Monsanto Chemical Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 20, 1964

147 N.L.R.B. 49 (N.L.R.B. 1964)

MONSANTO CHEMICAL COMPANY 49
You may remember the I.U.E. strike against Westinghouse
Electric that lasted 156 days. It was estimated that each em-
ployee lost about $1,700 in wages. The newspapers reported
stonings, dynamiting, mass picketing, rioting, and a pitched battle
between policemen and 2,000 strikers.
In September 1960, as I wrote you, the I.U.E. struck the Gen-
eral Electric Company. Employees in 55 plants lost wages for
24 days.
In my letter dated September 5 I gave you the names of 46 com-
panies where the LUX. had called employees out on strike-and
since then I found more. I won't repeat them here, but it is pain-
fully clear that the I.U.E. strike record is something to worry
about-including their strike history of violence, rioting and
beatings.
Ask yourself if you want to face the loss of wages and the risk
of possible violence on the decision of just a few dissatisfied em-
ployees. I am not saying that you will have a strike. But there
is only one way to make sure that you can't possibly have a
strike-that is by voting "NO."
Monsanto Chemical Company 1 and Ernest L. Plymale, Peti-
tioner and Glass Bottle Blowers Association of the United
States and Canada , AFL-CIO, and its Local No. 229 . Case No.
13-UD-67. May 20, 19641
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(e) (1) of the National
Labor Relations. Act, ahearing was held before Hearing Officer Hymen
Bear. 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. In October 1963, the Union and the Employer entered into a
3-year collective-bargaining agreement which is effective until Octo-
1 The Employer ' s name appears as amended at the hearing . The Employer is a successor
to Plax Company , in which name certification issued in Case No. 13-RC-9316.
147 NLRB No. 5.
756-236-65-vol. 147-5
50 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ber 13, 1966 2 The-petition for union deauthorization was filed on
November 1, 1963.
Initially, the Union contends that, because. Section 9(e) (1) speaks
of rescinding-a union's authority to make an agreement "pursuant to
Section 8(a) (3)," and as Section 8(a) (3) applies only to union-shop
agreements, the Board should not entertain the petition herein, since
there exists no agreement between the parties, made pursuant to Sec-
tion 8 (a) (3) . We find no merit in this contention. The parties have
an agency-shop agreement. The Board has held that Section 8(a) (3)
pertains not only to union-shop agreements, but also to all other forms
of union security which are lawful under the Act 3. We therefore find
that the petition which seeks to rescind the. Union's authority to make
an agency-shop agreement comes within the scope of Section 9(e) (1).
Secondly, the Union asks the Board to overrule its decision in
Southern Press, 121 NLRB 1080. It argues that, to conduct a de-
authorization election within a year following a representation elec
tion, is contrary to Section 9(e) (2). of the Act. We do not agree. In
Southern Press the Board reaffirmed its long-standing position that
the limitations of Section 9(e) refer only to elections held pursuant
to Section 9(e) within the prior 12 months, and do not refer to repre-
sentation elections held pursuant to Section 9(c) of the Act. We see
no reason to depart from that policy which, in our opinion, is con-
sistent with congressional intent.
4. We find that all hourly production and maintenance employees
at the Employer's Ligonier, Indiana, plant, excluding office and plant
clerical employees, lead women, professional employees, technicians,
draftsmen, administrative employees, and supervisory employees as
defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of
an election under Section 9(e) (1) of the Act.
5. The Union urges us to hold that an affirmative deauthorization
vote will not immediately render the agency-shop clause in its con-
tract nugatory, and that the only effect of such vote will be to deprive
2Article 3, section 4, of that agreement contains, inter alia, the following provisions:
A. No employee shall be required to become a member of the union as a condition of
employment. Each employee shall have the right to join, not join or maintain or drop
his membership in the union. No employee shall be discriminated against on account
of his membership or non-membership in the Union.
B. All employees who do not become members of the Union after thirty-one (31)
calendar days of employment, shall as a condition of continuing employment, pay to
the Union each month an amount of money equal to that paid by other employees in
the bargaining unit who are members of the Union, which amount shall be limited to
an amount of money equal to the Union's regular and usual initiation-fees and its
regular and usual dues. For present employees who do not choose-to become members
of the Union, such payments shall commence thirty-one (31) calendar days following
the date of execution of this agreement. -
3See Public Service Company of Colorado, 89 NLRB 418, and American Seating Com-
pany, 98 NLRB 800. The Board's position in those cases was cited with approval by the
United States Supreme Court in N.L.R.B. v. General Motors Corporation, 373 U.S. 734.
It should also be noted that, although Indiana is a "right-to-work" State, and holds
union-shop agreements to be unlawful, it recognizes the validity of agency-shop agreements.
W. A. STEVENS & SON 51
the Union of authority to make future agreements containing such
provisions. We have carefully reviewed the Andor Company and
A. & P. decisions,4 and are convinced that the reasons advanced in
those decisions for giving immediate effect to an affirmative deauthori-
zation vote are sound. Accordingly, if the employees in this proceed-
ing cast an affirmative deauthorization vote, it shall be taken to mean
that the effectiveness of the agency-shop provisions in the contract
between the Union and the Employer shall be suspended immediately
upon certification to the Union and the Employer of the results of
the election.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
MEMBER BROWN, dissenting in part :
Contract-bar principles have evolved out of the Board's continuing
efforts in effectuating congressional policy in terms of industrial
reality.' The object of these principles has been to avoid the certain
instability which would have resulted had the Board taken a course
of single-minded literalness in administering the representation pro-
visions of the Act. Legislative history, as the courts have observed,
indicates congressional approval of the Board's exercise of discretion
in this area.' My colleagues rely upon Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea
Company, issued by a divided Board in 1952. So far as appears from
the majority opinion in that proceeding, no attempt was made there
to interpret pertinent statutory provisions in a manner which takes
into account the realities of collective bargaining and which, there-
fore, might promote expressed legislative purpose. I believe that,,as
in conventional representation proceedings, the Board is similarly
obliged in deauthorization situations to establish appropriate filing
periods which are meaningfully adapted to viable labor relations
under the Act. Unlike my colleagues, I would do so here.
s Andor Company, Inc., 119 NLRB 925; Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, 100
NLRB 1494.
5 See, for example, Deluxe Metal Furniture Company, 121 NLRB 995; General Cable
Corporation, 139 NLRB 1123.
6E.g., N.L.R.B. v. Marcus Trucking Company, Inc., 286 F. 2d 583, 593 (C.A. 2) ; Local
1545, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, etc. (Pilgrim Furniture) v. Vincent, 286 F. 2d
127, 131 (C.A. 2). Cf. Ray Brooks v. N.L.R.B., 348 U.S. 96, 98-104.
W. A. Stevens d/b/a W. A. Stevens & Son and John Williams.
Case No. 9-CA-2972. May 20, 1964
DECISION AND ORDER
On March 5, 1964, Trial Examiner Frederick U. Reel issued his De-
cision in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the Respondent
147 NLRB No. 6.