Briggs Manufacturing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 13, 1952

101 N.L.R.B. 284 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

284 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tute a separate appropriate unit, and the Regional Director conducting
the election directed herein is instructed to issue a certification of
representatives to the Petitioner for the unit described above, which
the Board, under such circumstances, finds to be appropriate for pur-
poses of collective bargaining. In the event a majority vote for the
Intervenors, they may continue to be represented as a part of the
existing production and maintenance unit and the Regional Director
will issue a certification of results of election to such effect.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
.BRIGGS MANUFACTURING COMPANY and INTERNATIONAL UNION,
UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT
WORKERS OF AMERICA, UAW-CIO, PETITIONER . Case No. 7-RC-
1659. November 13, 1952
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Emil C. Farkas, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed Y
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-lnember
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 Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No 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, for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all office and clerical
employees at the Employer's Mack Avenue plant in Detroit, Michigan.
The Employer contends that only a multiplant unit, including
employees at all its Detroit plants, is appropriate.
The Employer, a manufacturer of automobile bodies and parts and
plumbing fixtures, has its general offices, eight plants , and a garage in
i The Petitioner's request for oral argument is hereby denied , as the record and briefs,
in our opinion, adequately set forth the issues and. the positions of the parties.
101 NLRB No. 68.
BRIGGS MANUFACTURING COMPANY 285
Detroit, Michigan. In addition, it has a plant at Youngstown, Ohio,
and subsidiaries at Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio, Evansville, In-
diana, and Abingdon, Illinois.
The Detroit plants, known as the Outer Drive, Conner, Eight Mile,
Vernor, Hamtramck, Russell Ferry, Mound Road, and Mack plants,
are all engaged in the manufacture and assembly of automobile parts.2
The general administrative offices are located, for the most part, at
the Outer Drive plant. Purchasing and sales for all plants are con-
trolled there.
Each plant has its own plant manager, who is responsible for pro-
duction at his plant. All plant managers are under the jurisdiction of
the vice president in charge of manufacturing, who has his offices at
the Mack plant. Operations of the various plants are integrated,
and there is a constant flow of materials from one to the other.s The
Employer's garage, known as the Shoemaker garage, serves all plants.
The office and clerical employees whom the Petitioner seeks to repre-
sent, approximately 300 in number,' are those located at the Mack
plant. In addition to employees under the immediate supervision of
the plant manager and his assistants, they include employees in vari-
ous departments under the jurisdiction of division heads who, in most
instances, have their offices at the Outer Drive plant. There are em-
ployees in similar classifications, and under the same over-all jurisdic-
tion, in other plants.
Standard policies and procedures affecting all salaried employees,
including the office and clerical employees, originate at the Outer
Drive offices, and the administration of the employee relations policy
is centralized there. Classifications, rates of pay, and hours of work
are the same at all plants, and all salaried employees enjoy the same
rights and benefits, and have the same grievance procedure.
Office and clerical employees for all plants are interviewed and
employed at the Outer Drive office, and salaried payrolls are compiled
there. Employees are transferred among the plants as needed.
With one exception, noted below, there is no history of collective
bargaining for any of the Employer's office and clerical employees.
There is, however, a long history of bargaining for production and
maintenance employees at the Detroit plants. From 1937 to 1939,
these employees were represented by the Petitioner and its Local 212
The Hamtramck plant also has a plumbing division.
• Thus , the Mack plant makes door assemblies, roofs, quarter panels, and various small
stampings for the Conner plant , and stampings and stamping assemblies for the Hamtramck
body service division and the Russell Ferry plant. It receives stampings from the Outer
Drive plant , moldings from the Eight Mile plant, built-up arm rests from the Vernor
plant , and plastic inside door panels from the Mound Road plant.
* In all, the Employer has approximately 1,200 office and clerical employees at the
Detroit plants and garage.
286 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
under members-only contracts. In 1939, following separate elections
at each of the plants in Detroit and Evansville, all of which the Peti-
tioner won, the Board found that all production and maintenance
employees at these plants constituted a single appropriate unit, and
certified the Petitioner as their representative .5 Since then, the Em-
ployer and the Petitioner and its locals have had successive master
contracts covering the multiplant unite The current contract is effec-
tive until August 31, 1955. In 1945, following a Board-ordered elec-
tion among clerical employees in the Employer's engineering depart-
ment in the Detroit area,? these employees were added to the Unit .8
Although the Petitioner is seeking, in this proceeding, to represent
only office and clerical employees at the Mack plant, it is engaged in
organizing such employees at all the Detroit plants.
From the foregoing it appears that the Employer's Detroit plants
are in close proximity to each other, that their administration and
operations are highly integrated, that labor policies are centralized
and uniform, and that the office and clerical employees at the various
plants are interchangeable and share the same rights, benefits, and
working conditions. These circumstances all point to the appropri-
ateness of a multiplant unit. Furthermore, the long history of bar-
gaining for the production and maintenance employees convinces us
that multiplant bargaining is practicable a The only basis for estab-
lishing a separate unit of employees at the Mack plant appears to be
the extent of the Petitioner's organization. Section 9 (c) (5) of the
Act precludes a finding on that basis alone.10 We therefore find that
the unit requested by the Petitioner is not appropriate. Accordingly,
we shall dismiss the petition.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby
is, dismissed.
E Briggs Manufacturing Company , 17 NLRB 749.
The Conner plant , acquired after the certification , was represented by the Petitioner
under a separate contract until 1946 , when it was Included in the multiplant unit.
T Briggs Manufacturing Company, 63 NLRB 860.
s At the time of the election , these employees were located at the Mack and Vernor
plants . Since then , the engineering department has been transferred from the Mack plant
to the Outer Drive plant.
6 The Board has recently indicated that it will no longer , In every instance , follow its
former practice of requiring one group of employees to organize on a multiplant basis
wherever other types of employees had previously organized themselves on that basis.
Joseph 1;. Seagram 4 Sons , Inc., 101 NLRB 101. The history of bargaining of other
employees of the same employer is, however , one of the factors to be considered in determin-
ing the appropriateness of a proposed unit.
16 Montgomery Ward d Co., Incorporated, 90 NLRB 609.