International Paper Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 3, 1952

101 N.L.R.B. 759 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

INTERNATIONAL PAPER COMPANY -759
3. By discriminating in regard to the hire or tenure of employment of its
employees , General J . Sellers, Frances Clifford , Verna Mae McMillan, Mary
Hodge, Lorene Fowler, and Catherine Mixon to discourage membership in a
labor organization , thereby discouraging membership in the American Federa-
tion of Labor, the Respondent has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor
practices within the meaning of Section 8 (a) (1) and Section 8 ( a) (3) of
the Act.
4. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting
commerce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
[Recommendations omitted from publication in this volume.]
INTERNATIONAL PAPER COMPANY , SOUTHERN KRAFT DIVISION 1 and
UNITED ASSOCIATION OF JOURNEYMEN AND APPRENTICES OF THE
PLUMBING AND PIPE FITTING INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES AND
CANADA, LOCAL UNION 659, AFL, PETITIONER . Cases Nos . 15-RC-
697 and 15-RC-698. December 3, 1952
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Richard C. Keenan, 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. No 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, for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks two separate units, craft in character, limited to
the Employer's Bastrop, Louisiana, plant. The Employer and the
Joint Intervenors 2 contend, however, on the basis of a Board decision
discussed below, as well as other grounds, that only a division-wide
unit, embracing employees at all of the Employer's nine Southern
Kraft Division mills, is appropriate.
The Board, on May 15, 1951, issued a decision relating to another
of the Employer's Southern Kraft Division mills at Georgetown,
South Carolina, in which it held that single plant units were proper
' The Employer 's name appears as amended at the hearing.
' The International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers , AFL ; the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL ; and the International Brother-
hood of Paper Makers, AFL ( referred to as the Joint Intervenors herein).
101 NLRB No. 141.
760 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
for the mills constituting the Southern Kraft Division.3 The peti-
tion in that case sought units very similar in composition ( of craft
character) to those being sought in this proceeding. Subsequent to
the aforesaid decision, the Board, on December 28, 1951, issued its
decision in a proceeding relating to the Tonawanda mill in the Em-
ployer's Northern Division .4 The Board decided that the single plant
unit sought therein was improper for the Employer's Northern Divi-
sion because it was too limited in scope and thereupon dismissed the
petition. The Board stated in the Tonawanda case that, "To the ex-
tent that that case [Georgetown] is inconsistent with the decision
herein in finding that the contracts through 1947 were `members only'
rather than exclusive, it is hereby overruled." This ruling overruled a
finding in the Georgetown case which had significant probative effect
upon the Board's ultimate decision that single plant units were proper
for the Southern Kraft Division. In light of the Tonawanda case,
we have deemed it appropriate at this time to reexamine the decision
issued in the Georgetown case and to again consider the propriety of
single plant units for the Employer's Southern Kraft Division.
Upon reexamination of the Georgetown case , we find that the collec-
tive-bargaining histories of the Employer's Northern and Southern
Kraft Divisions have been substantially the same, both granting ex-
clusive recognition to the respective contracting unions involved on
division-wide units. We are, therefore, compelled not to follow our
decision in the Georgetown case. We conclude that the contracts and
pattern of negotiations of the contracts in the Southern Kraft Divi-
sion establish a controlling history of division-wide collective bargain-
ing which preclude the grant of a unit limited to employees at only
one plant in the Division .5 Accordingly, we find that the units re-
quested in the petitions herein, limited to employees at the Bastrop
mill only, are not appropriate and, therefore, not severable from the
existing division-wide Southern Kraft Division industrial unit.
Order
IT Is HEREBY ORDERED that the petitions herein be, and they hereby
are, dismissed.
CHAIRMAN HERZOG and MEMBER MURDOCK took no part in the con-
sideration of the above Decision and Order.
8International Paper Company, Southern Kraft Division, et al., 94 NLRB 483 (herein-
after called the Georgetown case).
• International Paper Company, Tonawanda Mill, 97 NLRB 764 (hereinafter called the
Tonawanda case).
6 Cf. St . Regis Paper Company, 101 NLRB 656 , wherein, unlike the instant case, the
units sought encompassed employees previously severed from the multiplant unit and
covered by a single plant contract.