X-Ray Manufacturing Corp. of America

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 2, 1951

92 N.L.R.B. 1849 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

In the Matter Of X-RAY MANUFACTURING CORPORATION OF AMERICA,
EMPLOYER and LOCAL 475, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF ELECTRICAL,
RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS, CIO, PETITIONER
Case No. 2-RC-2679.-Decided Febmua'ry x,1951
DECISION AND ORDER
Under a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before D. J. Sullivan, hear-
ing officer. The'hearin.g 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 organizations involved claim to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the repre-
sentation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the following
reasons:
Local 1227, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of
America, herein called the Intervenor, contends that a collective bar-
gaining agreement executed on September 16, 1949, for 1 year, and
automatically renewed for another year to September 15, 1951, is a
bar to this proceeding. The Petitioner opposes this contention; the
Employer taking no position to this respect.
On September 16, 1948, the Employer and Local 1227, UE-CIO,
had signed an agreement containing the following provision :
TERM OF AGREEMENT. This agreement shall be effective
as of September 16, 1948, and shall continue in full force and
effect until September 15, 1949, and shall be renewed automati-
cally thereafter from year to year, unless within sixty (60) days
prior to the expiration date of said agreement either party shall
give written notice to the other. . . .
92 NLRB No. 268. 1849
929979-51-vol. 92-118
1850 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The same parties, on September 16, 1949, entered into a' further
agreement that provided, inter glia:
1) That the collective bargaining agreement between them
effective on September 16, 1948 and expiring September 15, 1949,
shall be continued in full force and effect, in all its provisions,
and as modified below, until and including September 15, 1950.
[Emphasis supplied.]
The petition herein was filed on August 31, 1950.
It is clear that the 1949 agreement, by its terms, incorporated the
automatic renewal clause of the 1948 agreement. The 1949 agree-
ment provides unequivocally that the 1948 agreement shall be con-
tinued in full force and effect in all its provisions, except as expressly
modified. One of the terms not expressly modified is the automatic
renewal clause. True, contracts with "Mill B" provisions customarily
contain specific expiration dates as well; indeed, the 1948 agreement
did so, and the 1949 agreement referred to it as one with an expiration
date. But that does not indicate an intent by the parties to exclude
from the agreement the "Mill B" provision of the earlier contract.
Our dissenting colleague, by construing the 1949 agreement as not
incorporating the automatic renewal provision of the earlier contract,
is saying, in effect, that an automatic renewal provision cannot be
incorporated by reference, and that he would construe a contract as
containing such a provision only if it expressly contains it.
As the petition herein was filed August 31, 1950, after the "Mill B"
date of the 1949 agreement, that agreement, as automatically renewed,
is a bar to this proceeding. We shall therefore dismiss the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby
is, dismissed.
CHAIRMAN IIERZOG, dissenting :
I do not agree with my colleagues' finding that the automatic re-
newal provision of the. 1948 agreement was incorporated into the
1949 agreement. I believe that the parties to the 1949 agreement
intended to fix a new and definite terminal date, September 15, 1950,
and to eliminate the automatic renewal clause of the earlier contract.
It appears to me that, in the absence of clearly expressed intent to
incorporate in the new or renewed contract the "Mill B" provisions of
the old contract, the Petitioner should be entitled to rely on those plain
words in the termination clause of the new contract which fixed a
definite terminal date (September 15, 1950). I would therefore find
the petition of August 31 to have been timely filed, and the contract
to be no bar to an election.