Union Starch and Refining Co.

In the Matter of UNION STARCH AND REFINING COMPANY, EMPLOYER, and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL 149, A. F. L., PETITIONER Case No. 14-RC-1036.-Decided August 08,1950 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Harold Greenberg and Milton 0. Talent, hearing officers.l The hearing officers' rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed 2 Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-mem- ber panel [Members Houston, Reynolds, and Murdock]. 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 employees of the Employer.3 3. No 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, for the following reasons: The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of corn products by the wet-milling process at its Granite City, Illinois, plant here in- volved. The Petitioner seeks to sever from an existing production and maintenance unit, a departmental unit of power house employees, consisting of employees in the engine room and boiler room and em- ployees charged with duties in connection with the cold water pumps At the end of the first day the hearing, which was then conducted by Hearing Officer Greenberg , was adjourned for several weeks, and the second portion was conducted before. Hearing Officer Talent. 2 The Employer's request for oral argument is denied because, in our opinion , the record and the briefs adequately present the issues. 'American Federation of Grain Millers, Local No. 153, which has represented the Employer's production and maintenance employees by contract dated May 6, 1949, and renewed until May 20, 1950, pending negotiations for a new contract, was allowed to intervene at the hearing on May 16, 1950. Federal Labor Union No. 23967, A. F. L., was also allowed to intervene because of its contract dated September 15, 1949, covering fore- men employed at the Granite City plant. It construes this contract as covering operating or shift engineers, here sought by the Petitioner as nonsupervisory employees. 91 NLRB No. 6. 917572-51-vol. 91-2 2 4 6 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD and the water softener. Steam is used for. power, and for heating and sterilizing the product in the course of manufacture. In addi- tion to the water required for steam, quantities of water from wells on the plant property are used in the milling process. It is the function of the employees sought by the Petitioner to maintain this supply of water and of steam. Bargaining at the Granite City plant has been on a plant-wide basis since the Board, in June 1938 (Case No. 14-R-7), certified a predeces- sor of the intervening Grain Millers as the bargaining representative of hourly paid production and maintenance employees. The Em- ployer and the Grain Millers, in opposing the proposed powerhouse unit, urge the history of bargaining at the Granite City plant, the integration of the powerhouse employees in the Employer's continuous production process, and the accepted pattern of bargaining for over= all production and maintenance units in the wet-milling industry. As we stated in Corn Products Relining Company, 87 NLRB 187, the wet-milling industry generally appears to have followed a pattern of bargaining in plant-wide units. In the absence of compelling rea- sons for severing the employees sought by the Petitioner, which we do not find here, we consider that a plant-wide production and mainte- nance unit is appropriate in that industry .4 Accordingly we shall dis- miss the petition. ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. 4 Corn Products Refining Company, 80 NLRB 362.