Dazey Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 30, 1947

73 N.L.R.B. 788 (N.L.R.B. 1947)

In the Matter of DAZEY CORPORATION, EMPLOYER and METAL POLISHERS,
BUFFERS, PLATERS AND HELPERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, AFL, LOCAL
No. 13, PETITIONER
Case No. 14-R-1630.-Decided April 30, 19417
Messrs. Charles H. Spoehrer and H. V. Churchill, of St. Louis, Mo.,
for the Employer.
Messrs. Charles A. Waldron and Williaoma C. George, of St. Louis,
Mo., for the Petitioner.
Messrs. R. B. Logston and Clarence Binganan, of St. Louis, Mo.,
for the Intervenor.
Miss Muriel J. Levor, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed, hearing in this case was held at St. Louis,
Missouri, on January 7, 1947, before Charles K. Hackler, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations
Board makes the following :
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. TIIE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER
Dazey Corporation, a Missouri corporation with its principal office
and place of business at St. Louis, Missouri, is engaged in the
manufacture of can openers, fruit juicers, ice crushers, churns, and
allied products. During the year 1946 the Employer purchased raw
materials for its St. Louis plant, consisting chiefly of steel, valued in
excess of $200,000, of which approximately 90 percent was shipped
from points outside Missouri. During the same period, the Employer
sold finished products made at its St. Louis plant valued in excess of
$250,000, of which approximately 90 percent was shipped outside
Missouri.
The Employer admits and we find that it is engaged in commerce
within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
73 N L R. B, No. 147.
788
DAZEY CORPORATION
II. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
789
The Petitioner is a labor organization affiliated with the American
Federation of Labor, claiming to represent employees of the
Employer.
United Electrical, Radio & Machine `Yorkers of America, herein
called the Intervenor, is a labor organization affiliated with the Con-
gress of Industrial Organizations, claiming to represent employees
of the Employer.
III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
The Employer refuses to recognize the Petitioner as the exclusive
bargaining representative of employees of the Employer until the
Petitioner has been certified by the Board in an appropriate unit.'
We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning
the representation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning
of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT; THE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
,The Petitioner contends that a unit consisting of all polishers,
buffers, and apprentices, including the working foreman,' constitute
a unit appropriate for collective bargaining purposes. The Employer
and the Intervenor oppose a unit so limited and contend that only a
plant-wide unit is appropriate.
The Employer's operations are carried on in a 2-story building,
on the second floor of which is located the polishing and buffing depart-
ment, immediately concerned in this proceeding. That department,
which consists of approximately 16 employees, headed by a working
foreman, was established about April 1946, to enable the Employer
to, polish its qwn products, thus avoiding the necessity of sending the
work out to be done by other companies, as heretofore. Ili addition to
the 5 skilled polishers, journeymen 3 and long-time members of the
Petitioner, there are working in the department "trainees," who receive
instruction from the working foreman. It takes approximately 3
years' training to acquire the skill needed by a journeyman to perform
the work carried on in the Employer's polishing department. Two
i A contract between the Employer and the Intervenor , effective until April 1, 1947, and
containing an automatic renewal clause in the absence of 30 days ' notice, is not a bar to
a present determination of representatives , inasmuch as the petition herein was filed prior
to the operative date of the automatic renewal clause and the anniversary date of the con-
tract - bas now passed. -
3 The parties are in agreement that this working foreman does not have supervisory
duties When the polishers were added to the Intervenoi 's contract with the Employer,
as heieinafter desciibed , the working foreman was included in the contract coverage.
s The Petitioner , established in the St. Louis area for 60 years, has regulations requiring
3 years of tianiing before an apprentice may become a lournev inan polisher and buffer.
To facilitate acquiring this training , it maintains a progiam for apprentices in connection
with a St Louis technical school.
790 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
of the trainees formerly worked elsewhere in the plant, but no em-
ployees of the polishing department have been transferred to other
departments. Under these circumstances, it is clear that the employees
sought herein comprise a well-recognized craft group, who, the Board
has frequently held, may constitute a separate appropriate Unit .4
Following a consent election held in December 1943, the Employer'
entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the Intervenor
for a unit composed of "all of the employees of the company ..."
excluding various specified clerical and supervisory employees. At
this time the Employer had no polishing department and none of the
classifications here involved were yet established. In February 1946,
the Intervenor, anticipating the establishment of a polishing depart-
ment, requested the Employer to bargain for a wage rate for polish-
ers and buffers, and, in the 1-year's contract effective April 1, 1946,
a wage rate for polishers and buffers was included.
It thus appears that while the employees in question were included
in the last contract covering the production and maintenance em-
ployees, this contractual relationship was consummated, not as a result
of any election in which employees in the classifications involved had
an opportunity to participate, but rather in anticipation of the estab-
lishment of such classifications and the hiring of employees therein.
Under these circumstances, the recent bargaining history of approxi-
mately 1 year is not controlling in passing upon the propriety of a
separate unit for the employees involved herein. In view of the fore-
going, the fact that the employees sought by Petitioner constitute a
well-recognized craft which has functioned effectively in other plants,
the fact that no determination concerning their unit placement has
ever been made, and the fact that they have never had an opportunity
to demonstrate in a Board election whether or not they desired sepa-
rate representation or representation as part of a larger group, we are
of the opinion that such an opportunity should now be accorded to
them.'
Accordingly, we shall direct an election among the Employer's
polishers, buffers, and apprentices, including working foreman, but
excluding all supervisory employees with authority to hire, promote,
discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of em-
ployees, or effectively recommend such action.
We shall make no determination of the appropriate unit at this
time. Such determination will depend, in part, upon the results of
the election. If the employees in the voting group select the Peti-
tioner, they will be taken to have indicated a desire to constitute a
separate bargaining unit; if they choose the Intervenor, they will
4 Matter of Air Reduction Sales Corporation , 61 N. L R B. 1246.
"The Employer in 1943 operated under the name of Dazey Churn Corporation.
9 Matter of Swartzbaugh Mfg. Co., 73 N L . R. B 538.
DAZEY CORPORATION 791
be taken to have indicated a desire to remain a part of the existing
production and maintenance unit.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with Dazey Corporation, St. Louis,
Missouri, an election by secret ballot shall be conducted as early as
possible, but not later than thirty (30) days from the date of this
Direction, under the direction and supervision of the Regional Direc-
tor for the Fourteenth Region, acting in this matter as agent for the
National Labor Relations Board, and subject to Sections 203.55 and
203.56, of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations-
Series 4, among the employees in the group described in Section IV,
above, who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately
preceding the date of this Direction, including employees who did not
work during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation
or temporarily laid off, and including employees in the armed forces
of the United States who present themselves in person at the polls,
but excluding those employees who have since quit or been discharged
for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated prior to the date
of the election, to determine whether they desire to be represented
by Metal Polishers, Buffers, Platers and Helpers International Union,
AFL, Local No. 13, or by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers
of America, CIO, for the purposes of collective bargaining, or by
neither.
'Any participant in the election herein may , upon its prompt request to , and approval
thereof by, the Regional Directoi, have its name removed from the ballot