General Electric Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 23, 1954

110 N.L.R.B. 992 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

992 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, DISTRIBUTION TRANSFORMER DEPART-
MENT 1 and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND
MACHINE WORKERS, CIO, PETITIONER
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, WIRE AND CABLE DEPARTMENT, AND
INDUSTRY CONTROL DEPARTMENT and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF
ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE `YORKERS, CIO, PETITIONER.
Cases Nos. 20-RC-2615 and 20-RC-2616. November 23,1954
Decision and Direction of Elections
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before
David E. Davis, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at
the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.2
Upon the entire record in these cases, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer.3
3. Questions affecting commerce exist concerning the representation
of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1)
and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
The Employer and the Intervenor are parties to an agreement,
national in scope, covering inter alia the employees designated in the
petitions filed in this proceeding. This agreement was originally
entered into on September 15, 1950, and was amended in various
respects in 1951, 1952, and 1953; the term of this agreement, before
its amendment by the supplemental agreement discussed infra, ex-
tended from September 15, 1953, until April 1, 1955, and from year
to year thereafter, in the absence of appropriate notice to terminate.
Pursuant to a modification clause in this agreement, which permitted
reopening during the 30- to 60-day period prior to June 1, 1954,
the Employer and the Intervenor entered into negotiations which
culminated in the execution, on July 6, 1954, of a supplemental agree-
1 The captions of these cases are amended to conform to evidence adduced at the
hearing
a The hearing officer properly excluded evidence which the Intervenor sought to adduce
for the purpose of attacking the sufficiency of the Petitioner 's showing of interest in Case
No 20-RC-2615 . As the Board has consistently held, the sufficiency of a petitioner's
showing of interest is a matter for administrative determination , and is not litigable by
the parties . The Colorado Milling and Elevator Company, 108 NLRB 1014 . Moreover,
the Board is administratively satisfied that the Petitioner has made a sufficient showing
of interest . The Intervenor 's motion to dismiss the petition in Case No. 20-RC-2615, on
grounds relating to the sufficiency of the Petitioner 's showing of interest, is accordingly
denied
3 United Electrical , Radio & Machine Workers of America, Independent , and its Local
1412, herein called the Intervenor , were permitted to intervene on the basis of a current
contractual interest.
110 NLRB No. 165.
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 993:
ment amending the national agreement in various respects, and extend-
ing the current term thereof until September 15, 1955. The supple-
mental agreement provided that it would be effective as of July 2,1954,
but would not be "placed in effect" until the receipt by the Employer
of evidence of ratification by the affected locals of the Intervenor;
such evidence of ratification was received by the Employer on July-
16,1954.
By telegrams dated July 7, 1954, and received by the Employer on
July 8, 1954, the Petitioner advised the Employer of its claims to.
represent the employees subsequently designated in its petitions, which-
were filed on July 16, 1954. The Intervenor asserts that such petitions.
were untimely, and are barred by the foregoing national agreement.
We find no merit in this contention.
In a recent case involving the Employer's Schenectady, New York.,
plant,' the Board had occasion to consider whether this same national
agreement was a bar to a petition filed shortly before the date for-
giving notice pursuant to the aforementioned modification clause. The
Board there concluded that because it permitted midterm modifica-
tions which were unlimited in scope, contained no inhibitions on the-
union's right to strike to enforce its demands, and expressly permitted
unilateral termination of the contract, this modification clause "viewed-
realistically . . . insures no greater degree of stability than does the-
usual automatic renewal clause, which the Board has consistently held
opens a contract to a timely rival petition. In either situation, until
the time for giving notice has passed, or the parties have executed a
new or modified contract, the degree of industrial stability which the-
Board's contract-bar principles were designed to preserve does not
exist." [Emphasis supplied.] Because the effect of this modification-
clause was substantially identical with the effect of a conventional auto-
matic renewal clause, the Board further concluded that the question
of the timeliness of the petition therein should be governed by the-
same principles which govern the timeliness of a petition with refer-
ence to a contract containing an automatic renewal clause.
It is evident, with reference to the instant proceeding, that after-
the national agreement was reopened pursuant to the modification-
clause, the bargaining relationships between the Employer and the-
Intervenor did not again become stabilized for a definite term until
the supplemental agreement had been executed and ratified. Until
it was ratified, such agreement had no legal effect. Under these cir-
cumstances, we believe that the considerations which led to the Board's.
conclusions in the General Electric (Schenectady) case, supra, are
equally applicable to the contract-bar issue in this proceeding. We;
4 General Electric Company, 108 NLRB 1290
338207-55-vol. 110-64
994 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
shall, therefore, apply the Board's normal contract-bar rules in de-
termining whether the petitions herein were timely filed.
As set forth above, the Petitioner made its representation claims
after the execution of the supplemental agreement, but before the date
on which it was placed in effect, and, within 10 days following such
claims, filed its petitions. As petitions filed under such circumstances
would have been timely under the Board's ordinary contract-bar rules,5
we find that the petitions herein were timely filed with respect to the
ratification of the July 6, 1954, supplemental agreement. The contract
between the Employer and the Intervenor is, therefore, not a bar.6
4. The appropriate units :
In Case No. 20-RC-2615, the parties agree that a production and
maintenance unit at the Employer's East 14th Street plant is appro-
priate. They disagree, however, as to the unit placement of watch-
men-janitors, who have previously been included in the unit pursuant
to the agreement of the parties. As it is clear from the record that
these employees spend at least a part of their time protecting the Em-
ployer's property against the entry of unauthorized persons, and en-
forcing the Employer's safety rules, we find that the watchmen-jani-
tors are guards, and we shall exclude them from the unit?
In accord with the agreement of the parties in Case No. 20-RC-2616,
we find that a unit of office and clerical employees, limited to employ-
ees at the Employer's 66th Avenue plant, is appropriate 8
On the basis of the foregoing and the entire record, we find that the
following units are appropriate for the purposes of collective bargain-
ing within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act, excluding from
each unit professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined
in the Act :
All production and maintenance employees at the Employer's dis-
tribution transformer department plant, 5441 East 14th Street, Oak-
6 Thomas Electronics, Inc, 107 NLRB 614; National Broadcasting Company, Inc., 104
NLRB 587, at 587-588
9 Questions raised by the Petitioner with respect to the validity of the ratification are,
therefore , immaterial to this issue.
° Walterboro Manufacturing Corporation, 106 NLRB 1383.
s These employees have heretofore been represented as part of a two-plant unit of office
and clerical employees , found appropriate by the Board in 1950, which consisted of office
and clerical employees at both the Employer 's 66th Avenue plant and its East 14th Street
plant See Gene) al Electric Company , 89 NLRB 726 , 768-769. In the same 1950 pro-
ceeding, the Board also found appropriate a separate 2-plant unit of production and
maintenance employees at these same 2 plants See General Electric Company, supra, at
787. In 1952, however, the Board found that, because of certain changes in the Em-
ployer 's organizational structure , the then existing two-plant unit of production and
maintenance employees was no longer appropriate , and that a single-plant unit of pro-
duction and maintenance employees at the 66th Avenue plant was appropriate. See
General Electric Company, 100 NLRB 1489 . In the instant proceeding , the parties stipu-
lated that there have been no further substantial changes in the Employer 's organiza-
tional structuie since the changes reflected in the 1952 proceeding . Our finding herein,
that a single-plant unit of office and clerical employees is now appropriate , is based on
the agreement of the parties, the Board 's findings in the 1952 proceeding , and the afore-
said stipulation.
BURNS DETECTIVE AGENCY 995
land, California, excluding watchmen-janitors and all office and cleri-
cal employees.
All salaried office and clerical employees and production expediters
at the Employer's wire and cable department and industry control de-
partment plant, 1034 66th Avenue, Oakland, California, excluding all
engineers and draftsmen, cashier, paymaster and assistant paymaster,
factory methods, time-study, and rate setting personnel, confidential
payroll personnel, telephone and telegraph operators, and all secre-
taries and stenographers to supervisors or assistant superintendent or
equivalent grade or above.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication.]
BURNS DETECTIVE AGENCY and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED PLANT
GUARD WORKERS OF AMERICA, AND ITS LOCAL #506, PETITIONER.
Case No. 4-RC-2378. November 23, 1954
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 William Draper Lewis, Jr.,
hearing officer. The hearing 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 a New York corporation with offices in various
States throughout the United States, and is engaged in furnishing
guard services to manufacturing plants. In the Philadelphia area
alone, where this proceeding arose, it has contracts with between 50
and 60 industrial plants. It was stipulated that on a nationwide basis
the Employer's services to employers which themselves produce and
ship outside the State goods valued in excess of $50,000, exceed
$1,000,000 in volume. Accordingly, the total volume of the Employer's
operations meets the Board's recently established indirect outflow test
for multistate enterprises.' We therefore find that the Employer is en-
gaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and that it will
effectuate the purpose of the Act to assert jurisdiction in this case.
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.
'Jonesboro Grain Drying Cooperative, 110 NLRB 481 , standard 5 (e) at p. 484 of that
decision . Member Murdock , who dissented in that case , and Member Peterson , who con-
curred in the result , deem themselves bound by the decision therein.
110 NLRB No. 160.