Beaverite Products, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 29, 1977

229 N.L.R.B. 369 (N.L.R.B. 1977)

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