United States Steel Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 7, 1941

33 N.L.R.B. 1248 (N.L.R.B. 1941)

In the Matter of THE NATIONAL TUBE COMPANY, SUBSIDIARY OF UNITED
STATES STEEL CORPORATION and LOCAL 1640, INTERNATIONAL LONG-
SHOREMEN 'S ASSOCIATION (A. F. OF L.)
Case No.-.t'661.-Decided August 7, 1941
Jurisdiction : steel and tubular products manufacturing industry.
Unit Appropriate for Collective Bargaining : dock workers in steel plant held
inappropriate; bargaining history; integrated nature of plant, and nature of
organization in industry generally, considered.
Practice and Procedure : petition dismissed where no appropriate unit within
scope of petition.
Company's "cross-petition" requesting plant-wide unit, dismissed, since
no labor organization requested certification within such unit and conflict
between union concerning the appropriate unit had been resolved by dis-
missal of petition.
Mr. B. L. Rawlins, Jr., and Mr. L. L. Lewis, of Pittsburgh, Pa.,
for the Company.
Mr. Michael Joseph Estolc, of Lorain, Ohio, Mr. Simon P. O'Brien,
of Buffalo, N. Y., and Mr. Albert C. Warner, of Elyria, Ohio, for
the I. L. A.
Mr. Joseph Kovner, of Washington, D. C., and Mr. Meyer Bern-
stein, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for the S. W. O. C.
Mr. William F. Donovan, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Mr. Charles
Skolnak, of Lorain, Ohio, for Local 1.104.
Mr. Charles W. Schneider, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
ORDER
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
On March 29, 1941, Local 1640, International Longshoremen's As-
sociation (A. F. of L.), herein called the I. L. A., filed with the Re-
gional Director for the Eighth Region (Cleveland, Ohio) a petition
alleging that a question affecting commerce had arisen concerning
the representation of employees of The National Tube Company,
Subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation, Lorain, Ohio, herein
called the Company, and requesting an investigation and certification
of representatives pursuant to Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
33 N. L It B., No. 210
1248
THE NATIONAL TUBE COMPANY 1249
,Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, herein called the Act. On May 16, 1941,
the National Labor Relations Board, herein called the Board, acting
pursuant to Section 9 (c) of the Act, and Article III, Section 3, of
National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations-Series 2,
as amended, ordered an investigation and authorized the Regional
Director to conduct it and to provide for an appropriate hearing upon
due notice.
On May 29, 1941, the Regional Director issued a notice of hearing,
and on June 4, 1941, an order postponing hearing, copies of both of
which were duly served upon the Company, the I. L. A., and also
upon Steel Workers Organizing Committee, herein called' the
S. W. O. C., a labor organization claiming to represent employees di-
rectly affected by the investigation. Pursuant to notice, a hearing
was held on June 23, 1941, at Toledo, Ohio, before Max W. Johnstone,
the Trial Examiner duly designated by the Chief Trial Examiner.
The Company, the I. L. A., and the S. W. O. C.' were represented by
counsel and participated in the hearing. Full opportunity to be
heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and, to introduce evi-
dence bearing on the issues was afforded all parties. The Company,
at the hearing, filed an "Answer and Cross Petition" in which it
averred that it was confronted with conflicting claims by labor organi-
zations at its Lorain plant, and in which it requested an investigation
and certification of representatives. It also moved to dismiss the peti-
tion. The S. W. O. C. moved to dismiss both the petition and the
cross-petition. The Trial Examiner refered the motions to dismiss
to the Board. For the reasons set forth in Section III below, the
motions are granted. During the course of the hearing the Trial Ex-
aminer made several other rulings on motions and on objections to the
admission of evidence. The Board has reviewed the rulings of the
Trial Examiner and finds that no prejudicial errors were committed.
The rulings are hereby affirmed. The Company and the S. W. O. C.
filed briefs which the Board has considered.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
The National Tube Company is a New Jersey corporation whose
voting stock is wholly owned by United States Steel Corporation. It
is engaged in the manufacture, fabrication, and sale of steel and tubular
products. In connection with its business the Company owns and op-
erates plants in the following cities : Lorain, Ohio ; Ellwood City,
i S. W. O . C. Local Union 1104 also appeared.
1250 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
McKeesport, and Versailles, Pennsylvania. It maintains its principal
office at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and sales offices in the principal
cities of the United States. The chief raw materials used at the
Lorain works, the only plant directly involved in this proceeding, are
iron ore, limestone, coking coal, and byproduct -coke. During the
calendar year 1940, the Company received at the Lorain works ap-
proximately 2,598,017 tons of iron ore, 612,614 tons of limestone, and
1,531,597 tons of coking coal. All these raw materials were shipped to
Lorain from points outside the State of Ohio. During the calendar
year 1940, the Company shipped from Lorain approximately 1,128,799
tons of steel and steel products, and 39,739 tons of coke and coke by-
products, approximately 72 percent of which were shipped to points
outside the State of Ohio.
H. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
Local 1640, International Longshoremen's Association, is a labor
organization affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, admit-
ting to membership employees of the Company. 1
Steel Workers Organizing Committee is a labor organization af-
filiated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, admitting to
membership employees of the Company. It has chartered Local Union
1104 at the Lorain plant.
III. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT
The I. L. A. requests a unit composed of the dock workers at the
Lorain plant, excluding supervisors. The Company requests a unit
of all employees at the Lorain plant, excluding foremen, assistant fore-
men, supervisors, watchmen, guards,'clerical and salaried employees.
It urges that the petition be dismissed. The S. W. O. C. contends
that both the petition and the cross-petition should be dismissed be-
cause (1) no question of representation exists, and (2) neither the
petition nor the cross-petition requests an appropriate unit because
the proper unit is company-wide. The S. W. O. C., however, does not
request a company-wide election at this time.
The Lorain plant of the Company is a complete steel-producing and
fabricating plant employing approximately 9,000 persons. The prin-
cipal raw materials (iron ore and limestone) are received by lake ship-
ment at the docks, on the Company's property. These materials are
unloaded by the dock workers, who also load some steel for water
shipment, tend the stock piles, and operate the machinery about the
dock. The Company classifies dock workers, of whom there are 131,
into 11 categories of employment, among which are electricians, bridge
operators and oilers, hulett operators and oilers, and machinists. The
remainder of the dock workers are either common or specialized
THE NATLONAL TUBE COMPANY 1251
laborers. The huletts and bridges are mechanical devices, similar, re-
spectively, to scoops and cranes.
The docks are under the supervision of the dock superintendent, who
also supervises the plant's slag crusher. The department is not a fixed
division. At various times in the past the dock has been combined for
managerial purposes with the blast furnaces, the coke plant, or both.
The work is seasonal. When navigation ceases on the lakes (5 months
of the year) most of the dock workers are transferred to other parts
of the plant, wherever they can be used. The hulett operators repair
and recondition their machinery and report to' the plant-wide Main-
tenance Department during this period. The dock electricians are
permanently under the Maintenance Department. Dock workers are
interchanged with other departments in emergencies, and, as often as
two or three times a week, help is sent to the docks from elsewhere in
the plant to assist in loading steel. Seniority is on a plant-wide basis.
Wage rates are similar throughout the plant.
The I. L. A. began organizing the Lorain plant in October 1940,
and made its first request for recognition among the dock workers
about January 1,1941.2 The S. W. O. C. began organization at Lorain
in September 1936, and secured its first contract with the Company
for the Lorain employees on March 17, 1937, on a company-wide basis.
Contractual relations have been maintained continuously since that
time. The current contract was entered into on April 1, 1941, and
has no definite expiration date. By it the S. W. O. C. is recognized
as bargaining agent for all its members in the Company's "steel man-
ufacturing and byproduct coke plants," excluding foremen, assistant
foremen, supervisors, watchmen, guards, clerical and salaried em-
ployees. In that contract the S. W. O. C. secured a 10-cent per hour
wage increase for all employees affected, a more liberalized vacation
plan, and certain miscellaneous improvements in working conditions,
particularly in the matter of grievance machinery. The dock workers
have been included in all these agreements and hive regularly par-
ticipated in the election of grievance committeemen for their depart-
ment, the latest election being as recent as June 1941. The S. W.
O. C.'s membership at Lorain includes practically the entire plant
and a substantial portion of the dock workers.3 Uncontested evi-
dence discloses that all the Great Lakes steel plants having docks are
organized on a plant-wide or company-wide basis.4 The I. L. A. has
' The I. L A. submitted to the Field Examiner 65 membership authorization cards bearing
"various dates from October 1940 to April 1941 " Sixty-four bole original signatures One
was typewritten . Sixty were the names of persons on the Company 's June 3, 1941, pay
roll.
0 The S. W 0 C 's financial secretary testified that the S W. 0 C. had 8,519 paid-up mem-
bers at Lorain at the end of May 1941, about 60 of whom were deck workers The total
hourly paid employment is about 9,000.
4 These include the following. Republic Steel, Otis Steel , and American Steel & Wire, at
Cleveland , Ohio; United States Steel-Gary Works , and Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company,
at Chicago , Illinois , Bethlehem Steel and Republic Steel at Buffalo, New York.
450122-42-vol 33-80 -
1252 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
no contracts at plants operated by the United States Steel Corporation
or any of its subsidiaries. All the S. W. O. C. contracts in the iron
and steel industry are uniformly on a plant-wide or company-wide
basis.
In view of the integrated operations of the plant, the employment
of the major portion of the dock workers in other parts of the mill
during the winter season, and the scope of collective bargaining in
the past at the Lorain plant and in the entire industry, we find that
the unit sought to be established by the I. L. A. in the present case is
not appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.
Under Article III, Section 2 (b), of the Board's Rules and Regula-
tions-Series 2, as amended, an employer is permitted to file a petition
for investigation and certification where two labor organizations pre-
sent conflicting claims as to representation. In view of the fact that
the only conflict among labor organizations with respect to the Com-
pany's employees concerned the appropriateness of a unit of dock
workers, which conflict has been resolved by our determination herein,
and since no labor organization desires to represent employees on the
basis suggested by the Company, we find that the Company's cross-
petition has not raised a question concerning representation within
the purview of the Act and said Rules and Regulations.'
IV. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
Since, as pointed out in Section III above, the. bargaining unit
sought to be established by the petition is inappropriate for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining at the Lorain plant of the Company,
and since no question concerning representation has been raised by
the Company's cross-petition, we find that no question has been raised
concerning the -representation of employees in an appropriate bar-
gaining unit.
Upon the basis of the above findings of fact and upon the entire
record in the case, the Board makes the following : '
CONCLUSION OF LAW
No question concerning the representation of employees at the
Lorain plant of The National Tube Company, Subsidiary of United
States Steel Corporation, Lorain, Ohio, has arisen in a unit appro-
priate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act.
6 It may be noted that while Article III, Section 2 (b), of the Rules and Regulations pro-
vides that an employer may file a petition stating the claims of the conflicting labor organi-
zations relative to the appropriate unit , it makes no provision permitting him to request
certification within the unit which lie may claim to be appropriate.
THE NAnONAL TUBE COMPANY 1253
ORDER
Upon the basis of the above findings of fact and conclusion of law,
the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders that the petition
and the cross-petition for investigation and certification of repre-
sentatives filed, respectively, by Local 1640, International Longshore-
men's Association (A. F. of L.) and The National Tube Company,
Subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation, Lorain, Ohio, be, and
they hereby are, dismissed.
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