Westinghouse Electric Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 20, 1952

101 N.L.R.B. 441 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION 441
The Oil Workers and the Independent desire to appear on the bal-
lots for any separate craft groups found appropriate and we shall
place their names on the ballots in all voting groups. The Council
indicated that it desired to participate only in the election in the pro-
duction and maintenance group.
If a majority of the employees in voting groups (1), (2), (3), (4),
(5), or (6) select a labor organization other than that selected by a
majority of the employees in voting group (7), those employees will
be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate bargain-
ing unit and the Regional Director conducting the election is instructed
to issue a certification of representatives to the labor organization
selected by the employees in each group for such unit or units, which
the Board, in such circumstances, finds to be appropriate for purposes
of collective bargaining. If a majority of employees in voting groups
(1), (2), (3), (4), (5), or (6) select the labor organization chosen
by a majority of employees in voting group (7), those employees
will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute part of the
production and maintenance unit and the Regional Director conduct-
ing the election is instructed to issue a certification of representatives
to the labor organization selected by the employees in such groups,
which the Board, in such circumstances, finds to be a single unit appro-
priate for purposes of collective bargaining.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this
volume.]
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION and UNITED ELECTRICAL,
RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE), PETITIONER.
Case No. IRC-28J5. November 20,1952
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 Sidney A. Coven,
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.'
I The Intervenor , Local 202, International Union of Electrical , Radio and Machine
Workers, CIO , was permitted to intervene at the hearing on the basis of its current con-
tract. This contract , which was not alleged to be a bar to this proceeding , expired on
October 1, 1952.
101 NLRB No. 108.
442 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
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.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of employees in the
tool and die room of the Employer's East Springfield, Massachusetts,
plant. In the alternative, the Petitioner is agreeable to the inclu-
sion in the unit of the model makers in the model shop. The Em-
ployer and the Intervenor contend that the existing plant-wide unit
alone is appropriate, that in any event either unit sought by the
Petitioner is inappropriate, and that severance should be denied.
The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of electrical appli-
ances at its East Springfield plant. The Petitioner was the collec-
tive bargaining representative of a plant-wide production and main-
tenance unit from 1939 to 1950 at which time the Intervenor became
the certified representative. There are approximately 131 employees
in the tool and die room and 3,600 in the entire plant.
The tool and die room constitutes a separate department in the
plant, is located apart from the production departments, and is sepa-
rately supervised. The chief function of the tool and die room em-
ployees is to fabricate and repair tools, dies, jigs, and fixtures, and
they spend most of their time on such work. Approximately 85 of
the 131 tool and die room employees are tool makers and die makers,
and the parties agree that these employees are highly skilled crafts-
men? The other classifications in the department include die
grinders, tool grinders, jig bore, lathe, and milling machine operators,
machine repairmen, die repairmen, production clerks, inspectors, an
errand boy, and a janitor. The record shows that the grinders, ma-
chine operators, and repairmen are considerably less skilled than the
tool and die makers. The Employer's training and experience require-
ments for hiring into these classifications are substantially lower than
those for the tool and die makers. The Employer maintained an
apprenticeship program until about 3 years ago; a number of the tool
and die makers, but none of the employees in the lesser skilled classi-
fications, are graduates of that program. On the record before us,
we are unable to find that any of the employees in the tool and die
room, except the tool and die makers, are craftsmen.
The employees in the model shop, a separate department, are pri-
marily engaged in making models of proposed new products. It is
clear from the record that the model makers, of whom there are
approximately 20, possess and use the same skills as the tool and die
makers in the toolroom, and that they are craftsmen. It also appears
from the record that there is employed in the die casting shop a die
m The Board has consistently recognized the craft status of tool and die makers Herman
Nelson Corporation, 85 NLRB 206; American Relay and Controls, Inc., 81 NLRB 178.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION 443
mold maker who has the same skill and does the same kind of work as
the die makers in the toolroom. The model makers and the die mold
maker are the only other craftsmen in the plant comparable to the
tool and die makers.
The Board has heretofore found appropriate units of tool and die
room employees such as the one here involved and permitted the sev-
erance of such departmental groups from broader units 3 Normally,
the Board does not find appropriate for severance purposes a group
confined to one of several departments in a plant.' An exception was
made to this rule in the case of toolrooms-and machine shops-
where the evidence showed that the work in these departments cen-
tered around a substantial nucleus of skilled craftsmen .5 It was the
craft-like character of toolrooms and machine shops that originally
prompted the Board to set them up as separate departmental voting
groups; therefore, when the evidence showed that there were other
craftsmen in the plant possessing and using the same skills as those
of the craftsmen in the department sought, the Board included these
other craftsmen in the departmental voting group s
The Board has reconsidered its policy in this type of case, and has
concluded that departmental severance of a toolroom or machine
shop will be granted hereafter only in those cases where the skills
of the employees forming the craft nucleus in the department are
not duplicated elsewhere in the plant. Where the evidence shows
that the craftsmen in the departmental unit requested are the only
ones of their type in the plant, the Board will continue to sever such
a group on a departmental basis,' joining the lesser skilled and un-
skilled employees in the department with the highly skilled crafts-
men. However, where there are other employees in the plant possess-
ing and using substantially the same skills as the highly skilled
craftsmen in the department sought to be severed, the Board is of
the opinion that it is of primary importance that all the craftsmen
in the plant of the same type be included in the same unit and that
such a craft group should not be diluted by the inclusion of lesser
skilled or completely unskilled employees. Severance in such cases
will be granted only on the traditional craft basis, i. e., the voting
group will be restricted to all members of the craft in the plant sub-
3 General Electric Company, 89 NLRB 726, 745; B. F. Avery & Sons Company, 86 NLRB
24, International Harvester Company, 79 NLRB 1452.
4 General Aniline & Film Corporation, 80 NLRB 1352; Cupples -Hesse Corporation, 80
NLRB 14; 0 G. Kelley Co, 78 NLRB 1166.
Robertshaw -Fulton Controls Company , 77 NLRB 316.
e Saco-Lowell Shops, 94 NLRB 647; International Harvester Company, 82 NLRB 190;
General Motors Corporation, 81 NLRB 210.
The essential requirement for such severance is the existence of a separate department
. devoted to a specialized function of the plant operations and centering around a
very great nucleus of highly skilled craftsmen . . . ' ,General Electric Company, 89
NLRB at 745.
444 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ject only to the inclusion of regularly assigned helpers and appren-
tices. The Board will no longer find appropriate a unit that is part
craft, part departmental.8
In the present case, it appears that the model makers in the model
shop and the die mold maker in the die casting section are craftsmen
of the same type as the 80-odd tool and die makers in the tool and die
room. We shall therefore grant a self-determination election to all
members of this craft group.
We shall direct an election among all tool makers and die makers
in the tool and die room, all model makers "A" and "B" in the model
shop, and the die mold maker in the die casting section of the Em-
ployer's plant at East Springfield, Massachusetts, excluding super-
visors as defined in the Act. If a majority vote for the Petitioner
they will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a sep-
arate appropriate unit, and the Regional Director conducting the
election directed herein is instructed to issue a certification of rep-
resentatives 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
Intervenor, the Board finds the existing unit to be appropriate and
the Regional Director will issue a certification of results of election
to such effect.9
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
CHAIRMAN HERZOG, dissenting :
I would dismiss this petition, not because of any inherent defect in
the unit sought or found, but for another reason. It seems to me that
this Board should not make its facilities available for the dismember-
ment of a long-established bargaining unit, when those who now seek
to dismember that unit are the very ones who established it and
thought it appropriate so long as they controlled it. The Petitioner
here dealt with the Employer on an industrial unit basis for more
than a decade, beginning in 1939. In 1946, it opposed an attempt by
a craft union to sever a group of patternmakers at this plant 1° Only
g To the extent that the cases cited in footnote 6, supra, are inconsistent with this
decision , they are hereby overruled.
4 Our dissenting colleague , though not questioning the unit determination in this case,
would dismiss the petition on the ground that the Petitioner , having been the plant-wide
bargaining representative for many years , is disqualified from seeking the smaller unit.
As the Act grants to employees , in an appropriate unit , the right to select the bargaining
representative of their choice , as the Petitioner is in no way barred by the Act from
serving as that representative , and as the Act does not require the Petitioner to maintain
a consistent position with respect to the type of unit it seeks to represent, we see no
merit in his position . National Farm Machinery Cooperative , Inc., 88 NLRB 125. See
Standard Overall Company, 53 NLRB 960.
AO Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 69 NLRB 215.
WOOD PARTS, INC. 445
since 1950, following the present Intervenor's defeat of the Petitioner
in a Board election in the industrial unit,ll has the Petitioner seen fit
to question its appropriateness. I do not believe that the Government
of the United States should lend a helping hand when so drastic a
change of position is for the evident purpose of recouping losses on
the installment plan.
11 Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 89 NLRB 8.
WOOD PARTS, INC. and L. D. VINCENT and LOCAL 894, UNITED BROTHER-
HOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA, A. F. L.
WOOD PARTS, INC. and HARRY L. CIIRTIs
LOCAL 894, UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF
AMERICA, A. F. L. and L. D. VINCENT
WOOD PARTS, INC. and MILFORD FREY. Cases Nos. 7-CA 90, 7-CA-
440, 7-CB-76, and 7-CA-46f2. November 21, 1952
Decision and Order
On December 7,1951, Trial Examiner Isadore Greenberg issued his
Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that
the Respondents had engaged in and were engaging in certain unfair
labor practices and recommending that they cease and desist there-
from and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy of the
Intermediate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Respondent
Company, Respondent Union, and the General Counsel filed excep-
tions to the Intermediate Report
The Board has reviewed the rulings made by the Trial Examiner
at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The
rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Inter-
mediate Report, the exceptions, and the entire record in the case, and
hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the
Trial Examiner, with the following exceptions, additions, and
modifications :
1. The charges in this case were filed by L. D. Vincent, Harry L.
Curtis, and Milford Frey. The Respondents contend that Vincent
was an agent of or a "front" for the United Mine Workers of America,
an organization which is not in compliance with Section 9 (f), (g),
and (h) of the Act, and that therefore a complaint should not have
1 The Respondents' request for oral argument is hereby denied because the record and
the exceptions, in our opinion , adequately present the issues and positions of the parties.
101 NLRB No. 93.