Georgia Kraft Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 6, 1958

120 N.L.R.B. 806 (N.L.R.B. 1958)

806 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
been recalled after a previous layoff and that the Employer asks its
employees to inform their friends when the Employer desires addi-
tional employees. Contrary to Petitioner's contentions, we do not
consider these facts inconsistent with the uncontroverted evidence
upon which the Regional Director relied in finding that the em-
ployees in question were permanently laid off before the election.
Accordingly, we shall sustain the challenges to the ballots cast by the
above-named employees.
The Regional Director recommended that only two of the remaining
challenges be overruled. As no exceptions have been filed to these
recommendations, we hereby adopt his conclusions as to these recom-
mendations. As we have overruled Petitioner's objections to the
election and as the number of challenges we have overruled is insuf-
ficient to affect the results of the election, we shall certify the results
of the election in which Petitioner failed to secure a majority of the
valid ballots cast.
[The Board certified that a majority of the valid ballots was not
cast for United Steelworkers of America , AFL-CIO, and that said
labor organization is not the exclusive representative of the employees
of the Employer in the unit herein found appropriate.]
Georgia Kraft Company and Office Employees International
Union, AFL-CIO , Petitioner . Case No. 10-RC-4008. May 6,1958
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 David L. Trezise,
hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are
free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed, in part for the
reasons discussed hereinafter.
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 certain employees of the Employer, within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
IInternational Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers, AFL-CIO,
Locals 636 and 643, who were permitted to intervene at the hearing, currently represent
a unit of E'mployer' s production and maintenance employees , from which unit are ex-
eluded the office and plant clerical employees whom Petitioner seeks to represent. Inter-
venors have no desire to participate in the election directed herein.
120 NLRB No. 113.
GEORGIA KRAFT COMPANY 807
4. Petitioner seeks a unit of the Employer 's office and plant clerical
employees . These employees are presently unrepresented , having
been excluded from the production and maintenance unit presently
represented by Intervenors . The Employer agrees that the unit
sought by Petitioner is appropriate . Under these circumstances we
find a unit of the Employer 's office and plant clerical employees to
be appropriate?
With respect to the unit placement of specific job classifications the
Employer and Petitioner disagree only as to the traffic and payroll
supervisors, whom the Employer claims to be supervisors within the
meaning of the Act.
The traffic and the payroll supervisor are two of the three highest
paid individuals on the Employer's clerical staff. They receive in
salary almost $100 a month more than the one or more clerks in their
respective departments whose work they responsibly direct. In addi-
tion, they have the same authority as the Employer's other super-
visors to effectively recommend changes in the employment status of
the clerks under their supervision; 1 payroll clerk was discharged and
1 transferred in recent years shortly after the payroll supervisor so
recommended. On the basis of these facts we find the payroll and the
traffic supervisors to be supervisors as defined in the Act and we shall
exclude them from the unit.
Accordingly, we find that the following employees constitute a unit
appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9 (b) of the Act:
All office clerical and plant clerical employees employed by the
Employer at its Macon, Georgia, paper products manufacturing plant,
excluding all production and maintenance employees , professional and
technical employees , salesmen, guards , secretaries to the resident plant
manager and industrial relations manager, registered nurses, office
janitors, the messenger and dispatcher , the payroll and the traffic
supervisors, and all other supervisors as defined in the Act.
5. At the hearing the Employer sought to show that Petitioner's
showing of representative interest was secured through the efforts or
assistance of a supervisor and was, therefore, invalid. The hearing
officer refused to receive evidence in support of this allegation, ruling
that the Board would entertain such evidence and investigate the
validity of Petitioner's showing of interest only in an administrative
proceeding collateral to the representation proceeding . The Em-
ployer takes exception to this ruling and moves the Board to reopen
the hearing for the purpose of admitting evidence on this issue.
In general , the Board determines the validity of a union 's showing
of representative interest only by means of an administrative investi-
2 Eastern Corporation , 11( NLRB 329
808 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
gation.3 Thus, the Board refuses to permit in the representation
proceeding the litigation of allegations that authorization cards have
been procured by fraud, misrepresentation, or coercion 4 or that they
have been revoked 5 or that they are stales However, in a series of
cases,7 of which the most recent is The Wolfe Metal Products Corpo-
ration case,' the Board has departed from this general rule by enter-
taining and resolving in the representation proceeding allegations of
supervisory participation in a union's acquisition of its showing of
interest.
The Board has reconsidered this exception to the general rule which
excludes from the representation proceeding issues concerning the
validity of the showing of interest. The Board is now of the opinion
that the considerations which support the general rule 9 are equally
applicable to attacks upon a union's showing of interest based upon
alleged supervisory assistance in the acquisition thereof. Accord-
ingly, allegations of supervisory participation in, or influence upon, a
union's solicitation of a showing of interest will no longer be enter-
tained in a representation proceeding and will, like other attacks upon
the validity of a showing of interest, be investigated only administra-
tively by the Board. To the extent they are inconsistent with our
decision herein, The Wolfe Metal Products case and earlier cases
which involve this issue are hereby overruled. The hearing officer's
ruling which rejected the evidence offered by the Employer to prove
the invalidity of Petitioner's showing of interest is hereby affirmed.
On the basis of our administrative investigation of the Employer's
allegations and evidence relating to the validity of Petitioner's
showing of interest, we are administratively satisfied that Petitioner's
showing of interest submitted in support of its petition in the instant
proceeding is valid and sufficient. We hereby deny the Employer's
alternative motions to dismiss the petition or to reopen the hearing in
this proceeding.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
MEMBER RODGERS took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Direction of Election.
3 Globe Iron Foundry, 112 NLRB 1200.
b Standard Cigar Company , 117 NLRB 852; The Babcock if Wilcox Company, 116 NLRB
1542
8 Reliable Matting Service Company , 113 NLRB 1263.
9 The Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, 117 NLRB 668
s See, for example , Desilu Productions , Inc., 106 NLRB 179; Midland Container Cor-
poration, 116 NLRB 1116.
s 119 NLRB 659.
Potomac Electric Power Company, 111 NLRB 553, at 556; 0. D. Jennings if Com-
pany, 68 NLRB 516.