Bulova Research and Development Laboratories, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsNov 24, 1954

110 N.L.R.B. 1036 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

1036 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD BULOVA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT LABORATORIES , INC. and INTER- NATIONAL UNION OF ELECTRICAL RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS, CIO, PETITIONER . Case No. 2-RC-6461. November 24, 1954 Decision and Order Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Aaron Weissman, hearing officer.' The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing 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 meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent employees. of the Employer.' 3. The hearing officer referred to the Board the Employer's motion to dismiss the petition on the ground that the Regional Director had no jurisdiction to issue the notice of hearing in this proceeding. The facts concerning this contention of the Employer are as follows: On February 12, 1954, after an investigation, the Regional Director issued" an order dismissing the petition. The Petitioner made a request for review to the Board within the time provided therefor, and while the matter was pending before the Board, the Regional Director made a request for remand of the case. The Employer contends that, after the Regional Director's dismissal of the petition, there was no longer anything before the Regional Director upon which he could base any further proceedings or issue a notice of hearing, as the Act does not contain a specific enabling provision permitting the Regional Director to ask for a remand of any case pending for review before the Board. The Employer further contends that the remand was improperly executed because there was no reasonable notice to any of the parties of the Regional Director's intention to alter or modify his prior de- cision, and in the absence of such notice, the remand should not have been requested by the Regional Director. The Regional Director in dismissing the petition proceeded pur- suant to Section 102.63 of the Board's Rules and Regulations and thereafter pursuant to Section 101.17 of the Board's Statements of Procedure, which set forth the Regional Director's authority to with- draw such action. The Regional Director's dismissal having been i The petition and other formal papers are hereby amended to show the correct name of the Employer as it appears in the caption. 2 Tool and Die Makers Association of Bulova Watch Company , herein called the Asso- ciation, intervened and appeared at the hearing in order to protect its interests with respect to the tool - and die-makers it represents. The Bulova Watch Company Employee Representative Group , herein called the Employee Group, did not appear at the hearing although notified of the hearing and requested to appear The Employee Group has never been in compliance with the filing requirements of the Act 110 NLRB No. 163. BULOVA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT LABORATORIES, INC. 1037 appealed within the time provided therefor, his action had not become final and, consequently, could effectively have been withdrawn. There is nothing in the Act or the Board's Rules and Regulations that re- ,quires the Regional Director to serve notice upon the parties of his intention to withdraw his dismissal. The parties were advised by the Board prior to the notice of hearing that the Board was remanding the proceedings to the Regional Director for further processing. Moreover, the Employer was in no way prejudiced by the Regional Director's action. We therefore find no merit in the Employer's position, and hereby deny its motion to dismiss the petition, on this ground. We find that a 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. 4. The Petitioner seeks a unit limited to all of the Employer's pro- duction and maintenance employees, including model shop employ- ees, working at the Jackson Heights, Long Island, plant, but excluding office clerical employees, professional employees, guards, watchmen, supervisors, and all production and maintenance employees, and tool- and die-makers employed by Bulova Watch Co., Inc., herein called Bulova. Although at the hearing the Petitioner included the Em- ployer's tool- and die-makers in its unit request, it changed its posi- tion in a brief filed with the Board after the hearing. It now urges that the Board grant the tool- and die-makers and their apprentices and helpers a self determination election, asserting that these em- ployees constitute a true craft group. The Employer contends that only a single unit of the Employer's and Bulova's production and maintenance employees, excluding tool- and die-makers is appropri- ate. It asserts that the Employer is an integral part of the Bulova organization, that it is operating merely as a research department of Bulova, and that all decisions that are made regarding it, affect Bulova itself. The Employer further contends that Bulova's "Noti- fication to Employees" covers its employees as well as those working for Bulova. The Association takes the same unit position as does the Employer. It further contends that its contract with Bulova covers the Employer's tool- and die-makers as well as Bulova's. The Asso- ciation requests that in the event the Board directs an election among the Employer's production and maintenance employees, the Employ- er's tool- and die-makers and their apprentices and helpers should be given an opportunity to vote as to whether they wish to be sepa- rately represented. The Employer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bulova. Bulova is engaged in the manufacture of watch movements and defense items for the United States Government. It maintains plants in Woodside and Valley Stream, and a new plant in Jackson Heights, Long Island. 1038 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Some of the Woodside and most of the Valley Stream operations have already been moved to Jackson Heights, and it is expected that the remainder of these operations will be moved to Jackson Heights within the next few weeks. The Employer was organized in Decem- ber 1950 for the sole purpose of developing products which could be readily manufactured by Bulova.1 A separate corporate framework was set up for the Employer for bookkeeping purposes, because most of the contracts awarded to the Employer are at cost plus a fixed fee. It was planned that the Employer would concentrate only on the scientific aspects of research and development, and that Bulova's employees would do the work on mass production orders, in so far as its facilities permitted. Any work for which Bulova lacked the capacity was to be subcontracted to other firms. At its inception, the Employer did not have any manufacturing facilities, and the only production work done was in turning out prototypes and a lim- ited number of items for evaluation purposes. The Employer was composed of an engineering department, a laboratory, a drafting room, a model shop, receiving and shipping departments, a stock- room, a production control department, and the comptroller's depart- ment. It also employed a small group of inspectors and assemblers, who inspected and assembled parts which came from subcontractors. All but one of the Employer's directors are also directors or officers of Bulova. They are compensated by Bulova and serve on the Em- ployer's board of directors without any compensation from the Em- ployer.' Overall policies of the Employer are formulated by Bulova. Bulova makes decisions as to the Employer's production, personnel pol- icies, wages, hours, and employees' working conditions. Bulova also determines which contracts the Employer shall accept, and on what terms they shall be accepted. The Employer's board of directors do not make any policy decisions without conferring with Bulova's board of directors. Bulova's vice president in charge of manufacturing is directly in charge of all production for both the Employer and Bul- ova. The Employer's vice president and general manager is directly responsible to the chairman of Bulova's board of directors. He re- ports, however, to the Employer's board of directors every month. Bulova's internal auditing department does the accounting work for the Employer, and prepares tax statements and other statements for the Employer. The Employer's comptroller prepares a payroll for its employees, which is submitted to Bulova for execution. All hiring of the Employer's production employees is done through Bulova's 3 The idea of a research and development laboratory developed from Bulova 's attempt to get production contracts to keep its facilities constantly employed, because of a cut- back in the production of jeweled watch movements At the time of the hearing, the majority of Bulova employees were working on military items. 4General of the Army Omar Bradley , the chairman of the Employer's board of direc- tors , is the only director who is not an officer or director of Bulova BULOVA RESEARCH.AND DEVELOPMENT LABORATORIES, INC. 1039) personnel department, under the supervision of Bulova's personnel' director. The Employer's personnel department, however, hires its. professional, technical, and model shop employees. In July 1953, because of the shortage of space at Woodside, a group of approximately 60 employees from Bulova's engineering depart- ment, under W. Bennett, were moved to the first floor of the new plant at Jackson Heights.' In September 1953, the Employer moved from Valley Stream to the Jackson Heights plant.' Its employees were placed in an area on the first floor next to Bennett's group of em- ployees. Shortly after the Employer moved to Jackson Heights, it received criticism from the Defense Department because it had sub- contracted the tooling and first production runs on certain items it had developed. The manufacture of tools, parts, and preproduction models had been given to outside contractors when the plant was in Woodside, because Bulova was not then in a position to take on such production. On September 29, the Employer's president requested the chairman of Bulova's board of directors to make available to the Employer Bulova's tooling and production facilities, stating that the Employer had been given the contracts to develop these particular items with the understanding that the followup of tooling and pro- duction would be done by Bulova. On October 2, arrangements were made to assign several groups of Bulova employees, who were a'ready located in the Jackson Heights plant, to do work for the Employer. These were a part of Bennett's machine shop, toolroom, and assembly departments, which were put under the immediate supervision of A. Brunner, and the special toolmaking department. The manufactur- ing engineering department and the quality control and inspection department were also assigned to the Employer. At the same time, there was a considerable amount of machinery and equipment trans- ferred from Bulova to the Employer. On October 19, 1953, the em- ployees who were transferred to do production work for the Employer, were transferred from Bulova's to the Employer's payroll. Before the merger of these employees, the Employer had 30 production em- ployees, 10 in the model shop, 10 in the assembly department, and 10 in the inspection department. At the time of the hearing, there were approximately 104 employees working in the Employer's production departments, about 40 of whom had been transferred from Bulova to the Employer? With the exception of two other employees who later transferred from Bulova to the Employer, and those on the Em- ployer's payroll before October 1953, the remainder of the production At this time only some space on the first floor was ready for occupancy. The Employer was first located in New York City. It then moved to Woodside, and in 1952 it again moved to Valley Stream 7In -September 1953, the Employer had approximately 136 employees on its payroll. On January 15, 1954, the Employer had 274 employees on its payroll, including profes- sional and technical employees. 1040 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD employees have been hired from the outside. The Employer has no maintenance employees on its payroll. All maintenance work is done by Bulova's maintenance employees. After the Bulova employees were transferred to the Employer, they continued to do some work for Bulova. The cost of the work done by the Employer's employees for Bulova is charged to Bulova. Each job is identified on a timecard which the employee punches, and which shows the accounting department how to allocate the cost of the em- ployee's work. The same foreman supervises their work whether it is for the Employer or Bulova. The number of hours the Employer's employees devote to Bulova's work fluctuates. The record shows that, since October 1953, the Employer's manufacturing division has been enlarged, as the Employer has been reducing the amount of work it subcontracts. Consequently, the Employer's production employees now devote more time to the Employer's production work The Em- ployer's model shop employees, however, devote their time exclusively to the Employer's work. None of the production employees under Brunner's supervision do any watch work.' Although the operations are similar, the work in the production areas which Brunner super- vises is different from that done in the Bulova production areas. The work in the toolroom areas, however, is similar to that of the Bulova toolroom, and some of the toolroom employees do some watch work. There are no regular assembly-line operations in the Employer's pro- duction departments, and no mass production of parts or items by the Employer's employees. It is contemplated that contracts for the mass production of the items which the Employer develops will be turned over to Bulova. The record indicates that the skills, employee benefits, and working conditions of the employees of both companies are substantially the same. Many employees in Bulova production departments, however, work on an incentive basis, whereas there is no incentive system for the Employer's employees. Seniority is companywide, and service in any Bulova plant in the United States is counted in determining an employee's seniority, whether on the Employer's or Bulova's payroll. Since the initial transfer of some of Bulova's employees to the Em- ployer in October 1953, there have been only a few transfers of em- ployees between the Employer and Bulova. There is no temporary interchange of employees between the Employer and Bulova. Since about 1938, Bulova has bargained with two different groups : (1) The Association, representing Bulova's tool- and die-makers, and (2) the Employee Group, representing Bulova's production and tool manufacturing employees. On March 10, 1954, Bulova and the Em- 8 At the time of the hearing there were 70 employees under Brunner 's supervision, including 25 tool - and die -makers and their apprentices . Approximately 30 of these em- ployees had been hired from the outside. BULOVA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT LABORATORIES, INC. 1041 ployee Group signed a "Notification to Employees," which sets out the terms and conditions of employment for the production and tool manufacturing employees. The "Notification" is between "The Bulova Watch Company, Inc.," and "the employees of the Bulova Watch Company, Inc., Woodside Division." The recognition clause states that the "term employees shall include all production and tool manufacturing employees, exclusive of tool and die makers, super- visory, control and clerical employees, located at the Woodside plant and at Bulova Park, Jackson Heights, N. Y." No representative of the Employer's employees signed the "Notification," although it was signed by 27 employee representatives from different sections or de- partments in Bulova's plants. On February 24, 1953, Bulova and the Association executed an agreement to be effective until February 28, 1954, covering all "tool and die makers employed by the Bulova Watch Company, Inc., Woodside Division, inclusive of the Watch and Fuse Manufacturing Division and Engineering Division." At the time of the hearing, Bulova and the Association were negotiating a new con- tract. The record shows that some of the Employer's tool- and die- makers are members of the Association, and that the Association has processed two grievances for the Employer's tool- and die-makers. It is clear from the foregoing facts, including the centralized managerial control of operations, the extent to which these operations are integrated, the common control and determination of labor poli- cies, the same geographic location of the 2 companies, the staffing of the Employer with Bulova's production employees, the similarity of working skills, the uniformity of wages, hours, and working condi- tions of the 2 companies, that the Employer is merely an extension of Bulova's operations, and that the 2 companies together constitute a single Employer within the meaning of Section 2 (2) of the Act.9 We therefore find that the production employees of both the Employer and Bulova constitute a single appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bargaining.10 The Employer's production employees and tool- and die-makers, respectively are in effect no more than an addi- tion to existing units of categories of employees similar to those already part of the units. It therefore follows that the Employer's production employees and its tool- and die-makers are, respectively, included in the units which have been represented by the Association and the Employee Group since 1938.11 In these circumstances, we find that the proposed units limited to the Employer's employees are e Psel Brothers, 109 NLRB 894; Hawthorne-Mellody Farms Dairy of Wisconsin, Inc., 99 NLRB 212 , 213-214; Lloyd A. Fry Roofing Company and Volney Felt Mills, Inc, 92 NLRB 1170, 1172; Lone Star Producing Company, 85 NLRB 1137, 1142. I0 Aircraf t Engine Service, Inc., 102 NLRB 1326 , 1327-1328; Krueger Sentry Gauge Co., and Krueger Metal Products, Inc., 98 NLRB 420, 421. n As the Employer's production employees are part of the existing unit, it is imma- terial that they did not sign or ratify the "Notification." 338207-55-vol 110-67 1042 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD not appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.12 As the Petitioner does not wish to participate in an election in the larger unit, we shall dismiss the petition. [The Board dismissed the petition.] 12 The Board has held that the mere establishment of a new plant does not of itself justify holding a separate election among the employees of such plant to determine their bargaining representative. Saco-Lowell Shops, 107 NLRB 590; Birdsboro Armorcast, Inc., 101 NLRB 22, 24. CONTINENTAL CAN COMPANY, INC., PLANT No. 11 and AMALGAMATED LITHOGRAPHERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL 22, CIO, PETITIONER. Case No. 21-RC-3362. November 24, 1954 Decision and Direction of Election Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Floyd C. Brewer, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing 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 meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims 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 Employer operates a large number of plants scattered throughout the United States, Canada, and Cuba. Although princi- pally engaged in the production of metal containers decorated by lithography,' not all its plants have employees engaged in the litho- graphic process 2 The Petitioner, Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Local 22, CIO, hereafter called Lithographers, seeks to represent a group of employees in the Employer's plant #11, Los Angeles, California, en- gaged in the lithographic process, namely pressmen, pressfeeders, their respective apprentices, and the plate checker and repairman, excluding all other employees in the lithographic department and in the plant. These employees and all other production and mainte- nance employees at plant #11 have been represented since December 1 At an undisclosed number of plants the Employer apparently produces only fiber containers. 2 The record , however, discloses neither the total number of plants operated by the Employer nor the total number having employees engaged in the lithographic process. 110 NLRB No. 161.