Buhrke Industries, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 20, 1974

209 N.L.R.B. 812 (N.L.R.B. 1974)

812 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Buhrke Industries , Inc. and Tool and Diemakers
Lodge No . 113, International Association of Ma-
chinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, Peti-
tioner. Case 13-AC-27
March 20, 1974
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS JENKINS
AND KENNEDY
On May 17, 1973, the Regional Director for Region
13 issued a Decision and Order in the above-entitled
proceeding in which he granted the Petitioner's
request to amend its certification, in effect, to clarify
its existing certified unit of employees at the
Employer's Arlington Heights, Illinois, plant, by
adding thereto the employees of A-R Tool and
Engineering, Inc., hereinafter referred to as A-R.1
Thereafter, the Employer, in accordance with Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules
and Regulations, as amended, filed a timely request
for review of the Regional Director's Decision on the
grounds that in concluding that A-R's employees are
accretions to the Petitioner's existing unit, he made
findings of fact which are clearly erroneous and
departed from officially reported precedent.
On July 2, 1973, by telegraphic order, the request
for review was granted and the case was remanded to
the Regional Director for the purpose of conducting
a hearing. Pursuant to such order a hearing was held
before a Hearing Officer on August 2 and 10 at
Chicago, Illinois. Thereafter, the parties filed briefs
on review.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the rulings of the
Hearing Officer made at the hearings and finds that
no prejudicial error was committed. The rulings are
hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the entire
record in this case, including undisputed findings of
fact made by the Regional Director in his Decision,
and the parties' briefs on review, and makes the
following findings:
The Employer contends, inter alia, that the employ-
ees of A-R share a separate and distinct community
of interest and do not, therefore, constitute accre-
tions to the Petitioner's existing unit. We agree.
1 The Regional Director treated the instant AC proceeding as a request
for clarification
2 are unit description contained in the Petitioner 's most recent contract,
executed May 27, 1971, is identical , except that maintenance men are also
designated as a specific exclusion from the unit
3 Building B was built as a "duplex," with two sets of offices,
lunchrooms , receiving docks, etc ., because the Employer originally had
209 NLRB No. 126
The Petitioner was certified in April 1969 for a unit
of all toolroom employees, including the toolcrib
attendant, but excluding production employees,
among others, employed by Buhrke Tool and
Engineering, Inc., at its Arlington Heights plant.2
The excluded production employees, 18-20 in num-
ber, were engaged' in stamping operations. The
Petitioner's toolroom unit, since its certification, has
consisted of 35-45 employees. In September 1970, as
a result of a corporate reorganization, the Employer
was created, and Buhrke Tool & Engineering
Company and Buhrke Stamping Company, referred
to herein as Tool & Engineering and Stamping,
respectively, were formed as divisions of the Employ-
er. Fred W. Buhrke is the president and sole
stockholder of the Employer and is the president of
each of the two divisions.
At the time of the reorganization Tool & Engineer-
ing was engaged in the fabrication of new tools and
dies and specialized machinery for a number of
customers. About 13 percent of its work involved the
making of new dies for Stamping which uses them in
stamping out parts for its customers. Tool &
Engineering also devoted about 6 percent of its man-
hours to the repair and maintenance of Stamping's
dies.
In 1972, Buhrke Real Estate Corporation, also
controlled by Buhrke, built another plant at Arling-
ton Heights, directly south of the Employer's existing
plant, and leased the new plant, referred to herein as
Building B, to the Employer. In August 1972, the
Employer began and has since completed the
relocation of its Stamping and Tool & Engineering
divisions to Building B.3 Also, the Employer in
August 1972 subleased a small portion of Building B
to A-R.
From its inception in 1964, until its relocation to
Building B in 1972, A-R had been a small tool and
die company. Buhrke became majority shareholder
and president of A-R in the latter part of 1964.
Immediately prior to its move to Building B, A-R
was located at Mundelein, Illinois, 15 miles from
Arlington Heights. There, some of its business was
derived from manufacturing new dies and some from
repairing dies for Stamping and other customers.
During the fiscal year ending in mid-1973, nearly all
of A-R's business was with Stamping, repairing and
sharpening tools and dies for it.4 Just prior to its
relocation to Building B, A-R had only two or three
employees, one of whom transferred. That employee
planned to move only the Stamping division into one-half of the building
and to sublease the other half to a third party. However, a party offered to
rent the plant then occupied by the Employer, so the Employer accepted the
offer and decided to move both divisions to Building B
4 It appears that the great majority of these tools and dies are owned by
Stamping's customers
BUHRKE INDUSTRIES, INC. 813
and four new hires made up A-R's complement at
the start of its operations in Building B. At the
present time A-R has six employees, all classified as
die repairmen. Gust Olson, A-R's foreman, had
formerly been a leadman in the Petitioner's unit.
The Employer occupies 35,000 square feet in
Building B which is a two-story building. Tool &
Engineering is in one-half of the building; Stamping
and A-R are in the other half. A-R has 1,610 square
feet in a comer of the first floor. The two halves of
the building are separated by a wall. An electrically
operated overhead door, in the wall, may be opened
with a key, on request made to a supervisor. Another
wall, with an open passageway, marks off the space
occupied by A-R.
Although unit employees may have occasion to
enter Stamping's area,5 they and A-R's employees do
not interchange and rarely have contact with each
other in the course of their work. Tool & Engineering
supervision has no authority with regard to A-R
personnel. Stamping at present has 29 employees
under Division Manager Massi and Pressroom
Foreman Maguria. Massi's office is in A-R's leased
space, adjacent to Olson's office. The stamping
inspector's office is also located in A-R's area.
Stamping's employees bring stamped parts to him for
inspection. Olson consults with Massi and Maguria
each day with regard to repair work orders, work
priorities, and the scheduling of overtime. A-R
employees are frequently in the Stamping area to
make necessary adjustments on dies, to test dies
being repaired, and to pick up and deliver dies. A-R
has its own toolcrib for the everyday duties of its
employees.
A-R employees generally enter Building B through
the Stamping entrance. Their breaks and lunch
periods are the same as Stamping's. They use
vending machines and restroom facilities located in
the Stamping area.
The Petitioner contends that because of the
common ownership and control and the integration
s Such occasions apse when it becomes necessary to test a new die
during the fabrication process, to make sample parts with a new die, to
consult on dies being used by Stamping , or to pick up dies that must be
repaired by unit employees. At present , about 3 percent of Tool &
of operations of A-R and the Employer, the close
geographic proximity of the two operations, and the
fact that much of the die repair work done by A-R
was formerly done by employees in its unit, the
employees of A-R should be viewed as accretions to
its existing unit. However, in our view, other factors
are of greater significance herein. Thus, the Employ-
er is comprised of two divisions, Tool & Engineering
and Stamping, each engaged in different operations.
Further, Stamping's production and maintenance
employees have not been included in the Petitioner's
unit, and they have remained unrepresented. We
note that immediately prior to A-R's move from
Mundelein to Building B, its two or three employees
were engaged at times in repairing dies for Stamping;
and one of them transferred to Building B. And after
the relocation, all employees added to A-R's comple-
ment have been new hires. Thus, none except the
foreman have been transferred from Tool & Engi-
neering. Significantly, the employee complements of
A-R and Tool & Engineering each share separate
facilities, are under separate supervision, are separat-
ed by a wall, do not interchange, and have infrequent
work contact. Finally, at the present time, as above
shown, A-R's operations are closely integrated with
those of Stamping, and the employees of A-R share a
far greater community of interest with employees of
Stamping than with those of Tool & Engineering. In
these circumstances, we find that the employees of
A-R do not share such a community of interest with
employees in the Petitioner's unit as to require their
inclusion as accretions thereto.6
Accordingly, we shall deny the Petitioner's request
for clarification, and we shall dismiss its petition
herein.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition herein be, and
it hereby is, dismissed.
Engineering's man-hours are devoted to repair work.
6 See Industrial Siderurgica, Inc., 147 NLRB 975. In reaching this
conclusion , we find it unnecessary to decide whether A-R and Tool &
Engineering constitute a single employer for unit purposes.