ASG Industries, Inc.

ASG INDUSTRIES, INC ASG Industries, Inc.-Kingsport Plant and Interna- tional Association fo Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner and United Glass and Ceramic Workers of North America, AFL-CIO, CLC, Petitioner and Local 934, International Broth- erhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Peti- tioner. Cases 10-RC-8511, 10-RC-8512, and 10- RC-8516 May 27, 1971 DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND KENNEDY Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a consolidated hearing was held before Hearing Officer Robert C. Batson of the National Labor Relations Board. Following the hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, these cases were transferred to the Board for decision. Local 934, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner in Case 10-RC-8516, and also the Employer and the Intervenor, Local 15349, International Union of District 50, Allied and Technical Workers, United States and Canada, filed briefs. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in these cases,' the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to repre- sent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of certain employees of the Em- ployer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Sec- tion 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Petitioner in Case 10-RC-8516, Local 934, IBEW, seeks to sever the electricians and associated employees, and also the powerhouse employees, total- ing about 25, from the existing plantwide collective- bargaining unit of more than 500 employees. The Peti- ' The Employer's request for oral argument is denied , as the positions of the parties have been adequately set forth in the briefs 557 tioner in Case 10-RC-8512, the Employer, and the Intervenor all oppose such severance as inappropriate and would retain the existing unit. The controlling precedent, as the parties recognized, is Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, 162 NLRB 387, 397, where we held that in severance cases we would no longer apply automatic rules, but would evaluate all relevant considerations; and we set forth six illustrative areas of inquiry. As applied to the present case, we note particularly that two of the leading areas of inquiry are the history of collective bargaining of the employees sought to be severed, and the extent to which such employees had established and maintained their sepa- rate identity during the period of inclusion in the broader unit. On November 26, 1963, the Board certified the Inter- venor's predecessor as the statutory representative in a stipulated appropriate plantwide unit which included the employees Local 934, IBEW, now seeks to sever. Since that date plantwide collective-bargaining con- tracts have continuously included such employees. During all these years there has been no separate bar- gaining for the employees sought to be severed. Indeed, they have not even attempted to bargain separately except for one fleeting incident several years ago, very briefly and vaguely mentioned in the record, when the electricians apparently requested their immediate supervisor for an additional wage increase apart from the remaining employees in the plantwide unit. But there is no evidence that this request was granted, or that it was even further pursued by the employees in- volved. Affirmatively, the evidence shows that the elec- tricians did in fact participate in the Intervenor's ad- ministration of the collective-bargaining contract; they have a union steward, and they previously held the presidency and other offices in the Intervenor. The evi- dence also shows that the electricians work closely with other employees: for example, teams which include millwrights and electricians do composite emergency repair and maintenance work on a regular basis to assist in the production process. In the face of affirmative evidence that the electri- cians constitute an integral part of the Employer's pro- duction process, and in the absence of any countervail- ing evidence of a separate identity of the electricians, Local 934, IBEW, argues principally that the collec- tive-bargaining history before 1963, when the Inter- venor was first certified, showed instability in the plant- wide unit; and for this reason the Board should now grant the present severance petition. We find no merit in this argument, which would base tomorrow's bar- gaining not on the current facts but on a stale state of facts which ceased to exist many years ago. Accordingly, we find that in Case 10-RC-8516 Peti- tioner Local 934, IBEW, has not established that a separate unit, or two separate units of electricians and 190 NLRB No. 110 558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD powerhouse employees, should be severed from the ex- isting plantwide appropriate unit. We shall therefore dismiss the petition filed in that case. In Cases 10-RC-8511 and 10-RC-8512, the Peti- tioners both seek the identical plantwide unit currently represented by the Intervenor under a now expired collective-bargaining agreement, and both the Em- ployer and the Intervenor agree that such a unit is appropriate On the basis of the entire record, we ac- cordingly find that the following employees of the Em- ployer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act All the Employer's production and maintenance employees at the Kingsport plant (formerly Blue Ridge Glass Division), including truck drivers, group leaders, chief operators, and cafeteria em- ployees, but excluding all office clerical employees, plant clerical employees, storekeepers, timekeep- ers, laboratory employees, professional employees, brick masons, and supervisors as defined in the Act. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition filed by local 934, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, in Case 10-RC-8516 be, and it hereby is, dismissed. [Direction of Election' omitted from publication.] ' In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity to be informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right to vote, all parties to the election should have access to a list of voters and their ad- dresses which may be used to communicate with them Excelsior Underwear Inc, 156 NLRB 1236, NLRB v Wynian-Gordon Co, 394 U S 759 Accordingly, it is hereby directed that an election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director for Region 10 within 7 days of the date of this Decision and Direction of Election The Regional Director shall make the list available to all parties to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be granted by the Regional Director except in extraordi- nary circumstances Failure to comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election whenever proper objections are filed