United States Rubber Co.

In the Matter Of UNITED STATES RIBBER COMPANY, EMPLOYER and AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, PETITIONER Case No. 1-RC-1562.-Decided September 15,1950 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act,l a hearing was held before Robert E. Greene, 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 Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Styles], 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 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 Petitioner seeks a unit of production and maintenance em- ployees at the Employer's rubber products plant at Providence, Rhode Island. United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers of America, CIO, hereinafter called the Rubber Workers, and its Local 66, the Intervenors herein, urge that, on the basis of past bargaining history, the unit appropriate for employees at the Employer's Provi- dence plant should also include production and maintenance employ- ees at other rubber. products plants of the Employer at which the ' On April 28 , 1950, the Regional Director dismissed an earlier petition filed by the instant Petitioner in Case No , 1-RC-1490 on the ground that the Petitioner had failed to make an adequate showing of interest among employees in the alleged appropriate unit. Five days later the Petitioner filed the petition in the instant case, covering the same unit. The Intervenors urge that the instant case is merely repetitious of the earlier case and should be dismissed for reasons of policy. We find no merit in this contention . The failure of the Petitioner to make an adequate showing to sustain the earlier proceeding does not indicate an abuse of the Board's administrative process. The Petitioner has made an adequate showing of interest in the instant case. It therefore appears that the processing of the instant petition will effectuate the policies of the Act. 91 NLRB No. 44. 293 294 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Rubber Workers and its locals are recognized bargaining agents. The Employer agrees with the Petitioner as to the unit. In and after 1939, the Employer and the Rubber Workers and cer- tain locals of the Rubber Workers met and negotiated terms appli- cable to employees at all the Employer's rubber products plants at which the Rubber Workers or its locals were the recognized bargain- ing representatives. Since 1947 these general terms have been reduced. to writing and referred to as "master" contracts. They have dealt with general terms and conditions of employment, but have been sa drawn as to become effective at individual plants of the Employer only upon the execution of supplemental agreements between the Employer and the respective locals of the Rubber Workers. The supplemental agreements have dealt with such matters as seniority, the recall of laidoff employees, and the method and amount of wage payments under specified conditions. Even a wage agreement providing for a general wage increase for the Employer's hourly paid employees, entered into in 1948 between the Employer and the Rubber Workers, provided that adjustments in hiring rates might be negotiated on a local basis.. In an early representation proceeding, the Board found that pro= duction and maintenance employees at, the Employer's Providence plant constituted an appropriate bargaining unit and, on March 27, 1940, certified Rubber Workers Federal Labor Union, Local #22014, chartered by the instant Petitioner, as their exclusive bargaining representative.2 Later, on February 13, 1948, after a consent election conducted in Case No. 1-R 3886, the Regional Director certified the Rubber Workers, one of the Intervenors herein, as the bargaining representative of these employees. In 1948, following this consent election, the Employer and Local 66 of the Rubber Workers entered into a supplemental agreement covering these employees. . At the present time, the Employer operates approximately 22 rubber products plants. At 19 of these plants, which include approximately 29,000 of the Employer's approximately 31,000 rubber products plant employees, the Rubber Workers and its locals are the recognized bar- gaining representatives of production and maintenance employees. For approximately 8 years before the Rubber Workers became the bargaining representative of employees at the Employer's Providence plant, employees at this plant were represented on a plant plant-basis by a local chartered by the Petitioner. The Petitioner seeks herein representation of these employees in this early unit. The unit urged by the Intervenors in this proceeding is not an employer-wide unit, but 2 20 NLRB 473; 21 NLRB 1140. UNITED STATES' RUBBER COMPANY 295 a unit coextensive with the Rubber Workers' successful organization among employees at the Employer's rubber products plants. For employees, even at these plants, however, no master contracts nego- tiated by the Rubber Workers are effective until supplemental agree- ments at plant level have been executed by the Employer and the respective plant locals of the Rubber Workers. On these facts, we are of the opinion that the past bargaining history between the Employer and the Rubber Workers on the multi-plant basis urged by the Intervenors does not militate against our affirmation of the Board's ,earlier finding that employees at the Employer's Providence plant constitute an appropriate unit apart from employees at other rubber products plants of the Employer.3 For this reason, we conclude that production and maintenance employees at the Employer's Providence plant constitute an appropriate bargaining unit. The Petitioner seeks to include shipping department employees in the unit of production and maintenance employees found appropriate by the Board and to exclude therefrom office and clerical employees, laboratory employees, product control employees, professional em- ployees, chauffeurs, instructors, guards, and executives and working and other supervisors. The Employer and the Intervenors raise no objections. We find that all production and maintenance employees at the Employer's rubber products plant at Providence, Rhode Island, in- cluding shipping department employees, but excluding office and clerical employees, laboratory employees, product control employees, professional employees, chauffeurs, instructors, guards, and executives and working and other supervisors, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this volume.] 3 Cf. Jacksonville Linen Service, Branch of the National Linen Service Corporation, 89 NLRB 1354 , and Aluminum Company of America, et al., 85 NLRB 915.