The Girdler Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 17, 1951

96 N.L.R.B. 894 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

894 DECISIONS .OF NATIONAL LABOR . RELATIONS BOARD
all such employees for the purposes of collective bargaining with re-
spect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and other conditions
of employment.
MEMBERS REYNOLDS and STYLES took no part in the consideration
of the above Decision and Certification of Representatives.
THE GIRDLER CORPORATION (DANA PROJECT) and OFFICE EMPLOYEES
INTERNATIONAL UNION, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 35-RC-551:
October 17, 1951
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed,'a hearing was held in this case before-
Robert Volger, 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 National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members.
Houston and Murdock].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds : -
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the.
National Labor Relations, Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain.em--
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 parties agree upon a unit of all office and clerical employees.,
at the Employer's Dana Project in Indiana; they also agree as to a.
number of specific inclusions and exclusions, as set forth in detail in
the unit description below. They disagree only with respect to cer-
tain employees loaned to the Atomic Energy Commission, a number
of material checkers, and the buyers, all of whom the Employer, un-
like the Petitioner, would exclude from the bargaining unit for various
reasons.
• The Employer is engaged in the manufacturing and construction-
business; at the Dana Project, its only operation here involved, it is,
constructing new facilities for the Atomic Energy Commission. This
proceeding concerns only the office and clerical employees, who totaled
about 300 at the date of the hearing, and of whom all but approxi-
mately 30 are located in the two buildings which house the nonmanual
workers.
Buyers: The, Employer urges exclusion of seven buyers on 'the
ground that they are managerial employees. By telephone and letter
96 NLRB No . 137. . '
THE GIRDLER CORPORATION 895
the buyers make purchases of equipment, materials, and supplies re-
quired in connection with the project. Their duties include processing
requests received from the engineering department, solicitation by
telephone or letter of bids from vendors, tabulation of bids received,
comparison of bids, and issuance of purchase orders. They are also
responsible for preparation by the typists of lists and reports in con-
nection with purchase records. Their work requires a business or
college education, or equivalent experience in purchase and sale. Un-
like the other clericals, who are hourly paid, the buyers receive a
weekly salary.
Purchases under $100 require no bidding; those between $100 and
$500 require three oral bids, and those over $500 require three written
bids. All purchases over $2,000 require advance approval by the
Employer, by the Atomic Energy Commission, or by the du Pont
Company, which will operate the Project upon completion. The pre-
cise extent of the buyers' authority to bind the credit of the Employer
in making purchases was disputed in the record. It is clear on the
testimony as a whole, however, that in practice the buyers close all
transactions under $2,000 when they advise the vendors, by telephone
or wire, that their bids are being processed as firm orders. Although
one of the buyers, previously employed by the Employer, testified that
he only recommended the chosen vendors, and that he only advised
the vendor of-the number assigned to his recommended bid, .he also
said that on sales up to $1,000 he told the vendor, "It's a deal," and
that only rarely was his choice rejected by the chief buyer. It appears
that in most instances the -chief buyer's approval signature on the
records is, a. routine matter.
There is indication in the record that the buyers exercise some super-
visory authority over the typists who work with them. We find it
unnecessary to decide whether the buyers are supervisory employees
as defined in the Act, or whether they are professional workers. As it
is clear that they effectively bind the Employer's credit in the regular
course of their work, we find, in accordance with the Board's estab-
lished practice, that they are managerial employees. We shall there-
fore exclude them from the unit
Material checkers: These employees do clerical work checking mate-
rials in the warehouse; they do no manual work. Forming part of
the control department, they are supervised either by principal clerks
(included in the clerical unit), or by the warehouse superintendent,
who supervises only office and clerical employees. Their work is inte-
grated with that of the office clerks rather than with that of the crafts-
men or laborers. There is no interchange between material checkers
and nonclerical employees. -
'We8tinghouse Electric Corporation, 89 NLRB 8; Wm. P. McDonald , Corporation, 83
NLRB 427. -1 1 '
896 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Employer's labor relations with its various craft categories of
employees are governed by existing local agreements with the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor Construction Trades Council. The Employer
urges exclusion of the material checkers in this proceeding to avoid
any jurisdictional dispute, because the International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, AFL,
Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers Local Union No. 79, herein called
the Teamsters, sought to represent these employees. Although the
Teamsters was served with notice of hearing herein, it did not inter-
vene in the proceeding. The Employer has not recognized the Team-
sters as representative of the material checkers, nor does it deal with
the material checkers under the terms of the Teamsters' local contract
applicable to truck drivers.
Although the material checkers work in the warehouse, we are
satisfied, in view of their common supervision with other office and
clerical employees, the purely clerical nature of their duties, and the
absence of any evidence of integration between their work and that
of nonclerical workers, that they are essentially office clerical' em-
ployees. We shall therefore include them in the unit.
Six stenographers: These employees are loaned to the Atomic
Energy Commission. Although employed and paid by the Employer,
they work in the office of the Atomic Energy Commission, in a sepa-
rate building some distance from the employees in the unit here in-
volved. They are entirely supervised, and their pay and other work-
ing conditions are changed, by officials of that Government agency.
Their time cards are certified by the Atomic Energy Commission, they
work different hours than do the Employer's office employees, and
ordinarily there is no interchange between the two groups. As the
Employer exercises no control over the working conditions of these
stenographers, we shall, as the Employer requests, exclude them from
the unit.
Accordingly, we find that all office and clerical employees of the
Employer at its Dana Project in Indiana, including clerk, senior clerk,
clerk-typists, stenographer, junior clerk, telephone operator, time-
keeper, typist, stockkeeper, material checkers, the clerk-typist in the
security department, secretaries, the assistant accountant, and prin-
cipal clerks,' but excluding technical employees (draftsmen and con-
tract inspectors), professional employees (physicians and nurses),
guards, junior interviewers, senior interviewers, expediters, the senior
clerk and the principal clerk in the security department, the secretary
to the Project manager, the secretary to the assistant Project manager
2 The record shows that some few, among the approximately 52 principal clerks in the
unit, are supervisors . The parties agreed to include this category with the understanding
that the Employer would challenge these principal clerks who were in effect supervisors.
The parties also agreed to include messenger-drivers, but there are no employees now
working in this category.
THE JACKSON PRESS, INC. 897
in charge of the service department, the secretary to the labor rela-
tions director, stenographers on loan to :the Atomic Energy Commis-
sion, buyers, section heads, department heads, assistant Project man-
agers, the Project manager, and all supervisors as defined in the Act,
constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
5. The Employer contends that no purpose would be served by hold-
ing an election among these employees because the peak stage of its
work on the Dana Project has been passed, and the number of em-
ployees is now declining. From a maximum total of approximately
340 employees in August 1951, the number had been reduced to about
300 at the time of the hearing. The record also shows that the num-
ber of employees will be further reduced within the next 6 months_
There is no indication as to how long thereafter the remaining group,
will continue to work. As a substantial number of these employees;
are now on duty and will continue to work for some time, we perceive
no reason for depriving them of an opportunity to select a collective
bargaining representative at this time. We shall, therefore, direct
an immediate election.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
THE JACKSON PRESS, INC. and FRANKLIN UNION #4 AND CHICAGO
PRINTING PRESSMEN, LOCAL #3. Case No. 13-CA-468. October
18,1951
Decision and Order
On April 4 , 1951, Trial Examiner Herman Marx issued his Inter-
mediate Report in the above -entitled case, finding that the Respondent
had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor practices and
recommending that it cease and desist therefrom and take certain af-
firmative action, as set forth in the copy of the Intermediate Report
attached hereto. The Trial Examiner also found that the Respondent
had not engaged in certain other unfair labor practices alleged in the
complaint, and recommended that these allegations be dismissed.
Thereafter, the Respondent , the General Counsel , and the charging
Unions filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and supporting
briefs, and the Respondent filed a reply brief.
The Board 1 has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made
at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed..
The rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the In-
I 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 [Members Houston, Reynolds,
and Murdock].
96 NLRB No. 132.