The Webb Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 24, 1952

98 N.L.R.B. 1284 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

1284 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
work is similar to that of other clericals included in the production
and maintenance unit, we shall include the material and supply clerks
of the engineering department in the unit.'
We find, accordingly that all production and maintenance em-
ployees of the Employer at its places of business in the counties
of Erie and Niagara, State of New York, including all factory cler-
icals and material and supply clerks, but excluding laboratory
employees, professional employees, and all supervisors as defined in
the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.19
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
0 Schwarz Laboratories , Incorporated, 89 NLRB 930; E. R. Squibb & Sons, 83 NLRB
792. The propriety of including these employees in the production and maintenance unit
is not offset by the fact that they work in a department whose other employees are
excluded. See Westinghouse Electric Corporation , supra; Kearney & Trecker Corporation,
60 NLRB 148 . The material and supply clerks are supervised by production control
supervisors , as are other clerical employees included in the unit.
10 With the exception of the material and supply clerks, now included In the unit, the
unit is that currently represented by the Petitioner.
THE WEBB CORPORATION and INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
MACHINISTS , LOCAL LODGE 232, AFL, PETITIONER . Case No.
17-EC-1196.11 April 24, 19529
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 J. Scott,
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 engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer.
3. A 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.
1 The Intervenor herein , International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North
America, Local No. 204 , AFL, filed a petition In Case No . 17-RC-1222 involving employees
in the foundry department at the Employer's plant with which we are concerned here.
At the consolidated hearing, the Intervenor moved to withdraw its petition in that case
and the motion was granted by the hearing officer. The caption of this case has been
amended accordingly by eliminating therefrom Case No. 17-RC-1222.
98 NLRB No. 197.
THE WEBB CORPORATION 1285
4. The Petitioner seeks a unit of production and maintenance
employees at plant 1 of the Employer, including scale department
employees but excluding the foundry employees who are represented
by the Intervenor. The Intervenor agrees with the unit petitioned
for except for the inclusion of the scale department employees. It
contends that these employees are properly a part of the foundry
unit which it represents. The Employer takes a neutral attitude on
the question of the appropriate unit. It is undisputed that the Peti-
tioner is the representative of the production and maintenance em-
ployees with the exception of the scale department employees and
the foundry workers, and that the Intervenor represents the foundry
workers. Neither union has been certified by the Board but each of
them has won a consent union-authorization election in the unit it
presently represents. However, in neither case was the unit descrip-
tion definitive on the placement of the scale department employees.
The Employer has two plants, independent from each other in
their operations and each manufacturing separate and dissimilar
products. We are not concerned at all here with plant 2. Plant 1 is
engaged in the manufacture of machinery, motor truck scales, and
gray iron castings. The Employer started building scales in 1936.
Because of the war, production of scales was suspended from 1942 to
1945, resuming again in July of the latter year. For 1 or 2 years in
the period about 1941, the scale employees were represented by the
Petitioner. However, in the 1949 and 1950 contracts between the Em-
ployer and the Intervenor some of the scale shop employees were in-
cluded in the unit represented by the Intervenor. In the contract
between the same parties executed in October 1951, coverage of the
scale shop employees was specifically held in abeyance because of the
pendency of Petitioner's claim of representation.
There are six job categories in the scale shop. Their names and
some of their duties are as follows: The beam sealer tests and checks
scale beams as to balance, position of notches, etc. Scale mechanics
repair scales being used by customers. Production workers assemble
scale beams, prepare steel, face off various parts. They operate shap-
ers, power saws, threaders, and drill presses. The machinist assembles
beams and makes various scale parts requiring precision work.
Specialists and the helpers drill, grind, thread, and assemble parts.
They also heat treat bearings and rough grind and clean castings. As
to the beam sealer, scale mechanics, production workers, and machinist,
it appears that their work is closely related to work performed by
employees in the production and maintenance unit. None of their
duties are those commonly done by foundry workers. We will there-
fore include those four categories in the unit hereinafter found
appropriate.
998666-vol . 98-53-82
1286 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
As to the specialists and helpers, while they do some work similar
to that done by the other employees in the scale shop mentioned above,
they also do heat treating, rough grinding, and cleaning of castings,
work traditionally done by foundry workers and related crafts. The
record does not show what proportion of time these employees spend
in their different duties. However, the Petitioner disavowed any
claim to represent employees engaged in rough grinding and cleaning
of castings, and admitted that such work came within the unit repre-
sented by the Intervenor. Accordingly, we find that the specialists
and helpers should be excluded from the unit found appropriate
below.
Contrary to the assertion of our dissenting colleague, the above dis-
position of the scale shop employees is supported by the logical basis
used daily by the Board in its unit findings, to wit, the job functions
of the employees involved. To "Globe" the scale shop employees as
a group, as suggested by the dissenting opinion, could, if the Inter-
venor were successful in such an election, result in the inclusion within
a foundry department unit of employees performing duties totally
unrelated to foundry work. In our opinion this would be a violation
of established Board principles which we cannot sanction.
We find that the following employees constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9 (b) of the Act:
Included : All production and maintenance employees in plant
1 of the Employer at Webb City, Missouri, including these em-
ployees of the scale department : Beam sealer, scale mechanic,
production worker, and machinist.
Excluded: All foundry employees which includes pattern-
makers, floor moulders, machine moulders, core makers, cupola
tenders, chippers, yardmen, foundry maintenance men, outside
and foundry crane drivers, casting cleaners, foundry helpers, all
employees in the foundry, chipping room, pattern storage room,
pattern shop, and carpenter shop ; also scale specialists and helpers
and office clerical employees, guards, professional employees, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
MEMBER STYLES, dissenting in part:
I disagree with that portion of the majority decision which takes the
six job categories in the Employer's scale shop, and divides them up,
placing four of these in the production and maintenance unit requested
'1 HE WEBB CORPORATION 1287
by the IAM, and the remaining two in the foundry unit now repre-
sented by the Molders. In my opinion, this is a kind of gerrymander-
ing which is likely to disrupt orderly collective bargaining in this
plant.
The situation presented here is somewhat unusual. Two aspects of
the Employer's production process-the foundry, and the production
departments other than the scale shop-are fairly well defined. The
scale shop, however, is something of a hybrid. In it there are em-
ployed individuals who perform tasks which bear some similarity both
to foundry work and to the other production work performed elsewhere
in the plant. In the past, some of the job categories have been included
in the IAM contracts; others have been included in the Molders' con-
tract. With the possible exception of the machinist, none of the indi-
viduals in the scale shop are true craftsmen. All, however, are en-
gaged in the common task of assembling and repairing the scales pro-
duced by the Employer.
The line which my colleagues draw between the beam sealer, scale
mechanics, production workers, and machinist on the one hand, and
the specialists and helpers on the other, is arbitrary on its face. Thus,
for example, both the production workers who are placed in the IAM
unit and the specialists and helpers who are placed in the Molders' unit
perform work involving the cutting, grinding, and drilling of metals.
The fact that the specialists and helpers may do some heat treating
work and the cleaning of castings, no more requires that these em-
ployees be included in the foundry unit than the fact that the produc-
tion workers do some assembly work requires that they be excluded
from such unit. It seems plain to me that there is a considerable
amount of overlapping of functions, and that there is no logical basis
upon which the employees in the scale shop can be divided.
For that reason I would not divide them. Together they share a
community of interest arising from their close physical association,
their common supervision, the general similarity of all of their jobs,
and the sialgle product on which they work. Because together they
perform tasks which may appropriately be included in either the
foundry unit or the unit comprised of the remaining production em-
ployees, and in the light of the bargaining history in which both Unions
have represented some of the employees in question, I would direct a
"Globe" election allowing the scale shop employees, as a group, to
decide in which unit they desire to be included.
This, to my mind, is far more likely to produce industrial harmony
and orderly collective bargaining than the hodgepodge dissection
which my colleagues have performed.