Gene Fiedler Chevrolet Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 28, 1979

245 N.L.R.B. 1075 (N.L.R.B. 1979)

GENE FIEDLER CHEVROLET CO.
Gene Fiedler Chevrolet Company and Auto Sheet
Metal Workers Local 387, Sheet Metal Workers
International Association, AFL-CIO, and Auto
Painters Local 518, International Brotherhood of
Painters and Allied Trades of the United States and
Canada, AFL-CIO, Joint Petitioners. Case 19-RC-
9116
September 28, 1979
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS
AND PENELLO
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before Hearing Officer James E. Lorang on
December 7, 1978.' Following the hearing and pursu-
ant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations
Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended,
the Regional Director for Region 19 transferred this
case to the Board in Washington, D.C., wherein re-
view was then pending of the Acting Regional Direc-
tor's decision and direction of elections in three Re-
gion 19 cases involving the same multiemployer
bargaining unit and the identical issue presented
herein.2 Thereafter, the Employer filed a brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board, having duly considered the Hearing Of-
ficer's rulings made at the hearing, finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. The rulings are hereby
affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this proceeding, includ-
ing the Employer's brief, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is a Washington corporation
which is engaged in new and used car sales and ser-
vice at Seattle, Washington, with sales in excess of
$500,000 and purchases in excess of $50,000 from
suppliers outside the State of Washington during the
past calendar year. We find that the Employer is en-
gaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act,
and that it will effectuate the policies of the Act to
assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The parties stipulated that the Joint Petitioners
are labor organizations within the meaning of Section
2(5) of the Act, and we find that the labor organiza-
t King County Automobile Dealers, hereinafter the association, was per-
mitted to intervene and to participate fully in the representative heanng
herein on the basis of its status as the multiemployer bargaining representa-
tive of the Employer.
2Aurora AMC/JEEP, Case 19-RC-9026; L. E. Belcourt Company, Case
19-RC-9027: and Good Chevrolet, Inc., Case 19-RC-9028.
tions involved claim to represent employees of the
Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation of employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and
(7) of the Act.
The Employer and the association contend that no
question concerning representation exists because the
Joint Petitioners are barred from filing any petition
for a period of at least 6 months from July 26 and 31,
1978. when they filed disclaimers of representational
interest in employees in a multiemployer unit, in King
County Automobile Dealers Association, Cases 19-
RM-1514 and 19-RM 1516, respectively. The Joint
Petitioners take the position that their disclaimers of
interest in the multiemployer unit do not prejudice
their right to file a petition for representation of em-
ployees in the instant single employer unit.
The stipulated facts show that the association and
its predecessors negotiated and signed separate collec-
tive-bargaining agreements with the Joint Petitioners
on behalf of their employer-members since at least
1955. In late February or early March 1977, just prior
to the May I expiration date of the most recent asso-
ciationwide collective-bargaining agreement, the Peti-
tioners commenced preliminary contract negotiations
with the association on behalf of the Employer and
15 other automobile dealerships. Thereafter, on May
12, 1977, the association announced to the media that
its contract negotiations had reached an impasse. The
Petitioners struck 5 of the 16 employers on May 17
and the remaining dealers on June I or 2, 1977. Nego-
tiations thereafter resumed and continued until Janu-
ary 17, 1978, when, with union security constituting
the sole unresolved issue between the parties, bar-
gaining ceased.
Thereafter, on July 14, 1978, the association filed
an election petition among the associationwide unit
of painters represented by Painters Local 518 in Case
19-RM-1516, and a similar petition among the sheet
metal employees represented by Sheet Metal Workers
Local 387 in Case 19-RM-1514. Subsequent thereto
disclaimers of interest were filed with the Regional
Director by Local 518 on July 26, and by Local 387
on July 31, as a consequence of which withdrawal of
the said petitions was requested by the association on
July 31 and approved by the Regional Director on
August 2. The Petitioners thereupon ceased all pick-
eting activity on or about August 1, 1978.
On November 14, 1978, the instant petition was
filed by the Petitioners seeking representation in a sin-
gle unit of the Employer's auto body repairmen and
painters.
In our telegraphic unpublished decision of March
23, 1979, in Cases 19 RC 9026. 9027. and 9028.
which as previously noted involved the identical is-
245 NLRB No. 138
1075
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
sues presented herein, we found that the association's
petition was based upon its reasonable doubt as to the
union's majority status; the Union's disclaimer served
to substantiate such doubt; the combined actions by
the parties destroyed the continued viability of the
associationwide unit; and we concluded therefrom
that it would not effectuate the purposes of the Act to
require the perpetuation of a multiemployer bargain-
ing unit with a collective-bargaining representative
whose majority status can be neither established nor
presumed.
4. The Petitioners seek to represent the auto body
repairmen and the painters in a single unit. The Em-
ployer contends that the separate bargaining history,
location, skills, and work function of those employees
militate in favor of their separate appropriateness.'
The record evidence shows that the employees
sought work under a single roof in a 70-by-100-foot
area which is divided by a wall into a body repair
shop and a paint shop. Painters and auto body repair-
men work under the immediate supervision of the
3The Employer also opposes joint representation herein based on the
separate bargaining history of the two groups of employees and its belief that
the Petitioners, although purporting to act jointly, in reality will represent
only the employees within their respective work jurisdictions. We find no
merit in the Employer's position. The Board has consistently held that a
petitioner's willingness to represent employees is controlling under the Act.
Moreover, we note that the names of the Petitioners will appear jointly on
the ballot, and if they are successful in the election hereinafter directed they
will be certified jointly as the bargaining representative, and that the Em-
ployer may then insist that they bargain jointly in fact for the employees as
a single unit. See The Stickless Corporauion, 110 NLRB 2202 (1954).
body shop manager. Both groups share similar hours,
hourly rates of pay, working conditions, and identical
fringe benefits. Testimony reveals that both groups
have frequent work contacts while performing their
respective duties side by side in the body shop, that
they occasionally assist one another when there is an
uneven distribution of work, and that they also en-
gage in overlapping work functions. Thus, the evi-
dence further shows that painters have been observed
filling dents and straightening metal prior to pointing,
and that body repairmen at times perform spray
painting in the course of making body repairs. From
the foregoing we find that the painters and body re-
pairmen share a sufficient community of interests to
warrant their inclusion in a single unit. Accordingly,
we find that the following employees constitute an
appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bar-
gaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the
Act:
All sheet metal workers and auto body repair-
men, trimmers and registered apprentices, and
painters and helpers employed by Gene Fiedler
Chevrolet Company at its Seattle, Washington,
facility, but excluding auto mechanics, radiator-
men, partsmen, office clerical employees, profes-
sional employees, salesmen, guards and supervi-
sors as defined in the Act:
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]
1076