Allied Mills, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 23, 1950

89 N.L.R.B. 1552 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of ALLIED MILLS, INC., EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL
UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL NO. 149, A. F. L., PETITIONER
Case No.14-RC=1000.Decided May 23,1950
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Harry G. Carl-
son, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing
are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. At the hear-
ing, American Federation of Grain Millers, A. F. L., herein called the
Intervenor, moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the unit
sought is inappropriate. In the alternative, the Intervenor moved
to consolidate this case with Case No. 14-RC-8111 in which, on Jan-
uary 27,1950, the Board found appropriate a unit limited to employees
in the Employer's plant at 17th and Brady Avenue, East St. Louis, Il-
linois, hereinafter referred to as the old plant; and to amend the
certification of the Intervenor as bargaining representative of the
employees at the old plant to include the employees at the new plant
involved herein. For the reasons given in paragraph 4, below, the
motions are hereby denied.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Reynolds and Styles].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim 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.
i Unpublished.
89 NLRB No. 212.
1552
ALLIED MILLS, INC. 1553
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of production employees
at the Employer's Kingshighway, East St. Louis, plant, excluding
office, clerical, laboratory, and professional employees, stationary en-
gineers, carpenters, millwrights, electricians, salesmen, buyers, guards,
and supervisors. The Intervenor contends that a unit limited to the
Kingshighway plant is inappropriate. The Employer agrees with the
unit sought by the Petitioner.
The Employer manufactures livestock and poultry feeds at, among
other places, two mills about 7 miles apart in East St. Louis, Illinois.
One mill is on Brady Avenue, the other is on Kingshighway. The
Kingshighway mill is a new plant which started operations in January
1950. For the most part, the new and old plant manufacture different
kinds of animal feeds. The equipment that they use is different.
Employees for the new plant have been hired directly from the outside.
There is no interchange of employees between the plants.
In 1948, following an election, the Board certified the Intervenor
as bargaining representative of the employees in the Brady Avenue
plant. In 1949, another union, International Longshoremen's Asso-
ciation, A. F. L., petitioned to represent the Brady Avenue plant em-
ployees. At the hearing, the Employer testified that a new plant was
being built on Kingshighway. The Longshoremen then moved to
amend its petition to include the employees of this new plant. The
Intervenor objected. In its decision, the Board excluded the em-
ployees of the new plant. The Intervenor won the Board-directed
election and in. February 1950, was certified as the representative of
the Brady Avenue plant employees. In its alternate motion, the
Intervenor now seeks to have the Board include in its existing unit,
without a vote, those employees whom it objected to permitting to vote
in the 1950 election. In view of the Board's action in excluding the
Kingshighway plant employees from the Brady Avenue unit, it would
clearly be improper now to include them in that unit without a vote.
The separate unit of Kingshighway plant production employees
may be an appropriate unit, we believe, because of the geographical
separation of this plant from the Brady Avenue plant, the separate
processes and noninterchange of employees, and particularly the
history of elections and bargaining on a single-plant basis. On the
other hand, an Employer-wide unit may also be appropriate..
We shall therefore direct an election in the following voting group.
If a majority of the employees in the new plant vote for the Inter-
venor they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be part
of an Employer-wide unit, and the Intervenor may bargain for
them as part of its existing unit.
1554 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
All production employees at the Employer's plant at Kingshigh-
way and St. Clair Avenue, East St. Louis, Illinois, excluding office,
clerical, professional, and laboratory employees, stationary engineers,
carpenters, millwrights, electricians, salesmen, buyers, guards, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION 2
. As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by
secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than
30 days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and
supervision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this
case was heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National
Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees
in the unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above,
who were employed during the payroll period immediately preced-
ing the date of this Direction of Election, including employees who
did not work during said payroll period because they were ill or on
vacation or temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who
have since quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired
or reinstated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding em-
ployees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine
whether they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective
bargaining, by International Union of Operating Engineers, Local
No. 149, A. F. L., or by American Federation of • Grain Millers,
A. F. L., or by neither.
2 Either participant in the election directed herein may, upon its prompt request to, and
approval thereof by, the Regional Director, have its name removed from the ballot.