Packard Motor Car Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 24, 1945

60 N.L.R.B. 871 (N.L.R.B. 1945)

In the Matter of PACKARD MOTOR CAR COMPANY ( TOLEDO DIVISION)
and MECHANICS EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA, LOCAL #4
(CUA)
Case No. 8L-R-1664.-Decided February 24, 1945
Messrs. Carl Binns, D. C. Livesay, F. W. Fennell, and R. D. Camp-
bell, of Toledo, Ohio, for the Company.
Messrs. Earl Streeter and George Pilkiewicz, of Toledo, Ohio, for
MESA.
Messrs. David Gubernian, Howard Rediger, and Fred Gelow, of
Toledo, Ohio, for the C. I. O.
Mr. Robert O'Brein, of Toledo, Ohio, for the Pattern Makers.
Mr. Donald H. Frank, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
IAND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon .a petition duly filed by Mechanics Educational Society of
America, Local #4 (CUA), herein called MESA, alleging that a
question affecting commerce had arisen concerning the representation
of employees of Packard Motor Car Company (Toledo Division),
herein called the Company, the National Labor Relations Board pro-
vided for an appropriate hearing upon due notice before Arthur Stark,
Trial Examiner. Said hearing was held at Toledo, Ohio, on January
11, 1945. The Company, MESA, the International Unjgn, United
Automobile, Aircraft & Agricultural Implement Workers of America,
Local No. 12, C. 1. 0., herein called the C. 1. 0., and the Pattern Makers
Association of Toledo, Lima and Vicinity, A. F. L., herein called the
Pattern Makers, appeared and participated. All parties were afforded-
full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses,
and to introduce evidence bearing on the issues. During the hearing,
the C. 1. 0. moved that the petition of MESA be dismissed. The Trial
Examiner referred the C. I. O.'s motion to the Board. For reasons set
forth in Section V, the motion is hereby denied. The Trial Examiner's
rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are
60 N. L. R. B., No. 148.
871
872 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
hereby affirmed. All parties were afforded an opportunity to file briefs
with the Board. -
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following :
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
Packard Motor Car Company is a_Michigan corporation with its
principal office in Detroit, Michigan. The Company owns and operates
several plants in and ' about the Detroit area, in addition to which it
operates a plant owned by the Defense Plant Corporation and located
at Toledo, Ohio, herein called the Toledo Plant. We are concerned
herein solely with the Company's operations at the Toledo Plant.
The Company is engaged at the Toledo Plant in the manufacture
of aircraft engine parts for the Government of the United States and
other members of the United Nations. The primary raw materials
used at the Toledo Plant are steel and aluminum, 80 percent of which
is obtained from points outside the State of Ohio. During the 12
months preceding the date of hearing, the Company used a quantity
of these raw materials valued in excess of $300,000, and in the same
period manufactured finished products valued in excess of $1,000,000,
all of which was shipped to points outside the State of Ohio.
The Company admits that it is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, and we have so found.'
II. 'THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
Mechanics Educational Society of America, Local, #4 (CUA), is
a labor organization admitting to membership employees of the Com-
pany.
International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft,& Agricultural
Implement Workers of America, Local No. 12, affiliated with the
Congress of Industrial Organizations, is a labor organization admit-
ting to membership employees of the Company.
Pattern Makers Association of Toledo, Lima and Vicinity, affiliated
with the American Federation of Labor, is a labor organization
admitting to membership employees of the Company.
III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
The Company has refused to grant recognition to MESA as the
exclusive bargaining representative of certain of its employees until
MESA has been certified by the Board in an appropriate unit.
1 Matter of Packard Motor Car Company , 59 N L R B 966 , Matter of Packard Motor
Car Company, 54 N. L . R B. 1029.
PACKARD MOTOR CAR COMPANY 873
A statement of a Board-agent, introduced into evidence at the hear-
ing, indicates that MESA represents a substantial number of employees
in the unit hereinafter found appropriate.2
We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning
the representation of employees of the Company, within the meaning
of'Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
IV. TIIE APPROPRIATE UNIT
The Company, MESA, the C. I. 0., and the Pattern Makers stipulate
and agree that the appropriate unit consists of all hourly rated em-
ployees in the TX department of the Company's Toledo Plant,'
excluding pattern makers and pattern makers' apprentices, supervisory
employees, employees at the Willow Run, Michigan, plant,' and all
salaried employees.
The TX department is engaged solely in experimental work on
Rolls-Royce engines. It is the only department in the United States
doing this type of work, and the project is highly restricted and
covered by a secrecy agreement between the Company and the United
States Army. We are of the opinion that these facts reveal a func-
tional dissimilarity which sets this department apart from all other
departments of the Company's Toledo Plant and demonstrates its
appropriateness as a separate unit.
We find that all hourly rated employees in the TX department of the
Company's Toledo plant, but excluding pattern makers and pattern
makers' apprentices; employees at the Willow Run, Michigan, plant;
all salaried employees; and all supervisory employees with authority
to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes in
the status of employees, or effectively recommend such action, con-
stitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
V. THE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
The TX department is an expanding unit. The department began
its operations in August 1944. On September 1, there were 30 hourly
rated employees; on October 1, there were 38; on November 1, there
were 55; on December 1, there were 72; and on January 7, 1945, there
2 The Field Examiner reported that MESA submitted 45 authorization cards, 38 of which
bore apparently genuine original signatures of persons whose names appear on the Com-
pany's pay roll of October 4 , 1944,'ehich contained the names of 93 employees in the ap-
hropirate unit , and that the cards were dated • 3 in July, 5 in August , 6 in September,
and 24 in October 1944
The C. I. O. submitted 27 authorization cards, all of which bore apparently genuine
original signatures . The names of 21 persons appearing on the cards were contained in
the pay roll of January 7, 1945.
3 when the Toledo TX department completes experimental engines they will be flight-
tested at willow Run by certain TX employees working at that plant.
874 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
were 98. The Company anticipates that when the department is fully
manned there will be approximately 300 hourly rated employees in the
unit herein found appropriate, and it expects that this number will
be reached by May 15,1945. Moreover, the Company expected to have
in its employ 50 percent of the anticipated full complement by Febru-
ary 15, 1945. The Company has already installed almost all of the
required machinery and intends to hire new employees as rapidly as
they may be obtained. The Board holds that where a substantial num-
ber of the anticipated full complement of employees in the appropri-
ate unit has been employed, and those employees represent a fair cross
section of the employees to be encompassed by the unit, it will entertain
a petition for an election to determine representatives.4 Where the
substantial number already employed has reached 50 percent of the
anticipated complement to be engaged within a year, the Board places
no time qualification on its certification of the chosen representative.'
Moreover, upon a finding that a company anticipates employment of
50 percent of the employees in the unit within a short interval we
have ordered an election to be conducted at a future date, leaving
unqualified the usual certification period .6 The C. 1. 0. contends, how-
ever, that an election should not be presently ordered because the em-
ployees already at work within the unit are not representative of the
categories of employees to be included in the unit since no "laborers"
have yet been hired. We find no basis for this contention. The future
employment of such workers is a matter of conjecture. The testi-
mony reveals, furthermore, that there are some presently employed
workers in various "unskilled" categories. The fact that the majority
of employees who to date have been transferred from other plants and
from other departments to the TX department are skilled or semi-
skilled workers is not persuasive, when the nature of the activity of
the TX department is considered. That the majority of the employees
thus transferred may have been members of MESA elsewhere is not
pertinent to the issue; the material question before us is whether or
not the present employees are a fair cross section of the unit deemed
appropriate. We cannot concern ourselves with the question of past
union membership, elsewhere, of the present employees. We are sat-
isfied that there are a substantial number of employees presently on
4 Dfatter of Northern Aircraft Products Division , The Aviation Corporation, 53 N. L.
R. B. 188: Matter of Aluminum Company of America, 52 N. L. R. B. 1040 ; Matter of Pre-
cision Manufacturing Corporation , 49 N. L . R. B. 438; Matter of Aircraft Parts Manu-
facturing Division, Kroehler Manufacturing Company, 49 N. L. R. B 1151 ; Matter of
Atlas Powder Company, 41 N. L. R. B . 127; Matter of Buick Motor Division, General Motors
Corporation, 40 N. L. R. B. 825 ; Matter of Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Com-
pany, 38 N L R. B 404.
5 Matter of Fairchild Aircraft Division of Fairchild Engine & Airplane Corporation, 50
N. L R. B. 113; Matter of Hughes Tool Company, 45 N. L. R. B. 821.
5 Matter of Avion, Inc., 51 N. L. R. B . 174; Matter of Remington Rand, Inc., 50 N. L.
R. B 819; Matter of Irwin-Pedersen Arms Company, 45 N. L . R. B. 920.
. PACKARD MOTOR CAR COMPANY 875
the pay roll comprising representative categories of employees in the
appropriate unit. Inasmuch as it appears that approximately 50
percent of the anticipated complement is already employed, we shall
direct that the question con6erning representation which has arisen
be resolved by an election by secret ballot among the employees in the
appropriate unit who were employed during the pay-roll period im-
mediately preceding the date of the Direction herein, subject to the
limitations and additions set forth in the Direction.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National
Labor Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Rela-
tions Act, and pursuant to Article III, Section 9, of National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations-Series 3, as amended, it is
hereby
DIRECTED that, as part of the investigation to ascertain representa-
tives for the purposes of collective bargaining with Packard Motor
Car Company (Toledo Division), Toledo, Ohio, an election by secret
ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than thirty
(30) days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and
supervision of the Regional Director for the Eighth Region, acting in
this matter as agent for the National Labor Relations Board, and sub-
ject to Article III, Sections 10 and 11, of said Rules and Regulations,
among the employees in the unit found appropriate in Section IV,
above, who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately
preceding the date of this Direction, including employees who did not
work during the said pay-roll period because they were ill or on
vacation or temporarily laid off, and including employees in the armed
forces of the United States who present themselves in person at the
polls, but excluding any who have since quit or been discharged for
cause and have not been rehired or reinstated prior to the date of the
election, to determine whether they desire to be represented by
Mechanics Educational Society of America, Local #4 (CUA) or by
International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft & Agricultural
Implement Workers of America, Local No. 12, affiliated with the
Congress of Industrial Organizations, for the purposes of collective
bargaining, or by neither.