerned, to presume the legality of a collective bargaining
agreement, absent obvious irregularities such as, for example, unau-
thorized union-security provisions.? We perceive no reason in this
case for departing from, our established practice. In any event, in
the light of the provisions as to coverage of the Intervenor's multi-
plant contracts, we believe that "it may fairly be assumed that the
Cambridge 'employees, by selecting the Intervenor as their bargaining
representative in the May consent election, indicated their desire to
be included in the existing multiplant unit covered by the March
contract.
Regarding the further contention that the November extension
agreement cannot operate as a bar because a majority of the employees
iii the Cambridge plant disapproved it, there is uncontroverted evi-
dence in the record that beginning in 1946 and continuing through
1950 all questions relating to collective bargaining that affected the
plants covered by existing master contracts, such as ratification of
amendments, were decided by a majority vote of the combined mem-
bership of the Intervenor in all plants covered by such agreements .s
It is evident that a substantial majority of the employees in the four
plants covered by the March and June contracts approved the Novem-
ber amendment and that the parties regarded it as in effect.
Accordingly, in view of the foregoing, we find that the current
agreements covering the Cambridge' plant employees bar a present
determination of representatives., We shall, therefore, dismiss the
petition.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and the same
hereby is, dismissed.
8 See , e. g., Lone Star Producing Company, 85 NLRB 1137, and cases cited therein.
4 See. Columbia River Salmon and Tuna Packers Association , 91 NLRB 1424: Electro-
Metallurgical Company, 73 NLRB 1396; Wilmington Terminal Warehouse Company, 68
NLRB 299. See also. Irving , Feller , d/b/a Sport Girl Co. and/or Annex Sportwear, Inc.,
90 NLRB 133, unpublished in bound volume.
8 Illustrative of past practice is the fact,that in 1947 a majority of the employees, in the
Edgewater plant voted against an amendment affecting all the plants covered by the master
agreement then in existence , whereas the employees in the remaining plants approved the
amendment . Notwithstanding the expressed disapproval of the Edgewater employees,
the amendment became binding as to all plants , including Edgewater.
t