Baldwin Auto Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 16, 1969

180 N.L.R.B. 488 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

488 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Baldwin Auto Company, Inc. and United Automobile
Workers, Local 259 , Petitioner . Case 29-RC-1029
December 16, 1969
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION ON REVIEW
BY MEMBERS FANNING, JENKINS, AND ZAGORIA
On August 14, 1969, the National Labor
Relations Board issued a Decision on Review and
Direction of Election in the above-entitled
proceeding. Thereafter, the Intervenor,
Amalgamated Local Union 355, filed a motion for
reconsideration. The Petitioner filed opposition to
the motion.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a
three-member panel.
The Board has reconsidered its Decision in the
light of the matters raised in the Intervenor's motion
and the Petitioner's opposition thereto and hereby
reaffirms its Decision on Review and Direction of
Election, for the following reasons:
In our Decision on Review we concluded,
contrary to the Regional Director, that the
Intervenor's current 3-year contract, executed July
26, 1967, was a premature extension of its
antecedent contract. In so doing, we relied on the
copy of the earlier contract introduced into evidence
by the Petitioner which had a 3-year term ending
July 31, 1968, and we found that the copy
introduced by the Intervenor (for a 2-year term
ending July 31, 1967) was not a copy of the alleged
original but of a replacement for the Employer's lost
copy which was signed after the filing of the instant
petition. We also stated that a copy of the original
antecedent contract, upon which such replacement
copy was assertedly based, was not introduced in
evidence.
In its motion for reconsideration the Intervenor
asserts that this latter statement is contrary to the
Regional Director's express finding. The Petitioner
in its opposition concedes that the Intervenor did
introduce into evidence at the reopened hearing a
purported original of the antecedent contract, but it
argues, in effect, that because of its belated
introduction into evidence the Board should place no
reliance on it.
We have been advised administratively by the
Regional Director that the Intervenor in fact did
introduce the disputed document into evidence at the
reopened hearing and that its absence from the
exhibit file cannot be accounted for. In the
circumstances, we have reconsidered the entire
record with respect to the contract-bar issue, and
conclude, even assuming that a copy of the
Intervenor's claimed antecedent contract was
introduced into evidence, that no contract bar exists.
In reaching this conclusion we rely in part on the
facts that at the original hearing the Intervenor
introduced in evidence a copy of a document which
it asserted to be the original antecedent contract
between it and the Employer; that the Regional
Director, because of conflicting evidence as to the
authenticity of that document, on his own motion
reopened the hearing for the purpose of taking
further evidence; and that at the reopened hearing it
was established that the aforementioned document
was not in fact the original antecedent contract but
was a newly signed document especially prepared at
the Employer's request to replace its original copy
which had been lost or misplaced. In view of the
fact that the document advanced by the Intervenor
at the first hearing was not what it purported to be,
and the testimony of Puchelt set forth in our
Decision on Review supporting the authenticity of
the contract introduced by the Petitioner, we are
unable to accept the document belatedly introduced
by the Intervenor at the reopened hearing as a basis
for denying an election herein.
Accordingly, the case is remanded to the Regional
Director in order that he may proceed to conduct an
election pursuant to our Decision on Review and
Direction of Election, except that the eligibility
payroll period therefor shall be that immediately
preceding the date below.
180 NLRB No. 41