United States Steel Corp.

AMERICAN STEEL &, WIRE DIVISION 373 5 of the Employer's plants in the Peoria area. Although they are based at the brewery and are considered part of the sanitation de- partment personnel, they go wherever their work is required. The garage employee is responsible for cleaning and washing the Em- ployer's cars and trucks and keeping the garage clean. When he is on vacation or absent for any reason, he is relieved by another sanita- tion department employee. From the foregoing, it is clear that the employees sought by the Petitioner constitute a residual group which has been excluded from the unit currently represented by the Petitioner. We find that the sanitation department employees have sufficient community of inter- ests with the production employees to be included in the same Unit .4 Accordingly, we shall direct an election in the following voting group : All sanitation department employees at the Employer's Peoria, Illi- nois, brewery, including janitors, insect and rodent control employ- ees, and garage employees, but excluding the salutation department foreman and all other supervisors. If a majority of employees in the foregoing voting group vote for (lie Petitioner, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be included in the existing unit of employees at the Employer's brewery presently represented by the Petitioner, and the Regional Director conducting the election is instructed to issue a certification of the results of election to that effect. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] 4 The Board usually includes janitors in production and maintenance units. Underwood Corporation, 107 NLRB 1132 ; Palmer Manufacturing Company, 103 NLRB 336 AMERICAN STEEL cQ, WIRE DIVISION OF UNITED STATES STEEL COR- PORATION and LOCAL 5000, UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO,1 PETITIONER. Case No. 8-RC-01 111. July 03, 1954 Decision and Direction of Election Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Paul Weingarten, 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 organizations involved claim to represent employees of the Employer. I The name of the Petitioner appears as amended at the hearing. 109 NLRB No. 65 374 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 3. The Employer and Lake Sailors' Union, Independent, herein- after called the Intervenor, contend that an existing collective-bar- gaining agreement between them covering the employees here' sought by the Petitioner is a bar to a present election. The Petitioner, urging the Board's doctrine on premature contract extensions, resists the contract-bar claim. The Intervenor was certified by the Board as bargaining repre- sentative of the employees here involved in 1947, and has since had successive collective-bargaining agreements with the Employer cov- ering such employees. On July 1, 1953, the Intervenor and the Em- ployer executed a supplemental agreement which, among its other provisions, extended the term of the then existing contract to change the termination date from January 31, 1954, to January 31, 1955. ,On September 25, 1953, they executed ' a complete new agreement which also provided for termination on J anuary 31, 1955. The record .does not reveal what changes in working conditions were made in this last contract, but it appears that wage changes were reflected in the agreement. The petition herein was filed on November 24, 1953. Our dissenting colleagues would hold the contract a bar on the basis of the Board's recent decision in the case of Se f tort Fibre 'Can Company.2 In that case, however, unlike the present one the Board was confronted with the unusual circumstance of an employer and a labor union seeking to conform the term of their single-plant con- tract to the term of an associationwide contract in order to imple- ntent, at an appropriate time, their long considered determination to join in multiemployer bargaining. A majority of the Board in that case found that this situation warranted the creation of an exception to the premature-extension doctrine. We do not, however, under- stand it to have been the intent of the Board in Sefton Fibre to intro- duce a substantive variation in its well-established rule, and as no special circumstances such as those present in that case are apparent here, we see no reason to depart from it. 'As it is clear that the petition in this case, though filed after the extension agreements had been executed, was nevertheless timely filed with respect to the preexisting contract, we find that, under the Board's well-established "premature-extension" doctrine, neither the original contract nor the supplemental agreements can serve as a bar to this proceeding.3 We find that a question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of the employees of the Employer within the meaning ,of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. We find in accord with the agreement of the parties that all un- leensed' personnel aboard the Employer's vessel, Clifford F. Flood, 2109 NLRB 360 3 tiVestern Electric Company, 87 NLRB 544 AMERICAN STEEL & WIRE DIVISION 375 Cleveland, Ohio, excluding stewards or chief cooks, shipkeepers, all licensed personnel, and supervisors as defined in the Act, 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.] CHAIRMAN FARMER, dissenting : I dissent from the majority decision in this case for the reasons set out in Mr. Murdock's dissent and in my concurring opinion in the Sefton Fibre case.' MEMBER MURDOCK, dissenting : I do not agree with the majority decision that the petition herein is not barred by the contract between the Employer and the Intervenor. In the instant case the September 25 contract shows that at least one reason for executing the agreements which extended the term of the existing contract was to institute a change in wage rates for the employees.' Moreover, the record is completely barren of any evi- dence that might indicate an intention by the parties to the contract either to forestall assertion of the claim of any rival labor organiza- tion or otherwise to frustrate a desire of the employees to make a change in their bargaining agent. In fact there is nothing to show that the supplement of July 1 or the contract of September 25 was executed in any manner other than in good faith and in the regular course of employer-employee collective-bargaining relations. It is the purpose of the Act to encourage the execution of collec- tive-bargaining contracts and foster stability in industrial relations.6 In furtherance of this purpose, the Board, early in its history, adopted the contract-bar doctrine. Subsequently the Board has recognized the necessity of preventing employee representatives who no longer command the support of their employees from perpetuating their ten- ure by forestalling the filing of rival petitions through a misuse of the contract-bar rule, and the Board has modified the rule by adopting the premature-extension doctrine.' It is this latter doctrine which the majority applies in this case. 4 Footnote 2, supra s The contract of September 25 provides for retroactive effect back to July 1, 1953, of wages established on September 25. Necessarily therefore , the wage schedule of the Sep- tember agreement was different from that previously existing. 9 Cf Kimberly-Clarb Corporation, 61 NLRB 90 at 92 T See Wichita Union Stockyards Company, 40 NLRB 369 at 371 ; Memphis Furniture Miry , Co ,- 51 NLRB 1447 at 1488 It may be noted that these cases, which establish the premature-(\tension doctrine, both contained the element of apparent intent to choice off employees' iights to change representatives . But see also Val" Bag Company, 50 NLRB 481. This later case, decided shortly before the Memphis case and not specifically over- ruled by it, found a contract bar to exist where, as in the present case , a contract exten- sion was made in good faith and in the course of the ordinary employer-employee collec- tive-bargaining relationship 376 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD This rigid application of the premature-extension doctrine in a case completely barren of any indication of disaffection towards the established union serves to discourage normal employer-employee cot= lective bargaining during the term of an existing contract. It evis- cerates a labor organization's bargaining power by removing its abil- ity to offer extended contract protection in return for concessions from the Employer. It disrupts stable industrial relations by fastening upon them a device like a valve, by which the negotiating process is turned on and off at such intervals and in such a manner as to com- pel an incumbent labor organization periodically to strive to get all that it can while the getting is good, at the same time reminding all rivals that this 'is the appropriate time to commence any contemplated raiding activities. In the case of Sefton Fibre Can Comiapany,8 this Board recently recognized the fact that the premature-extension doctrine is essen- tially a discretionary principle, and that a contract executed in good faith before a rival claim was made or petition filed does not neces- sarily lose its contract-bar validity merely because at the time it was made an earlier agreement was still in existence. I believe that the facts in the case before us come within this principle. To find that a question concerning representation exists in this case ignores the real- ities and the rationale of the Board's contract-bar and premature-ex- tension doctrines, and the direction of an election in the face of the parties' contract made in good faith goes against the purpose of the Act to encourage collective bargaining and foster industrial stability. 8 Footnote 2, supra. SOUTHERN FRUIT DISTRIBUTORS , INC. and AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR. Case No. 10-CA-1666. July 26, 1954 Decision and Order On March 18, 1954, Trial Examiner Robert L. Piper issued his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the Respondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor practices and recommending that it cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy of the Intermediate Report attached hereto. The Trial Examiner also found that the Respondent had not engaged in certain other alleged unfair labor practices, and recommended that the complaint be dismissed with respect to such allegations. Thereafter, the Respondent filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and a supporting brief.' 1 The Respondent's request for oral argument is hereby denied, as the record and the Respondent's exceptions and brief adequately present the issues and the positions of the parties. 109 NLRB No. 72.