Cabco Engineering Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 20, 1983

268 N.L.R.B. 393 (N.L.R.B. 1983)

CABCO ENGINEERING CO.
Cabco Engineering Company and Local Union No.
476 of the United Association of Journeymen
and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting
Industry of the United States and Canada, Peti-
tioner. Case I-RC-17480
20 December 1983
DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF
REPRESENTATIVE
BY CHAIRMAN DOTSON AND' MEMBERS
ZIMMERMAN AND HUNTER
Pursuant to authority granted it by the National
Labor Relations Board under Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, a three-member
panel has considered objections and determinative
challenges in an election held December 16, 1981,1
and the Regional Director's report recommending
disposition of same. The Board has reviewed the
record in light of the exceptions and briefs, and
hereby adopts the Regional Director's findings and
recommendations. 2
'The election was conducted pursuant to a Stipulation for Certifica-
tion Upon Consent Election. The tally was II for, and 9 against, the Peti-
tioner; there were 2 challenged ballots.
2 With the Regional Director's approval, the Employer's objections
were withdrawn, as were part of the Petitioner's Objection I and its Ob-
jection 2. In the absence of exceptions thereto, we adopt, pro forma, the
Regional Director's recommendation as to the remainder of the Petition-
er's objections.
Relying on Buckley Southland Oil, 210 NLRB 1060 (1974), the Em-
ployer contends that the Regional Director was obliged to vacate the
election and order a rerun once he found that there was no meeting of
the minds by the parties about whether two challenged voters were to be
included in, or excluded from, the stipulated unit. This contention misap-
prehends the Board's holding in Buckley and is otherwise without merit.
CERTIFICATION OF
REPRESENTATIVE
It is hereby certified that a majority of the valid
ballots have been cast for Local Union No. 476 of
the United Association of Journeymen and Ap-
prentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry
of the United States and Canada, and that, pursuant
to Section 9(a) of the Act, the said labor organiza-
tion is the exclusive representative of all the em-
ployees in the following appropriate unit for the
purposes of collective bargaining with respect to
rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and
other terms and conditions of employment:
All journeymen pipefitters, refrigeration fitters,
and helpers employed by the Employer at its
372 Central Avenue, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
location, but excluding all other employees,
office clerical employees, professional employ-
ees, guards and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
In Buckley, the dispute between the parties concerned a significant cate-
gory of employees, with 8 of the 28 employees who voted belonging to a
group about whose unit placement there had been no meeting of the
minds when the parties executed their stipulation. Since, in a real sense,
the dispute in Buckley revealed that there had been no meeting of the
minds concerning the basic parameters of the bargaining unit, the Board
there held that the proper course was to hold a rerun election after the
unit's basic parameters were fixed either by a new stipulation or by a unit
hearing. Here, by contrast, the dispute between the parties concerns not
the basic parameters of the unit, but only the placement of 2 employees
in a unit of approximately 22 employees. In such circumstances, it re-
mains our stated policy not to become mired in questions of contractual
intent, but to resolve the eligibility issue which the challenged ballots
pose by applying traditional unit criteria. This is what the Regional Di-
rector did here, correctly in our view.
268 NLRB No. 59
393