Chicago Metropolitan Home Builders Association

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 24, 1957

119 N.L.R.B. 1184 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

1184 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Chicago Metropolitan Home Builders Association , Petitioner
and Chicago District Council of Carpenters , United Brother-
hood of Carpenters and Joiners of America . Case No. 13-R31-
3411. December 24,1957
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Raymond A.
Jacobson, 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 [Chairman Leedom and Members Rodgers and
Bean].
Upon the entire record 1 in this case, the Board finds: z
1. The Petitioner is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain
employees of the members of Petitioner.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Petitioner's members within the meaning of
Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the
following reasons :
The Petitioner 9 contends that a single unit of all carpenters and
apprentices employed by its members is appropriate for the purposes
of collective bargaining. It asserts the appropriateness of this multi-
employer unit on the grounds (a) that the Union has bargained
collectively with another multiemployer association, Builders Associa-
tion of Chicago,4 and that other employer associations in the construc-
tion industry have also engaged in bargaining with other unions in
the Chicago area; and (b) that the Union has in fact bargained
collectively with the Petitioner since December 1954.
The Union contends that the petition should be dismissed on the
ground that only single-employer units are here appropriate, and
denies that it has ever bargained collectively with, or requested recog-
nition by, the Petitioner.
1 National Association of Home Builders was permitted to file a brief as amicus curiae.
2 The Petitioner's request for oral argument is hereby denied, as the record and the,
briefs, in our opinion, adequately reflect the issues and the positions of the parties.
3 The Petitioner has approximately 377 employer-members, who are engaged in the
construction of homes within the Chicago metropolitan area.
4 This organization represents approximately 200 general contractors who are engaged
for the most part in industrial , commercial , and institutional construction in the Chicago
area.
119 NLRB No. 141.
CHICAGO METROPOLITAN HOME BUILDERS ASSOCIATION 1185
As to (a), the Union has bargained collectively with the Builders
Association of Chicago for about 50 years, the latest contract having
been executed on June 1, 1957, for a period of 5 years; and the record
shows that other associations of employers in the construction industry
in the Chicago area have engaged in collective bargaining with labor
organizations other than the Union. During the past 20 years, the
Union has also entered into "short-form" contracts with nonmembers,
of the Builders Association, including many of the present members
of the Petitioner, which contracts adopt the terms of the master con-
tract with the Builders Association. The Petitioner contends that, in
view of the aforedescribed history of multiemployer bargaining by
various associations of builders in the Chicago vicinity, it follows that
the multiemployer unit it seeks is appropriate. We find no merit in
this contention. It is well settled that a single-employer unit is
presumptively appropriate, and that to establish a claim for a broader
unit a controlling history of collective bargaining on a broader basis
by the employers and the union involved must exist.5 The fact that
other employers have engaged in multiemployer bargaining with the
Union or with other unions representing their employees is therefore
irrelevant to the issue at hand.
As to the Petitioner's second contention, that it has in fact bar-
gained with the Union on a multiemployer basis, the record shows
that between December 19541 and May 1957, the Petitioner's repre-
sentatives made a number of overtures to representatives of the Union
looking toward the execution of an agreement by the Union and Peti-
tioner. The Petitioner contends, and the Union denies, that the
record establishes that the Union finally consented to enter into such
an agreement. However, it is undisputed that no such agreement was
actually consummated, and that the Union, in fact, has, since the filing
of the instant petition, obtained "short form" agreements from the
individual members of Petitioner adopting the terms of the current
agreement between the Union and the Builders' Association and for-
mally asserting that the Petitioner is not the representative of the
employer-signatories of such "short form" agreements?
S E. g., Arden Farms, et al., 117 NLRB 318.
6 The Union contends that the Petitioner did not have the power to engage in collective
bargaining on behalf of its members until its constitution and bylaws were amended in
March 1957, so as to authorize it to act as bargaining agent. However, we do not find it
necessary to resolve this issue , but shall assume that , as Petitioner contends , it was since
December 1954 empowered to engage in collective bargaining for its members.
7-The short-form agreements contain the following statement :
I, the undersigned am individually responsible for our labor relations with the
Chicago District Council of Carpenters and am not represented therein by the Chicago
Metropolitan Home Builders Association . [ Emphasis supplied.]
476321-58-vol. 119-76
1186 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Where, as here, there is dispute as to the appropriateness of a multi-
employer unit, the Board has considered the following factors as mili-
tating against a finding that such unit is appropriate even though
there has been some bargaining with respect to such unit : (1) The
fact that such bargaining was preceded by a long history of single-
employer bargaining that; (2) such multiemployer bargaining has
been of relatively brief duration; (3) it did not result in a written
contract of any substantial duration; and (4) was not based on any
Board unit finding.8
Even if we accept the Petitioner's contention that it negotiated
with the Union on a multiemployer basis for about 21/2 years before
the instant petition was filed, it is clear that such negotiations were not
based on any Board unit finding, were preceded by a long contractural
history I which was inconsistent with bargaining on a multiemployer
basis through the Petitioner, and have not resulted in the execution
of any written contracts.
Moreover, the Board has consistently held that an essential basis
for any finding that a multiemployer unit is appropriate is that the
individual employers unequivocally manifest a desire to be bound in
future collective bargaining by group rather than individual action."
Here, however, the most recent action of the Petitioner's members in
the area of collective bargaining has been to sign individual contracts
with the Union, which contracts in terms repudiate the Petitioner as
their bargaining representative. Even if it be true, as Petitioner
asserts, that such contracts were obtained by the Union through the
exertion of economic pressure, we cannot say, in the face of these con-
tracts, executed after the instant petition was filed, that the Peti-
tioner's members have unequivocally demonstrated their desire to be
bound by group rather than individual action."
For all these reasons, we find that the multiemployer unit in which
Petitioner seeks an election is inappropriate, and we will therefore
dismiss the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
8 E. g., Central Optical Co ., Inc., 88 NLRB 416, 419 ; The Van Inderstine Company,
95 NLRB 966 , 968; Jerry Fairbanks, Inc., 93 NLRB 898, 899; Miron Building Products
Co., 116 NLRB 1406, 1407-1408; Highway Transport Association, etc., 116 NLRB
1718, 1720.
RAs stated above, this contractual history consisted of the adoption by many of the
employers who are now members of Petitioner of a master contract negotiated by Builders
Association, with which they are not affiliated.
10 Pacific Metals Company, Ltd., et al., 91 NLRB 696, 699, and cases there cited ;
P. E. Ashton Company, et al., 93 NLRB 1.286, 1288: Chester H. Harper, et al., 117
NLRB 1031.
11 See : J. C. Penney Company, Inc., 97 NLRB 24:;.