The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Co.

In the Matter of THE PROCTER & GAMBLE MANUFACTURING Co., EM- PLOYER and INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, LOCAL UNION B-11, A. F. L., PETITIONER Case No. 21-R-3124.-Decided September 4,1946 Mr. George W. McLaughlin, of New York City,•for the Employer. Mr. C. DeMontreville, of Los Angeles, Calif., for the Petitioner. Katz, Gallagher d Margolis, by Mr. Leo Gallagher, of Los Angeles, Calif., for the Intervenor. Mr. Melvin J. Welles, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed, hearing in this case was held at Los Angeles, California, on May 23 and 24, June 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21, 1946, before George H. O'Brien, Trial Examiner. At the hearing, the Employer and the Intervenor moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the unit petitioned for is inappropriate. For reasons stated in Section III, infra, the motion to dismiss is hereby granted. The Trial Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Co., an Ohio corporation, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Procter and Gamble Company, has its principal office and place of business in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Employer operates several plants throughout the United States, in- cluding one at Long Beach, California, with which this proceeding is concerned. At its Long Beach plant the Employer is engaged in the manufacture of soap, edible fats, and glycerine. The volume of busi- ness at this plant exceeds $100,000 per year, of which 20 percent is re- ceived into and shipped out- of the State of California. 70 N L. R. B., No 93. 1121 1122 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The Employer admits and we find that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. II. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED 0 The Petitioner is a labor organization affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, claiming to represent employees of the Employer. Procter & Gamble Employees Association, herein called Intervenor, is a labor organization claiming to represent employees of the Employer. III. THE ALLEGED APPROPRIATE UNIT The Petitioner requests a unit of all maintenance electricians of the Long Beach plant, excluding supervisory employees. The Employer and the Intervenor, on the other hand, contend that the unit sought by the Petitioner is inappropriate, pointing to the long history of collec- tive bargaining predicated on a plant-wide unit, and a determination by the Board in a previous case 1 that a grouping of maintenance elec- tricians is not appropriate. The record in this case is substantially the same as that of the previ- ous case, to which, among others, the Petitioner, the Intervenor and the Employer were parties. In our decision in that case, issued in 1943, we held : In support of its petition for a separate unit, the I. B. E. W. contends that the electricians have belonged to the I. B. E. W. since construction began on the plant in 1930; that they have never signified that they wanted the Association to represent .them; and-that they have handled their own grievances for the past 11/2 years. At first, perhaps, these contentions appear to have some merit. However, an examination of the record discloses the following weaknesses in the contentions; although the electricians have always belonged to the I. B. E. W., they failed, prior to the initiation of the present proceedings, to ask the Company for separate bargaining rights; although there is no evidence that the - electricians expressly signified that they wanted the Association to represent them, they still have participated in the benefits of Association representation, and by their apparent passivity over a long period of time have indirectly approved of representation by the Association; and finally, no specific instances of the handling of grievances by the I. B. E. W. in the past 11/2 years were disclosed at the hearing, whereas there is evidence that the Association has handled at least one grievance in that time and has procured a raise for all employees including electricians. ' Matter of The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Co., 52 N. L. R. B 661 THE PROCTER & GAMBLE MANUFACTURING CO. 1123 It thus appears that a plaiit-wide unit of employees was estab- lished with the acquiescence of . . . the electricians . In view of this, and the prolonged period of collective bargaining upon a plant-wide basis between the Company and the Association, we believe that the [unit] urged by . . . I. B . E. W. [is] inappro- priate. . . . i We consider ourselves bound by the earlier decision, regardless of how we might view the facts if this were a matter of first impression. The evidence adduced at the instant hearing relative to the period subsequent to our previous determination reveals that the Intervenor has continued to represent the electricians, has obtained benefits for all employees, including the electricians, and has, on at least one occasion, represented the electricians on grievances. The Petitioner adverts to the fact that the electricians have continued to belong to the Petitioner and have not joined the Intervenor. This, however, was the situation at the time of our previous determination . Thus, there is nothing in the record sufficiently persuasive to impel us to change our prior deter- mination at this time so as to find appropriate a separate unit of main- tenance electricians. Accordingly, we find that the unit proposed by the Petitioner is not appropriate for the purposes of collective bargain- ing, and we shall dismiss the petition filed herein. IV. THE ALLEGED QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION Since the bargaining unit sought to be established by the petition is inappropriate, as stated in Section III, supra, we find that no ques- tion concerning the representation of employees of the Employer within an appropriate unit has arisen within the meaning of Section 9 (c) of the Act. ORDER Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and the entire record in this proceeding , the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders that the petition for investigation and certification of repre- sentatives of employees of The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Co., Long Beach, California , filed by International Brotherhood of Elec- trical Workers , Local Union B-11, A. F. L., be, and it hereby is, dismissed. MR. JAMES J. REYNOLDS, JR., took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Order. 712344-47-vol. 70-72