Gasland, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 6, 1978

239 N.L.R.B. 611 (N.L.R.B. 1978)

GASLAND, INC.
Good Hope Industries, Inc., d/b/a Gasland, Inc. and
Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International
Union, AFL-CIO. Case 1-CA-11987
December 6, 1978
SUPPI.EMENTAL DECISION AND ORDER
By CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JI NKINS
AND Ml RPHIY
On July 25, 1977. the National Labor Relations
Board issued its Decision and Order' in the above-
entitled proceeding, in which it affirmed Administra-
tive lIaw Judge Thomas D. Johnston's finding that
Respondent violated Section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, by refus-
ing to recognize and bargain collectively with the Oil,
Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union,
AFI--CIO, hereinafter referred to as OCAW, follow-
ing the affiliation of the Gasland Employees' Associ-
ation with that labor organization. On February 16,
1978, the Board notified the parties that it had decid-
ed, sua sponte, to reconsider its Decision.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
Having again reviewed the record in this proceeding,
we hereby reaffirm our previous Decision.
This case involves the affiliation of a small inde-
pendent labor organization with a large international
Union. Prior to mid-June 1976, the 20 trailer drivers
employed by Respondent at its Springfield. Massa-
chusetts, facility 2 were represented for the purposes
of collective bargaining by the Gasland Employees'
Association, hereinafter referred to as the Associa-
tion. Respondent and the Association were parties to
a collective-bargaining agreement covering these unit
employees effective from January 1, 1976, to Decem-
ber 31, 1977. Sometime in April 1976, the
Association's president, Aldo Fiorini, contacted
Frank Micale, a representative of OCAW, regarding
affiliating the Association with OCAW. Thereafter,
several meetings between representatives of OCAW
and the Association's officers and members oc-
curred, culminating in a vote on June 13, 1976, to
affiliate the Association with OCAW.
The Administrative Law Judge found, and we
agree, that a substantial majority of Respondent's
1 230 NLRB 1132.
2 The designated bargaining unit consists of all truckdnvers employed by
Respondent at its Spnngfield, Massachusetts, facilit), excluslse of office
clerical employees. professional emplosees, guards and all supervisors as
defined in Sec. 2(11) of the Act.
employees in the bargaining unit selected OCAW as
their bargaining representative and that that selec-
tion was made by means of a procedurally valid pro-
cess. Thus, the record reveals that Respondent's 20
employees in the designated unit, all of whom were
Association members, were afforded sufficient no-
tice, the opportunity for discussion, and, finally, the
opportunity to vote in a secret-ballot election on the
issue of whether or not they desired affiliation with
OCAW. That election resulted in a tally of 15 votes
in favor of affiliation, with no dissenting votes cast.
Based on this evidence of the employees' desire to be
represented by OCAW and on the employees' right
to bargain collectively through the representative of
their own choosing guaranteed them by Section 7 of
the Act, the Administrative Law Judge concluded
that OCAW is the "successor" to the Association and
must be accorded recognition as such by Respon-
dent. We agree.
Once the unit employees perfected the affiliation
of their labor organization with OCAW via a method
employing adequate procedural safeguards, the As-
sociation in effect became OCAW. It then follows
that the change in name of the employees' bargaining
representative from Gasland Employees' Association
to OCAW neither relieves Respondent of its bargain-
ing obligations nor releases it from its contractual
commitments to the Union. Rather, the Association
continued in the form and under the name of
OCAW, and Respondent is accordingly obliged to
recognize and bargain with that labor organization as
the exclusive representative of its employees in the
designated unit, as well as to honor its collective-
bargaining agreement with it.
That the Gasland Employees' Association and
OCAW are in fact the same bargaining entity, with
the former now functioning as the latter, is further
indicated by certain other factors. For instance, In-
ternational representatives of OCAW assured the
Association's officers and members in the preaffilia-
tion meetings that they would continue to operate as
their own independent union and that the Gasland
employees would represent themselves as a separate
unit of the OCAW organization. These assurances
were honored following the affiliation, with the Gas-
land organization continuing in the form of a sepa-
rate unit within a local of OCAW. As such, the Gas-
land employees elect their own officers, have regular
membership meetings attended only by the Gasland
drivers, and are entitled to negotiate their own con-
tracts, which are subject to ratification only by the
employees within the unit. They also file their own
grievances and process them up to the arbitration
stage. Moreover, the officers of the Gasland unit
within OCAW are the same individuals who were the
611
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
officers of the Association. Thus, the unit employees
continue to retain their organizational unit autonomy
under the same leadership and continue to honor ful-
ly their preaffiliation contract with Respondent as
well. The unit employees have therefore enjoyed con-
tinuity of their collective-bargaining representation
following the affiliation action. See New Orleans Pub-
lic Service, Inc., 237 NLRB 919 (1978); Quemet-
co, Inc., a Subsidiary of RSR Corporation, 226 NLRB
1398 (1976); Newspapers, Inc., Publishers of the Austin
American and the Austin Statesman, 210 NLRB 8
(1974), enfd. 515 F.2d 334 (5th Cir. 1975); The Ham-
ilton Tool Company, 190 NLRB 571 (1971) (Member
Jenkins dissenting on other grounds).
Respondent has asserted that, because the postaf-
filiation bargaining request made by Fiorini in a let-
ter dated June 14, 1976, was not made exclusively on
behalf of the Internationl Union, no valid demand
was made upon which a finding of an unlawful refus-
al to bargain by Respondent might be based. Re-
spondent has likewise asserted that, because the com-
plaint as finally amended at the hearing 3 alleges that
the unit employees' exclusive bargaining representa-
tive is the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Interna-
tional Union, AFL-CIO, and its Local 8-766,
whereas the employees voted to affiliate only with
the International Union, it is inappropriate to find
that Respondent unlawfully refused to bargain with
OCAW based on these pleadings. Similarly, Respon-
dent maintains that it is without adequate notice as
to the exact identity of the entity with which it is
obliged to bargain due to the discrepancy between
the employee vote to affiliate with the International
Union, the affiliation notice and bargaining demand
which included Local 8-766 in the name of the labor
organization requesting Respondent to meet and bar-
gain, and the Administrative Law Judge's finding
that it is the International Union alone which is the
"successor" to the Association. We have found, and
find, no merit in Respondent's contentions in this
regard.
Fiorini, after receiving no response to his June 14
letter requesting a meeting and informing Respon-
dent of the Association's affiliation with OCAW. was
referred to, and spoke with, Respondent's attorney,
Ballantyne, whom he also orally informed of the
Association's affiliation action. Ballantyne's re-
sponse, however, was not that Respondent would not
3 The original complaint alleged that the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Work-
ers International Union, AFL-CIO, was the representative of the employees
with which Respondent had unlawfully refused to bargain. At the hearing
the complaint was amended to allege that Local 8-766, Oil. Chemical &
Atomic Workers International Union. AFL-CIO. was the representative.
and then was again amended at the hearing to allege that the representative
was the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union. AFL CIO,
and its Local 8-766.
honor the bargaining request because it was made by
Local 8-766 whereas the International Union was
the labor organization with which the employees had
voted to affiliate, but, rather, simply that Respondent
would not recognize an affiliation with the Oil,
Chemical & Atomic Workers. Ballantyne further
stated that Respondent remained willing to meet
with Fiorini as a representative of the Gasland Em-
ployees' Association. Respondent's refusal to meet
and bargain with Fiorini in his capacity as an officer
of OCAW was therefore based not on any claim of
faulty request or lack of authority of the local union
to make the request on behalf of the International
Union, but on a refusal to recognize any affiliation of
the Association with OCAW. If Respondent had any
doubts about the authority of the local union to re-
quest bargaining on the International's behalf, it had
but to raise that question. However, Respondent
made no such inquiry as to the authority of Local 8-
766 to represent the International Union. Moreover,
Respondent refused to meet with Fiorini and Frank
Micale because Micale was identified as an OCAW
International representative. In these circumstances,
we find Respondent is estopped to assert later that its
refusal to meet with the union representatives was
justified because the local union had no authority to
request bargaining for the OCAW International
Union, with whom the employees had voted to affili-
ate. Argus Optics, A Division of Argus, Inc., 210
NLRB 923, 924 (1974); Mutual Coal Company, et al.,
181 NLRB 564, 567 (1970).
Nor do we find the bargaining demand made by
Fiorini, identifying himself therein as the vice presi-
dent of Local 8-766, OCAW, AFL-CIO-CLC, in-
consistent with the finding that the OCAW Interna-
tional Union is the successor to the Gasland
Employees' Association. Article II of the constitution
of the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Internation-
al Union, adopted October 18, 1975, states as fol-
lows:
Section 5. Newly organized groups of workers
obtaining membership in the Union may be as-
signed to membership in an already existing Lo-
cal Union when feasible, upon acceptance of the
existing Local Union, or shall be issued a char-
ter as a new Local Union by authorization of the
International President.
Richard Nickerson, president of Local 8-766, testi-
fied that the local union's executive board specifical-
ly voted to accept the affiliation of the Gasland driv-
ers unit with the local union. Based on the above, we
find that the International Union was clearly em-
powered under the terms of its constitution to admin-
istratively assign newly organized groups of employ-
612
GASLAND, INC.
ees to a local union and that Local 8-766 of OCAW
accepted the affiliation of the Gasland drivers unit
with that organization. We therefore infer that the
International Union assigned the newly affiliated
Gasland drivers unit to Local 8-766, in accordance
with the provisions of its constitution, and that the
Gasland drivers unit functions as a separate compo-
nent of Local 8-766 within the organizational frame-
work of OCAW. Thus, neither the relationship of the
Gasland drivers unit with Local 8-766 nor the inclu-
sion of that local's name in the Union's bargaining
demand upon Respondent is inconsistent with the
Association's affiliation with the International
Union. Accordingly, we conclude that Respondent,
by refusing to recognize and bargain with the Union
following its affiliation action, violated Section
8(aX5) and (I) of the Act.
On the basis of the foregoing, we hereby reaffirm
our original findings, conclusions of law, and Order.
ORDER
Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Re-
lations Board hereby reaffirms its original Decision
and Order in this proceeding and orders that the Re-
spondent, Good Hope Industries, Inc., d/b/a Gas-
land, Inc., Springfield, Massachusetts, its officers,
agents, successors, and assigns, shall take the action
set forth in the Board's original Order (230 NLRB
1132).
613