Owens-Illinois Glass Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 21, 1954

108 N.L.R.B. 947 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

OWENS-ILLINOIS GLASS COMPANY 947
subject with the Union as the exclusive representative of the employees in the appropriate
unit.
Upon the basis of the foregoing and from the entire record in the case, I make the following:
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. Respondent, Kerrigan Iron Works, Inc., is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
2 Shopmen's Local Union No. 733, International Association of Bridge, Structural and
Ornamental Iron Workers, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, is a labor
organization within the meaning of Section 2 (5) of the Act.
3 All production and maintenance employees at Respondent's North plant including jani-
tors, and shipping and receiving clerks, but excluding office and clerical employees, time-
keepers, guards, professional employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute
a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b)
of the Act
4. Shopmen's Local Union No 733, International Assocation ofBridge, Structural and Orna-
mental Iron Workers, at all times relevant herein has been the exclusive bargaining repre-
sentative within the meaning of Section 9 (a) of the Act of all employees in the aforesaid unit
for the purposes of collective bargaining.
5. By refusing to bargain collectively with Shopmen's Local Union No 733, International
Association of Bridge. Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers, Respondent has engaged in
and is engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8 (a) (5) of the Act.
6 By interfering with, restraining, and coercing its employees in the exercise of rights
guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act. Respondent has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor
practices within the meaining of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act
7. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting commerce
within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act
8. Respondent has not by laying off employees in October, November, and December, 1951,
and on or about February 22, 1952, committed any unfair labor practice
[Recommendations omitted from publication.]
OWENS-ILLINOIS GLASS COMPANY and FEDERATION OF
GLASS, CERAMIC AND SILICA SAND WORKERS OF
AMERICA, CIO, Petitioner . Case No. 13-RC-3740. May 21,
1954
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, ahearingwas held before I. M. Lieberman,
hearing officer . The hearing officer ' s rulings made at the hear-
ing 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 mean-
ing of the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning
of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the
following reasons:
i The Employer's and the Intervenor's requests for oral argument are hereby denied
because the record and briefs adequately set forth the positions of the parties.
108 NLRB No. 130.
948 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Petitioner, herein called the CIO, seeks a unit of pro-
duction and maintenance employees at the Employer' s Streator,
Illinois , plant with certain exclusions . The Intervenor, Local
140, Glass Bottle Blowers Association of the United States and
Canada, AFL, and the Employer contend that the unit sought is
inappropriate and that the employees in the Streator plant
should be included in its existing multiplant unit consisting of
all the Employer' s production and maintenance employees in its
Eastern Division.2
The Employer operates 12 glass container plants, 2 of which
are in California . The remaining 10 located in the East,3 com-
prise the Eastern Division of the Employer.
The production and maintenance employees of the Eastern
Division were first organized in 1945. Since then , the Employer
has either voluntarily recognized the representatives of these
employees or done so after Board certification . 4 As a result
thereof, identical contracts were jointly negotiated by the Em-
ployer and the Intervenor for 9 of the 10 plants of the Eastern
Division and with District No. 50 United Mine Workers for the
remaining Streator plant. In December 1945, the 9 single-plant
contracts with the Intervenor were merged into 1 multiplant
contract.
Bargaining History at Streator Plant
Initially , District No. 50 was certified by the Board as bar-
gaining representative for the production and maintenance em-
ployees at the Streator plant in 1945 . Thereafter , single-plant
contracts with District No. 50 were executed from 1945 through
1949, in which year the present CIO petitioner filed a repre-
sentation petition for these employees , In the proceeding which
followed, the Intervenor and the Employer contended that a
multiplant unit consisting of all its plants in the Eastern Division
was the only appropriate unit . In that proceeding the Board held
that, in view of the history of bargaining by the Employer on
both a multiplant and a single - plant basis , either unit would be
feasible , and directed a globe election .5 In the following election,
which involved the parties to the present proceeding ,6 the em-
ployees voted for no union. Thereafter the Employer and District
No. 50 entered into a contract which expired in 1952 . In that
2 Apart from the production and maintenance unit , there are two other units in the Em-
ployer 's Eastern Division, one, the machinists ' unit , which is represented by the Intervenor,
and the other , the mould makers' unit , represented by the American Flint Glass Workers
Union of North America, ALF, both being on a multiplant and inultiemployer basis.
3 These plants are at Bridgeton, New Jersey; Clarion , Pennsylvania ; Alton and Streator,
Illinois; Fairmont, Charleston, and Huntington , West Virginia ; Waco, Texas; and Gas City
and Terre Haute , Indiana.
4 Elections were held at Alton , Charleston, Huntington, and Streator.
5 82 NLRB 205.
6District No. 50 was not on the ballot as the United Mine Workers had failed to comply with
the requirements of the Act.
OWENS-ILLINOIS GLASS COMPANY 949
year, the Intervenor filed a representation petition , in which
the CIO intervened. Subsequently, upon the execution of a
stipulation for certification upon consent election , an election
in the stipulated unit at the Streator plant was held in May
1952. As the results of a runoff election , the Intervenor was
certified in September 1952. Later, in October of that year,
after multiplant negotiations , the employees of the Streator
plant were included in the Intervenor ' s multiplant contract,'
which covered all 10 plants of the Eastern Division. The
present petition was filed December 30 , 1953.8
In support of its contention that a single -plant unit is
appropriate , the Petitioner urges various circumstances indi-
cating that the employees of the Streator plant have interests
distinct from those of employees at the other plants of the
Eastern Division . Consistent with this position , Petitioner also
urges that a multiplant unit is inappropriate . As basis for the
latter contention , the Petitioner points to the fact that the Board
has never certified a multiplant unit for the Employer; that
such multiplant unit is in derogation of a prior Board certi-
fication ,9 and has arisen in a piecemeal manner as the result
of negotiations between the Employer and the Intervenor after
card checks conducted at the various plants. Finally, the
Petitioner urges that , as the multiplant contract including the
Streator plant was in existence less than 15 months when the
present petition was filed , such bargaining history shouldnot be
controlling in view of a prior bargaining history of 7 years on a
single-plant basis.
The arguments noted above are, however , offset by the con-
tentions of the Employer. Thus the Employer urges that with
the exception of the Streator plant, all single-plant contracts
have been merged into a multiplant contract since December
1945; that after the Intervenor won the election among the
Streator plant employees in 1952, the contract for that plant
was effectively merged into the multiplant contract. In addition,
the Employer emphasizes the fact that the pattern of bargaining
in the glass container industry is and has been almost univer-
sally either multiplant or multiemployer. The Employer con-
cludes , therefore , that multiplant bargaining is particularly
suited to the Employer' s plants , as not only are all its opera-
tions closely integrated with a high degree of centralized
management , but manufacturing processes , wage scales, job
classifications , and personnel policies are virtually the same
throughout the 10 plants.
7 This contract expired March 31, 1954.
8 The Employer and Intervenor contend that because the present petition was filed 91 days
before the expiration of the present contract , it was not timely filed. Because of our holding
that the petition should be dismissed on other grounds , we do not pass on this contention.
9 It is undisputed that for the four plants in which the Board has issued certifications, the
certificates were for single-plant units.
950 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
We find merit in the Employer ' s and Intervenor ' s io position.
It is well established in Board policy that a companywide or
divisionwide unit is appropriate . u Although the Board has re-
fused to give controlling weight to a bargaining history in
derogation of a Board certification ,'2 we do not here have a
situation where the parties have altered the specific composition
of the unit previously determined by the Board.13 The certi-
fication of the Intervenor for the Streator plant did not preclude
the effective assimilation of the Employer ' s employees into a
broader unit . l' That such effective assimilation has occurred
is indicated by the fact that the recent multiplant contract,
including the instant plant, was approximately 15 months old
at the time of the filing of the petition . Indeed, the consolidation
of all the single-plant units in this division has now been
achieved.
The Board has held that an existing multiemployer bargain-
ing history which is in excess of 1 year's duration is a suffi-
ciently long period to preclude the establishment of a single-
plant or single - employer unit .' We will apply the same
principle here in the single - employer multiplant situation.
Furthermore , the Board has, in a prior decision , already con-
sidered the merits of a multiplant unit for the employees of this
Employer and has found that such unit maybe appropriate.16 As
the merger of the Streator plant with the other division plants
has since then been effected , thus completing the divisionwide
unit, we find , for this additional reason, that the Streator plant
unit is inappropriate . In view of this finding and our finding in
the prior decision involving the Employer , we find no necessity
for considering the Petitioner ' s other specific objections to the
appropriateness of the multiplant unit.
As the unit sought by the Petitioner is inappropriate for
purposes of collective bargaining , we shall dismiss the instant
petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
Chairman Farmer took no part in the consideration of the
above Decision and Order.
m The Intervenor agrees with the Employer and stresses the fact that in the last consent
election in 1952 , the issue of the multiplant versus the single-plant unit was debated and
highlighted so that the employees knew that a vote for the Intervenor would mean the merging
of the single-plant contract into the divisionwide multiplant contract. As the employees elected
the Intervenor , it is clear that the employees intended by their vote to indicate their pre-
ference for a multiplant unit.
11 Libbey Ownes-Ford Glass Company, 78 NLRB 1170.
II Merck & Co., Inc., 98 NLRB 372.
13Calaveras Cement Company, 89 NLRB 378; Central Truck Lines, Inc., 98 NLRB 374.
14 Lever Brothers Company, 96 NLRB 448.
15 Taylor and Boggis Foundry Division of The Consolidated Iron-Steel Manufacturing Com-
pany, 98 NLRB 481. The case of Oswego Falls Corporation,\104 NLRB 314, cited by the
Petitioner , is distinguishable as involving an ambiguous multiplant bargaining history.
i6See footnote 5, supr . At the time of that decision, the Streator plant had not been merged
with the other plants in the division.