B. Brody Seating Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 17, 1967

167 N.L.R.B. 830 (N.L.R.B. 1967)

830 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
B. Brody Seating Co. and United Electrical, Radio
& Machine Workers of America , Petitioner. Case
13-RC-1 1125
October 17, 1967
DECISION AND ORDER
By CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
BROWN AND J ENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held at Chicago, Illinois, on May 22
and 24, 1967, before Hearing Officer Charles F.
Ortique. Thereafter, the Employer, Petitioner, and
Intervenor, filed briefs herein.
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 af-
firmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, including the
aforementioned briefs, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act.
2. The Petitioner and the Intervenor are labor
organizations claiming to represent employees of
the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of employees of the Em-
ployer, within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
The Petitioner seeks an election in a unit of
production and maintenance employees of the Em-
ployer at its two wholesale upholstery furniture
manufacturing plants in Chicago. The Employer
and Intervenor contend that an established history
of group bargaining between Intervenor and all
wholesale upholstery furniture manufacturers in the
Chicago area, including the Employer, makes a sin-
gle-employer segment of the established multiem-
ployer unit inappropriate.
Petitioner asserts initially that no multiemployer
unit exists because the Intervenor and the
wholesale upholstery furniture manufacturers have
never consented to bargain with one another in such
a unit. We find no merit in this contention, as the
evidence adduced at the hearing shows that, since
at least 1934, representatives of the Intervenor and
virtually all wholesale upholstery furniture manu-
Upholsterers' International Union of North America , AFL-CIO,
Upholsterers and Furniture Workers , Local Union No 18, was allowed
to intervene in this proceeding on the basis of a contractual interest
facturers in the Chicago area, through group
negotiations, have consistently agreed upon and ex-
ecuted successive collective-bargaining agreements
regulating the conditions of employment of the
manufacturers' employees. Members (including the
Employer) and nonmembers of the Chicago Furni-
ture Manufacturing Association have participated
in such negotiations. Under the above circum-
stances, we are of the opinion and find that a mul-
tiemployer bargaining unit has existed at all times
relevant to this proceeding.
Petitioner's principal argument in support of its
contention that an election should be directed in a
unit limited to production and maintenance em-_
ployees of the Employer is that, even conceding the
existence of a multiemployer unit, the Intervenor
withdrew therefrom by sending the Employer, on
March 27, 1967, a letter notifying the Employer of
its desire to negotiate an agreement which would
supplement the forthcoming "master" agreement of
the multiemployer unit. The argument rests upon
the proposition that the changed terms and condi-
tions of employment sought in the demanded sup-
plemental agreement were so different from those
in the "master" agreement that the March 27 notice
can only be construed as one which had the legal ef-
fect of withdrawing the Intervenor from the mul-
tiemployer unit. We find no merit in this contention.
Intervenor's letter of March 27 clearly does not
meet the well-established requirement that the
withdrawal of a union (or an employer) from a mul-
tiemployer unit, in order to be effective, must be
shown as manifesting an unequivocal and timely in-
tention of withdrawing therefrom on a permanent
basis. The March 27 letter not only did not suggest
that any withdrawal of the Intervenor from the mul-
tiemployer unit was sought, it conveyed an entirely
contrary meaning, and showed that the Intervenor
sought to reap the benefits of long continued mul-
tiemployer bargaining by remaining in the multiem-
ployer unit. The letter, after stating in its second
paragraph that the Intervenor desired "to negotiate
these classifications separately from other Compa-
nies," continued, ". . . otherwise the agreement is
the same master agreement we have been signing
for the past twenty-five (25) years through the
Chicago Furniture Manufacturing Association."
Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petition herein
seeking an election in a unit limited to the Em-
ployer's production and maintenance employees.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
167 NLRB No. 127