Gibbons Industrial Patrol, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 17, 1950

88 N.L.R.B. 1219 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of GIBBONS INDUSTRIAL PATROL, INC.,' EMPLOYER and
UNITED PLANT GUARD WORKERS OF AMERICA, AMALGAMATED PLANT
GUARD, LOCAL #116, PETITIONER
Case No. 7-RC-718.-Decided March 17, 1950
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Harold L.
Hudson, 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 National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Reynolds and Murdock].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain
employees 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 to represent those employees of the Em-
ployer who work at the American Forge and Socket Company's Pon-
tiac, Michigan, plant. The Employer is engaged in the business of
furnishing plant protection to various companies. It opposes the
requested unit on the ground that such unit, limited to the employees
at only one of its clients' plants, is inappropriate apart from the
employees at the other plants for which the Employer furnishes
protective services.
The Employer provides uniformed guards for about 20 companies.
In support of the Employer's contention that a single company-wide
unit of guards is the only appropriate bargaining group for its em-
ployees, the record shows : that the hours of employment, rates of pay,
11 The Employer 's name appears as amended at the hearing.
88 NLRB No. 216. 1219
882191-51-78
1220 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and general duties of all employees are similar; and that general
supervision of all the Employer's employees is exercised from its
offices in Detroit. On the other hand, it appears from the record, that
at most plants, including the plant involved herein, the guards work
under the immediate supervision and direction of a lieutenant, who
acts as the Employer's local representative.
Furthermore, the American Forge and Socket Company's plant,
which alone is involved in this proceeding, is located about 25 miles
from Detroit, in which city and immediate vicinity the plants of the
Employer's other clients are located. Moreover, although the guards
who work in Detroit and its surrounding communities are frequently
transferred from one plant to another, there is no interchange between
the guards at the American Forge and Socket Company's plant and
the guards at the plants of the other clients of the Employer, nor is
there any occasion for the, former to meet or mingle with the other
employees of the Employer. Of the five guards involved in this pro-
ceeding, four have never worked for the Employer at any place other
than the plant involved herein; and furthermore, since 1943, no guards
working at the American Forge and Socket Company's plant have
been transferred by the Employer to any other location.
Upon the record as a whole, and particularly in view of the geo-
graphical separation of this particular plant from the plants of the
other companies to whom the Employer furnishes protective services,
the absence of any interchange between the employees in the proposed
unit and the other employees of the Employer, and the lack of any
collective bargaining history, we believe that a unit of guards at the
American Forge and Socket Company's plant is appropriate.2
We find, therefore, that all plant guards or patrolmen, who work
for the Employer at the American Forge and Socket Company's Pon-
tiac, Michigan, plant, excluding supervisors as defined in the Act,3 con-
stitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
As part of the investigation to acertain representatives for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by secret
ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than 30 days
from the date of this Direction, under the direction and supervision of
the Regional Director for the Region in which this case was heard,
and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor Relations
2 Raleigh Coca- Cola Bottling Works, 80 NLRB 768 ; Burgess Battery Company, 76
NLRB 820.
3 William Maddock is excluded from the unit as a supervisor.
. GIBBONS INDUSTRIAL PATROL, INC. 1221
Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees in the unit found
appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were employed dur-
ing the payroll period immediately preceding the date of this Direc-
tion of Election, including employees who did not work during said
payroll period because they were ill or on vacation or temporarily laid
off, but excluding those employees who have since quit or been dis-
charged for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated prior to the
date of the election, and also excluding employees on strike who are
not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether or not they desire
to be represented, for purposes of collective bargaining, by United
Plant Guard Workers of America, Amalgamated Plant Guard, Local
No. 116.
MEMBER MURDOCK, dissenting :
I would dismiss the petition in this case on the ground that the
unit sought is inadequate in scope and therefore inappropriate for
purposes of collective bargaining. In reaching an opposite result
my colleagues have relied on two factors : (1) that the unit found
appropriate by them consists of a group of the Employer's em-
ployees who are physically separated from their fellow employees by
distances up to 25 miles, and (2) the absence of any instances of inter-
change betweeii the employees in the unit and the Employer's em-
ployees assigned to other plants. These factors are, in my opinion,
outweighed by other factors which militate against the appropriate-
ness of such a unit. Thus, the duties, hours of employment, rates of
pay, and general supervision of the guards at the plant in Pontiac
are the same as those of their fellow employees who are located at
other plants in the Detroit area. It appears that the Employer's
guards enjoy company-wide seniority. The Employer has followed
the practice of transferring guards from one plant to another. Al-
though this practice has not been generally applied with respect to
the plant in Pontiac, the record reveals one such transfer to the Pon-
tiac plant and the fact that the proposed transfer of another employee
away from that plant was effectively forestalled by a strike threat.
The final and most significant factor, in my opinion, is the fact that
here, unlike in the typical multiplant situation, the Employer's
guards work at plants owned and operated by other employers. The
permanency of their assignment to a particular plant is therefore
necessarily dependent to a great degree upon the desires of the plant
owner who may decide to dispense with the guard service, obtain this
service from another source, curtail, shut down, or move his plant,
or by some other independent act affect the employment security at
his plant of the Employer's employees.
1222 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
These circumstances bespeak the existence of a strong community
of interests among all the Employer's guards, including those assigned
to the plant in Pontiac. I do not consider the geographical separation
of this latter group of guards from their fellow guards, by at most
25 miles, to justify their establishment as a separate bargaining unit.4
Where such mutuality of interest binds employees together, I deem
it the function of this Board to refuse to sanction their division for
purposes of collective bargaining merely because of geographical
separation and extent of organization .5
+ I am inclined to the view that the geographical separation of two or more plants by
25 miles should not be accorded significant weight in our unit determination where the
plants are located in a highly industrialized area such as Detroit. See Bonwit Teller,
Inc., 84 NLRB 414; Chrysler Corporation, 79 NLRB 462; cf. cases cited in footnote 2,
supra.
5 Cf. Westbrook Enterprises , Inc., 79 NLRB 1032; Sargent & Company, 78 NLRB 918.