National Container Corp. of Wisconsin

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 30, 1952

99 N.L.R.B. 1492 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

1492 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
devotes 10 percent of his time to minor television repairs, and spends
most of the rest of his time repairing radios.3
When they are hired, the television servicemen, like other service-
men in the department, are generally required to have some familiarity
with the work they are to perform. Johnson and Ueberrhein had
certain schooling, not described in the record, before working for the
Employer, and Olson attended a radio school while in the Army Air
Force. Johnson and Ueberrhein also received limited on-the-job
training.' However, the Employer does not require the servicemen to
have any certificate or diploma, and it has no standard recognized
training or apprenticeship program. As noted above, the three serv-
icemen in question also work on other types of equipment sold by the
Employer. Like the other employees in the store, the television
servicemen are required to punch a time clock, and they enjoy the same
benefits, and are subject to substantially the same terms and conditions
of employment and personnel policies.
The record fails to establish that the employees sought by the
Petitioner possess a degree of skill sufficient to constitute them a
recognized craft group. Nor do they constitute a distinct and homo-
geneous group, with interests different from those of the other em-
ployees, such as would entitle them to separate representation. We
find, therefore, that they do not constitute a unit appropriate for
purposes of collective bargaining,5 and we shall dismiss the petition.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed by International Brother-
hood of Electrical Workers, Local Union 1471, AFL, be, and it hereby
is, dismissed.
3In addition to service work, all employees of the department participate in the upkeep
and maintenance of the appearance of the service department.
4 Johnson attended several week-long district service schools, and Ueberrhein attended
a week-long school at the Omaha store, conducted by the Employer.
I Dowd's Radio and Electric Company, 91 NLRB 640, Montgomery Ward S Co., Inc., 89
NLRB 1370, and cases cited therein.
NATIONAL CONTAINER CORPORATION OF WISCONSIN and INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, AFL, PETITIONER. Cases Nos.
18-RC-1146 (voting group a) and 18-RC-1150 (voting group g).
June 30,1952
Supplemental Decision and Order
On February 26, 1952, pursuant to a Decision and Direction of
Elections 1 issued herein by the Board, elections were conducted, under
197 NLRB 1009.
99 NLRB No. 172.
NATIONAL CONTAINER CORPORATION OF WISCONSIN 1493
the direction and supervision of the Regional Director for the Eight-
eenth Region, by secret ballot among the employees of the Employer
in the voting groups found appropriate. Upon conclusion of the bal-
loting, tallies of ballots were issued and served upon the parties 2
hereto in accordance with the Rules and Regulations of the Board.
The tallies show that 23 persons cast ballots in voting group (a),
Case No. 18-RC-1146, and 2 persons cast ballots in group (g) in
Case No. 18-RC-1150, and that all were challenged. The Regional
Director investigated the issues raised by the challenges and issued a
combined report and recommendations to which the Intervenor and
the Petitioner have duly filed certain exceptions.
Case No. 18-RC-1146 (Voting Group a)
The Intervenor excepts first to the recommendation of the Regional
Director in Case No. 18-RC-1146 that the ballots of four employees,
Von Gnechten, Radcliffe, Amend, and Wickman be opened and
counted. The Regional Director bases this recommendation on the
following facts:
Investigation showed that all four of these employees are classified
as paper mull millwrights.,l The Board expressly included this classi-
fication in voting group (a), a group limited to regular maintenance
carpenters and carpenter-millwrights, paper mill millwrights, and
their respective helpers, which the Board found might appropriately
be represented together in a separate unit if a majority of the group
so voted. The basis both for the challenges 4 and for the exception is
the Intervenor's contention that paper mill millwrights cannot
properly be included in such a unit.
III support of this exception the Intervenor alleges that a further
hearing would show that the paper mill millwrights spend an over-
whelming majority of their time working in the paper room, that
they are not under the same supervision as the other millwrights in
the voting group but are under production supervisors, have a work
schedule different from the other employees in the group but identical
with that of the production employees, and in the history of joii-it
representation by the Intervenor were bargained for as part of the
production rather than the maintenance employees.
'International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers , AFL, and the
International Brotherhood of Paper Makers , AFL, intervened at the hearing and are here-
inatter jointly reteired to as the Intervenor , although only the Paper Makers filed
exceptions
' The four employees named above are the only employees in this classification.
'The challenges were also based on the further contention that the four paper mill
millwrights are supervisors . The Intervenor did not except to the Regional Director's
recommendation that the Board adhere to its determination that the paper mill millweights
are not supervisors.
215233-53-95
1494 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
All these facts were fully established in the extensive testimony ad-
duced at the hearing in support of the Intervenor's contention that
the proper unit placement of the paper mill millwrights was in the
production and maintenance unit. We gave them full consideration
before arriving at our original decision as we did the Intervenor's
further contentions, now reiterated in support of this exception, that
the paper mill millwrights are actually, production specialists whose
skills are vastly different from those of the regular maintenance mill-
rights. All these contentions were before us again on the Intervenor's
motion for reconsideration. It was then urged, as it is in support of
this exception, that if the Board refuses to recognize these employees
as production employees, it should place them in a craft unit of their
own because wide differences in skill and the other factors already
enumerated result in lack of community of interest with the regular
maintenance millwrights and particularly a diversity in bargaining
interests.
Reexamination of the extensive record convinces us that the skills
of these two types of millwrights are sufficiently comparable to justify
their inclusion in a single-craft unit and that no useful purpose could
be served by further hearing on this or any other points raised in
Intervenor's first exception. We therefore adopt the recommendation
of the Regional Director that the ballots cast in voting group (a) by
the paper mill millwrights be opened and counted.
The Intervenor further excepts to the Regional Director's findings
that an employee named Kuntz spends approximately 50 percent of
his time working in the proposed unit and an employee named Ed-
mund spends a majority of his time working with employees in the
proposed unit. Kuntz and Edmund were challenged by the Em-
ployer, Kuntz on the ground that he was a valve packer helper, a
position outside the bargaining unit, and Edmund on the ground
that he was a laborer and therefore not within the unit. Investigation
showed that Kuntz is classified as a carpenter-millwright, although
he does spend some time assisting the valve packer. The Intervenor
alleges that it could establish at a hearing that both of these em-
ployees spend less than 50 percent of their time performing work
within the proposed unit.
The voting group description clearly included employees in Kuntz
classification and it also included helpers. Investigation showed that
Edmund acts as a helper both in this voting group and in some of the
other maintenance voting groups designated in the decision. Kuntz
and Edmund therefore have a community of interest with the other
employees in voting group (a) by reason of the substantial amount of
work 'done by them in covered employment and it is immaterial that
less than 50 percent of their working time may be spent in performing
NATIONAL CONTAINER CORPORATION OF WISCONSIN 1495
work within the proposed Unit .5 Accordingly, the exception is denied
and we adopt the recommendation of the Regional Director that the
ballots of Kuntz and Edmund be opened and counted.
The Intervenor's remaining exception raises, for the first time, a
contention that the Regional Director failed to find "that shortly be-
fore the election there occurred defacement of sample ballots and
notice of election attributable to petitioner, which interfered with the
free exercise of their voting privilege by employees within the units
described." Intervenor alleges that it desires the opportunity to
prove these allegations at a hearing. This "exception" is essentially
an objection, reciting conduct alleged to have affected the results of
the election. As the objection was not filed within the time provided
therefor in the Board's Rules and Regulations,6 we find that it is not
timely filed and shall therefore overrule the objection.
No exceptions were filed to the recommendation of the Regional
Director that the challenges to the votes of Floyd Shettel, Francis
Higgins, and Arthur Fraske be sustained 7 We hereby adopt the
Regional Director's findings and recommendation as to these ballots
and sustain these challenges.
No exceptions were filed to the recommendation of the Regional
Director that the ballots cast by the remaining 14 employees in voting
group (a) be opened and counted. We therefore adopt the recom-
mendation.,
Case No. 18-RC-1150
Two ballots were cast in voting group (g), the voting group which
was-limited to painters. The ballot of Lawrence Anderson was chal-
lenged on the ground that he had been transferred out of the proposed
unit on February 12, and the ballot of Harold Smith on the ground
that a one-man voting group is inappropriate. The Regional Di-
rector found that since the date of Anderson's transfer the Employer
had not employed any painter in the painting department other than
Smith and recommended that the challenges be sustained and the
petition be dismissed because the unit had become a one-man unit by
the date of the election and was therefore inappropriate. The Pe-
titioner duly filed an exception to these findings and the recommenda-
5 The Ocala Star Banner, 97 NLRB 384.
" National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations , Series 6, Section 102.61.
4 The ballots of Floyd Shettel and Francis Higgins were challenged by the Board agent
in charge of the election on the ground that these men were supervisors . The Regional
Director found that investigation showed that they occupied classifications clearly found
to be supervisory in the Decision and Direction.
The Employer challenged the ballot of Fraske on the ground that he had been trans-
- ferred before the election to a position outside the unit. Investigation showed that all
parties conceded that Fraske had been so transferred.
1496 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tions. The Petitioner does not deny that Anderson has worked in
the production department since February 12, 1952, and that no
painters other than Smith have been employed in the department since
then, although it alleges that it has been necessary for Smith to get
temporary assistance from employees in other classifications in order
to accomplish the work formerly performed by Anderson. In sup-
port of its exception the Petitioner alleges that the transfer of Ander-
son was made for the sole purpose of rendering the unit inappropriate
and sets forth facts which it believes support the contention.
The motives of the Employer for making the transfer are not rele-
vant in determining the issue of eligibility in this representation
proceeding. No unfair labor practice charges relating thereto have
been filed. It being uncontested that Anderson had been transferred
out of the painting department before the election, the challenge to his
ballot is sustained, as is the challenge to- Smith's ballot. We adopt
the Regional Director's recommendation and shall dismiss the petition
in Case No. 18-RC-1150, because a one-man unit is not appropriate.
Direction and Order
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with National Container Corpora-
tion of Wisconsin at its Tomahawk, Wisconsin, plant, the Regional
Director for the Eighteenth Region shall, pursuant to the Rules and
Regulations of the National Labor Relations Board, within 10 days
from the date of this Direction, open and count the challenged ballots
cast by the following employees in voting group (a), Case No.
18-RC-1146:
Edgar Amend, Gilbert Baalrud, Clarence Brace, Julius Crass,
Charles Douglas, Gerald Edmund, Joseph Folz, William Hanlan,
Adolph Hinz, Jerome Karl, Herman Koth, Percy Kuntz, Frank Musil,
Emery Myers, George Schmith, Zeke Radcliffe, Albert Sund, Louis
von Gnechten, William Wickman, and Fred Winkelman. The Re-
gional Director shall thereafter prepare and cause to be served upon
the parties, a supplemental tally of ballots including therein the count
of these challenged ballots.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition in Case No. 18-RC-1150 be,
and it hereby is, dismissed without prejudice, however, to the right
to refile at any time that there are sufficient employees to constitute
an appropriate unit of painters regularly employed at the Tomahawk
plant.