Stanley Aviation Corp.

178 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Stanley Aviation Corporation and United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, (UAW- CIO), Petitioner. Case No. 30-RC-1054. Beptember 29, 1955 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Claude B. Calkin, 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. That the Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em- ployees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting representation exists concerning the repre- sentation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act for the following reasons: The Petitioner, here called the UAW CIO, seeks a unit of the quality control department employees at the Employer's Denver divi- sion. The Employer contends that the petition should be dismissed because: (1) The petition is not timely; (2) the persons the Petitioner seeks to represent are supervisors; and (3) if the persons involved are not supervisors, the unit sought is inappropriate. A history of the recently processed Case No. 30-RC-997, which also involved employees at the Employer's Denver division, is pertinent to this proceeding. On December 15, 1954, the Board issued a Decision and Direction of Election 1 in that case in which it found appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining a unit of production and main- tenance employees at the Employer's Denver division. Acting pur- suant to the stipulation of the parties, the Board specifically excluded employees of the quality control department, the employees here in- volved, from the unit found to be appropriate. The parties' stipulation that the quality control department employees be excluded was ar- ranged on the premise that the personnel of that department were supervisors. One of the parties involved in Case No. 30-RC-997 was the UAW-CIO. The tally of ballots in Case No. 30-RC--9 97 showed that 40 votes were cast for the UAW-CIO ; 19 votes were cast for District Lodge No. 86, International Association of Machinists, AFL, here called the IAM; 20 were, against both the participating labor orgatlizatio is; and 'Stanley Aviation Corporation, notr reported in- printed- volumes of Board Decisions and Orders. 114 NLRB No. 45. STANLEY AVIATION CORPORATION 179' 10 ballots were challenged. Nine of the ten ballots that were chal- lenged were cast by employees of the quality control department. As the challenged ballots were sufficient in number to affect the results of the election, the Regional Director investigated the challenges, and recommended that the challenges be sustained. In exceptions filed with the Board, the IAM urged the Board not to adopt the Regional Director's recommendations with respect to the ballots of the nine quality control department employees? contending that they were in- advertently excluded from the unit due to the fact that the IAM was not fully acquainted with the duties of the quality control employees when the IAM stipulated to their exclusion at the hearing. The IAM further asserted that if it had knowledge that there existed classifica- tions of employees performing the work of those whose ballots were challenged under the designation of quality control employees, it would not have entered into a stipulation excluding them from the unit. The Employer urged that a hearing be held in the matter. Ina brief, which was rejected by the Board as untimely filed, the UAW-CIO took the position that their stipulation bound the parties, and that the matter should not be investigated further. • 11, The Board adopted the Regional Director's recommendation with respect to the challenged ballots, stating : At'the hearing in this proceeding, none of the parties sought the inclusion of the employees in the Quality Control Depart- ment, nor did they adduce testimony concerning the duties of these employees. The Board has a "well established policy of honoring concessions made in the interest of expeditious handling of representation cases in general" [citing case]. We therefore consider it to be contrary to good administrative practice to reopen the record at this post-election stage of the proceeding to afford the parties an opportunity to be heard on the question of the in- elusion of the Quality Control Department employees in the unit [citing cases]. For this reason we deny the request of the Em- ployer and the Petitioner to hold a hearing to determine the status of the employees in the Employer's Quality Control Department.' As the UAW-CIO thus received a majority of the valid votes cast, and as the Board found that objections filed by the IAM to conduct affecting the results of the election were without merit, the Board, on April 25, 1955, certified the UAW-CIO as the bargaining representa- 2 None of the parties excepted to the Regional Director's recommendation that the challenge to the tenth ballot be sustained, and the Board adopted this recommendation. Stanley Aviation Corporation, 112 NLRB 461 (Supplemental Decision and Certification). 8 Stanley Aviation Corporation, supra. 387644-56--vol. 114-13 180' DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD tive. of the, production and maintenance employees at the Employer's Denver division, excluding the quality control department employees.' In this proceeding, begun by a petition filed on July 8, 1955, the, UAW-CIO now is in effect seeking to add the quality control depart-. ment employees to the unit it currently represents as the result of the certification issued in Case No. 30-RC-997.5 In support of its posi- tion, the UAW-CIO asserted at the hearing that "these people were merely overlooked, mainly because . . . of their title, in the previous election." The UAW-CIO's contention that quality control depart- ment employees were "overlooked" is almost identical with the claim made by the IAM after it had lost the election in Case No. 30-RC-997 that these employees were "inadvertently excluded" from the produc- tion and maintenance unit. As the votes of the quality control depart- ment employees could have affected the results of the election so far as its then pending contest with the IAM was concerned, the UAW- CIO was conceivably a beneficiary to some unknown extent of the Board's decision not to reopen, in the postelection phase of that pro- ceeding, a question that the, parties had themselves settled earlier. Were we at this time to entertain the present petition, we would there- fore be perpetrating a manifest injustice upon the IAM, which, be- cause of its prior agreement, was denied the chance of showing that the quality control department employees were part of the produc- tion and maintenance unit. We are conscious of the interest the employees in question may have in being represented collectively for bargaining purposes. We are also mindful of the fact that the IAM could have intervened in this proceeding. Nevertheless, in view of the agreement the UAW-CIO made in Case No. 30-RC-997 to exclude the quality control depart- ment employees from the overall production and maintenance unit, and in view of the subsequent history of that case set forth above, we hold that it would be contrary to good administrative practice to en- tertain, during the year following the date of its certification in Case No. 30-RC-997, a petition by the UAW-CIO to represent the quality control department employees. Accordingly, without passing upon the Employer's contention that the quality control department employees are supervisors, we shall dismiss the petition as untimely. [The Board dismissed the petition.] MEMBER PETERSON took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Order. `Stanley Aviation Corporation, supra. 6 The quality control department employees work in and about the production area, inspecting parts and assemblies to determine if they are satisfactory . They are, therefore, a residual group of unrepresented production workers.