Sunbeam Electric Manufacturing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 23, 1942

42 N.L.R.B. 825 (N.L.R.B. 1942)

In the Matter Of SUNBEAM ELECTRIC MANUFACTURING CO and UNITED
ELECTRICAL, RADIO & MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFFILIATED
WITH THE C I 0
Case No R-3942 -Decided July 23, 19/2
Jurisdiction . wan material manufactuiiug industry
Investigation and Certification of Repiesentatives existence of question re-
fusal to accord petitioner recognition, over union's objection probationary em-
ployees held eligible to vote, laid-off employees having seniority rights as
delimited by Company's practice held eligible to vote, immediate election
directed despite Company's objection , election necessary
Unit Appropriate for Collecti-ve Bargaining production and maintenance em-
ployees at Company's foul plants, clerical, technical, and supervisory em-
ployees, and watchmen excluded
Mr Robert D Malarney, for the Board
Mr Robert D Markel and Mr Isidor Kahn, of Evansville, Ind , for
the Company.
Mr l4Vzllzam Sentner, of St Louis, Mo , and Mr James Payne of
Evansville, Ind , for the Union
Mr Bertram Diamond, of counsel to the-Board
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon a petition duly filed by United Electrical, Radio & Machine
Workers of America, affiliated with the C I 0, herein called the
Union, alleging that a question affecting commerce had arisen con-
cerning the representation of employees of Sunbeam Electric Manu-
facturing Co, Evansville, Indiana, herein called the Company, the
National Labor Relations Board, herein called the Board, provided for
an appropriate hearing upon due notice before Henry J Kent, Trial
Examiner Said heai ing was held at Evansville, Indiana, from June
17 to 19, 1942 The Board, the Company, and the Union appeared,
participated, and were afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine
and cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce evidence bearing on the
issues During the course of the hearing and in a brief submitted to
42 N L R B, No 160
825
826 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the Board, -counsel for the Company moved, to dismiss the petition
on the ground that at this time there could be no appropriate election
of certification of representatives For the reasons appearing in Sec-
tion V, below, the motion is hereby denied The Tiial Examiner's
rulings made at the hearing ale free from prejudicial errors and are
lhei eby affil med
On July 6, 1942, the Company and the Union filed, briefs which the
Board has consideied
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following
FINDINGS OF FACT
I THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
Sunbeam Electric Manufacturing Co , an Indiana coi poration with
its pi incipal office and place of business in Evansville, Indiana, was
until iecently engaged almost exclusively in the manufacture, sale,
and distribution of refrigerator units and cabinets At present the
Company is becomingzncrelsing^y,,engaged„]p w tr production n, Ap--
proximately 75 percent of the Company's raw materials are obtained
from points outside the State of Indiana Over 75 percent of the
Company's finished products are shipped to destinations outside the,
State of Indiana 1 The Company admits it is engaged in commerce
within the meaning of the Act.
lI THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America is a labor
organization affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations,
admitting to membership employees of the Company
III TIIE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
On February 25, 1942, the Union Iequested recognition as the exclu-
sive bargaining agent for all the Company's employees in its plants
at Evansville, Indiana The Company denied the request On June
1, 1942, the Union offered to the Company to prove its majority by
consent election Apparently this offer was likewise declined by
the Company
A statement and a supplemental statement of the Regional Di-
rector, introduced into evidence at the hearing, indicate that 'the
' The above -stated facts concerning the operations of the Company are as set forth in the
Matter of Sunbeam Electric Manufacturing Co, and United Electrical , Radio cf Machine
Workers of America , affiliated with the C I 0, 34 N L R B 831 It was stipulated
by counsel for the Board and counsel for the Company that the operations of the Company
are substantially the same as set forth in the cited decision, except that the Company's
volume of business was substantially reduced because of the curtailment of refrigerator
production -
SUNBEAM ELECTRIC MANUFACTURING CO 827
Union represents a substantial number of employees in the unit
hereinafter found to be appropriate 1 1,
We find that a question has arisen concerning the repiesentation
of employees of the Company within the meaning of Section 9 (c)
and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act _
IV THE APPROPRIATE UNIT
The 'Union, and the^Company are- agreed that ^in .the event an, elec-
tion is ordered, the unit should include all production and maintenance
employees at the Company's four plants in Evansville, Indiana, and
exclude watchmen 3 and supervisory 4 employees A prior represen-
tation proceeding involving the same patties, initiated by a petition
filed in behalf of the Union in April 1941, iesulted in a Board decision
finding appropriate a unite consisting of production and maintenance
employees in Building 2 5 The finding was based on the extent of the
Union's oigaiization at that time The Union now claims it has
widened the scope of its oiganization Theie was considerable in-
legration of function, centralization, of, control, and community of
-administrative and personnel policies among all four plants in the
past, when the Company was making refrigerators; the iecoid shows
that these general, conditions do now and will continue to prevail in
the future as the Company increasingly devotes itself to war pro-
duction Under the circumstances we concur in the agreement of the
patties with respect to the main outlines of the appropriate unit
The Company and the Union are in disagreement over the inclusion
of technical 6 and clerical employees, all of whom the Company seeks
to include and the Union to exclude The Union has not organized or
sought to organize clerical and technical employees
2 The liegional Director reported that the Union submitted 1,578 applications for niem-
bership , membership cards, and authorisations foi iepiesentation , all beming apparently
genuine original,signatnies Of thertotal; 2i2 were duplicates -' Of-the lemlunurg cards,
266 were undated, 80 were dated 1937, 1 was dated 1938, 14 were dated 1940, 844 were dated
1941, 238 were dated Jinuaiy-Much 1942, and 139 were dated April-Trine 1942 Since the
Company refused to submit its pay roll, it was not possible to check the cards against a list
of eligible employees All cards stated the Company to be the employer of the signer As
stated below in Section V, on June 1, 1942, the Company had at least 1047 employees
3 At the hearing the Company asked that watchmen be included but modified its position
in its brief'
4Tlus term includes plant superintendents , assistant superintendents , gencial foremen,
department foremen , and leadmen
5 Matter of Sunbeam Electric Manufactui ing Co and United Electrical, Radio & Machine
Workris of America, affiliated with the C 1 O, 34 N L R B 831 The Union lost the
election, which wis held in September 1941 In March 1942, the Board found the Company
hid interfei ed with the conduct of the electtion , set aside the election , dismissed without
prejudice the oiiginal petition of the Union, and denied its motion to amend the Direction
of Election so as to enlarge the unit to a plant-wide one Matter of Sunbeam Electiie Co
and United Electi ical, Radio, & Machine 1l'oi ken s of America, affiliated with the C 1 'O , 41
N L R B 469
e The term does not include production and maintenance employees in the engineering
department , whom the Union seeks to include in the unit
828 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Clei ical employees w-oi k eithei in the general office in Building 1,
wheie they are supervised by the office manager, or are employed in the
other buildings, under the supervision of the plant managei. Unlike
production and maintenance employees, clerical employees are paid
on a salary basis In the previous representation proceeding clerical
employees were excluded from a production and maintenance unit in
Building 2 7 We shall likewise exclude clerical employees
Technical employees woik on the third floor of Building 1, in the
experimental building adjoining Building,, 1, and in other buildings
They are all under the supervision of the vice president in charge of
engineering In genei al, technical employees, such as mechanical
diaftsmen and blueprint men, are paid on a salary basis and have much
different qualifications than the production employees; a substantial
number of technical employees aie college graduates In accordance
with our customary policy, we shall exclude technical employees from
the appropriate unit
Upon the basis of the entii e record, we find that all production
and maintenance employees of the Company at its Evansville, Indiana,
plants, excluding clerical, technical, and supervisory employees, plant
superintendents, assistant superintendents, general foremen, depart-
ment foremen, leadmen, and watchmen, constitute a unit appropriate
for the purpose of collective baigainnng within the meaning of Section
9 (b) of the Act
V THE' DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
The Company contends that in view of the situation arising from
the cuitailment of its peace-time production and the conversion of
its facilities to `war woik, the Union's petition should be dismissed
because an election could not appropi iately be held at this time It
also asserts that, if an election is ordered, certain laid-off employees
should not be eligible to vote The Union takes the position that an
immediate election should be ordered and that all employees laid off
by reason of the cuitailment of refrigei ator pioduction should be
eligible to vote
Up to April 30, 1942, nnith the exception of a small amount of war
work which began in 1941, and which on the foregoing date required
about 50 employees, the Company was engaged solely in the manu-
factuie of household refrigerators By government ordeis effective
September 30, 1941, and January 1, 1942, the Company was obliged
to limit severely its refrigerator opeiations Pursuant to further
government order, the Company entirely discontinued the manufac-
ture of refrigerators on April 30, 1942 At the time of the hearing
(June 17, 1942), a large part of the Company's manufacturing facili-
*Matter of Sunbeam Electric Manufacturing Co and United Electrical Radio it Machine
Workers of America , affiliated with the C 1 0, 34 N L R B 831
SUNBEAM ELECTRIC MANUFACTURING CO 829
ties -,N as being convected to war work, although some service work on
refrigeratois was still being performed and some war pioducts were
already being pioduced It is anticipated that the number of those
employed in wat work will continue to niciease until the employment
peak is reached about February 1943.
Building 1 was pieviously used chiefly for the manufacture of
refrigeratoi units At the time of the heating, theie was a small
amount of war production going on-one pilot line was in operation
and the war job begun in 1941 was being continued Building 1 was
being fitted to manufacture equipment to be used for war opeiations
in Building 2 and elsewhere Building 2, which formerly made cabi-
nets, was at the time of the hearing being altered so as to enable it to
manufacture a war product, it was not in production Building 3
is chiefly devoted to service operations, which are expected to decline,
it is also now producing a war item Building 4 is used as a cential
refi igerator parts depot.
The statistics showing the employment picture follow Estimates
as to future employment ate, of course, dependent upon the acquisi-
tion of needed materials and similar contingencies The figuies repre-
sent employees actually working at production or maintenance in all
the Company's plants at Evansville
July 1,1941----------------------------'---------"-- ------- 2533
Octobei 1, 1941--------------------------------------------- 928
January 1, 1942-------------------------------------------- 1014
April 1, 1942--------------- _------------------------------ 1178
June 1, 1942 900
Febiuaiy 1, 1943------------------------------------------ 2500
The bulk of the lay-offs caused by the ieduction in operations took
place in the two-week period preceding October 1, 1941
It is not cleat what the figurds between June 1, 1942, and February
1, 1943, may be fn June 1942, the Company expects to hire somewhat
less than 150 persons, in August the monthly rate of expansion may
be about 200 There will be a gradual acceleration in hiring until the
peak is reached The Company will be close to its peak in December
1942
The 900 working on June 1, 1942, were doing the -following kinds
of work 196 were engaged in production and maintenance of war
work, 285 were engaged in converting plant facilities to war work,
56 were engaged in regular (or non-war production) maintenance and
toolroom work, 365 were engaged in regular work in the service depart-
ment, making service parts and receiving, shipping; and trucking in
connection with service work
The Company takes the position that it will ti ansfei any employees
on its present staff to war production when that becomes necessary
P
830 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
On June 1, 1942, the Company also had a preferential hiring list of
137 employees who had piesiously been laid off According to the
Company's brief, substantially all of these 137 have now been recalled
From the foregoing facts, it is apparent that the tenure of at least
1037 employees is assured and that the Company has aheadybegun to
engage in the type of production in which it will in the future for the
most part be engaged Under the circumstances disclosed by the rec-
ord we cannot giant the contention of the Company that no election
should be held until February 1943 We find that the policies of the
Act will best be effectuated through the resolution , by means of an
immediate election by secret ballot, of the question concerning repre-
sentation which has arisen
On June 1, 1942, there were approximately 1500 persons who were
laid off by the Company between September 1941 and June 1, 1942,
and who were not either working or on the Company's pieferential
hiring list The eligibility to vote of these 1500 employees is in issue.
Company officials 'anndd,iepresentatives , a,^,-%;aai^ed several reasons for
the position that the 1500 employees do not have a sufficient interest
in the outcome of the election to warrant permitting their to partici-
pate therein First, the 1500 employees, unlike the others laid off
by reason of the curtailment of operations, were required to sign
"termination of employment agreements " Second, the Company
has not yet decided whether it will recall these former employees
before lining new ones Third , whereas formerly 16 percent of its
employees were women , it is anticipated that war production will
change that figure to 60 percent.
The record shoiNs that the "termination of employment agree-
ments" are release slips which give the reason for separation, these
slips are signed by the.employees Practically all of then slips signed
by the 1500 employees in question gave lack of work as the reason for
separation These slips have been in use,for many years, in the past
employees who had signed them were nevertheless recalled by the
Company when needed The practice has been that if any employee
was recalled within 6 months he retained his seniority Company
representatives did not deny that ups until recently its practice was
to'prefer laid off employees to new ones; they also stated that they
would apply that policy to the 1037 working or on the; preferential
list on June 1, 1942 How ever, Company representatives asserted
that, in view of the unusual character of the present situation , no de-
cisfon has beefs ' i eached as to whether ' the-ott'nei \vise =nor malt ennploy-
ment policy would be applied to the 1500 employees They pointed
out that the government had urged them to employ -,w ommen, that the
new punchpress machine operations would be suitable for w omen and
that the labor supply situation in Evansville, where war industry
SUNBEAM ELECTRIC MANUFACTURING Co. 831
is expanding substantially, would necessitate the employment of
women No large-scale check has yet been undertaken by the Com-
pany to determine what percentage of those laid off would be likely
to return if called Company representatives indicated that this was
the cr-ucial issue upon which the decision to%recall former, employees
hinges
In the light of the entire record, and particularly in view of the
fact that the Company has followed the piactice-of preserving for 6
ruonths the seniority rights of lard-off employees, we find that those
'employees laid off for lack of available work -,w ithm the 6 months'
period immediately preceding the date of the Direction of Election
herein shall be eligible to vote in the electron Persons laid off more
than 6 months before the date of the Direction of Election herein
shall not be eligible to vote in the election and shall not be considered
as falling in the class of temporarily _laid-off employees within the
meaning of the Direction of Election herein
The're'°rsr'also` ari rssile ctincerririrg the ;err ibilityuif probationary
employees to vote In the past new employees accumulated no senior-
ity for the first 6 months of their employment The Union contends
such employees should be ineligible The Company takes the view
that it does not know whether in the future there will be any proba-
tionary employees Since any probationary employees that may be
employed will have a substantial interest in the outcome of the elec-
tion, we are of the opinion that they should be eligible to vote
We shall, therefore, direct that the employees of the Company eli-
gible to vote in they election shall be those employees in the appropri-
ate unit who were employed during the pay-Ioll period immediately
preceding the date of the Direction of Election herein, subject Lo
the limitations and additions set forth in this section and rn- the
Direction
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National
Labor Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Rela-
tions Act, and pursuant to Article III, Section 8, of National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations-Series 2, as amended, it is
hereby
DIIU:CTED that, as part of the investigation ordered by the Board
to ascertain representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining
with Sunbe1m''Electric Manufacturing Co; Evansville, Indiana,` an
election by secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but
not later than thirty (30) days from the date of this Direction,
under the direction and superrvision of the Regional Director for
the Eleventh Region, acting in this matter as agent for the National
k
832 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Labor Relations Board, and subject to Article III, Section 9, of said
Rules and Reg ilat.ons, among the employees in the unit found appro-
priate in Section IV, above, who weie employed at the Company's
Evansville, Indiana, plants during the pay-roll period immediately
preceding the date of this Dii ection, including any such employees
who did not work during said pay-roll peiiod because they were ill
of on vacation or in the active military service or training of the
United States, or temporarily laid off, but excluding any who have,
since quit or been discharged for cause, to determine whether or not
they desire to be represented by United Electrical, Radio & Machine
Workers of America, affiliated with the C I 0, for the purposes of
collective bargaining
I