Detroit Hardware Manufacturing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 27, 1952

98 N.L.R.B. 366 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

366 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
If a majority of the employees in voting groups (1) or (2) select
a labor organization other than that selected by a majority of the
employees in voting group 3, those employees will be taken to have indi-
cated their desire to constitute a separate bargaining unit and the
-Regional Director conducting the election herein is instructed to issue
a certification of representatives to the labor organization selected by
-the employees in each group for such unit or units, which the Board, in
such circumstances, finds to be appropriate for the purposes of col-
lective bargaining.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this
-volume.]
DETROIT HARDWARE MANUFACTURING COMPANY and METAL POLISHERS,
BUFFERS, PLATERS & HELPERS INTERNATIONAL UNION # 1, A. F. OF L.,
PETITIONER 1 Case No. 7 RC 1595. February 27, 1952,
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Herman Corenman, 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, Murdock, and Styles].
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 2 of all polishers, buffers,s platers,
and their apprentices at the Employer's Detroit, Michigan, plant, in-
cluding the cleaner-grinder-apprentice polisher and the alumilator,
and excluding all other employees. The Employer moves that the
petition be dismissed on the ground that the employees in the pro-
posed unit have, with the exception of pay rates, the same conditions
of employment as other employees, perform routine and repetitive
' The name of the Petitioner appears as used at the hearing.
2 The description of the unit sought by the Petitioner appears as amended at the hearing.
a The terms polishers and buffers are often used interchangeably.
98 NLRB No. 61.
DETROIT HARDWARE MANUFACTURING COMPANY 367
operations, and do not constitute a skilled craft unit. There is no
history of collective bargaining affecting any employees of the
Employer.
The Employer, which manufactures builders' hardware trim items
and casement hardware, carries on its operations in a number of inter-
connected buildings. The polishing department is supervised by a
foreman who is also in charge of the cleaning and ball burnishing
rooms. Another foreman supervises the spraying and alumilating
department as well as the plating department.
The polishing department consists of seven first-rate or top polish-
ers, two second-rate polishers, a grinder-apprentice polisher, and a
cleaner-grinder-apprentice polisher. Those employees who are hired
as inexperienced beginners are assigned to grinding and simple pol-
ishing operations and progress from the learner stage to second-rate
polisher in 3 or 4 months. An additional training period of 8 or 9
months is needed to become a first-rate polisher. The first-rate pol-
ishers, all of whom have been in the polishing department from about
2 to 7 years,' are experienced and highly skilled employees. In per-
forming all of the various steps involved in the Employer's polish-
ing work, they use such traditional tools as a polishing lathe, polish-
ing wheels, buffing wheels, and various abrasives and compounds.
Their rate of pay, $2.031/2 an hour, exceeds that of all employees
except that of the patternmakers and tool and die makers.
The plating department includes two platers, a barrel plater, two
brush hands, and a brush hand-barrel plater. Platers are trained to do
production plating within a few weeks or 2 or 3 months at most,
while the more difficult type of plating can be learned within 6 months.
The platers and the barrel plater receive the top plater's rate of
$1.75 per hour, which requires at ]east a year's experience with the
Employer. They do all of the plating work including racking and
dipping parts into cleaning and plating solutions .5 The brush hands,
none of whom receives less than $1.60 per hour, run a scratch brush
lathe on which they even the surface of parts after they have been
plated or oxidized.
There is little interchange of personnel between the polishing and
plating departments and other departments. Ordinarily, other em-
ployees do not displace polishers or platers because they do not have
the proper skill or training s And while platers have transferred
at times to other departments which have comparable rates of pay,
* One of these employees has been a polisher since 1912 and a former employee has been
a polisher since 1922.
"However, the platers do not have a knowledge of the plating solutions , all of which
are prepared by the foreman.
8 On one unusual occasion about S months before the hearing when the workload was
heavy in the polishing department, employees from the machine shop were temporarily
loaned to the polishing department where their work was restricted to grinding and
minor polishing jobs.
368 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
polishers generally have preferred to take jobs with other companies
rather than move to other departments of the Employer at a lower
rate of pay.
The Board has frequently recognized the craft nature of skilled pol-
ishing and buffing operations and has held that employees engaged
in such duties, together with platers, may constitute a separate ap-
propriate unit.' Accordingly, as the employees sought herein pos-
sess special craft skills which distinguish them from other employees,
we find, contrary to the contention of the Employer, that the unit
proposed by the Petitioner is appropriate." The Employer's motion
to dismiss the petition is hereby denied.
There remains for consideration the unit placement of the follow-
ing employees whom the Petitioner would include and the Employer
would exclude :
Cleaner-grinder-apprentice polisher (Charles Hayden). This em-
ployee spends about 75 percent of his time in the cleaning room and
about 25 percent in the polishing department on grinding and polish-
ing. As a substantial part of his work is related to or concerned with
polishing and comprises the first stage of training for the position of
first-rate polisher, we shall include the cleaner-grinder- apprentice
polisher in the unit and we find that he is eligible to vote in the
election .9
The alumilator. The alumilating department consists of one em-
ployee who finishes aluminum items by dipping them into a. series of
four or five tanks which contain solutions that he prepares. The
alumilator receives $1.90 an hour and is under the general supervision
of the plating department foreman. As his work is similar to that of
the platers, we shall include the alumilator in the unit.
We find that the following employees constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9 (b) of the Act:
All polishers, buffers, platers, and their apprentices at the Employ-
er's Detroit, Michigan, plant, including the cleaner-grinder-appren-
tice polisher 10 and the alumilator, and excluding all other employees
and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
7 Ford Motor Company, Aircraft Engine Division, 96 NLRB 1075; Murlin Manufacturing
Company, 80 NLRB 309. Cf. Leland Shank and Joseph Kolb, a partnership, d/b/a Metal
Trim Company, 96 NLRB No. 131.
8 As employees in the unit have previous experience or are trained by the Employer,
we find no merit in the Employer's contention in its brief that the lack of a formal appren-
ticeship program demonstrates that these employees lack a "rounded knowledge of the
trade." Moreover, as indicated supra, the Employer uses the term apprentice to describe
its trainee polishers. Cf United States Time Corporation, 95 NLRB 941.
e The Ocala Star Baainer, 97 NLRB 384
10 Charles Hayden