Onondaga Pottery Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 18, 1944

55 N.L.R.B. 582 (N.L.R.B. 1944)

In the Matter Of ONONDAGA POTTERY CO. (FAYETn,' STREET PLANT)
and DISTRICT 50, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA
In the Matter of ONONDAGA POTTERY Co. (COURT STREET PLANT) and
DISTRICT 50, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA
Cases Nos. 3-R-705 and 3-R-706, respectively.Decided March 18,
1944
Bond, Schoeneck cf King, by Messrs. George H. Bowl and Lyle L.
Hornbeck, of Syracuse, N. Y., for the Company.
Mr. Stanley Denlinger, of Akron, Ohio, and Messrs. August Rouse,
Andrew Hisney, Anthony Vecchio, and Richard Kopinsky, of Syra-
cuse, N. Y., for the UMWA.
Mr. Charles Jordan, of. East Liverpool, Ohio, for the Brotherhood
of Operating Potters.
Miss Frances Lopinslcy, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon two petitions duly filed by District 50, United Mine Workers
of America, herein called the UMWA, alleging that a question affect-
ing commerce had arisen concerning the representation of employees
of Onondaga Pottery Co., Syracuse, New York, herein called the
Company, the National Labor Relations Board provided for an ap-
propriate consolidated hearing upon due notice before Milton A.
Nixon, Trial Examiner. Said hearing was held at Syracuse, New
York, on January 25, 1944. The Company and the UMWA appeared
and participated.' All parties were afforded full opportunity to be
1 The Brotherhood of Operating Potters , A. F. of L ., appeared only as an interested party
and took no part in the proceeding.
On February 23, 1944, the Congress of Industrial Organizations filed a motion with the
Board alleging that it is an interested party in the proceedings and requesting that it he
accorded a place on the ballot in the election herein directed . The CIO admittedly had no
membership among the Company 's employees at the time investigation was made and
notices of hearing were issued, nor did it produce evidence of its alleged organizational
inteiest in such employees in support of its motion. The motion is hereby denied.
55 N. L. R. B, No. 105.
582
ONONDAGA POTTERY CO. 583
heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce evi-
dence bearing on the issues. The Trial Examiner's rulings made at
the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
All parties were afforded an opportunity to file briefs with the Board.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following :
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
Onondaga Pottery Co., a New York corporation, is engaged at its
plants in Syracuse, New York, in the manufacture of vitrified china.
During the year 1943, the Company used at its Syracuse plants raw
materials to the approximate value of over $500,000, approximately 90
percent of which was shipped to the said plants from points outside the
State of New York. During the same period the Company manufac-
tured products of a value exceeding $500,000, approximately 75 percent
of which was shipped to points outside the State of New York.
For the purposes of this proceeding, the Company admits that it is
engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Re-
lations Act.
H. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED
District 50, affiliated with the United Mine Workers of America, is
a labor organization admitting to membership employees of the
Company.
III. THE QUESTION] CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
The Company has refused to grant recognition to the UMWA as the
exclusive bargaining representative of its employees until the UMWA
has been certified by the Board in an appropriate unit or units.
Statements of a Board agent, introduced into evidence at the hear-
ing, indicate that the UMWA represents a substantial number of em-
ployees in the unit hereinafter found appropriate.'
We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning the
representation of employees of the Company, within the meaning of
Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
2 The Field Examiner reported that the UMWA submitted 440 application-for-member-
ship cards all of which bore apparently genuine original signatures ; that the names of 347
persons appearing on the cards were listed on the Company's pay roll of November 6, 1943,
which contained the names of 1,246 persons in the unit herein found appropriate. Two
hundred eighty of the cards were dated in the months of July through December 1943 ;
67 were undated or partially dated. Of the 347 persons above mentioned, 217 were em-
ployees of the Fayette Street plant which on November 6, 1943, employed 639 persons in the
appropilate unit, and 130 were employees of the Court Street plant which employed 607
persons in the appropriate unit on that date.
,584 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT
The Company's operations in Syracuse are carried on in two plants,
one located at Fayette Street, the other located at Court Street. The
plants are approximately 5 miles apart. The UMWA contends that
the employees of each plant constitute a separate appropriate bargain-
ing unit. The Company takes the position that both plants should
be treated as one for purposes of collective bargaining.
The Company started operations in about 1900 at the Fayette Street
plant and on various occasions between the years 1900 and 1920 ex-
panded its operations until all the land available in that vicinity had
been utilized. In 1920 it purchased land at Court Street and con-
tinned its expansion. The work done at the two plants is substantially
the same in character, the only difference being that the Court Street
plant has more modern equipment. The Company has one staff of
executive officers who divide their time between the two plants. It has
one sales , advertising, and accounting department, one production-
control department, one laboratory, one personnel manager with assist-
ants at both plants, one staff of artists which serve both plants and one
sheet-lithograph department which processes the products of both
plants. Although there is a constant interchange of supervisory em-
ployees and materials between the plants, there is little interchange of
production employees. Because of the difference in equipment in the
two plants, their wage rates differ. Nevertheless the average weekly
wage in the plants is about the same . Each plant advertises for and
employs new workers according to its needs, but all hiring is done
subject to the ratification of the central personnel office. Each receives
raw materials and delivers products direct to consumers. At the Court
Street plant, the Company has a department for manufacturing land
mines for the United States Army. The shells of these mines differ
from the usual product of the Company only in shape, and they are
made by the production employees who make tableware. The final
assembling of the mines is done by a crew of 60 persons. With the ex-
ception of the mines, the products of the two plants are so identical
that there is a constant interchange of them, in all stages of production,
to complete orders being filled at one plant or the other.
This is not a case in which the extent of organization doctrine is ap-
plicable, since a large number of employees in both plants have evinced
an interest in the petitioning union as their bargaining representative.3
Nothing in the record indicates that they cannot effectively be repre-
sented for bargaining purposes in a single unit. The employees at
both plants perform the same type of work, very often on the same
article, under the same supervision, for one employer who formulates
labor relations policy for all. These factors outweigh the UMWA's
argument for two separate units, based upon the distance between
B Cf Matter of Standard Oi,erall Company, 53 N L R B 060.
ONONDAGA POTTERY CO. 585
the plants, the small ordnance department at Court Street which has
no counterpart at the Fayette Street plant, and the other minor differ-
ences in rates of pay and working conditions.
The parties are in agreement as to the constituency of the unit, and
their agreement is consonant with our general practice. Accord-
ingly, we find that all production and maintenance employees of the
Company at its Fayette Street and Court Street plants, including
watchnmen, but excluding office clerks, militarized guards and all super-
visory employees with authority to hire, promote, discharge, dis-
cipline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of employees or effec-
tively recommend such action constitute a unit appropriate for the
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b)
of the Act.
V. TILE DUTE1aiTNATLON OF REPRESENTATIVES
We shall direct that the question concerning representation which
has arisen be resolved by an election by secret ballot among the em-
ployees in the appropriate unit who were employed during the pay-roll
period immediately preceding the date of the Direction of Election
herein, subject to the limitations and additions set forth in the
Direction.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National Labor
Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations
Act, and pursuant to Article III, Section 9, of National Labor Rela-
tions Board Rules and Regulations-Series 3 , it is hereby
DIRECTED that , as part of the investigation to ascertain representa-
tives for the purposes of collective bargaining with Onondaga Pottery
Co., Syracuse , New York, an election by secret ballot shall be con-
ducted as early as possible, but not later than thirty ( 30) clays from
the (late of this Direction , under the direction a nd supervision of the
Regional Director for the Third Region . acting in this matter as agent
for the National Labor Relations Board, and subject to Article III,
Sections 10 and 11, of said Rules and Regulations , among the em-
ployees in the unit found appropriate in Section IV. above , who were
employed during the pay-roll period immeciately preceding the date
of this Direction, including employees who did not work during said
pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation or temporarily
laid off, and including employees in the armed forces of the United
States who present themselves in person at the polls, 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,
to determine whether or not they desire to be represented by District
50, United Mine Workers of America, for the purposes of collective
bargaining.