Chrysler Corp.Download PDFNational Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsDec 2, 1968173 N.L.R.B. 1046 (N.L.R.B. 1968) Copy Citation 1046 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Chrysler Corporation and International Union , United Automobile , Aerospace and Agricultural Imple- ment Workers of America ( UAW), Petitioner. Case 8-RC-6973 December 2, 1968 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING AND JENKINS Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before John Kollar, Hearing Of- ficer.' Thereafter, the Petitioner and the Employer filed briefs. 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 reviewed the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in the case,' the Board finds: 1 The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.3 2. The labor organization involved claims to repre- sent certain employees of the Employer. 3 A question affecting commerce exists con- cerning the representation of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of automobiles, trucks and other products in at least 50 plants throughout the United States. The Petitioner seeks a self-determination election among the fol- lowing unrepresented employees at the Employer's 'Twinsburg, Ohio, plant, to allow them to express their desire as to whether they wish to be included in an existing office clerical unit currently represented by Petitioner: All Superintendent's Clerks, Project Authorization Clerk Leaders and/or Coordinators, Project Author- ization Clerks, and Clerks-Junior II. The claim for representation of the employees designated in the present petition was first raised in Case 8-RC-6846, wherein the same Petitioner sought to represent a separate unit of "all salaried office clerical employees classified as superintendent's clerks, project authorization clerks, unrepresented clerks junior, and clerks general, employed at the Twinsburg plant." As one of its alternative positions in that case, the Petitioner argued that these em- ployees are a fringe group entitled to a self-determina- tion election as to whether they wished to be added to the existing office clerical unit. The Regional Director dismissed that petition after a hearing, ruling as to the self-determination election that the voting group may not be limited to unrepresented employees in the designated categories at only one plant, but must include such employees at all of the Employer's plants in which office clericals are represented as part of a multiplant unit.' The Petitioner did not request review. In support of the present petition, the Petitioner states that it seeks these employees only as a fringe group, having abandoned any claim that they constitute a residual unit or a separate unit. The Employer argues that the present petition should be dismissed for the same reasons cited by the Regional Director in the earlier case; and that in any event the "Superintendent's Clerks" should be excluded from the proposed voting group because they are con- fidential employees. The first office clerical unit at Chrysler was certified in 1941, with the Petitioner as bargaining representative. Beginning in 1943, a series of master agreements have been negotiated between the parties covering all certified office clerical units at the various Chrysler plants. The typical pattern has been that a separate unit would be certified at a particular plant, then added to the master agreement, thereby amal- gamating the single-plant unit into a multiplant unit by subsequent agreement of the parties. The original office clerical unit at the Twinsburg plant was certified on April 1, 1966, excluding the classifica- tions now sought to be represented. On April 11, 1966, the Twinsburg unit was placed, by agreement, under the master agreement. All the classifications involved here were in exist- ence at the time of the Twinsburg certification. The Petitioner states that it did not know of the existence of the "Clerks-Junior II" at that time; the parties I The hearing was directed by the Board on April 10, 1968, when it reversed the Regional Director's administrative dismissal of the instant petition 2 At the hearing , the parties stipulated that the transcript of hearing and exhibits in Case 8 -RC-6846, involving the same parties, be incorporated into and made a part of the record in the present proceeding. 3 The Employer argues that dismissal of the present petition is required by Section 102 67(b) of the Board 's Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure , Series 8, as amended, in the light of the Regional Director 's dismissal of an earlier petition in Case 8-RC--6846 seeking the same employees as involved herein and the Petitioner's failure to request review of that dismissal. We find no merit in this contention Neither the Act nor the Board's Rules and Regulations prohibit the repeated filings of representation petitions . Indeed, the Board has held that a prior dismissal by a Regional Director, where review was not sought (Manemont Inn, 145 NLRB 79, 80, fn 5), or by the Board itself (Cement Transport, Inc , 162 NLRB No. 117, in. 11) does not bar subsequent consideration of a new petition even though the material facts remain unchanged 4 There are approximately 17 employees in the proposed voting group as compared with approximately 240 in the multiplant group in those classifications 173 NLRB No. 160 CHRYSLER CORPORATION 1047 had agreed to exclude the other classifications. Although the superintendent's clerks were then con- sidered confidential employees, Petitioner currently represents superintendent's clerks at one of Chrysler's plants covered by the current master agreement.5 As evidenced by the master agreement and by Chrysler's corporate structure, there is a substantial degree of centralization in the labor relations function between the Employer and its employees, including its office clencal employees. With respect to the unrepresented office clerical employees, the Em- ployer maintains uniform wages, hours, and other conditions of employment in the two principal classifications sought to be represented herein, super- intendent's clerks and project authorization clerks, and the employees in these classifications have iden- tical dutes with their counterparts in all other plants. On the other hand, the master agreement recognizes a dichotomy between local and central bargaining matters, and the former are handled primarily at the local level. This local bargaining has produced, at the Twinsburg plant, supplemental seniority agreements, a shift preference agreement, an equalization of overtime agreement, and various letters and memo- randa of understanding between the parties. The closest plant at which office clericals are represented is over a hundred miles away, and there is no evidence of employee interchange. The classifications sought to be added at the Twinsburg plant constitute all of the unrepresented office clerical employees who might have been in- cluded in the original office clerical unit certified at that plant The Regional Director previously found, and the Employer urges, that the unrepresented office clerical employees at the Twinsburg plant do not constitute an appropriate voting group for a self-determination election. It is argued that the minimum group in which the self-determination election may be con- ducted must be coextensive with the existing multi- plant unit. In the circumstances of this case, we disagree. In our opinion the employees sought should be afforded the opportunity to express their preferences for or against representation by Petitioner in a voting group of the same scope as that in which the represented Twinsburg clericals originally expressed their choice. The unrepresented Twinsburg clericals share a basic community of interest with other Twinsburg clericals by virtue of separate supervision, the absence of interchange and the distance between plants, which outweighs whatever interests in com- mon they may have with their counterparts at other Chrysler plants. These employees could have ex- pressed their choice in a unit limited to Twinsburg clericals if included in the original election which 5 The record does not indicate the circumstances under which the parties agreed to include superintendent 's clerks at that plant resulted in the Petitioner's certification. Although it is clear that the Board would, at that time, have included them, they were denied the right to partici- pate in the election without Board consideration of the issue, because the parties stipulated to a unit which failed to include them. Furthermore, and equally clear is the fact that a self-determination election limited to the unrepresented Twinsburg clericals could not presently be denied had the parties not agreed to merge the certified Twinsburg clerical unit into the multiplant unit. In our opinion, neither the initial stipulation to their exclusion, nor the merger of the certified unit, should operate to require the employees sought to express their choice in an election which includes like classifications at distant plants, or not at all. As it would not effectuate statutory policies to construe the agreements between the parties in a manner which denies the unrepre- sented Twinsburg clericals the opportunity to vote under the same conditions afforded represented cler- icals, not only at Twinsburg, but at other Chrysler plants as well, we find that a single plant, residual, voting group is appropriate for purposes of a self- determination election herein. The "Superintendent's Clerks," who the Employer argues should be excluded as confidential employees, are assigned to superintendents within various depart- ments of the plant who supervise foremen and have control over 150 to 600 production and maintenance employees but are not the heads of their respective departments. These superintendents participate in labor relations policy only in an advisory capacity. The Employer has a total of about 228 superintend- ent's clerks in all of its domestic plants, including 200 in the plants covered by the master agreement. There are 11 superintendent's clerks at the Twins- burg plant, they work in the manufacturing office in the middle of the plant in the monitor area, which is a second floor office area suspended over the produc- tion floor, except that three work for superintendents who have offices on the production floor. They do not take dictation. They do typing and filing for their respective superintendents and take telephone mes- sages. They pick up and distribute mail, obtain employees' checks from payroll and deliver them to the foremen for distribution. They perform a variety of detailed clerical work, including setting up produc- tion count sheets, logging calls from foremen for oilers, and taking hourly employee attendance for their respective department areas. They maintain records of attendance, absenteeism, and vacation time for salaried employees and prepare a summary record thereof for the signature of the superintendent, which report is then forwarded to the personnel department. They maintain records of discipline, change of status, and types of grievances of employees. They type copies of grievances and answers for foremen, distrib- ute them as required and enter them into a book 1048 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD which is available to the Union steward. There was testimony that they type recommendations with respect to promotions of bargaining unit employees, which information would not be available to the Union. They type the departmental manpower budget proposed by the superintendents to support the production schedule. They attend meetings where they are informed as to plant reductions in force, copies of which layoffs are given to Union representa- tives on all shifts. They attend other meetings where they are instructed as to the meaning and Employer's interpretation of new collective-bargaining contracts with the Union. They sometimes type the super- intendents' appraisals and recommendations to the labor relations department with respect to matters which are the subject of collective bargaining with the Union. There was testimony that in some instances the information accessible to them was not available to Union representatives, but generally most of the information with which they are concerned is either available or ultimately made available to Union representatives. Since the B F. Goodrich case,' the Board has consistently held that an employee will not be regarded as confidential merely by virtue of being a secretary to a person involved in the handling of grievances, or of his having access to labor relations data. We do not regard the kind of labor relations functions that the superintendents engage in as placing their clerks in a confidential status with regard to labor relations. As to the parties' agreement in the past that these clerks would be excluded as confi- dential, which in any case would not be binding on the Board, we note that the pattern of exclusion has not been consistent, since the Petitioner currently represents the same classification of employees at one of the Employer's plants. Accordingly, we shall include the superintendent's clerks in the voting group set forth below, which we find appropriate for purposes of a self-determination election: All superintendent's clerks, project authorization clerk leaders and/or coordinators, project authori- zation clerks, and clerks-Junior II at the Em- ployer's Twinburg, Ohio, plant, excluding all others. If a majority of the employees in the voting group vote for the Petitioner, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be included in the existing office clerical unit currently represented by Petitioner and the Regional Director will issue a certification to that effect. [Direction of Election omitted from publication.] 7 6 The B. F Goodrich Company, 115 NLRB 722, 724 Cf The National Cash Register Company , 168 NLRB No 130 7 An election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director for Region 8 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and Direction of Election . The Regional Director shall make the list available to all parties to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be granted by the Regional Director except in extraordinary circumstances . Failure to comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election whenever proper objections are filed. Excelsior Underwear Inc , 156 NLRB 1236 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation