New Jersey Brewers AssociationDownload PDFNational Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsOct 19, 195196 N.L.R.B. 1011 (N.L.R.B. 1951) Copy Citation NEW JERSEY BREWERS ASSOCIATION 1011 NEW JERSEY BREWERS ASSOCIATION, JOSEPH HENSLER BREWING COM- PANY, G. KRUEGER BREWING COMPANY, PABST BREWING COMPANY, P. BALLANTINE & SONS, AND LIEBMANN BREWERIES , INC.' and LOCAL 68, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, A. F. OF L., PETITIONER . Case No. 2-RC-3334. October 19,1951 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 Eugene Matthew Purver, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed 2 Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel [Members Houston, Murdock, and Styles]. 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 3 involved claim to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. The New Jersey Brewers Association, organized in 1934, is an unincorporated trade association of manufacturers of malt beer. The Association has as its members the following companies : Joseph Hensler Brewing Company, G. Krueger Brewing Company, Pabst Brewing Company, P. Ballantine & Sons, and Liebmann Breweries, Inc., all of Newark, New Jersey, and vicinity. For a number of years the Association has been engaged in repre- senting its members in negotiation of collective bargaining agreements with various labor organizations representing employees of the Em- ployer-members of the Association. An official of the Association testified that the labor relations function of the Association is con- ducted substantially as follows : The labor relations policies are deter- mined and formulated by the Employer-members of the Association and the bargaining is delegated to the association officials. When an agreement is reached by the Association and a labor organization, the union signs separate identical contracts which are forwarded to the Association offices (where the title of the Company is inserted in the appropriate blank space) and from there to the individual Employers for their respective signatures. After the Companies affix ' The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing. 2 The Petitioner at the hearing moved to amend its petition by deleting the Peter Breidt Brewing Company from the petition Thereafter the Employer moved to dismiss the petition. We deny the motion of the Employer for the reasons stated in footnote 8, infra. 3 Local Union 55, International Brotherhood of Firemen , Oilers and Helpers of Newark and vicinity , AFL, was permitted to intervene on the basis of its contractual interest. 96 NLRB No. 141. 1012 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD their signatures to their copies of the contract, they are returned to the association offices. In a prior proceeding 4 involving the same operations of the Em- ployers or their predecessors, the Board found that the Employers (or their predecessors) were engaged in collective bargaining on a multiple-employer basis and that the appropriate unit should be one covering the plants of all the members or their predecessors. In this case the record shows that the pattern of Association-wide bargaining has not changed. The parties herein have stipulated, and we find, that the appropriate unit is one which includes the plants of all the Employer-members of the Association .5 In accordance with the bargaining practice described above, on December 7,1950, a contract was negotiated by the Association and the Intervenor covering the firemen and oilers, which, after being signed by the Intervenor, was sent by the Association representative to the Employer-members of the Association for their signatures. Some- time after that, three of the five members of the Association signed their copies of the agreement. The petition was filed on February 7, 1951, and the Association, its members, and the Intervenor urge the contract as a bar to a present determination of representatives. We find no merit to this contention. Only three of the five mem- bers of the Association had signed copies of the agreement at the time of the hearing.6 Thus, the execution of the contract was incomplete at the time the petition was filed as it had not been signed by all the members of the Association although it was negotiated for them on an Association-wide basis. A contract thus partially executed may not serve as a bar to a present determination of representatives among the affected employees, including those of the members of the Associa- tion who had signed it before the petition was filed. We find therefore that a question affecting commerce exists con- cerning the representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.7 4. We find the following employees to constitute an appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: & New Jersey Brewers Association, Joseph Hensler Brewing Company, G . Krueger Brew- ing Company, Pabst Brewing Company, Peter Breidt Brewing Company , P. Ballantine to Sons and John S. Trommer, Inc., 92 NLRB 1404. O The Employer Intervenor would also include the employees of the Peter Breidt Com- pany which is not a member of the Association in the unit. s The record clearly discloses the Liebmann Breweries, Inc., have not signed their copy of the contract and there is considerable doubt as to Pabst Brewing Company. There is no evidence that the two afore -mentioned Companies intend to abandon the form of multiple-employer bargaining that they have been practicing. T In view of our disposition of the contract bar question , we find it unnecessary to pass upon the problem of effective date of the contract alleged as a bar raised by the Petitioner's contentions . Nor do we find it necessary to discuss or analyze the effects of the dismissal of a petition without prejudice by the Board. GREAT SOUTHERN CHEMICAL CORPORATION 1013 All firemen, oilers, and helpers employed by the Employers 8 in their brewery plants located in the New York area.' [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this volume.] 8In an earlier case, see footnote 4, supra, involving the same parties ( or their pred- ecessors ) as this proceeding , the Board set aside a stipulation of the parties which pro- vided for the inclusion of the employees of the Peter Breidt Brewing Company in any multiple-employer unit found appropriate by the Board . The Employer and Intervenor herein urge again the inclusion of the Peter Breidt Brewing Company employees in the unit to be found appropriate . We find no reason to depart from our previous determina- tion on this point . All the parties to this proceeding agreed as to the categories of em- ployees to be included in the unit. 'The designation "New York area" appears to be intended by the parties to cover the plants of the Employer -members of the Association that are situated in New York City and Newark, New Jersey. GREAT SOUTHERN CHEMICAL CORPORATION and OIL WORKERS INTERNA- TIONAL UNION, CIO, PETITIONER . Case No. 39-RC-313. October 19, 1951 Decision and Direction of Election Upon a petition duly filed tinder Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Clifford W. Potter, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.' At the hearing, the Employer moved to dismiss this proceeding on the grounds that it is not an "employer" within the meaning of the Act and that it is not engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. For the reasons stated in paragraph 1, below, the Employer's motion to dismiss is hereby denied.2 Great Southern Chemical Corporation Employees Independent Union, herein called the Intervenor, also moved to dis- miss the petition on the ground that it has already been recognized by the Employer and that, therefore, no question concerning representa- tion exists. The Intervenor's motion to dismiss is also denied, for the reasons stated in paragraph 3, below. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with ' The hearing officer properly refused to permit the Employer to question the Petitioner as to the number of employees the Petitioner purported to represent when it requested recognition on April 17, 1951. The Board has repeatedly held that a labor organization's showing of interest is a matter for administrative determination and is not subject to collateral attack by the parties. Lloyd A. Fry Roofing Company, et at., 92 NLRB 1170, and cases cited therein. Moreover, we are satisfied that the Petitioner has made an adequate showing of interest in this proceeding. % The hearing officer also referred to the Board the Employer 's request that the record in this case be kept open until the Employer and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation had entered into a definitive operating agreement so that this agreement might be made part of the record. As the Letter of Intent , referred to hereinafter, and the testimony of the Employer 's representatives afford sufficient basis for determining whether Great South- ern Chemical Corporation is an employer within the meaning of the Act and whether it is engaged in commerce , and as the agreement may not be forthcoming in the immediate future, the Employer 's request is hereby denied. 96 NLRB No. 148. 974176-52-vol. 96-65 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation