Burroughs Adding Machine Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 9, 1950

90 N.L.R.B. 1814 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of BURROUGHS ADDING MACHINE COMPANY, EMPLOYER,
and INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF FIREMEN AND OILERS, LOCAL
32, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, PETITIONER
Case No. 7-RC-852.Decided August 9,1950
DECISION AN DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed raider Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Harold L. Hudson, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Members Houston, Reynolds, and Murdock].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em-
ployees 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.
4. The Petitioner seeks a unit of all powerhouse employees at the
Employer's Plymouth, Michigan, plant. The Employer takes the
position that such a unit is inappropriate, citing various reasons which
are discussed below.
The Employer employs approximately 6,000 employees at 3 plants
in Michigan in the manufacture of various business machines, includ-
ing calculating, accounting, and cash registering machines. These 3
plants are located respectively at Second Avenue, Detroit, herein
called the Detroit plant; at Schaefer and Joy Road, Detroit, herein
called the Schaefer plant; and at Plymouth, Michigan, herein called
the Plymouth plant. The operations of these plants are functionally
integrated in the sense that some parts and motors produced at the
Detroit and Schaefer plants are assembled at Plymouth, and the
Plymouth plant, in turn, produces parts for machines assembled at
' International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers , Local 32, American Federation of
Labor, herein called the Petitioner.
90 NLRB No. 222.
1814
BtiRRO'UGHS ADDING MACHINE COMPANY 1815
one of the other plants. Management of the plants is highly central-
ized, with over-all control, ultimate supervision, and final disposition
of personnel matters being conducted at the Detroit plant. All em-
ployees are subject to uniform rules and regulations pertaining to
their wages, hours, and working conditions. Seniority rights are de-
termined by length of service in any of the 3 plants. The Plymouth
plant was opened in 1938 when the Employer found its 36-year-old
Detroit plant inadequate to house its expanding operations. An ad-
ditional unit of the Plymouth plant was put into operation in 1947,
and the Employer plans eventually to consolidate all its Detroit area
operations at Plymouth. The Employer also has a manufacturing
plant at Windsor, Canada, a few miles from Detroit. This plant is
operated as a functional component of the Detroit area group of
plants, and subject to the same personnel policies to the extent per-
mitted by Canadian law.
• It is the contention of the Employer that the Plymouth powerhouse
employees are not sufficiently homogeneous and skilled to constitute a
bargaining unit separately from production and maintenance em-
ployees. The employees of the Plymouth power plant, however, have
separate supervision, are separately located, do not interchange with
production and maintenance employees, and are the kind of group to
which the Board customarily allows separate representation from pro-
duction and maintenance employees.2 The Employer points to the
fact that many transfers have been effected between the Plymouth
powerhouse and other production and maintenance departments.
We find that the incidence of such transfers is not sufficiently great to
affect the distinct character of the powerhouse group or to render it
unstable. There are 12 nonsupervisory employees in the Plymouth
powerhouse. There have been 4 transfers from production and main-
tenance departments to this powerhouse in the last 4 years, 1 in 1950,
1 in 1947, and 2 in 1946; and in the same 4-year period there were 2
transfers from the Plymouth powerhouse to production and mainte-
nance departments, these 2 transfers being in 1947.3 We find, there-
fore, that the powerhouse employees can appropriately bargain in a
separate unit from production and maintenance employees.
2 Borden's Soy Processing Go.,.Division of the Borden Co:, 88 NLRB No. 213; The Beattie
Mfg. Co., 86 NLRB 694; John Morrell & Co., Inc., 86 NLRB 192; Beaunit Mills, Inc., 85
NLRB 316; Jacobsen Mfg. Co., 82 NLRB 1404.
3 Of the 12 employees in the Plymouth powerhouse , excluding the foreman , 4 transferred
from Detroit production and maintenance departments, 1 in 1950, 1 in 1946, 1 in 1945,
and 1 in 1938 ; 2 transferred from Plymouth production and maintenance departments, 1
in 1947, and 1 in 1946. Two men were hired directly for the Plymouth power plant, 1 in
1949 , and the other in 1948 or 1949 . The remaining 4 employees transferred from the
Detroit powerhouse , the latest transfer having taken place in 1946, and the rest in 1940
or before.
1816 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Employer argues further that all its plants in the Detroit area
comprise a single unit, indivisible for collective bargaining purposes
and that any separate unit of powerhouse employees should therefore
include the powerhouse employees in both the Detroit and Plymouth
plants. There is no power plant at the Schaefer plant .4 The Detroit
and Plymouth plants are 21 miles apart, and the Petitioner, a local
union, has made no attempt to organize any of the Detroit plant em-
ployees. As noted above, many of the employees have been trans-
ferred from Detroit as operations shifted and at the present time,
about 75 percent of the Plymouth employees perform work similar to
work done at the Detroit plant, although there are certain operations
such as type making, plastic work, the manufacture of chairs and
stands, roll and carbon paper, cartons, and ribbons, the operation of
the composing room, press room, bindery and print shop, which are
performed only at Plymouth. The powerhouse employees at both
plants are under the ultimate supervision of the superintendent of the
power and maintenance division, whose headquarters are at Detroit,
but they are under the separate immediate supervision of chief engi-
neer, who is the foreman at Plymouth. Although personnel actions
receive final treatment at the main plant, all of such actions. originate
with the foreman. There is no interchange between the two power
plants, although the Employer again points to frequent transfers
between the two. The evidence shows, however, that there has been
only one transfer from the Detroit powerhouse to the Plymouth
powerhouse in the last 9 years, this transfer being in 1946, and in the
same 9-year period (since 1940) no individuals have transferred from
the Plymouth power plant to the Detroit power plant.,'
Considering all these facts, we are persuaded that the Plymouth
powerhouse group is an appropriate unit. The two Detroit-area
plants where the Employer maintains powerhouses are physically
separated, and there is no such shifting of employees back and forth as
might obliterate the separate plant entities. Moreover, whatever the
situation may be as to production and maintenance employees gen-
erally, the powerhouse employees at the Plymouth plant are a par-
ticularly distinct and stable group. They have their own separate
supervisor who initiates all personnel actions such as discharge, pro-
motion, rate changes, and discipline. They are physically isolated,
and evidently have no regular face-to-face contacts in their work with
4 The Windsor plant has a powerhouse.
5 Of the four Plymouth powerhouse employees who came from the Detroit powerhouse,
one transferred in 1946, one in 1940 (this employee transferred back and forth several
times but has been in the Plymouth powerhouse without change for the last 10 years),
and two in 1938. As shown in footnote 4 above, there were only two transfers from
Detroit production and maintenance departments to the Plymouth powerhouse in the last
4 years.
BURROUGHS ADDRNG MACHI7 E COMPANY 1817
their opposite numbers at the Detroit plant. There is no functional
interdependency between the two power plants, and no established
pattern of collective bargaining on a multiplant basis for the power-
house workers or any other employees at these two plants.' The
powerhouse employees at Plymouth presumably desire collective bar-
gaining, and they are the only group in any of the Employer's plants
presently organized for that purpose. Although it is not controlling,
we can, and do, ascribe some weight to this factor T in determining
whether or not a proposed bargaining unit is appropriate "to assure
to employees the fullest freedom in exercising the rights [e. g., to self-
organization and collective bargaining, inter alia] guaranteed by this
Act." s We find, therefore, that although a multiple-plant unit might
also be appropriate, the Petitioner's proposed unit is adequate in
scope .9
It is also the contention of the Employer that the 5 powerhouse en-
gineers at the Plymouth plant are supervisors within the meaning of
the Act and should therefore be excluded from the unit. The 13 em-
ployees at the Plymouth power plant include a chief engineer who is
clearly a supervisor within the meaning of the Act and about whom
there is no controversy, a maintenance engineer, t relief engineer, 3
shift engineers, 5 firemen, 1 boiler room helper, and 1 powerhouse main-
tenance man. The power plant operates on a 7-day, 24-hour basis.
The chief engineer, 1 shift engineer, the maintenance engineer, the
boiler room helper, and the maintenance man work on only the first
or day shift. The engineers who work week ends and on the second
and third shifts 10 when the foreman is not present have some author-
ity over the firemen on their shifts. There is no evidence, however,
that these engineers can hire or fire, make effective recommendations
affecting the status of employees, or discipline employees. The
acting superintendent of power and maintenance, who is in charge
of both the Detroit and Plymouth power plants, testified at the
hearing that these. engineers responsibly direct the work of firemen
6l or this reason we distinguish T. C. King Pipe Company, et at., 74 NLRB 468; Schen-
ley Distillers Corp ., 80 NLRB 124 ; and Columbia Pictures Corporation, et at ., 84 NLRB
647.
1 See TValdensian Hosiery Mills, Inc., 83 NLRB 742, 744 ; Thalhimer Brothers, Incor-
porated, 83 NLRB 664 ; Fourteenth Annual Report , p. 32. Board Member Reynolds, how-
ever , places no reliance on this factor and is of the opinion that the other circumstances
mentioned above, particularly the physical separation , the distinct supervision and the
lack of interchange among the employees of the two powerhouse groups , are sufficient to
support the appropriate unit finding herein.
8 The quoted passage is from Section 9 (b) of the Act, the provision which vests in the
Board the responsibility of deciding , in its discretion , what unit in each case is appro-
priate for the purposes of collective bargaining.
9 See TValdensian Hosiery Mills, Inc., 85 NLRB 758.
10 One of the engineers , who testified at the hearing , stated that he had worked on the
same night shift continuously since the Plymouth plant opened , but his testimony indicates
that there is some rotation of shifts among other engineers.
1818 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and boiler room helpers,,and in doing so, assign duties, plan work, au-
thorize deviations from the prescribed order of work, keep a man over
his shift when necessary, and make decisions on the spot in an emer-
gency. • One of the engineers, who has been with the Company for 30
years, and worked regularly on the midnight shift for 12 years, testi-
fied as to the nature of the authority which he has over the firemen, the
only other individual on duty with him on his shift. This witness
stated that the chief engineer assigns the jobs; the fireman performs
the same duties every night; any new orders came directly from the
chief engineer; although he and the fireman do not see the chief engi-
neer on the midnight shift, they meet with the chief every morning
and thus any new orders are conveyed directly to the fireman ; if a
fireman should not appear on his shift, he would have to call the chief
engineer before he could act; and that he had authorized a man's stay-
ing over his shift, and was told not to do so again. On the basis of this
evidence, we believe that the exercise of any authority over the firemen
which the shift engineers may have 11 does not require the use of inde-
pendent judgment but is of a merely routine nature, and accordingly,
we find that the engineers are not supervisors within the meaning of
the Act.12
We find that all powerhouse employees; including engineers, at the
Employer's Plymouth, Michigan, plant, but excluding all other em-
ployees, the chief engineer, and all supervisors as defined in the Act
constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargainhig 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 super-
vision 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
"The Employer introduced no evidence with particular reference to the status of the
maintenance engineer and the relief engineer. As noted above, the maintenance engineer
and one of the three shift engineers work on the day shift under the chief engineer.
12 Section 2 (11) of the Act; International Harvester Co. (Milwaukee works), 85 NLRB
1175. Ohio Power Company v. N. L. R. B., 176 F. 2d 385, certiorari denied 338 U. S. 899,
cited in the Employer's brief, is not controlling. The individuals held by the court in that
case to be supervisors within the statutory definition were differently situated and had
infinitely greater responsibility than the powerhouse engineers with whom we are con-
cerned here.
B•UTRRO'UGHS ADDING MACHINE COMPANY 1819
unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were
employed during the payroll period immediately preceding 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 rein-
stated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees
on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether
or not they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bar-
gaining, by International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers, Local
32, American Federation of Labor.