The Fuller Automobile Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 12, 1951

97 N.L.R.B. 515 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

THE FULLER AUTOMOBILE COMPANY 515
THE FULLER AUTOMOBILE COMPANY 1 and INTERNATIONAL UNION,
UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS OF AMERICA, AMERICAN FEDERATION
OF LABOR AND ITS LOCAL UNION No. 829, PETITIONER
THE FULLER AUTOMOBILE COMPANY AND THE FULLER MANUFACTURING
AND SUPPLY COMPANY and DONALD E. LILLICH, PETITIONER and
INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS OF AMERICA,
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND ITS LOCAL UNION No. 829.
Cases Nos. 9-RC-1226 and 9-RD-85. December 12,1951
Decision, Direction of Election, and Order
Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before Lloyd R.
Fraker, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at _the,
hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
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 organization involved claims to represent certain eria-
ployees 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 Employer operates The Fuller Automobile Company, herein-
after called the Automobile Company, and The Fuller Manufacturing
and Supply Company, hereinafter 'Called the Manufacturing Com-
pany. The Union has been the bargaining representative for the
employees of both companies since 1941. In 1948 employees of both
companies were included in the voting unit in a union authorization
proceeding conducted by the Board. In 1950, in a Board proceeding
initiated by an employer petition, the Employer contended that
each company constituted a separate appropriate unit, whereas the
Union maintained that the historical two-company unit was appro-
priate . In the decision in that proceeding, after setting forth fully
the activities and relations of the two companies, the Board concluded,
1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing.
97 NLRB No. 69.
516 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
on the basis particularly of the long bargaining history, that the
two-company unit was appropriate .2 The Union was subsequently
certified as the collective bargaining agent for the employees of both
companies. Since its certification, the Union and the Employer have
met in numerous collective bargaining conferences. They have ex-
ecuted a Job Classification and Wage Rate Schedule covering both
companies, but have been unable to arrive at a full collective bargain-
ing agreement.
Lillich, an employee of the Manufacturing Company, has filed the
petition in Case No. 9-RD-85, seeking the decertification of the Union
as the collective bargaining agent for the employees of both com-
panies; he contends, as the Employer now also does, that the two com-
panies constitute a single appropriate unit. The Union, by its petition
in Case No. 9-RC-1226, seeks certification as the collective bargaining
agent for the employees of the Automobile Company, and now con-
tends that this company constitutes a separate appropriate unit.
The Union has presented no evidence of a change in the operations
of the two companies since the Board's unit determination in 1950.
Its claim that the extended negotiations show the inappropriateness of
the larger unit is not persuasive nor has it advanced any other per-
suasive reason why that unit determination should now be changed.
We shall therefore direct an election in Case No. 9-RD-85 and dismiss
the petition in Case No. 9-RC-1226.
Accordingly, we find that a unit consisting of all the employees at
the Cincinnati, Ohio, plants of The Fuller Automobile Company and
of The Fuller Manufacturing and Supply Company, excluding body
shop employees, the control clerk, new and used car and truck sales-
men, parts panel salesmen, office clerical employees, guards, and super-
visors within the meaning of the Act, constitutes a unit appropriate
for collective bargaining purposes within the meaning of Section 9
(b) of the Act.
Order-
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition in Case No . 9-RC-1226 be,
and it hereby is, dismissed.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
MEMBER MURDOCK took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision, Direction of Election, and Order.
S Fuller Automobile Company , 88 NLRB 1452.