United States Pipe & Foundry Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 18, 1949

87 N.L.R.B. 115 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter of UNITED STATES PIPE & FOUNDRY COMPANY, EMPLOYER
and INTERNATIONAL MOLDERS AND FOUNDRY WORKERS UNION OF
NORTII AMERICA, AFL, PETITIONER
Case No. 10-R'C-682.Decided November 18, 1949
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Morgan C.
Stanford, hearing officer. After evidence had been received with
respect to the business of the Employer, the labor organizations in-
volved, and the question concerning representation, each party, in
turn,.stated that it had no further evidence to present. Thereupon,
the Intervenor 1 moved to dismiss the petition for want of prose-
cution. The hearing officer referred the motion to the Board and, over
the Intervenor's objection, called a witness on his own initiative for
the purpose of, obtaining evidence with regard to the appropriate-
ness of the proposed unit.
We believe that the Intervenor misconceives the nature of repre-
sentation proceedings. They are not adversary, but are designed
merely to ascertain whether or not a question concerning representa-
tion exists. It is immaterial which party presents the factual ma-
terial for the record. It is only necessary that there be a full and
complete record, so that the Board will be in a position to decide all
the issues involved in the proceeding.' Accordingly, the Intervenor's
motion is denied. Moreover, we find that the hearing officer's rul-
ings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are
hereby affirmed.
The Intervenor's motion to dismiss the petition because of the in-
appropriateness of the unit sought is hereby denied, for reasons set
forth in paragraph 4, below.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
United Steelworkers of America, CIO, and its Local Union No. 3505. herein jointly
called the Intervenor. appeared at the hearing and moved to intervene on the ground of
their current contractual interest. The motion is herehy granted.
2 WVeyerlacuser Timber Company, 82 NLRB 820. footnote 1.
87 NLRB No. 23 . 115
877353-50-vol. 87-9
116 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Houston 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 organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees 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 appropriate unit; the determination of representatives:
The Petitioner seeks a unit composed of all apprentice and journey-
men molders and apprentice and journeymen coremakers at the Em-
ployer's Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant, excluding all other employ-
ees, office and clerical employees, foremen, guards, professional em-
ployees, and supervisors. The Intervenor contends that the only
appropriate unit is the existing unit of all production and mainte-
nance employees at the plant, with certain exclusions not here material.
The Employer takes no position with respect to the appropriate unit.
The Employer is engaged in the production of cast iron pressure
pipes and fittings, and employs approximately 550 employees at its
Chattanooga plant. The foundry, the machine shop, and the pat-
tern shop each occupies a separate building. The foundry is di-
vided into 4 departments : dry sand foundry, green sand foundry,
straight pipe foundry, and oil sand core room. Each department is
in charge of a separate foreman, and these 4 foremen report to a gen-
eral foundry foreman. There are approximately 350 employees in
the foundry. The unit sought by the Petitioner would consist of ap-
proximately 23 employees ,3 of whom 19 are employed in the dry sand
foundry, and 4 in the oil sand core room.
The journeymen molders and coremakers are the only skilled
workers, and the highest paid employees, in the foundry. There is
no interchange between coremakers, molders, and their apprentices,
and other employees. The Employer has establised a 4-year ap-
prenticeship for molders. While there is no similar apprenticeship
program sponsored by the Employer for its coremakers,4 the Em-
ployer considers 4 years' experience necessary for journeymen core-
makers, whom it hires from the outside.
It is clear that the employees here sought to be represented by the
Petitioner possess skills usually associated with their craft. The
3 Nine journeymen coremakers , 12 journeymen molders, and 2 apprentice molders.
4 This is because the Employer's operations are not broad enough to provide proper
training for apprentice coremakers.
UNITED STATES PIPE & FOUNDRY COMPANY 117
Board has recognized such employees as skilled .5 Accordingly,, we
are persuaded that the molders, coremakers, and their apprentices
comprise a cohesive and well-defined craft group clearly distinguish-
able from the remaining production and maintenance employees and
that their establishment as a separate collective bargaining group is
feasible.
The Intervenor, in arguing against setting up the molders and core-
makers in a separate unit, points to the history of collective bargaining
,on a plant-wide basis. In 1937 there was a plant-wide strike at the
Employer's plant. On September 23, 1943, the Employer and the
Petitioner entered into a collective bargaining contract covering the
production and maintenance employees, including the employees
sought herein. As the result of a Board-directed election 0 in which
both the Petitioner and the Intervenor participated, the Intervenor
was certified on March 18, 1946, as the bargaining agent for the pro-
duction and maintenance employees. Again on April 4, 1947, the
Intervenor was certified as the representative of the same unit, as the
result of a consent election in which the Petitioner and the Intervenor
both participated.' Thereafter, on June 2, 1947, the Employer and
the Intervenor executed a 2-year collective bargaining agreement.8
On April 27, 1949, the Petitioner filed a petition seeking a unit of. all
employees in the foundry, but this petition was later withdrawn.°
The instant petition was filed on July 19, 1949. It is also significant
that, as the result of a recent Board-directed self-determination elec-
tion,10 the Petitioner is now the certified bargaining agent of the
molders, molders' apprentices, coremakers, and coremakers' appren-
tices at the Employer's Bessemer, Alabama, plant, where a sister local
of the Intervenor has represented the production and maintenance
employees for over 9 years.
The Intervenor argues that the unit sought is based solely upon the
Petitioner's extent of organization. We find no merit in this con-
tention. Historically, the Board only considered extent of organi-
zation as a factor where there was no union willing or able to represent
the employees in a more extensive unit. That is certainly not the
case here. Moreover, we are not impressed with the emphasis placed
by the Intervenor on the Petitioner's shift of position. While it is
true that the Petitioner's original stand favored a unit which lumped
5 Sacks-Barlow Foundries , Inc., 79 NLRB 327 at p . 328; Texas Foundries, Inc., 83 NLRB
679 ; and United States Pipe and Foundry Company, 84 NLRB-954.
6 United States Pipe and Foundry Company, 65 NLRB 979.
4 Case No. 10-R-2530.
8 No party asserts that this contract is a bar to the instant proceedings.
Case No. 10-RC-586.
1 0 United States Pipe and Foundry Company, 84 NLRB 954.
118 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the molders and coremakers with the other production and mainte-
nance employees, that fact is not sufficient, in itself, to convince us that
the present petition should be dismissed. Furthermore, the Peti-
tioner's request for a separate unit of molders and coremakers herein
is consistent with its similar request with respect to the Employer's
Bessemer plant, which we granted, under a similar factual situation.
In our opinion, the bargaining history set forth above does not
preclude an election among the molders and coremakers at this time.
The Board has, in the past, granted self-determination elections to
similar groups.11 The Petitioner is currently the bargaining repre-
sentative of a separate group of molders and coremakers at another
of the Employer's plants. We therefore conclude that, despite the
bargaining history on a more comprehensive basis, the molders and
coremakers and their apprentices sought herein may, if they so desire,
constitute a. separate appropriate unit. However, as the continued
inclusion of these employees in the existing plant-wide unit may
also be appropriate, we shall not make any final determination of the
appropriate unit at this time, but shall first ascertain the desires of
the affected employees in the election hereinafter directed.
We shall direct that an election be held among all molders, molders'
apprentices, coremakers, and coremakers' apprentices employed at
the Employer's Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant, excluding supervisors,
as defined in the Act. If the employees participating in the election
select the Petitioner as their bargaining representative, they will be
taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate bargaining
unit.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION 12
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes 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 Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees in the
unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were
employed during the pay-roll period immediately preceding the date
of this Direction of Election, including employees who did not work
during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation or
11 See cases cited in Sacks-Barlow Foundry, Inc., supra, and United States Pipe and
Foundry Company, supra.
12 Any participant in the election directed herein may, upon its prompt request to, and
approval thereof by, the Regional Director, have its name removed from the ballot.
UNITED STATE'S PIPE & FOUNDRY COMPANY 119
temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have since
quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or rein-
stated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees
on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether
they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bargaining,
by International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North
America, AFL, or by United Steelworkers of America, CIO, and its
Local Union No. 3508, or by neither.