Westinghouse Electric Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 23, 1956

115 N.L.R.B. 530 (N.L.R.B. 1956)

530 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining member-
ship, and by threatening to cause the Company so to discriminate, the Respondent
Union, a labor organization, has engaged and is engaging in unfair labor practices
-within the meaning of Section 8 (b) (2) and (1) (A) of the Act.
2. These unfair labor practices affect commerce within the meaning of Section 2
(6) and (7) of the Act.
[Recommendations omitted from publication.]
APPENDIX
NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES or BRUNSWICK-BALKS-CALLENDER COMPANY AND TO
ALL MEMBERS OF UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMER-
ICA, MILLMEN 's LOCAL 824, AFL
Pursuant to the recommendations of a Trial Examiner of the National Labor Rela-
tions Board, and in order to effectuate the policies of the Labor Management Rela-
tions Act, we hereby give notice that:
WE WILL NOT cause or attempt or threaten to cause Brunswick =Balke-
Callender Company to discharge or otherwise discriminate against any em-
ployee in respect to whom membership in our Union has been denied or termi-
nated on some basis other than failure to tender the periodic dues and initiation
fees uniformly required as a condition for acquiring or retaining membership;
nor will we cause or attempt to cause such Company to discharge or otherwise
discriminate against any employee in violation of Section 8 (a) (3) of the
National Labor Relations Act.
WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner restrain or coerce employees of
the above-named Company in the exercise of rights guaranteed in Section 7 of
the Act.
WE WILL make Eugene Beauchamp whole for any loss of pay resulting from
the discrimination against him.
WE WILL notify the Brunswick-Balke-Callender Company and Eugene
Beauchamp , in writing, that we have no objection to its reinstating him to the
position he occupied at the time of his discharge on September 15, 1954, and
that we request that the Company do so.
UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF
AMERICA, MILLMEN 's LOCAL 824, AFL,
Labor Organization.
Dated---------------- By----------------------------------------------
(Representative) ( tle)
This notice must remain posted for 60 days from the date hereof , and must not- be
altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Arthur L. Herman and
B. George Budd , Petitioners and Local 456, International Union
of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, AFL-CIO., Cage No.
2-RD-296. Feb 'nary 23,1956
DECISION ON APPEAL
On September 30,1955, the Petitioners filed a petition with the Re-
gional Director for the Second Region, seeking to decertify the Union
as the collective-bargaining representative of approximately 22 pro-
fessional employees currently represented by the Union as'part of a
I The AFL and CIO having merged since the initiation of this proceeding, we are amend-
ing the designation of the Union accordingly.
115 NLRB No. 87.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION 531
larger unit of office clerical, technical, and professional employees'
On November 2, 1955, the Regional Director dismissed the petition on
the ground that the unit in which the Petitioners sought a decertifica-
tion election was inappropriate.3 Pursuant to the Board's Rules and
Regulations, the Petitioner filed a timely appeal from the Regional
Director's dismissal of the petition, asserting in substance that under
Section 9 (b) (1) of the Act, the Board was required to direct a de-
certification election among the professional segment of a combined
unit of professional and nonprofessional employees. Thereafter, the
Union filed a statement in support of the dismissal of the petition.
For the reasons set forth hereinafter, the Regional Director's dismissal
of the petition is sustained.
OPINION
The issues presented by this appeal are whether the Board has dis-
cretionary authority to determine the appropriate unit in a decertifica-
tion • proceeding where the existing unit includes professional
employees, and, if so, how that discretionary authority should be exer-
cised. The Board's authority to determine the appropriate unit in
a decertification proceeding, and the limits upon the exercise of that
authority, are derived from Section 9 (a), (b), and (c) (1) of the
Act, which provides in pertinent part :
Sec. 9. (a) Representatives designated or selected for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees
in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive
representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes
of collective bargaining.. ,. .
(b) The Board shall decide in each case whether, in order to
assure to employees the fullest freedom in exercising the rights
guaranteed by this Act, the unit appropriate for the purposes
of collective bargaining shall be the employer unit, craft unit,
plant unit, or subdivision thereof : Provided, That the Board
shall not (1) decide that any unit is appropriate for such purposes
if such unit includes both professional employees and employees
who are not professional employees unless a majority of such pro-
fessional employees vote for inclusion in such unit... .
(c) (1) Whenever a petition shall have been filed, in accordance
with such regulations as may be prescribed by the Board-
(A) by an employee or group of employees or any individ-
ual or labor organization acting in their behalf alleging that
' The Union was previously certified as the representative of the combined office cleri-
cal, technical , and professional unit, following the holding of a separate election among
the professional employees designated in the petition. See Westinghouse Electric Corpora-
tion, 89 NLRB 8, 33-35
6 The Regional Director's action was consistent with the Board's decision in Great Falls
Employers Council, Inc ., 114 NLRB 370. ,
532 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
a substantial number of employees .... (ii) assert that the
individual or labor organization, which has been certified or is
being currently recognized by their employer as the bargain-
ing representative, is no longer a representative as defined in
section 9 (a) .. .
the Board shall investigate such petition and if it has reasonable
cause to believe that a question of representation affecting com-
merce exists shall provide for an appropriate hearing upon due
notice. . . . If the Board finds upon the record of such hearing
that such a question of representation exists, it shall direct an
election by secret ballot and shall certify the results thereof.
As the Board has previously pointed out, Section 9 (c) (1) (A)
(ii) of the Act does not require the Board to conduct a decertification
election on the basis of a petition which seeks to raise a question con-
cerning representation with respect to only part of an existing Unit .4
Rather, as is clearly evident from the statutory language, that section
of the Act was designed to provide a method for determining whether
an existing unit of employees desire to continue their current repre-
sentation, and the Board is required to conduct an election thereunder
only when a question is raised concerning such current representation
in the existing unit. Although the Board has, prior to its decision in
Campbell Soup Company, supra, directed decertification elections in
only a segment of an existing unit, such action was, as the Board
clearly indicated in the Illinois Bell Telephone Company case, supra,
the result of a policy determination and not of a statutory mandate.
Similarly, there is nothing in Section 9 (b) (1) which requires the
Board to conduct an election on the basis of the petition filed in this
case. That section does not require the Board under any and all cir-
cumstances to conduct an election, but only circumscribes the Board's
discretion to determine the appropriate unit when an election is being
sought in a unit including professional employees. Accordingly, as
no such election is sought herein, there is no occasion to consider the
provisions of Section 9 (b) (1) pertaining to the separate polling of
professional employees.' We conclude, therefore, that no statutory
mandate requires the Board to direct a decertification election in only
a segment of an existing unit, even though the employees in that seg-
ment are professional employees.
Nor; in our opinion, are there are policy considerations which would
warrant according the professional segment of an existing unit dif-
ferent treatment from that accorded either craft employees 6 or tech-
4 E g., Campbell Soup Company , 111 NLRB 234, 235; Illinois Bell Telephone Company,
77 NLRB 1073, 1076.
c Worden-Allen Company, 99 NLRB 410, relied on by the Petitioners , is therefore
inapposite.
Campbell Soup Company, supra.
CURTISS CANDY COMPANY 533,
nical employees? who are part of a larger unit. As the Board pointed
out in the Campbell Soup case, it has traditionally been reluctant to
disturb an existing bargaining relationship in the absence of a statu-
tory mandate or overriding policy considerations to the contrary.'
The Board also pointed out in that case that, although the desirability
of according specialized representation to specialized groups of em-
ployees is sufficient to warrant disrupting an existing relationship
when separate representation is sought, such considerations are not
operative in a decertification proceeding which does not result in sepa-
rate representation for purposes of collective bargaining. Conse-
quently, the Board there concluded that in a decertification proceed-
ing no considerations of policy were sufficiently strong to warrant dis-
rupting the existing bargaining relationship.
The considerations which the Board found controlling in the Camp-
bell Soup case are equally applicable here, where the direction of an
election which the Act does not require would not result in the sepa-
rate representation of the specialized interests of the professional em-
ployees. Such a conclusion is, moreover, consistent with the expres-
sion of congressional concern that professional employees be accorded
the right to select specialized representation of their specialized in-
terests and the absence of any concern that they be accorded any right
to disrupt an existing relationship solely for the purpose of being un-
represented.9 We conclude, accordingly, contrary to the contention
of the Petitioners, that in dismissing the petition herein, the Regional
Director properly applied the principle of the Campbell Soup case.to
7 Standard Oil Company of California, 113 NLRB 475.
8 See, e g American Dyewood Company, 99 NLRB 78, for an instance in which the
Board declined to disturb an existing bargaining relationship, even though the existing
unit was one in which the Board could not have directed an election See also American
Potash & Chemical Corploration, 107 NLRB 1418, 1422.
9 See House Rpt No. 245 on H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 37; Senate Rpt. No.
105 on S. 1126, 80th Cong., 1st Sess , pp 11, 25; House Conf. Rpt. No. 510 on H. R. 3020,
80th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 36, 47. See also remarks of Senator Taft, 93 Cong Rec. 3836,
6442 , remarks of Senator Ellender, 93 Cong. Rec. 4143 ; extension of remarks of Senator
Ball, 93 Cong. Rec App A2252.
10 In view of the basis for our conclusion, the alleged substantial turnover among the
professional employees in the unit is immaterial.
Curtiss Candy Company and United Packinghouse Workers of
America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case No. 13-RC-4600. Febru-
ary 23,1956
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 Raymond A. Jacobson, hear-
ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
115 NLRB No. 86.