General Electric Co.

GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 619 Jersey differs somewhat from that applied to salesmen in other geo- graphic regions. The record reveals that the purpose of the variable incentive system is to assure equal pay for equal sales effort regard- less of the salesmen's location. The changed circumstances relied upon by the Petitioner are not, in our opinion, sufficient to warrant a decision contrary to the Board's previous determination, for the reasons there expressed, that a single plant unit of the Employer's salesmen at the Orange, New Jersey, plant is too narrow in scope to be appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining .3 Accordingly, as the showing of interest of neither labor organization is sufficient to warrant the direction of an election in a more comprehensive unit, we shall dismiss the petition herein. Order IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. a John F. Trommer, Inc., 90 NLRB 1200 ; Lbebmann Breweries, Inc., 92 NLRB 1740; If. Riegel Paper Corporation, 96 NLRB 779. GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY and AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, PETITIONER GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY and UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE), PETITIONER. Cases Nos. 6-RC-1086 and 6-RC-1121. November 26, 1952 Decision, Order, and Direction of Election Upon petitions duly filed, a consolidated hearing was held before William A. McGowan, 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 these cases to a three-member panel [Members Houston, Styles, and Peterson]. Upon the entire record in these cases, 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. The Intervenor, International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO, and its Local 518, raises as a bar to the peti- 101 NLRB No. 127. 620 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD tion filed in Case No. 6-RC-1121 by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), herein called the UE, its con- tract with the Employer covering the office and clerical employees at the Employer's plant in Erie, Pennsylvania.' This contract, dated September 15, 1951, was effective until September 15, 1952, and pro- vided for automatic renewal for annual periods absent written notice to terminate or modify by either party "not more than sixty days and not less than thirty days" before any anniversary date. Neither party gave notice to terminate or modify the contract on July 17, 1952, the sixtieth day preceding the anniversary date. By registered letter dated July 11, 1952, the ITE communicated to the Employer its claim for recognition as bargaining representative of the office and clerical employees at the Erie plant. On July 24, the UE filed its petition. The Intervenor has moved to dismiss this petition on the ground that, as it was not filed before July 17, the contract was automatically renewed and constitutes a bar. The UE contends, however, that the 30-day Mill B date of the contract is con- trolling, and that its petition was timely as it was filed prior to that date. In view of the fact that the contract enabled either party to effect its termination or modification by tendering notice at any time be- tween the sixtieth and the thirtieth day preceding its anniversary date, we find that the contract remained open to a question concerning representation during that 30-day period, and that the Mill B date of August 16 is therefore the critical date against which the timeli- ness of the UE petition must be determined. As this petition was filed on July 24, we find that it was timely filed and that the contract does not bar this proceeding. Accordingly, we find that a question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation 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 units : Case No. 6-RC-1121: In its petition, the UE requested a unit of all office and clerical employees identical to the one now represented by the Intervenor. At the hearing, the UE amended its unit request and sought to split this existing unit into units A and B, unit A to comprise all those employees "whose work, both physically and func- tionally, is close to production," and unit B to consist of those em- ployees "who, physically and functionally, are removed one step from the actual productive work of the plant." Subsequently, the UE again amended its unit description so as to include in unit A all salaried clerical employees employed in shop or general offices located I The Intervenor does not contend that its contract is a bar to the petition filed in Case No. 6-RC-1086 by the American Federation of Labor, herein called the AFL. GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 621 in what the UE contends to be production buildings, excluding all other employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act; 2 and in unit B all salaried office clerical employees working in general clerical offices in buildings having little or nothing to do with pro- duction, excluding all other employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. Alternatively, the UE expressed its willingness to represent the employees in the historical, over-all unit in the event the Board should determine that the proposed separate units were in- appropriate. The Intervenor and the Employer contend that only the existing over-all office and clerical unit is appropriate. Pursuant to a Board election conducted in 1944, the UE was certi- fied as collective-bargaining representative for an over-all unit of office and clerical employees at the Employer's Erie plant.3 From 1944 until 1950, the Employer and the UE executed successive annual contracts covering the employees in this unit. In 1950, the Intervenor succeeded the UE as collective-bargaining representative of the em- ployees in this unit,4 and has since bargained with the Employer on their behalf. The Employer is a New York corporation which operates 119 plants in some 23 States. The Erie plant, the only one involved in this proceeding, has 4 major departments known as the refrigerator, loco- motive and car equipment, foundry, and service departments. Of the 11,000 individuals who are at present employed at the Erie in- stallation, approximately 1,231 are included in the existing unit of office and clerical employees. The employees whose unit placement is here involved are scattered among the approximately 22 buildings which the Employer main- tains at its Erie installation. Some of these buildings are devoted in whole or in part to the production of locomotives and parts, food freezers, and steel and iron castings. In these buildings, the Em- ployer maintains 2 types of offices. The first is characterized as a shop office, and contains such classifications of employees as dispatch- ers, general clerks performing timekeeping duties, typists, and file clerks. The second type, referred to as a general office, normally com- prises the headquarters of the section engineers and supervisors of the four major departments of the plant, and houses such employees as accounting clerks, cost employees, production clerks, and office ma- chine operators. The UE would include the employees in these two types of offices in unit A. In the remaining buildings in which little or no production work is performed, the Employer maintains a third 2 The UE, which currently represents the production and maintenance employees at the Erie plant, does not seek to include the employees in unit A in the production and maintenance unit as plant clericals. 3 General EieetriC •Cbmpa , 54, NLRB 1299. 4 General Electric Company, 89 NLRB 726, 762. 622 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD type of office, also known as a general office. This type of office con- tains such employees as accounting clerks, typists, billing clerks, and office machine operators. The UE would include the employees in these offices in unit B. The employees in both the proposed units work in enclosures sep- arate from the production areas and perform no production work. Employees in both groups are centrally hired and assigned to their duties, are paid under the same graded salary plan, are listed on the same departmental payrolls, and are assigned to similar job classi- fications. In addition, the employees in both groups are frequently interchanged and promoted from one group to the other, they are governed by uniform seniority rules, and they receive the same fringe benefits. Furthermore, employees in the general offices located in both the production and nonproduction buildings, which the UE would include in units A and B, respectively, work different hours from those worked by the shop office employees whom the UE would include in unit A. Moreover, while the UE seeks to include in unit A all employees who work in buildings devoted in whole or part to production activities, the record discloses that it would exclude from unit A certain employees in at least one building which it concedes to be engaged in production, while at the same time it would include in that unit the employees in a warehouse and shipping building in which no production work is apparently performed. In previous decisions upon which the UE relies, the Board has de- clined to establish over-all units of plant and office clerical employees .5 In those cases, however, the facts disclosed that the plant clericals, whose functions, interests, and conditions of employment were intimately related to those of the production employees, worked in areas separate from the office clericals, were separately hired, worked different hours, were not interchanged, and there was no previous history of bargaining on the broader basis. In the instant case, the employees whom the UE would include in unit A perform no produc- tion duties, have little or no contact with the production employees, and are paid different rates and on different bases. Many employees in unit A work different hours than the production personnel and are promoted and assigned to job classifications by clerical supervisors. Furthermore, first the UE and then the Intervenor have represented an over-all office and clerical unit for a total period of 8 years. Under all the circumstances, we do not believe that the units pro- posed by the UE represent such separately identifiable and homo- geneous groups as to require the direction of separate elections,6 es- 0 Truscon Steel Company, 88 NLRB 331 ; Minneapolis-Moline Company, 85 NLRB 597. 6 Moreover, the UE has not made a sufficient showing of interest among the employees in unit B to warrant the conduct of a separate election among the employees in that group. GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 623 pecially in view of the history of collective bargaining on a single unit basis. Rather, we find that these units constitute artificial and ar- bitrary groupings of individuals who perform similar functions and who share common interests and conditions of employment . Accord- ingly, we find the separate units A and B proposed by the UE inappro- priate for the purposes of collective bargaining . However, as the UE has alternatively indicated its desire to represent the office and clerical employees in the over-all unit, we shall conduct an election among the employees in that unit. We find that all salaried office and clerical employees at the Em- ployer's plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, excluding commercial and sales employees, auditors and accountants, test engineers, confidential sec- retaries and stenographers and employees who work on the confi- dential payroll, employee interviewers, placement personnel, medical technicians, chief receptionist, cashiers, planning, wage rate, methods, and time-study employees , professional employees , guards, and super- visors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the pur- poses of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. Case No. 6-RC-1086: The AFL seeks to sever the salaried labora- tory assistants from the over-all office and clerical unit in which they have been represented since the certification in 1944. The Intervenor, the UE, and the Employer contend that such a unit is inappropriate. The Employer employs 57 nonprofessional laboratory assistants who perform routine sampling, testing, and meter reading work, as well as conduct more intricate chemical and physical analyses of substances and materials. These individuals are located in 7 differ- ent buildings scattered throughout the Employer's refrigerator, loco- motive and car equipment, foundry, and service departments. Some, but not all, of these employees perform their duties in areas desig- nated as laboratories. The laboratory assistants are directly supervised by section engi- neers in charge of the various sections in the four departments. In many cases, as, for example, in the refrigerator department labora- tory, this supervision is in common with other office and clerical em- ployees employed there. Like the salaried office and clerical person- nel, laboratory assistants are paid in accordance with a standard graded salary plan and, in the usual situation, are initially employed in the lower grade classifications. Moreover, laboratory assistants and office and clerical employees have been transferred on a number of occasions when vacancies in their respective areas arose, both are governed by unit-wide seniority rules, and both enjoy the same fringe benefits. 624 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD On the basis of the foregoing, and the entire record in this pro- ceeding, we find that the duties, interests, and supervision of the laboratory assistants are so closely related to the office and clerical employees that their continued inclusion in the over-all unit is war- ranted. Accordingly, we find that the unit proposed by the AFL is inappropriate. We shall therefore grant the Intervenor's motion to dismiss the petition filed in this case. Order IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed in Case No. 6-RC-1086 by the American Federation of Labor be, and it hereby is, dismissed. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this volume.] Epp FURNITURE COMPANY, ET AL.1 and RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION LOCAL 1538, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 6-RC-1054. November 26, 1952 Decision and Direction of Elections Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before W. G. Stuart Sher- man, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hear- ing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds : 1. The Employers are each engaged in commerce within the mean- ing of the Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em- ployees of each of the Employers. 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 Petitioner contends that a multiemployer unit consisting of office and clerical employees, charwomen, and elevator operators of all the Employers is appropriate. In the event the Board finds that a multiemployer unit is inappropriate, the Petitioner seeks separate units of these employees for each of the Employers involved herein. 'The following Employers are involved in this proceeding : Epp Furniture Company ; Sol Masiroff, Executor of the Estate of Morris Masiroff, d/b/a Masiroff Furniture Company ; Outlet Furniture Company, Inc ; Reliable Home Furnishings Company, Inc. , Stanley Brothers Company, Inc. and Jack Joseph. Jr, and Donald Joseph. partners, d/b/a Joseph Bros Furniture Company. 101 NLRB No. 114.