General Motors Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 17, 1965

151 N.L.R.B. 156 (N.L.R.B. 1965)

156 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
General Motors Corporation, Chevrolet Division, (Livonia Spring
and Bumper Plant )1 and Donald R. Malone, Petitioner and
United Plant Guard Workers of America (UPGWA) and its
Local Union Nos. 4, 10, 114, 116, 117, 118 , 119, 124, 140, 145, 149,
166, 168, 502, and 507.2 Case No. 7-RD-58f. February 17, 1965
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer
Irene M. Piccone. The Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hear-
ings are free from prejudicial error and hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, as amended,
the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its powers in
connection with this case to a three-member panel [Members Fan-
ning, Brown, and Jenkins].
Upon the entire record in this case, including the brief of the
Intervenor, 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.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation of the employees of the Employer within the meaning of
Section 9(c) (1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act for the follow-
ing reasons:
The Employer, General Motors Corporation, it Delaware corpora-
tion, maintains its principal business office in Detroit, Michigan.
For business reasons, the Employer functions through several unin-
corporated divisions. Chevrolet Motor Division, one of these divi-
sions, has various plants including the Spring and Bumper Plant
in Livonia, Michigan.
The Petitioner seeks a decertification election in a unit limited
to the guard employees at the Livonia plant .3 The Intervenor
(United Plant Guard Workers of America (UPGWA) and its
various locals) contends that the petition should be dismissed
because the unit sought is less than the existing multiplant unit in
which it is recognized and is therefore inappropriate for decertifi-
cation. The Employer has taken no position on this question. 'WTe
find merit in the contention of the Intervenor.
1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing
2 The name of the Intervenor appears as stated at the hearing
3 The UPGWA and its amalgamated Local Union No 114 are certified as the bargain-
ing representative for the guard employees at the Livonia plant.
151 NLRB No. 20.
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, CHEVROLET DIVISION 157
The Employer has approximately 130 plants at which it employs
guards. The Intervenor represents the guard employees at 37 to 40
of them. In terms of members, the Intervenor represents about 30
percent of the approximately 5,450 plant protection employees in
the Employer's employ.
Prior to 1947, most organized guard employees of the Employer
were represented by local unions affiliated with International Union,
United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers
of America, CIO (UAW). However the 1947 amendments added
to the Act Section 9 (b) (3) which prohibits the Board from deciding
that a unit is appropriate for collective bargaining if it includes
guards together with other employees and also prohibits the Board
from certifying any labor organization "as the representative of
employees in a bargaining unit of guards if such organization admits
to membership, or is affiliated directly or indirectly with an orga-
nization which admits to membership, employees other than guards."
Following the 1947 amendments, the Employer's guard employees
initially attempted to retain affiliation with the parent body CIO
by forming the Plant Guard Organizing Committee (CIO). The
Board, however, in General Motors Corporation, Cadillac Motor Car
Division, 77 NLRB 1029, ruled that such affiliation was contrary to
Section 9(b) (3). As a result, the UPGWA was formed in June
1948 as an independent International union for guards. Represent-
atives of the UPGWA and the Employer entered into consent-
election agreements for elections at various plants of the Employer
throughout the United States. At the plants in which UPGWA
won the election, the Board's certifications took three forms : some
certifications named only the International Union (UPGWA) as
the bargaining representative; some named the local union; and
others named both the International Union and the local union.
Although UPGWA's bargaining relationship with the Employer
did not begin until 1948, prior to that time many of the present
representatives of UPGWA had dealt with the Employer through
UAW local unions which were composed exclusively of plant guards.
Since 1948, UPGWA and the Employer have conducted centralized
contract negotiations covering all plants at which UPGWA or its
locals are recognized. At least since 1950 such bargaining negotia-
tions have resulted in national agreements,4 multiplant in scope,
fixing conditions of employment for guard employees in all these
plants. The terms of the successive national agreements, applying
uniformly to all plants covered, establish in detail such matters as
4 Guard employees at some plants have historically been salaried employees while at
other plants they have been hourly rated employees This different manner of coin-
pensation was not changed after UPGWA began representing the guard employees. Thus,
there is a single contract covering salaried guard employees and a separate single con-
tract covering hourly rated employees.
158 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
wages, hours, vacations, call-in pay, grievance procedure, union secu-
rity, checkoff of union membership fees, seniority, and leaves of
absence and also contain provisions respecting strikes, work stop-
pages, and lockouts.
By a separate document, the parties have provided for preferential
hiring among plants in the bargaining unit irrespective of corporate
divisions or method of pay. Likewise, insurance and pension plans
have been established by separate national agreements. In addition,
the Employer by letter to the UPGWA agreed to extend the same
cost-of-living adjustment to guard employees represented by
UPGWA that it had extended to its employees represented by UAW.
Under the national agreements, the final stages of the grievance
procedure are handled at a national level by the UPGWA and
corporate officials. The locals do not have' authority to arbitrate
a grievance, and the UPGWA may decline to proceed with arbitra-
tion and may withdraw any grievance it considers nonmeritorious.
UPGWA's contract demands are formulated on a central basis
by its so-called "GM conference" composed of delegates from all
UPGWA locals in the General Motors chain. The GM conference,
which meets at the UPGWA headquarters in Detroit, elects a
national bargaining committee of six members, of whom three
represent hourly rated guard employees and three represent salaried
guard employees. The bargaining sessions take place only in
Detroit, with the conference-designated six-man negotiating team,
assisted by UPGWA's International staff, acting as the only spokes-
man on behalf of all the guards in all the plants for which
UPGWA and/or its locals have been certified.5
After the Employer and the negotiating committee of UPGWA
have reached agreement, the agreement is reduced to writing and
is either signed or initialed by both the Employer and UPGWA.
Both parties consider this agreement final and binding at that
time. The national agreement is then duplicated with spaces left
in blank for insertion of the name of the Employer's subdivision,
the number of the local union, the NLRB certification number, the
recognition article, and such local supplements (such as shift
preference and preparatory time) as the Employer and the UPGWA
bargaining committee may have delegated for negotiation at the
local level. Local agreements are subject to the approval of
UPGWA and the Employer and are made part of the national
agreement. No local union or employer subdivision has authority
to detract from the national agreement or to add thereto except for
such supplementary provisions relating to local issues as have been
delegated for local negotiations and these must be consistent with
5 The president of a local may also sit in on these negotiating sessions.
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, CHEVROLET DIVISION 159
the national agreement. After the local and the employer sub-
division reach agreement on the local issues both sign the contract
which is then sent to Detroit for signature by UPGWA and the
corporate Employer.
The agreements reached through such, national negotiations in
Detroit must also be ratified by the employees voting in their respec-
tive locals. Upon ratification by a majority of the employees and
the locals, national agreements take effect; no local or single group
of employees may avoid being bound by the national agreements
when the majority has so ratified; no single local or single plant
may make its own separate contract with the Employer or any of
its subdivisions. Notice of ratification is sent to the Employer by
the UPGWA.
When the national agreement nears its termination date, UPGWA
advises the Employer of its desire and that of its locals to terminate
the agreement. Then the UPGWA writes to each of its locals
and has them also notify the appropriate employer subdivisions of
the desire to terminate.
On the basis of the foregoing facts, we are persuaded that the
pattern of bargaining between UPGWA and the Employer, as it
has evolved, has brought about an effective merger of the individu-
ally certified guard units into a single multiplant unit. Such
bargaining, we find, has for many years reflected an intent on the
part of both UPGWA and the Employer to deal with each other
primarily on the basis of such a single multiplant unit. The histor-
ical development of bargaining between UPGWA and the Employer
and the form it now takes substantially parallels the experience
between the same employer and UAW. There are, to be sure, minor
differences, principally in the form of the collective-bargaining
agreement. But, we do not regard such differences as sufficiently
substantial to provide an adequate basis for distinguishing the
situation here from the one which led us to conclude in General
Motors Corporation, Cadillac Motor Division, 120 NLRB 1215, that
the various separately certified UAW bargaining units had become
merged as a result of historical development into a single multiplant
units Our resolution of the unit issue here is governed essentially
by the same considerations as guided our result in the cited case.
In sum, we conclude, on the basis of the entire record, that the
long history of collective bargaining and the exclusive recognition
accorded to UPGWA by the Employer on a multiplant unit basis
has resulted in the establishment of a single multiplant bargaining
0 See also Gould-National Batteries, Ino, 146 NLRB 1138, and 150 NLRB 418;
Unvvae Dvuosion of Remington Rand Division of Sperry Rand Corporation, 137 NLRB
1232 Cf The Kroger Co , 148 NLRB 569
160 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
unit embracing all those plants of the Employer in which the Inter-
venor has in the past been recognized as the exclusive bargaining
agent and which are covered by the national agreement.7 We
shall therefore grant the motion to dismiss the instant petition,
which requests an election in a single plant unit.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
7 We distinguish our holding here from Swift & Company, 124 NLRB 50. In that case
the Board found that the national negotiations were merely for convenience in bargaining.
Here, it is clear the parties intended to effect a consolidation of the separately certified
local plant units into one multiplant unit.
Bricklayers, Masons, and Plasterers ' International Local Union
No. 18 of Missouri [ Ferguson Tile and Marble Co.] and
George Harry Hinnah . Case No. 14-CB-1199. February 18,
1965
DECISION AND ORDER
On November 30, 1964, Trial Examiner William J. Brown
issued his Decision in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that
the Respondent had not engaged in the unfair labor practices
alleged in the complaint and recommending that the complaint be
dismissed in its entirety, as set forth in the attached Trial Examiner's
Decision. Thereafter, the General Counsel filed exceptions to the
Trial Examiner's Decision and a supporting brief.
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 [Chairman McCulloch and Members Fanning and Brown].
The Board has reviewed the rulings made by the Trial Examiner
at the hearings and finds that no prejudicial error was committed.
The rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the
Trial Examiner's Decision, the exceptions and brief, and the entire
record in this case, and hereby adopts the Trial Examiner's findings,
conclusions , and recommendations only to the extent consistent with
this Decision and Order.
As noted by the Trial Examiner, the essential facts are not in
dispute. The record reveals that Hinnah, the Charging Party, was
at all material times a member of Tile Setters Helpers Local Union
No. 41, and had worked as a tilesetter's helper prior to June 1963.
At that time, Vice President Glen Lowery of Ferguson Tile and
Marble Co. told Hinnah that he would use him as a tilesetter if
Hinnah could get a work permit from Respondent's business agent,
151 NLRB No. 19.