National Farm Machinery Cooperative, Inc.

In the Matter of NATIONAL FARM MACHINERY COOPERATIVE, INC. (OHIO CULTIVATOR DIVISION), EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL MOLD- ERS AND FOUNDRY WORKERS UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, AFL, PETI- TIONER Case No. 8-RC-489.-Decided January 16, 1950 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Charles A. Fleming, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.' Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel. [Chairman Herzog and Members Huston and Reynolds]. 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 consisting solely of all employees in the foundry department of the Employer's Ohio Cultivator Division at Bellevue, Ohio. The Intervenor-International Union, United Auto- mobile, Aircraft & Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Local 617, UAW-CIO-and the Employer contend that only a unit com- prising all the production and maintenance employees at Bellevue can be appropriate.2 1 The general motions to dismiss the petition, made by the Employer and Intervenor at the close of the hearing, are hereby denied for reasons hereinafter stated. 2 From 1937 to 1948, the Petitioner was bargaining representative for the production and maintenance employees in a plant-wile unit. In 1948, as the result of a consent election, the Intervenor succeeded the Petitioner as representative of this unit. The Inter- venor's contract covering the employees in this unit has now expired , and is not asserted as a bar. 88 NLRB No. 27. 125 126 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The Employer's Bellevue Division is engaged exclusively in manu- facturing farm machinery and experimental work connected therewith. Its operations are carried on in 2 adjacent plants. Plant No. 1 includes the foundry department which produces castings, the machine shop which fabricates the steel parts used, and the assembly department, in which the final product is assembled. The operations in Plant No. 2 consist of both production and service operations. Thin plant houses the woodworking department, the tool and pattern shop, the maintenance department, and the development and engineering de- partment. In August 1949, 691 production and maintenance em- ployees were employed at Bellevue, 165 of whom were in the foundry department. In support of their position that the only appropriate unit is a plant-wide unit comprising all production and maintenance employees at the Employer's Bellevue operations, the Employer and the Inter- venor point to the fact that the foundry is an integrated part of the plant as a whole and its entire output is used in the manufacture of finished products; that a works manager and his assistants exercise over-all control and direction of all operations in the plant; that all employees enjoy similar wages, working conditions, and benefit plans, and that a plant-wide seniority system is maintained. On the other hand it appears that the foundry is a distinct department and is separated physically by a fire wall from the rest of Plant 1. It has its own superintendent or general foreman with four foremen under him, each in charge of one of the four subdepartments, the cupola department, core room, molding room, and general foundry. In a 1-month period, shortly before the hearing, 21 men, mostly laborers, were transferred from the foundry to other departments and 6 men were transferred to the foundry. These transfers were intended, however, to be permanent and do not indicate interchange- ability of personnel. There have also been occasional emergency as- signments of nonfoundry personnel to the foundry. Conversely some foundry personnel have from time to time been assigned to other departments. These emergency assignments have also been confined, in the main, to unskilled classifications. There is no instance of a molder or coremaker being temporarily assigned outside the foundry and only one instance of an employee from outside the foundry being temporarily assigned to such work. This employee, although hired for other work, possessed the requisite training and experience to serve as a molder. Thus the record does not indicate general inter- changeability. The Employer and the Intervenor lay great stress on the degree to which the foundry is mechanized, pointing out that blowing machines are used for 75 percent of all cores made in the foundry and that 98 NATIONAL FARM MACHINERY COOPERATIVE, INC. 127 percent of the tonnage cast is molded on "squeeze" machines. It is their contention that this results in the virtual obliteration of craft lines, and renders a foundry unit inappropriate. In support of this contention they point out that, although there was conflict in the testimony as to the degree of skill, if any, required for satisfactory performance of the duties of many of the job classifications in the foundry, all parties are agreed that approximately 117 of the foundry employees work at jobs whose adequate performance requires, at the most, but 90 days' training. This fact does not, however, completely differentiate the Employee's operation from that of unmechanized foundries, as even in the latter type of operation unskilled or semi- skilled employees often outnumber those who are highly skilled. In both situations most of the skilled workers are classified as core- makers and molders.' All parties are agreed that 4 of the 5 coremakers in the Employer's foundry, and 3 of the 37 molders, are journeymen and that a minimum of 4 years' (8,000 hours) training and experience is required to attain journeyman status as a coremaker or molder. Disagreement centers in the degree of skill required of the other 34 molders, classified as machine molders, whose molding is entirely performed on squeeze machines. The Employer and Intervenor, seeking to equate the work of the machine molders with that of the bulk of admittedly nonskilled found- ry employees, assert that 90 days' training is sufficient to insure ade- quate operation of a squeeze machine. The Petitioner, on the other hand, estimates that a training period of 6 months to 2 years, depend- ing on the ability of the trainee, is essential. The pay rates, however, which are contained in the Intervenor's recently expired contract appear to support the Petitioner's estimate rather than that of the Employer and Intervenor. Thus journeymen in the development and engineering department and journeymen carpenters in the wood shop, who attain journeyman status only after 8,000 hours' experience, receive $1.46 an hour while machine molders, after the same period, receive $1.47. The only higher paid classifications in the plant are the journeymen tool, die, and pattern makers, and journeymen core- makers and molders. The journeymen coremakers and molders, after completing 8,000 hours, receive only 4 cents an hour more than machine molders with similar experience. The pattern that emerges is that of the typical foundry operation in which there are a number of unskilled workers, but in which the characteristic operations are coremaking and molding, which require some degree of skill. It is clear that the Employer's foundry workers. s The Petitioner asserts that 48 of the foundry employees work in classification requiring for adequate performance more than 90 days' training and experience. Of these 48, only 6 are in classifications other than coremaker or molder. 128 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD constitute an historically recognized occupational group such as we have repeatedly recognized as entitled to separate representation, if they so desire, despite a history of bargaining on a broader basis.4 We find no merit in the further contention of the Employer and Intervenor that severance should not be permitted, even if the foundry employees desire it, because the Petitioner itself once represented all produc- tion and maintenance employees in this plant. The fact that a plant- wide unit has once been acknowledged to be appropriate does not render a foundry unit inappropriate. We shall therefore direct that an election be held among the employees in the foundry department in the Employer's Bellevue, Ohio, plant excluding maintenance men, inspectors,5 and all super- visors as defined in the Act. However, we shall make no final unit determination but shall first ascertain the desires of the employees .as expressed in the election hereinafter directed. If these employees select the Petitioner they will be taken to have indicated a desire to constitute a separate appropriate unit. DIRECTION OF ELECTION As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, separate elections 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 voting group described in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were employed during the payroll period immediately preceding the date of this Direction, including employees who did not work during said payroll period because they were ill or on vacation or temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have since quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether the employees in this voting group wish to be represented for purposes of collective bargaining by International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America, or by International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft & Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Local 617, UAW-CIO, or by neither. 4 The Fayscott Corporation, 78 NLRB 1256 ; W. A. Jones Foundry & Machine, 83 NLRB 211; Coslin-Birmingham Manufacturing Company, Inc., 84 NLRB 957 . But ef. Link-Belt Company, 76 NLRB 427. 6 There are four maintenance men and eight inspectors regularly assigned to the foundry ,,but their work is not under foundry supervision.