Beaverite Products, Inc.

BEAVERITE PRODUCTS, INC. Beaverite Products, Inc. and United Paperworkers International Union, AFL-CIO-CLC, Petitioner. Case 3-RC-6727 April 29, 1977 DECISION ON REVIEW BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND WALTHER On November 3, 1976, the Regional Director for Region 3 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found appropriate a unit of all production and maintenance employees employed by the Employer at its Beaver Falls, New York, plant. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer filed a timely request for review of the Regional Director's decision, contending that a unit limited to the Beaver Falls plant is inappropriate, that the only unit for the employees involved must include its Glenfield and Croghan plants, and that the petition should therefore be dismissed. On December 3, 1976, the National Labor Rela- tions Board granted the request for review and stayed the election pending decision on review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the entire record in this case and makes the following findings: the Petitioner requested a unit of all production and maintenance employees at the Employer's Beaver Falls plant. As heretofore indicated, the Employer contends that the only appropriate unit must encompass production and maintenance employees at its Glenfield, Cro- ghan, and Beaver Falls plants. We agree. The Employer, a wholly owned subsidiary of Domac Enterprises, Inc., is a Delaware corporation engaged in the manufacture and sale of looseleaf binders and related products at its three production plants. At present there are 100 production and maintenance employees at Beaver Falls, 35 at Glenfield, and 45 at Croghan. The Beaver Falls plant is 17 miles from Glenfield, 2 miles from Croghan, and Croghan and Glenfield are 18 miles apart. The Beaver Falls plant manufactures primarily looseleaf binders and catalogue covers, while the Glenfield plant produces paper index sheets and plastic index tabs which are inserted in looseleaf binders to separate the pages. Approximately one- half of the Employer's customers order both the I Thus, the plant managers' authority establishes that they are supervi- sors but proves no more. 229 NLRB No. 55 binders and the indexes. Caskets and die-cut parts are produced at Croghan, and Beaver Falls uses dies from Croghan in the manufacture of vinyl holders for IBM cards. All orders are taken at Beaver Falls and then are assigned to individual plants. Raw materials for use at Beaver Falls are stored at Glenfield, as are Beaver Falls' finished products, since the two plants often ship their products to the same buyer. All three plants have similar machinery and all employees possess similar skills. Administrative services are centralized since the accounting, billing, accounts receivable, sales, data processing, telephone switchboard, traffic, and per- sonnel operations are all located at Beaver Falls. Labor-management relations are identical in the three plants. One personnel manager heads the companywide personnel department, which adminis- ters a uniform wage and salary policy. Working hours and shifts are the same throughout the three plants and fringe benefits, profit sharing, and insurance programs are enjoyed by all employees. Applicants for employment are interviewed by the personnel manager and are not questioned as to plant preference. All personnel files are kept at Beaver Falls. Employee grievances are handled in one of two ways. Under the personnel department's "Open Door Policy," an employee can walk in and directly discuss a grievance or complaint with the personnel manager; or the employee may go to his immediate supervisor, and then, if still unsatisfied, he can discuss the problem with the personnel manager or the vice president of manufacturing. The plant managers exercise authority over the day-to-day operations of the plants. However, this authority is circumscribed by the facts described above.' Additionally, decisions to grant overtime must be approved by the vice-president of manufac- turing, and merit increases are decided jointly by the plant manager, personnel manager, and vice presi- dent of manufacturing. The vice president of manu- facturing also makes the final decision regarding discharge of employees. Layoffs among the employees at the plants are based on companywide seniority. A reduction in the work force at a plant is accomplished by laying off the least senior employees in the affected area in the plant. If one of the other plants can absorb a laid-off employee, the personnel department will offer to transfer the employee to the other plant. If one of the other plants cannot absorb the laid-off employee, the employee may bump an employee with less seniority at another plant. In the past 5 years there have been 40 interplant transfers of hourly rated employees. Of these, 20 369 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD were transferred to Beaver Falls, 12 to Croghan, and 8 to Glenfield. Eight transfers were due to depart- mental moves and the others were the result of workload changes.2 Truckdrivers are employed to transport raw mater- ials between the plants, products begun in one plant and finished in another, and finished products from one plant which are shipped from another plant. Approximately 12 employees have direct contact with employees at another plant on a weekly basis. There are 12 to 15 employees who have daily telephone contact with other plants. Upon the foregoing, we conclude that a unit limited to Beaver Falls is inappropriate and that the appropriate unit must include the Croghan and Glenfield production and maintenance employees. In so concluding, we rely especially on the high degree of functional integration among the three plants;3 the fact that there is one personnel manager who administers a uniform labor policy and is responsible for personnel matters in all the plants; the company- wide seniority policy; and the evidence that final decisions regarding overtime and discharge are made by the vice president of manufacturing.4 Accordingly, we shall remand the case to the Regional Director in order that he may direct an election pursuant to his Decision and Direction of Election, as modified herein, subject to a showing of interest among the employees in the appropriate unit.5 Further, the eligibility payroll period for the election shall be that ending immediately before the date of issuance of this Decision on Review.6 CHAIRMAN FANNING, dissenting: The "presumption" of unit appropriateness which attaches to a request for a plant unit ought not, although the majority's failure to mention the word may make it seem that way, be an idle one. The statute itself clearly recognizes that a "plant" unit is an appropriate unit and we have long held that in unit determination cases we do not pick between the "better" of two or "best" of numerous possible unit compositions, but rather merely seek to determine whether the unit sought is an appropriate one. Morand Brothers Beverage Co., 91 NLRB 409 (1950). 2 The record does not reveal the specific dates of the transfers. However, there is record testimony that at least one transfer took place in 1976. 3 See Caron International, Inc., 222 NLRB 508 (1976); Tungsten Contact Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, 189 NLRB 22 (1971). 4 We do not question the presumptive appropriateness of a single-plant unit. However, the foregoing facts, as well as clearly established precedent, convince us that the presumption has been rebutted here. In addition to the foregoing, Member Walther considers the thrust of Chairman Fanning's complaint to be that many of the factors the Board relies on in finding plant integration (such as the Company's common labor relations policy) are unilaterally determined by the Employer and evolve solel) from the Employer's notions of administrative convenience. Although this is undoubtedly true, it is also true that all factors which ultimately bear on the employees' shared commonality of working interests (such as degree I could, for example, concede here that the enlarged unit found appropriate by my colleagues is the single, best, optimum unit ever fashioned in this Agency's history. That concession would be, in terms of our function in these cases, irrelevant. To my mind, the presumptive appropriateness of a plant unit means that the party who argues against that presumed appropriateness bears the burden of proving that there exists an integration between that plant and another, or others, of such a high degree that the apparent commonality of working interests shared by individuals who work in the same plant has been subsumed within a larger multiplant structure that reveals impediments to collective bargaining on such a single-plant basis. It cannot be overemphasized either, I think, that the so-called "examples" of such integration which evolve from an employer's notion of convenience are of little significance. That, out of administrative convenience, an employer has estab- lished a "common fringe benefits" structure, selects only "one personnel director," uses "one switch- board," or centralizes its payroll, bookkeeping, and accounts receivable operations does not stand in equal stature with the stated statutory purpose of our unit determinations-"to assure employees the full- est freedom in exercising the rights guaranteed by the Act." This case, for example, finds "identical labor- management relations" in the three plants to be of interest and impact. Since no labor organization is on the scene, should we expect otherwise? I am unaware of any cases where an employer has come before this Board and argued that a plantwide production unit was inappropriate in scope even though that plant already had "separate labor-management relations." If it did, we can see, the employer would not, out of convenience alone, be making the unit argument. It is precisely because the labor-management relations policy is coextensive with the unit scope argued by an employer that the employer seeks to have the unit found the smallest bargaining unit. Similarly, the existence of a three-plantwide "Open Door Policy" of adjusting grievances merely means that this Employer has unilaterally chosen to adopt a single grievance procedure, no more. It does not, or should of product integration, degree of employee interchange, and shared supervisory structure) are unilaterally determined by the Employer. As a result, Member Walther is hard pressed to see how the factors the Board relies upon in finding plant integration are somehow less genuine than other factors which might establish functional integration between the Employer's three plants. 5 As we have found appropriate a unit substantially different from that sought by the Petitioner herein, the Petitioner shall be given 10 days from the date of this Decision on Review to make an additional showing of interest. If the Petitioner does not now wish to participate in an election in the unit we find appropriate herein, we shall permit it to withdraw its petition upon written notice to the Regional Director within 10 days from the date of this Decision on Review. 6 [Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] 370 BEAVERITE PRODUCTS, INC. not, mean that employees who work in the same building, making products others do not, being supervised, on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis, by those who supervise no others, somehow lose the community of working interests which naturally arises from such a state of events. 7 If we could acknowledge that our inquiry, in a case of this nature, is stated merely as "can this unit sought be appropriate," an affirmative answer would flow from the conclusion drawn by the majority itself-that the individual "plant managers exercise authority over the day-to-day operations of the plants." And, indeed, they do. They are responsible for production and effectively recommend hiring, firing, disciplining, and promoting of the employees. At the Beaver Falls plant, situs of the Petitioner's unit request, in addition to the plant manager there are an assistant plant manager and 10 admitted supervisors. It is difficult to reconcile the proposition that the "fullest freedom" to exercise the right to bargain collectively does not permit some 100 employees comprising the production department of a separate plant to be denominated an appropriate unit with the cognition that this Employer has I The majority's findings on the interchange between Beaver Falls employees and employees at the other two plants are, to say the least, misleading. They state "In the past 5 years there have been 40 transfers of hourly rated employees," of which "20 were transferred to Beaver Falls." There is, first, only evidence of one temporary transfer in these 5 years and, as to the plants involved, the Employer's witness could only "guess Beaver Falls to Croghan, but 'I'm not sure." Traditionally, and for reasons that are obvious, we have considered temporary transfers much more persuasive than permanent ones in determining alleged "integration" of plants. Second, and more important. there is no evidence whatsoever that any) transfers have determined there is a need for those 100 employees to have 12 supervisors all to themselves. "Circumscribing," as my colleagues do, the plant manager's and his subordinate supervisors' obvious day-to-day control over the working conditions of the Beaver Falls employees by allusion to the accounting, billing, data processing, etc., operations of the Employer, as well as such transparent makeweight as a single insurance policy, implies, I suspect, the notion that the fullest freedom to organize guaranteed by this statute is delimited by an employer's simple recognition that it is economically more practical to hire I personnel director rather than 10, take out I insurance policy rather than 5, or use I computer program for payroll rather than 3. 1 do not think the "fullest freedom" of employees to organize need give way before such considerations. The unit sought here may not be "as good" or "as convenient" as the one my colleagues prefer, but there is no significant impediment, in the nature of this Employer's operations, to meaningful collective bargaining taking place at the Beaver Falls plant only. That ultimately is all appropriateness means, and I would, for that reason, affirm the Regional Director. occurred in the past 4 years! In 1972, the Employer moved a department from Croghan to Beaver Falls, accounting for at least 4 of the 20 permanent transfers. Even were we to assume the remaining 16 transfers, involving Beaver Falls employees, were evenly spaced out over the next 4 years that would still amount to a permanent interchange ratio of only 4 percent per year. It should further be noted that the Employer's witness on the interchange considered situations in which an employee about to be laid off at one plant was offered a job at another plant to be an offer of"transfer" of that employee. 371