Ford Motor Co.

In the Matter Of FORD MOTOR COMPANY (RIVER -ROUGE PLANT)' and UNITED PROTECTIVE WORKERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL No. I ' Case No. R-41759-Decided February 15,1943 Practice and Procedure : petition dismissed when unit proposed by petitioner was found inappropriate and union made an insubstantial showing of representa- tion in an appropriate unit. Mr. I. A. Capizzi and Mr. Malcolm R. Denise, of Detroit, Mich., for the Company. Mr. Daniel R. Foley, of Detroit, Mich., for, ,the Union. Miss Melvern R. Krelow, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND ORDER STATEMENT OF THE CASE Upon petition duly filed by the United Protective Workers of America, Local No. 1, herein called the Union, alleging that a question affecting commerce had arisen concerning the representation of em- ployees of Ford Motor Company (River Rouge Plant), Dearborn, Michigan, herein called the Company, the National Labor Relations Board provided for an appropriate hearing upon due notice before Max Rotenberg, Trial Examiner. Said hearing was held at Detroit, Michigan, on January 12 and 13, 1943. The Company and the Union appeared, partidipated, and were afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to, introduce evidence bearing on the issues.' At the beginning of the hearing the Company filed a written motion to dismiss the petition on the grounds that (1) the subject matter is not within the jurisdiction of the' Board, (2) the Union` is not a representative of the employees within the meaning of the Act, (3) the bargaining unit alleged in the\petition does not constitute an appropriate unit, (4) the persons ' After the hearing closed , a petition to intervene was filed with the Board , on January 29, 1943, by Plant Protection Association On February 10, 1943 , the Union filed with the Board a petition to deny intervention On February 12, 1943, the Plant, Protection Asso- ciation filed with the Board an answer to the petition to'.deny intervention . In view of our finding hereinafter set forth, the petition to intervene is hereby denied. 47 N. L. R B., No. 77. , 596 FORD MOTOR COMPANY, (RIVER ROUGE PLANT) 597. referred to in the petition are not employees within the meaning of the Act, and (5) the persons referred to in the petition are persons subject to, or about to become subject to military law during the period of their employment and, therefore, may not be certified by, the Board as an appropriate unit or bargain' collectively under the Act. The Tiial Examiner referred the'motion to the Board. For reasons appearing below, the motion is hereby granted. The Com- pany also'filed an offer of proof in support of its motion to dismiss in which, inter alia, the Company alleged that the Union is not a labor organization but is a sham organization, in reality a part of United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW-CIO), and that ' the Union was created by the UAW-CIO to circumvent a contract, dated November 4, 1942, in which the UAW-CIO is recognized as the statutory representative of the production and maintenance employees at the Company's plants, excluding, inter alia, the plant-protection employees whom the UAW-CIO agreed not to organize. The Trial Examiner rejected the offer of proof. In view of our finding hereinafter set forth, we deem it unnecessary to make a determination of this contention. The Trial Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are' free from prejudi- cial error and are hereby affrmed. ' On January 22, 1943, the Company filed a brief which the Board has considered. Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY Ford Motor Company is a Delaware corporation having its princi- pal executive offices at Dearborn, Michigan. Until February 1942° it was principally engaged in the manufacture, assembly, sale, and distribution of automobiles and automobile trucks and various types of automobile parts and accessories. The Company owns, operates, and maintains assembly plants in many States throughout the coun- try. The plant involved in this proceeding is the River Rouge plant. Since February 1942 the Company has been and is now engaged at all of its plants in Detroit, Highland Park, and Dearborn, Michigan, and at its new plant, known as the Willow Run Bomber plant situ- ated near the city of Ypsilanti, Michigan, principally in the manu- facture and/or assembly of ordnance and other materials for the armed services of the United' States. Not less than 10 percent, and varying as high as 80 percent, in value of the productive materials, including fabricated and partially.'fabricated articles, used in the manufacturing or assembly operation conducted in the above-men- 1 ' 598 DECISIONS OF' NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD tioned' plants, the total value of which exceeds $1,000,000 monthly, is shipped to the, said, plants from, points outside the State of Michigan. The Company concedes that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. II. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED United Protective, Workers of America, Local No. 1, -is a labor organization admitting to membership plant-protection employees of the Company. III. THE ALLEGED QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION On November, 25, 1942, the Union sent a letter to the Company stating that it represented a majority of the employees in an alleged appropriate unit and that it desired to be recognized as the exclusive representative of such,employees. The receipt of the letter was acknowledged by the Company, but-it made no further reply to the requests of the Union. . . The, parties are in agreement that if the Board finds any unit appropriate, the unit should comprise all plant-protection or service- department employees, including firemen, at the Company's River Rouge plant, Dearborn, Michigan, but excluding all clerks, supervisory employees, lobby clerks, switchboard operators, drivers, and confi- dential investigators. The parties are in disagreement, however, as to whether the employees in the Aircraft and Administration build- ings, and the Rotunda should. be included or excluded. The Union would exclude and the Company include the employees in the Air- craft building; with respect to, the employees in the Administration building and the Rotunda, the Union would include and the Company exclude them. The River Rouge plant of the Company consists of numerous build- ings, among them the Aircraft and Administration buildings and the, Rotunda. The plant-protection employees in the Aircraft building have the same responsibilities and duties, are'subject to the same rules, 'discipline and supervision, and receive the same rates of pay as those of the other plant-protection employees of, the River Rouge plant. Generally the working conditions of these employees are the same. The Administration building and the Rotunda, on -the other hand, are not engaged in any manufacturing and the Administration building houses the offices and the executive personnel for the entire Ford operations. The plant-protection employees in the Administration building and the Rotunda have no regular beats,,are not interchanged with the plant-protection employees in the other buildings of the plant, are under the separate supervision of the building superinten- FORD MOTOR COMPANY ( RIVER ROUGE PLANT) 599 dent of the Administration building, and further, engage in miscel- laneous duties in addition to plant-protection work. These duties con- sist of directing, visitors to. the various= offices, doing, clerical- work, checking cars in the parking lots, and working on the tire and gas rationing board. Without discussing in detail the groups in issue and without mak- ing a final determination of the unit, it is clear that the nature of the work of the employees in the Aircraft building, whom the Union seeks to exclude, is' indistinguishable from that of the group it seeks to include, and that the former employees should therefore not be ex- cluded from the unit. With respect to the employees in the Administration building and the Rotunda, on the basis of the present record, we are of the opinion that they properly should be ' excluded from it unit of other plant- protection employees of the River Rouge plant. Not only is the Union's claimed unit inappropriate, but it has not made a substantial showing of representation in an appropriate unit. The Union submitted a total of 274 authorization cards, of which 204 bear apparently genuine signatures of persons appearing on a list, submitted by the Company, of names of persons it alleges to be in the unit claimed to be appropriate by the Union. This list, which is current as of the date of the hearing, contains 881 names as follows : 713 who the Company and the Union agree should be in the unit; 155 in the Aircraft building; and 13 in the Administration building and the Rotunda. None of the cards submitted by the Union con- tained names which were on the list of Aircraft and Administration buildings. and Rotunda, employees. With the inclusion of the em- ployees in the Aircraft building, the representation showing of the Union is not substantial. Since the unit proposed by the Union is inappropriate, and since the Union has not presented evidence indicating that it represents a substantial number of employees in an appropriate unit, we hereby sustain the Company's motion to dismiss the petition. ORDER Upon the basis of the above findings of fact and the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders that the petition for investigation and certification of representatives of em-, ployees of Ford Motor Company (River Rouge Plant), Dearborn, Michigan, filed by United Protective Workers of America, Local No. 1, be, and it hereby is, dismissed. '