Milwaukee Gas Light Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 1, 1955

111 N.L.R.B. 837 (N.L.R.B. 1955)

MILWAUKEE GAS LIGHT COMPANY 837
MILWAUKEE GAS LIGHT COMPANY and UTILITY WORKERS UNION OF
AMERICA, CIO, PETITIONER. Case No. 13-RC-4089. March 1,
1955
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Richard B. Simon, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
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 organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No 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.
The Employer and Local No. 1, United Association of Sales, Office
and Technical Employees, herein called the Intervenor, contend that
an existing collective-bargaining agreement between them is a bar to
this petition. The Petitioner contends that the contract is not a bar
because article IV therein contains unlawful union-security provi-
sions. United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers, CIO, which also
intervened herein, appears to take a neutral position.
The Employer and the Intervenor have been parties to collective-
bargaining agreements since 1937. The most recent contract between
them was executed on June 30, 1954, and is effective until December
1, 1955.' Insofar as is relevant here, the union-security provisions of
that contract are as follows :
SECTION 1. Union Membership.
(a) It shall be a condition of employment that all Employees
of the Company covered by this agreement shall become and re-
main members of good standing in the Union:
(b) All new Employees shall be informed by the Company at
the time of employment of the necessity of making application to
the Union for membership within the first thirty (30) days of
employment... .
SECTION 2. Union Dues.
(a) It is further understood and agreed by both parties that
Employees shall have the right on a voluntary basis to authorize
'The 1953 contract between the Employer and the Intervenor , which contained union-
security provisions similar to those challenged herein, expired on December 1, 1953; the
record indicates that its terms were applied until the execution of the contract in question.
111 NLRB No. 135.
838 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the deduction by the Company of initiation fees and Union dues;
from their wages.
(b) Each Employee, upon the date of employment, shall sign
a written authorization card requesting that the Company deduct
from his wages the regular dues and initiation fees required of
all members of Local 1, United Association of Office, Sales and
Technical Employees, such dues and initiation fee to be deducted
on the first pay day of the month following the first twenty (20)
days of employment. .. .
The Petitioner in effect asserts that because the provisions of sec-
tion 1 of the contract do not expressly provide incumbent employees
with a 30-day period in which to join the Intervenor, they are unlaw-
ful and the contract therefore should not be held a bar. We do not
agree with this contention.'
With respect to the employees who already Were members of the
Intervenor on the effective date of the contract,' it is clear from the
Board's decision in the Krause ' case, that those employees are not
entitled to the statutory grace period. As for the employees, if any,
who were not members of the Intervenor when the contract became
effective,5 there is no indication that any employee in that position
was required to become a member of the Intervenor in violation of the
Act, or that there was discrimination practiced against any such em-
ployee under the contract. In these circumstances, we find, for the
reasons fully set forth in A. Sandler Co.,' that the contract's failure
to expressly provide the statutory grace period for employees who
were not members of the incumbent Union on the effective date of the
contract does not operate to invalidate the contract for bar purposes.
In view of all the foregoing, we find that section 1 of the contract is
not unlawful for the reasons relied upon by the Petitioner.
The Petitioner also asserts that section 2 (b) of the contract is un-
lawful in that it requires employees to pay union clues and initiation
fees before the expiration of the 30-day grace period, thus rendering
the contract inoperative as a bar. For the reasons set forth below, we
do not agree with the Petitioner that section 2 (b) of the contract pre-
cludes it from being a bar.
As the Petitioner contends, the language of section 2 (b) embodies
the positive requirement that new employees, upon the date of their
-' We also reject the contention made by the Petitionei at the hearing that the phiase
"within the first thirty ( 30) days of employment" in section 1 (b) of the contract does
not giant to new employees the full statutory period in which to join the Intervenoi See
Spat tan Aircraft Company, 98 NLRB 73.
3 All employees with at least 30 days ' service as of the effective date of the contract
were members of the Intervenor.
* Charles A. Ki ause Milling Co., 97 NLRB 536.
5 The record does not make it wholly clear whether there were in fact any such employees.
6 110 NLRB 738.
MILWAUKEE GAS LIGHT COMPANY 839
employment, authorize a clues and initiation fee checkoff by the Em-
ployer. But the language of section 2 (a), on the other hand, makes
it unmistakably plain to all employees that the authorization of a
checkoff is a matter for their personal choice. It is therefore mani-
fest that the aforementioned provisions of section 2, which must, of
course, be construed as a whole and reconciled if possible, are in con-
flict. In view thereof, we must look to the practice under section 2 of
the contract to try to ascertain the intent of the contracting parties as
to its meaning. In this connection the Employer's personnel manager
testified without contradiction that the Employer, after telling new
employees at the time of their employment that they must make appli-
cation for membership in the Intervenor within 30 days, advises them
that "if they wish they may at this time sign a dues deduction card"
but that this is "strictly voluntary on their part." There is no indi-
cation in the record that new employees have been required to
authorize any checkoff by the Employer or that any employee has
been discriminated against for not executing such an authorization.
Considering all the pertinent provisions of the contract, reasonably
construed in the light of the practice pursuant thereto, we conclude
that new employees are free thereunder to decide whether they want
their dues and initiation fees checked off by the Employer and that
:section 2 (b) is applicable only to such new employees as voluntarily
elect a checkoff. So viewed, section 2 of the contract contains no
unlawful requirements, even were we to assume, without deciding,
that under certain circumstances a checkoff authorization executed
under paragraph (b) may result in the checkoff of an employee's dues
and initiation fee prior to the expiration of the statutory grace period
to which he is entitled.
In view of all the above, we find that the current contract between
the Intervenor and the Employer is a bar to the present petition.
We shall, therefore, dismiss the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
MEMBER RODGERS, dissenting :
For the reasons expressed in my dissenting opinions in TVlzyte
Manufacturing Company, Inc.,' and A. Sandler Co.,' I find the por-
tion of section 1 of the contract which is applicable to old employees
to be illegal. I would therefore hold, without inquiring into the
legality of any of the other union-security provisions, that no contract
bar exists herein. °
109 NLRB 1125
Footnote 6, sups a.