General Electric Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 28, 1970

180 N.L.R.B. 1094 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

1094 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
General Electric Company and James Joseph Epping,
Petitioner and International Union of Electrical,
Radio and Machine Workers, AFL-CIO and its
Local 1110. Case 38-RD-42
January 28, 1970
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND BROWN
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Michael B.
Ryan on September 23, 1969. Following the
hearing, pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National
Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and
Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, this
case was transferred to the National Labor
Relations Board for decision. Thereafter, the
Petitioner, Employer, and Union filed briefs. The
Union also filed a motion to reopen the record
which the Employer has opposed.' An amicus curiae
brief was filed by United Electrical, Radio and
Machine Workers of America.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a
three-member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. The rulings are hereby
affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, including the
briefs, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The Petitioner, an employee of the Employer,
asserts that the Union, a labor organization, is no
longer the representative, as defined in Section 9(a)
of the Act, of the employees designated in the
petition.
3. The Petitioner seeks to decertify the Union as
the representative of all production and maintenance
employees of the Employer at its Bettendorf, Iowa,
Apparatus Service Shop, including truck drivers,
shipping and receiving employees, stockroom
attendants, and all other employees engaged in field
service and equipment installation operating in and
out of said service shop, excluding all office clerical
employees, plant clerical employees, professional
employees, technical employees, salesmen, guards,
'After the hearing, the Union filed a motion to reopen the record to
admit into evidence certain posthearing contract proposals of the
Employer. The Employer has requested that the Board deny such motion
unless testimony is adduced showing the circumstances surrounding such
proposals In reaching our decision herein, we have found it unnecessary to
consider such proposals and shall therefore deny the motion
and supervisors as defined in the Act. The Union
contends that the petition should be dismissed
because the unit in which Petitioner seeks an
election is not coextensive with the existing
collective-bargaining unit, and, therefore, is not
appropriate for decertification. The Employer and
the Petitioner assert that the individually certified
bargaining unit is the appropriate unit in which the
election should be held.
The record shows that since 1950, the Union has
become bargaining representative for employees at
various plants of the Employer throughout the
country. Presently it represents approximately
90,000 employees under Board certifications issued
to the International and its constituent locals.
Commencing in 1950, the Employer and Union,
have engaged in multiunit bargaining in negotiating
a series of national agreements including the 1960,
1963, and 1966 agreements.' Article I of the three
agreements entitled Union Recognition provides in
part:
2. Where the Union or any of its Locals through
National Labor Relations Board certifications
shall have been lawfully designated as the
exclusive bargaining representative for any
additional bargaining units of Company
employees, such certified representative shall be
recognized as provided above and become a party
hereto, and the terms of this National Agreement
shall thereupon be applicable to the employees
within such unit . [Emphasis Supplied.]
In order to conduct negotiations for the national
agreements entered into with the Employer, the
General Electric Conference Board was established
by the Union. The Conference Board is a
constitutional body of the Union composed of
elected delegates from IUE locals across the country
representing General Electric employees. Each local
is entitled to one delegate, and additional delegates
are sent by large locals to a maximum of four
delegates from any one local. The Conference Board
in turn designates from among its delegates a
negotiating committee to carry on bargaining with
the Employer. The Conference Board, which
submits to the negotiating committee various union
proposals, has the final authority to reject or accept
a contract or any proposals thereon worked out by
the negotiating committee, and any such action
taken by it is binding upon all locals regardless of
their individual consent.
The nationwide agreements made between the
Union and Employer have included the substantive
terms usually found in collective-bargaining
agreements . For example, the contracts include such
subjects as wages , working hours, vacations,
holidays, and a grievance and arbitration procedure.
'A more detailed analysis of the bargaining history appears in General
Electric Company. 150 NLRB 192 at 205, 206, and 207, enfd. 418 F.2d
736
180 NLRB No. 162
GENERAL ELECTRIC CO.
Under the grievance and arbitration procedure set
out in the national agreements , the locals handle
their grievances through the first two steps of the
three-step grievance procedure , but at the third step,
the grievance is "referred to the National Officers of
the Union for submission to an Executive Officer of
the Company or his designated representative." The
Conference Board decides whether to proceed to
arbitration on any particular grievance. However,
not all negotiations take place on the national level.
Certain subjects such as the layoff and rehiring
procedure and an additional holiday have been
reserved to local bargaining.
The unit appropriate in a decertification election
must be coextensive with either the unit previously
certified or the one recognized in the existing
contract unit.3 The issue before us is whether the
pattern of bargaining between the Union and
Employer has brought about an effective merger of
the individually certified units into a multiplant
contractual unit thereby precluding the processing of
the instant decertification petition. We are satisfied
that such a merger has taken place. Here, the
Employer, with the Union's acquiescence, has and is
recognizing a multiplant unit rather than the
previously certified separate units. Thus, from the
inception of the bargaining relationship 19 years ago
the Employer and Union have obliterated the
separate units by negotiating on a multiplant basis.
This multiplant bargaining is the rock on which the
collective-bargaining relationship has been built.
Such bargaining has resulted in a series of national
agreements , multiplant in scope, fixing terms and
conditions of employment in the represented plants
with matters of individual plant concern reserved for
local bargaining. This local bargaining can hardly be
termed inconsistent with the nationwide bargaining
for it would be unrealistic for the parties to attempt
to make uniform national provisions on all subjects
with no allowance for variation to take into account
purely local conditions.' In addition, the record
discloses that these local agreements cannot be in
contradiction of the national agreements. With
regard to contractual coverage the national
agreements not only apply to the currently
represented employees but also provide for
immediate automatic coverage of newly organized
locations. This of course forecloses employees
organized after the latest national agreement from
negotiating their own contract.
As shown above, through centralized negotiations,
the locals have surrendered their autonomy to reject
or accept the contract applicable to their location.
The Conference Board , by majority vote of the
delegates, decides whether to ratify or reject
negotiated national agreements , with such decision
'W T Grant Company , 179 NLRB No. 114, and cases cited therein.
,in N.L.R B. Y. General Electric Company, 418 F.2d 736 (C.A. 2), the
court stated that "the national agreements frequently provided that some
matters, usually minor , would be left to local agreement ." (Emphasis
supplied )
1095
binding upon all local unions . The Conference
Board also decides whether or not to invoke
arbitration under the national agreement and
normally handles such arbitrations for the Union.
Similarly, the Employer's Corporate Employee
Relations section, now headed by P. D. Moore, Vice
President, centrally controls labor relations on the
national level such as handling national negotiations
and grievances at the third step of the grievance
procedure. Also of significance is the Employer's
approach to collective bargaining which treats all
employees uniformly regardless of which union they
are represented by or whether they were represented
by any union at all.5
While there are factors which might tend to
support the Petitioner's and Employer's contentions
that bargaining has not been on the basis of a single
multiplant unit's we are of the opinion that these
factors are outweighed by the long continuous
bargaining history, and the manner of negotiation,
execution, coverage, and application of the
agreements between the parties. These factors are
consistent with a finding of a single multiplant unit.
Moreover, such a finding is more in step with the
realities of the relationship between the parties than
would be a contrary finding. We therefore conclude
that the record establishes a controlling history of
multiplant bargaining resulting in the establishment
of a single multiplant unit embracing all of those
plants of the Employer in which the Union has been
recognized as the exclusive bargaining agent and
which are covered by the national agreements.' We
shall therefore dismiss the petition which requests an
election in a single-plant unit.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
'Genera! Electric Companv. 150 NLRB 192, 209
'Such as reference in the national agreements to "units," in the plural,
negotiation of supplemental agreements on the local level discussed above,
the absence of any explicit admission on the record that the parties
intended to merge the separate units into a single multiplant unit and the
grouping of various employees of different occupations into a single unit.
The Board has held that the negotiation of supplemental agreements on a
local basis and references in national agreements to "units" are not
inconsistent with a finding of multiplant bargaining . See General Motors
Corporation. Cadillac Motor Division, 120 NLRB 1215, 1220, 1221 With
regard to intent , the record supports the Union 's position that despite the
absence of an explicit admission as to intent, the parties have, in fact, by
their own conduct , as set forth above, merged the separate units into a
multiplant bargaining unit We are also not disturbed by the lumping
together of several groups of employees with different occupations for the
reason that the lengthy bargaining history involved herein shows that in
fact the present grouping is a basis for collective bargaining and that
whatever separate community of interest that may have existed prior to
this history of bargaining is today of little importance.
'See Genera! Motors Corporation. Cadillac Motor Division , 120 NLRB
1215. Swift & Company, 124 NLRB 50, relied on by the Company for a
contrary result is distinguishable on the ground that the bargaining history
of the master agreement negotiations , many provisions of the agreements
themselves, and the scope of matters left for inclusion in local agreements
were as indicative of the fact that the parties were engaged for their
convenience in centralized negotiations for many separate units as of the
1096 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tact that they were negotiating for one overall multiplant unit In these
circumstances , the evidence that the bargaining representative had
participated in numerous Board proceedings without urging that the
separate plant units had become merged into one and had affirmatively
argued for separate plant units , together with the parties' execution of a
supplemental agreement providing for elimination from coverage by the
master agreement of plants in which the certified representative
subsequently lost its certification, precluded a finding that the parties had
by work or deed mutually consented to a merger of the separately certified
units In contrast , since the beginning of the bargaining relationship
between the parties, "GE for all practical purposes has dealt with the IUE
through its GE Conference Board as a de facto accredited bargaining
representative of all IUE represented employees in a single overall
bargaining unit" General Electric Company , 150 NLRB 192, 206,
affirmed General Electric Company, 418 F 2d 736 (C A. 2) We reject
General Electric ' s claim that it did not intend that which its practice
demonstrates it accorded the Union, namely , recognition as the
representative of employees in a single multiplant unit
* U S GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1971 0-384-271