Hazel-Atlas Glass Co.

40 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2. International Union of Operating Engineers , Local 12, has engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8 (b) (4) (A) and (B ) of the Act by inducing and encouraging employees of Crowell & Larson and Paving Materials Company to engage in a strike or concerted refusal in the course of their employment to perform services for their respective employers ; objectives thereof being to force and require such employers to cease doing business with Crook Company and to force the said Crook Company to recognize or bargain with International Union of Operating Engineers , Local 12, although that organization has not been certified as the bargaining representative of Crook employees in accordance with the provisions of Section 9 of the Act. 3. International Union of Operating Engineers , Local 12, has engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8 (b) (4) (A) and (B ) of the Act by inducing and encouraging employees of Ralph Welker and McCammon-Wunder- lich Company to engage in a strike or concerted refusal in the course of their employ- ment to perform services for their respective employers , objectives thereof being: (a) To force and require Welker and McCammon to cease doing business with Shepherd Machinery Company; and (b) To force and require Shepherd Machinery Company to recognize and bargain with International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 12, as the collective-bargain- ing representative of Shepherd employees , although that organization has not been certified as such bargaining representative in accordance with the provisions of Sec- tion 9 of the Act. 4. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting com- merce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. [Recommendations omitted from publication.] Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. and Clarksburg Paper Company and The Glass Bottle Blowers Association of United States and Canada, AFL-CIO,' Petitioner. Case No. 3-RC-1609. January 9,1956 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 William J. Cavers, 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 employees 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 Petitioner seeks a single unit of office clerical employees of Hazel-Atlas Glass Co., herein called Hazel-Atlas, and Clarksburg Paper Company, herein called Clarksburg. The Employers contend i The AFL and CIO having merged subsequent to the hearing in this proceeding, we are amending the identification of the affiliation of the Union for purposes of this Direction of Election. 115 NLRB No. 8. HAZEL-ATLAS GLASS CO. 41 that two separate single-company units of the office clerical employees alone are appropriate.' Hazel-Atlas and Clarksburg are separate corporate entities, with- out overlapping ownership, management, or control. Stock of Hazel-Atlas, is offered for sale on the New York Stock Exchange; there is no public offering of Clarksburg stock. Hazel-Atlas owns the land and buildings used by Clarksburg, which installs and operates its own equipment. Hazel-Atlas supplies janitorial, watchman, and plant protection facilities for Clarksburg and itself. It maintains a storeroom from which Clarksburg may requisition items for which it is billed by Hazel-Atlas. Hazel-Atlas sells gasoline and similar sup- plies to Clarksburg. It maintains a first-aid room which Clarksburg employees also use. There is one group insurance policy for all em- ployees. Hazel-Atlas maintains a repair shop for use by itself and Clarksburg and supplies the latter with electricity. Hazel-Atlas has two buildings. The single Clarksburg building is separated from one of these buildings by an alleyway. All three buildings are surrounded by a wire fence. All employees for Hazel- Atlas and Clarksburg use a common entranceway and parking facili- ties. Hazel-Atlas manufactures glass containers. Clarksburg furnishes it with corrugated paper containers to package them. Hazel-Atlas uses substantially all of the output of Clarksburg. Clarksburg's pri- mary function is to supply Hazel-Atlas with these shipping con- tainers. The production of each plant is.geared to that of the other. Each has a separate telephone listing. Hazel-Atlas employs eight office clerical employees. Clarksburg employs two office clerical employees. While both groups are under ,separate supervision, are separately hired, do not interchange, are on separate payrolls, and are paid at different time intervals, they have the same working hours and rates of pay, and have recently received identical wage increases. There is no bargaining history for office clerical employees at these or any of the several similarly situated plants of Hazel-Atlas and Clarksburg throughout the United States. However, there has been, since 1948, a uniform Board-approved history of bargaining in single 2-company units covering the production and maintenance em- ployees at each of these 2-plant sites throughout the United States, including the employees at the Lancaster plants. Bargaining for the production and maintenance employees has been conducted on the basis of jointly negotiated master contracts covering several plant sites; at other sites not specifically covered by the master contracts, 3 The Petitioner indicated, in response to a question by the hearing officer. that at would desire to be on the ballot if the Iioaid found separate units as contended for by the Employer 42 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD other contracts have been executed containing substantially the same terms.' In support of its 2-company unit position, the Petitioner asserts that the operations of Hazel-Atlas and Clarksburg are so highly integrated as to make,1 company in effect a mere department of the other. The Petitioner contends that -the facts adduced in the pres- ent record are substantially like those in Clarksburg Paper Company, 80 NLRB 1305, involving similar plants of the Employers at Pomona, California, where the Board found that the two companies together constituted a single employer, within the meaning of Section 2 (2) of the Act, and that a similar finding is warranted here. The Peti- tioner alb relies on the history of bargaining on a two-company basis for the production and maintenance employees. The Employers contend that the Board cannot require them to bargain on any multiemployer basis without their consent and that the bargaining history for the production and maintenance employees is not controlling with respect to the Employers' office clerical employees. As we view the facts of this case, the question whether the collec- tive-bargaining history of the production and maintenance employees on a two-company basis has any impact on the question of the appro- priate unit for the employees sought in this petition is not relevant to the present determination. We do not disagree with the Employer's statement of the rule of the Seagram,4 Lownsbury Chevrolet,' and other similar cases relied on in its brief. However, under the cir- cumstances present here we are not required to pass upon the applica- tion of that rule. In the Clarksburg case,6 the Board found that because of the highly integrated operations of the two companies and the unified control of labor policies, both companies constituted a single employer within the meaning of Section 2 (2) of the Act, and that a unit confined to the employees of Clarksburg only was inap- propriate. We have carefully compared the circumstances of the instant case with those in Clarksburg, and find their similarity to be too substantial to warrant a departure from the rationale of that earlier decision. We note the insistence of Hazel-Atlas in the Clarks- burg case upon a two-company unit on the basis of their closely integrated relationship, which the Board found existed, and the Em- ployers' admission in the instant case that the modus operandi of the two companies at the site involved here is essentially similar. Nor does the record in the instant case persuade us that there has been any substantial change in the unified control of labor relations found to exist in the earlier case. Under these circumstances we find that Hazel- 3 Clarksburg Paper Company, 80 NLRB 1305 4 Joseph E Seagram & Sons, Inc, 101 NLRB 101 6 Lownsbury Chevrolet Company, 101 NLRB 1752. 6 Clarksburg Paper Company , supra. LOS ANGELES COUNTY DISTRICT COUNCIL OF CARPENTERS 43 Atlas and Clarksburg together constitute a single employer within the meaning of Section 2 (2), and that a single unit of the office clerical employees of both companies is alone appropriate. The sole remaining issue concerns the inclusion of the production scheduler, whom the Employers would exclude as a managerial em- ployee. This individual receives production schedules of Hazel- Atlas from the main office at Wheeling, West Virginia, and fits them into the operations of its Lancaster plant. He keeps the main office informed of the daily progress of production and advises it of antici- pated delivery dates of the finished products. His work requires him to deal directly with the plant superintendent and other supervisors in the production departments. He issues production instructions to foremen in the plant and is responsible for the scheduling of produc- tion, including determinations as to the machines to be used therefor. He receives $380 a month. His immediate supervisor is the chief clerk. He works the same hours and in the same room as the office clerical employees, except when he goes into the plant to check on production. The Board does not regard the function of scheduling material through a plant as necessarily supervisory or as an essential function of management, even though the schedules are mandatory on the plant foremen. This is particularly true where, as in the instant case, the scheduling employee appears to have interests in common with the office clerical employees? Accordingly, we find that the production scheduler is not a managerial employee within the meaning of the Act, and we shall therefore include him in the unit. We find that all office clerical employees of Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. and Clarksburg Paper Company at their Lancaster, New York, plants, including the production scheduler, but excluding production and maintenance employees, professional employees, guards, all other employees, 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.] The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, 73 NLRB 691 Los Angeles County District Council of Carpenters , United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America, AFL-CIO' and Charles H. Crenshaw. Case No. 21-CB-636. January 10, 1956 DECISION AND ORDER On July 6, 1955, Trial Examiner William E. Spencer issued his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, recommending 1 The AFL and CIO having merged we are amending the identification of the Union's affiliation 115 NLItB No. 10.