The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

188 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and Goodyear Electrical Trade Union, Peti- tioner and United Rubber , Cork, Linoleum & Plastic Workers of America, ALF-CIO, and its Locals 2, 12, 131 , 185, 200, 247, 286, 289 , 290, 307, and 532 . Case 8-RC- 5846 June 7, 1967 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Joseph A. Szabo, Hearing Officer of the National Labor Relations Board. Following the hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the Board's Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, by direction of the Regional Director for Region 8, this case was transferred to the Board for decision. The Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. Briefs filed by the Employer, Petitioner, and Intervenor' have been duly considered by the Board in making its decision in this case Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain employees of the Employer.' 3. For the following reasons we find that no question exists concerning the representation of employees of the Employer. The Employer, an Ohio corporation engaged in the manufacture of rubber tires, tubes, and related products, owns and operates plants in 11 cities throughout the country. There are approximately 20,000 employees in the 11 cities in the general classification of production and maintenance employees. With the sole exception of the wood and metal patternmakers, for whom the Pattern Maker's League was certified in a separate unit at the Akron plants in 1944,•t all production and maintenance employees, since 1937, have been represented pursuant to various certifications by the Intervenor and its Locals 2, 12, 131, 185, 200, 247, 286, 289, 290, 307, and 532.4 ' The Intervenor's request for oral argument is hereby denied as the record, including the briefs, adequately presents the issues and positions of the parties 2 The parties stipulated that Petitioner is a labor organization within the meaning of the Act, that it was organized about 10 months prior to the hearing herein, admitted to membership at first solely the electricians employed at the Goodyear plants in the Akron area, and that it will admit to membership electricians and electrician helpers or apprentices employed at other plants of the Goodyear Company The parties further stipulated that Petitioner admits to membership no one other than employees who are Petitioner seeks to sever a unit composed of all electricians and apprentice electricians at all the Employer's plants. In the alternative, Petitioner seeks units of electricians and apprentice electricians composed of the 6 Akron, Ohio, locations and at each of the other 10 locations. There are approximately 336 electricians in all, 165 of them located at the Akron plants. The Intervenor contends the petition should be dismissed, among other reasons, because of the integration of the electricians' work with that of other production and maintenance operations of the plants. The Employer asserts that it would not effectuate the purposes of the Act to distrub the long history of bargaining and adequate, successful representation by the Intervenor in a multiplant production and maintenance unit including the employees sought to be severed. Since 1937, the Employer has bargained with the Intervenor on a production-and-maintenance unit basis. Beginning in 1947, the Employer and Intervenor have engaged in companywide negotiations culminating in a master agreement that covered certain subjects common to all the plants, such as wage scales, hours, vacations, broad seniority rules, union security, safety rules, and fringe benefits. The companywide negotiations were supplemented by negotiations at the plant level only on limited local subjects such as employees' plantwide and departmental seniority privileges, and local rules governing specified matters involving transfer and bumping rights, overtime work assignments, etc. Grievance procedures have been negotiated on both a companywide and local level, with the actual processing of grievances handled on a local basis. The Employer at present has a separate contract with each of the 11 locals to which the Intervenor is also a party. Although the parties no longer maintain a master contract signed by all the locals, the negotiations continue to be basically conducted on a companywide basis at the national level, and local bargaining is designed essentially to supplement and implement such companywide negotiations. Where, as here, there is an established history of collective bargaining on a multiplant basis, the Board has long followed the policy of requiring that severance of an identifiable group of employees must be coextensive with the established multiplant unit. Therefore, to the extent the Petitioner requests separate units of electricians or electrician apprentices or helpers employed by the Goodyear Company and does not intend to do so 3 See The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 55 NLRB 918. ' The Intervenor Locals as numbered respectively represent the production and maintenance employees at the following cites Akron, Ohio, where six plants are located, Gadsden, Alabama, Los Angeles, California, Jackson, Michigan, St Mary's, Ohio, Muncie, Indiana, Lincoln, Nebraska, Windsor, Vermont, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Topeka, Kansas, and North Chicago, Illinois 165 NLRB No. 28 GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 189 electricians limited to the Akron plants and to each of the 10 other plants, we find the units so requested are inappropriate. We turn, then, to the Petitioner's request for a separate unit of electricians at all of the Employer's plants. We find such a unit also inappropriate for the following reasons. The Employer is engaged in the production and manufacture of a great variety of products ranging from rubber tires and tubes to chemicals, printer's supplies, and shoe products. Among its total work complement of over 20,000 employees, are approximately 336 employees classified as electricians. In most plants, the electricians are an integral part of an overall maintenance department grouping that is composed of numerous classifications of craftlike employees, such as machinists, sheet metal workers, painters, carpenters, and pipefitters. Those classified as electricians perform diverse functions. Considered as a broad group, however, they are generally responsible both for furnishing the electrical power supply in the production process and for the electrical servicing and maintenance of production machinery and plant facilities throughout the Employer's nationwide operation. The work of the employees so classified involves substantial functional integration with varied phrases of the Employer's entire operation. Their work as a group ranges from construction and maintenance electrical work to such specialized tasks as elevator repairing, telephone work, and the installation of burglar alarm systems. They also do testing, repairing, and troubleshooting. Because of the varied work functions of members of this group, the Employer's job description for electricians indicates that applicants must be well versed in the electrical field. The greater part of the work of the electricians, considered as a group, is performed in the production area where the electricians maintain the production machines. At the larger plants, there are special "product groups" of electricians who spend almost 100 percent of their working time on the production floor. This work involves the observation of malfunctioning machines and making necessary corrections and adjustments on the production floor. In performing these duties, electricians work in close association with production or other maintenance and construction employees. In most instances electricians do not have a separate work area, but share a shop with other maintenance craft employees involved in similar work. The training and background of the electricians in the Employer's total operational structure is by no means the same in all plants and tends to vary with each plant. Thus, in Akron, Gadsden, and Los Angeles, the Employer has a large force of electricians and provides an apprenticeship program. In eight plants the Employer has neither an apprenticeship nor a training program. And, in New Bedford, the Employer has no electrician classification, and the electricians are grouped with other types of maintenance men in a very general classification. Furthermore, there are instances where employees not classified as electricians, not sought by the Petitioner herein, perform electrical work in the plants. And, at some of the smaller plants, electricians, in addition to performing electrical work, assist other crafts when they are needed and when no electrical work is available. At the North Chicago plant the four electricians were hired as electricians-mechanics, performing about 40 percent mechanical work. Hiring, for the most part, is based on experience. Electricians are supervised either on a "gang" or "zone" basis. "Gang" supervision refers to situations where a group of electricians work under the supervision of an electrician supervisor. "Zone" supervision refers to a situation where various crafts are commonly supervised within a specific area of a plant by a supervisor who may or may not be an electrician. Many of the plants have both gang and zone supervision for electricians. In the six Akron plants there are nine departments in which electricians work, and these departments and the subdivided departments in some instances are supervised by an electrician; in others by a nonelectrician who also supervises other craft groups. In the smaller plants and during the second and third shifts at others, the electricians are usually supervised by engineering or mechanical supervisors who also supervise other crafts. In certain of the small plants, electricians' work may be performed under the direction of a production supervisor. Electricians may transfer or bid into production jobs, and production employees can transfer into the electricians' jobs provided they can prove their qualifications for such work. Interchange of this kind has occurred on occasions. The craft employees have the same fringe benefits as production employees. In determining the unit issue in this case, we are guided by the principles declared in our recent decision in Mallinckrodt.5 Examination of facts of this case in light of the relevant factors discussed in Mallinckrodt, leads us to conclude that it will not effectuate the policies of the Act to permit the Petitioner herein to "carve out" a unit of electricians. Many of the employees in the group sought to be severed perform specialized functions not requiring the skills of journeymen craftsmen, while others who are not classified as ' Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, Uranium Division, 162 NLRB 387 190 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD electricians and are not sought to be severed at times perform work similar in kind to that of some of the employees whom Petitioner would include in its proposed unit. In the main, there is a high degree of integration between the Employer's production process and the work of employees in the group sought to be severed. Thus, the electricians spend most of their time working in the production areas, singly or in groups, repairing and maintaining production equipment and machinery. In performing these duties, electricians work in close association with production employees or other maintenance and construction employees who are not electricians. Only a very limited amount of the work of the electricians as a group is spent in the shop areas. The electricians share a community of interest with all the other plant employees as evidenced by their common working conditions and benefits, and they particularly have a close community of interest with the other crafts which are usually grouped in the same department and with which they most often share common supervision. During the 28-year period of bargaining on the basis of a production and maintenance unit, the electricians have not sought to maintain a separate identity for bargaining purposes, but on the contrary have acquiesced in the established bargaining pattern by actively participating therein as stewards and on negotiation and grievance committees. Although the electricians possess to some extent a separate identity by reason of their skills, they also share a close community of interest with other employees in the existing multiplant production and maintenance unit, both because of their long and uninterrupted association in that unit and because their work is functionally integrated with other work performed in that unit. For these reasons, as well as others indicated above, and in the absence of other compelling considerations of overriding force, we do not believe it would effectuate the purposes of the Act to permit disruption of the historically established pattern of bargaining which has proved conducive to a stable bargaining relationship. In our opinion, the interests to be served by maintaining the established bargaining unit far outweigh any interests that may be served by affording the electricians an opportunity to change their mode of representation. Accordingly, finding as we do that a unit or units limited to electricians are not now appropriate, we shall dismiss the petition. ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. Member Fanning, concurring: I agree with my colleagues that the established bargaining unit herein is a multiplant unit of production and maintenance employees at the Employer's plants in 11 cities. Accordingly, Petitioner's petition for severance of a unit of craft electricians must be judged in terms of a single unit of electricians at all the foregoing plants. Judged on this basis, I am satisfied that the record adequately reveals the inappropriateness of a unit limited to electricians. Thus, the training, experience, skills, and work assignments of electricians vary substantially from plant to plant. Some plants have apprenticeship programs for training electricians; others do not. Electricians in some plants are highly skilled; those in other plants are substantially less skilled. Some of the electricians spend substantially all their time in the performance of tasks which do not require exercise of a high degree of skill. Some of the electricians perform nonelectrical work and, conversely, some electrical work is performed by employees not classified as electricians. Moreover, supervision of electrical work varies from plant to plant and apparently a substantial amount of electrical work is performed under supervision of production supervisors or supervisors of other maintenance crafts. Electricians may, and do, bump into production work. In view of the circumstances and on the entire record, I find that the electricians in this case do not share a community of interests so separate and distinct from that of the other employees in the existing unit as to warrant a finding that they constitute an appropriate craft unit entitled to a craft severance election. Accordingly, I concur in the dismissal of the petition in this case.