The Fuller Automobile Co.

THE FULLER AUTOMOBILE COMPANY 515 THE FULLER AUTOMOBILE COMPANY 1 and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS OF AMERICA, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND ITS LOCAL UNION No. 829, PETITIONER THE FULLER AUTOMOBILE COMPANY AND THE FULLER MANUFACTURING AND SUPPLY COMPANY and DONALD E. LILLICH, PETITIONER and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS OF AMERICA, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND ITS LOCAL UNION No. 829. Cases Nos. 9-RC-1226 and 9-RD-85. December 12,1951 Decision, Direction of Election, and Order Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before Lloyd R. Fraker, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at _the, hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. 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 organization involved claims to represent certain eria- 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 Employer operates The Fuller Automobile Company, herein- after called the Automobile Company, and The Fuller Manufacturing and Supply Company, hereinafter 'Called the Manufacturing Com- pany. The Union has been the bargaining representative for the employees of both companies since 1941. In 1948 employees of both companies were included in the voting unit in a union authorization proceeding conducted by the Board. In 1950, in a Board proceeding initiated by an employer petition, the Employer contended that each company constituted a separate appropriate unit, whereas the Union maintained that the historical two-company unit was appro- priate. In the decision in that proceeding, after setting forth fully the activities and relations of the two companies, the Board concluded, 1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing. 97 NLRB No. 69. 516 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD on the basis particularly of the long bargaining history, that the two-company unit was appropriate .2 The Union was subsequently certified as the collective bargaining agent for the employees of both companies. Since its certification, the Union and the Employer have met in numerous collective bargaining conferences. They have ex- ecuted a Job Classification and Wage Rate Schedule covering both companies, but have been unable to arrive at a full collective bargain- ing agreement. Lillich, an employee of the Manufacturing Company, has filed the petition in Case No. 9-RD-85, seeking the decertification of the Union as the collective bargaining agent for the employees of both com- panies; he contends, as the Employer now also does, that the two com- panies constitute a single appropriate unit. The Union, by its petition in Case No. 9-RC-1226, seeks certification as the collective bargaining agent for the employees of the Automobile Company, and now con- tends that this company constitutes a separate appropriate unit. The Union has presented no evidence of a change in the operations of the two companies since the Board's unit determination in 1950. Its claim that the extended negotiations show the inappropriateness of the larger unit is not persuasive nor has it advanced any other per- suasive reason why that unit determination should now be changed. We shall therefore direct an election in Case No. 9-RD-85 and dismiss the petition in Case No. 9-RC-1226. Accordingly, we find that a unit consisting of all the employees at the Cincinnati, Ohio, plants of The Fuller Automobile Company and of The Fuller Manufacturing and Supply Company, excluding body shop employees, the control clerk, new and used car and truck sales- men, parts panel salesmen, office clerical employees, guards, and super- visors within the meaning of the Act, constitutes a unit appropriate for collective bargaining purposes within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. Order- IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition in Case No. 9-RC-1226 be, and it hereby is, dismissed. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this volume.] MEMBER MURDOCK took no part in the consideration of the above Decision, Direction of Election, and Order. S Fuller Automobile Company, 88 NLRB 1452.