Clayton and Lambert Manufacturing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 10, 1949

83 N.L.R.B. 458 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter of CLAYTON AND LAMBERT MANUFACTURING COMPANY,
EMPLOYER and LODGE 681, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHIN-
ISTS, PETITIONER
Case No. 9-RC-378.-Decided May 10, 1949
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed on January 31, 1949, a hearing was held
before William A. McGowan, hearing officer of the National Labor
Relations Board. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing
are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection
with this case to a three-member panel [Members Houston, Reynolds,
and Murdock].
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The Petitioner and Intervenor are labor organizations claiming
to represent employees of the Employer.
3. The question concerning representation :
The Employer and the Intervenor 1 moved to dismiss the petition
on the ground that a collective bargaining agreement executed by
them on August 1, 1947, constitutes a bar to this proceeding. As the
agreement does not terminate until August 1, 1949, the motion would
be proper if the agreement otherwise satisfied Board requirements
for the application of the contract bar doctrine. However, the agree-
ment contains an infirmity which prevents it from being an effective
bar to a representation proceeding. Such infirmity is found in Article
IV of the contract, which provides that all employees covered by the
.contract and all new employees at the completion of their probationary
period, shall, as a condition of employment, become and remain mem-
bers of the Intervenor in good standing for the duration of the con-
tract. The Intervenor has not been certified by the Board pursuant
to Section 9 (e) (1) of the Act as being authorized to execute a
union-shop agreement. As the contract was entered into between the
1 United Steelworkers of America , Local 3845 , was granted intervention on the basis of
the contract with the Employer.
83 N. L. R. B., No. 72.
458
CLAYTON AND LAMBERT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 459
date of enactment (June,23, 1947) and the effective date of the Labor
Management --Relations Act, 1947, the union-security provision is
,clearly not lawful after its first anniversary date, August 1, 1948 2
The now invalid union-security provision operates to remove the
contract bar which might, in other circumstances, have been set up 3
We, therefore, find that the contract is not a bar to a present deter-
mination of representatives 4
Accordingly, we find that a question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of certain 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 Petitioner seeks a unit consisting of the Employer's toolroom
employees, including the tool and die makers, and the tool grinder
but excluding the tool crib keeper. The Employer and the Intervenor
eQntend that the requested employees do not constitute an appropriate
unit because (1) they are included in a unit of production and main-
tenance employees currently represented by the Intervenor and (2)
the Employer's operations are integrated in character. Alternatively,
the Employer contends that the requested employees should be estab-
lished in a unit together with the employees in the production machine
shop.
The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of automatic water
heaters and heat tools, such as blow torches and plumbers' fireboxes.
Its operations are carried on in departments which are separated from
each other by aisles. Assigned to the toolroom are 16 tool and die
makers, of whom 2 work on the night shift, 1 tool grinder, and a tool
crib keeper. The tool and die makers are all highly skilled craftsmen
who have served a 4-year apprenticeship. They design, fabricate, and
repair tools and dies. Their full time is devoted to these duties which
are performed in the toolroom although they are sometimes required
to go to production departments to make try-outs of the tools and dies
on which they work. The tool grinder grinds the tool and die sections.
The tool crib attendant, unlike the requested employees, does not de-
vote his full time to toolroom functions. He is responsible not only
for the tools used in the toolroom but for those used in the production
machine shop which adjoins the toolroom. There is a foreman in
charge of the toolroom who is an experienced tool and die maker.
While he also supervises the employees in the production machine
8 Section 102 , Labor Management Relations Act, 1947. There is no need for us to con-
sider the validity of the union-security provision during the first . year of the contract.
8 Matter of Ball Brothers Company of Californtia, 80 N. L. R. B 1316.
4 We find no merit to the contentions of the Employer and the Intervenor who claim that
the union-security provisions of the contract are not being strictly enforced and therefore,
they have no effect upon the contract 's validity . As we have previously held the "mere
existence of such a provision acts as a restraint upon those desiring to refrain from union
activities within the meaning of Section 7 of the Act." . See Matter of C. Hager and Sons
Hinge Manufacturing Company, 80 N. L . R. B. 163.
460 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
shop, there is no interchange between the two departments. The work
of the production machine shop, like that of the other production
workers, is routine in character, requiring no special training or
skills. Their rate of pay is not as high as that of the requested tool-
room employees who are the, highest paid non-professional employees
in the plant.
In view of the foregoing, we find that the toolroom employees sought
by the Petitioner constitute a cohesive and well-defined craft group
of a type which the Board has in the past found appropriate for bar-
gaining purposes, notwithstanding a history of collective bargaining
on a plant-wide basis.-' However, we shall make no unit determination
until we have first ascertained the desires of the employees involved
by means of our election directed below. If, in this election, the em-
ployees in the voting group described below select the Petitioner, they
will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate
appropriate unit. We shall not place the name of the Intervenor
on the ballot, as it has not complied with Section 9 (f),. (g), and (h)
of the Act.
We shall direct an election among the following employees in the
Employer's Louisville, Kentucky, plant :
All the toolroom employees including the tool and die makers and
the tool grinder, but excluding the tool crib attendant and all super-
visors as defined in the Act.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining with Clayton and Lambert Manufac-
turing Company, Louisville, Kentucky, 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-Series 5, as amended, among the em-
ployees in the voting group described in paragraph numbered 4, above,
who were employed during the pay-roll period imnlediately 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 vaca-
tion or temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have
since quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or
reinstated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding em-
ployees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine
whether or not they desire to be represented for purposes of collective
bargaining, by Lodge 681, International Association of Machinists.
6 Matter of International Harvester Company ( Indianapolis Works), 82 N. L. R. B.
740; Matter of Dazey Corporation, 77 N. L R B. 408.