United States Pipe & Foundry Co.

In the Matter of UNITED STATES PIPE & FOUNDRY COMPANY, EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL MOLDERS AND FOUNDRY WORKERS UNION OF NORTII AMERICA, AFL, PETITIONER Case No. 10-R'C-682.Decided November 18, 1949 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Morgan C. Stanford, hearing officer. After evidence had been received with respect to the business of the Employer, the labor organizations in- volved, and the question concerning representation, each party, in turn,.stated that it had no further evidence to present. Thereupon, the Intervenor 1 moved to dismiss the petition for want of prose- cution. The hearing officer referred the motion to the Board and, over the Intervenor's objection, called a witness on his own initiative for the purpose of, obtaining evidence with regard to the appropriate- ness of the proposed unit. We believe that the Intervenor misconceives the nature of repre- sentation proceedings. They are not adversary, but are designed merely to ascertain whether or not a question concerning representa- tion exists. It is immaterial which party presents the factual ma- terial for the record. It is only necessary that there be a full and complete record, so that the Board will be in a position to decide all the issues involved in the proceeding.' Accordingly, the Intervenor's motion is denied. Moreover, we find that the hearing officer's rul- ings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. The Intervenor's motion to dismiss the petition because of the in- appropriateness of the unit sought is hereby denied, for reasons set forth in paragraph 4, below. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with United Steelworkers of America, CIO, and its Local Union No. 3505. herein jointly called the Intervenor. appeared at the hearing and moved to intervene on the ground of their current contractual interest. The motion is herehy granted. 2 WVeyerlacuser Timber Company, 82 NLRB 820. footnote 1. 87 NLRB No. 23 . 115 877353-50-vol. 87-9 116 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Murdock]. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim 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. 4. The appropriate unit; the determination of representatives: The Petitioner seeks a unit composed of all apprentice and journey- men molders and apprentice and journeymen coremakers at the Em- ployer's Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant, excluding all other employ- ees, office and clerical employees, foremen, guards, professional em- ployees, and supervisors. The Intervenor contends that the only appropriate unit is the existing unit of all production and mainte- nance employees at the plant, with certain exclusions not here material. The Employer takes no position with respect to the appropriate unit. The Employer is engaged in the production of cast iron pressure pipes and fittings, and employs approximately 550 employees at its Chattanooga plant. The foundry, the machine shop, and the pat- tern shop each occupies a separate building. The foundry is di- vided into 4 departments : dry sand foundry, green sand foundry, straight pipe foundry, and oil sand core room. Each department is in charge of a separate foreman, and these 4 foremen report to a gen- eral foundry foreman. There are approximately 350 employees in the foundry. The unit sought by the Petitioner would consist of ap- proximately 23 employees ,3 of whom 19 are employed in the dry sand foundry, and 4 in the oil sand core room. The journeymen molders and coremakers are the only skilled workers, and the highest paid employees, in the foundry. There is no interchange between coremakers, molders, and their apprentices, and other employees. The Employer has establised a 4-year ap- prenticeship for molders. While there is no similar apprenticeship program sponsored by the Employer for its coremakers,4 the Em- ployer considers 4 years' experience necessary for journeymen core- makers, whom it hires from the outside. It is clear that the employees here sought to be represented by the Petitioner possess skills usually associated with their craft. The 3 Nine journeymen coremakers , 12 journeymen molders, and 2 apprentice molders. 4 This is because the Employer's operations are not broad enough to provide proper training for apprentice coremakers. UNITED STATES PIPE & FOUNDRY COMPANY 117 Board has recognized such employees as skilled .5 Accordingly,, we are persuaded that the molders, coremakers, and their apprentices comprise a cohesive and well-defined craft group clearly distinguish- able from the remaining production and maintenance employees and that their establishment as a separate collective bargaining group is feasible. The Intervenor, in arguing against setting up the molders and core- makers in a separate unit, points to the history of collective bargaining ,on a plant-wide basis. In 1937 there was a plant-wide strike at the Employer's plant. On September 23, 1943, the Employer and the Petitioner entered into a collective bargaining contract covering the production and maintenance employees, including the employees sought herein. As the result of a Board-directed election 0 in which both the Petitioner and the Intervenor participated, the Intervenor was certified on March 18, 1946, as the bargaining agent for the pro- duction and maintenance employees. Again on April 4, 1947, the Intervenor was certified as the representative of the same unit, as the result of a consent election in which the Petitioner and the Intervenor both participated.' Thereafter, on June 2, 1947, the Employer and the Intervenor executed a 2-year collective bargaining agreement.8 On April 27, 1949, the Petitioner filed a petition seeking a unit of. all employees in the foundry, but this petition was later withdrawn.° The instant petition was filed on July 19, 1949. It is also significant that, as the result of a recent Board-directed self-determination elec- tion,10 the Petitioner is now the certified bargaining agent of the molders, molders' apprentices, coremakers, and coremakers' appren- tices at the Employer's Bessemer, Alabama, plant, where a sister local of the Intervenor has represented the production and maintenance employees for over 9 years. The Intervenor argues that the unit sought is based solely upon the Petitioner's extent of organization. We find no merit in this con- tention. Historically, the Board only considered extent of organi- zation as a factor where there was no union willing or able to represent the employees in a more extensive unit. That is certainly not the case here. Moreover, we are not impressed with the emphasis placed by the Intervenor on the Petitioner's shift of position. While it is true that the Petitioner's original stand favored a unit which lumped 5 Sacks-Barlow Foundries, Inc., 79 NLRB 327 at p . 328; Texas Foundries, Inc., 83 NLRB 679 ; and United States Pipe and Foundry Company, 84 NLRB-954. 6 United States Pipe and Foundry Company, 65 NLRB 979. 4 Case No. 10-R-2530. 8 No party asserts that this contract is a bar to the instant proceedings. Case No. 10-RC-586. 10 United States Pipe and Foundry Company, 84 NLRB 954. 118 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD the molders and coremakers with the other production and mainte- nance employees, that fact is not sufficient, in itself, to convince us that the present petition should be dismissed. Furthermore, the Peti- tioner's request for a separate unit of molders and coremakers herein is consistent with its similar request with respect to the Employer's Bessemer plant, which we granted, under a similar factual situation. In our opinion, the bargaining history set forth above does not preclude an election among the molders and coremakers at this time. The Board has, in the past, granted self-determination elections to similar groups.11 The Petitioner is currently the bargaining repre- sentative of a separate group of molders and coremakers at another of the Employer's plants. We therefore conclude that, despite the bargaining history on a more comprehensive basis, the molders and coremakers and their apprentices sought herein may, if they so desire, constitute a. separate appropriate unit. However, as the continued inclusion of these employees in the existing plant-wide unit may also be appropriate, we shall not make any final determination of the appropriate unit at this time, but shall first ascertain the desires of the affected employees in the election hereinafter directed. We shall direct that an election be held among all molders, molders' apprentices, coremakers, and coremakers' apprentices employed at the Employer's Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant, excluding supervisors, as defined in the Act. If the employees participating in the election select the Petitioner as their bargaining representative, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate bargaining unit. DIRECTION OF ELECTION 12 As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than 30 days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this case was heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees in the unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately preceding the date of this Direction of Election, including employees who did not work during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation or 11 See cases cited in Sacks-Barlow Foundry, Inc., supra, and United States Pipe and Foundry Company, supra. 12 Any participant in the election directed herein may, upon its prompt request to, and approval thereof by, the Regional Director, have its name removed from the ballot. UNITED STATE'S PIPE & FOUNDRY COMPANY 119 temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have since quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or rein- stated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bargaining, by International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America, AFL, or by United Steelworkers of America, CIO, and its Local Union No. 3508, or by neither.