Westinghouse Electric Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 14, 1953

102 N.L.R.B. 270 (N.L.R.B. 1953)

270 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION and PATTERN MAKERS' LEAGUE
OF N. A., PHILADELPHIA ASSOCIATION, A. F. L., PETITIONER. Case
No. 41-RC-1733. January 14, 1953
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before William
Naimark, 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 National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organizations named below claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer.
3. The Petitioner seeks to represent patternmakers and their ap-
prentices at the Employer's South Philadelphia Works, Lester, Penn-
sylvania, severing these employees from the larger unit represented
by Local 107, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of Amer-
ica, herein called the Intervenor. The Intervenor contends that its
current contract constitutes a bar to a determination of representa-
tives for these employees at this time. The Employer takes no posi-
tion on this issue.
On November 1, 1950, the Employer and the Intervenor's Interna-
tional entered into a contract, covering employees involved herein,
effective until October 31, 1951, and thereafter from year to year in
the absence of a 60-day notice before any terminal date. On De-
cember 28, 1951, the Employer and the International entered into a
supplemental contract, providing, among other things, for general
wage and salary increases and changing the contract year so that it
would run from October 1, 1951, to September 30, 1952, and thereafter
from year to year in the absence of a similar notice. The Petitioner
filed the instant petition on August 29, 1952, before the "Mill B"
date of the first contract, but after the "Mill B" date of the supple-
mental contract.
Contract modifications such as that involved herein, effected at ir-
regular intervals, make unpredictable the times at which challenges
to the bargaining rights of incumbent labor organizations are appro-
priate. We therefore find, contrary to the Intervenor's contention,
that the amended contract is no bar to this proceeding.'
° Cf. Armstrong Cork Company , 80 NLRB 566 , and cases cited therein.
102 NLRB No. 28.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION 271
A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation
of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1)
and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. On January 21, 1948, in an earlier representation proceeding,2
the Board found that patternmakers at the Employer's South Philadel-
phia Works constituted a highly skilled, well-recognized craft group
and might, if they so desired, constitute a separate appropriate unit .3
There have been no material changes at the Employer's South Phila-
delphia Works affecting the Employer's patternmakers since that
Decision. Under these circumstances, we find that patternmakers and
their apprentices at the Employer's South Philadelphia Works, Lester,
Pennsylvania, excluding supervisors as defined in the Act, may con-
stitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
5. We shall direct an election among these employees. If a ma-
jority of employees in the voting group vote for the Petitioner, they
will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate
appropriate unit, and the Regional Director conducting the election
directed herein is instructed to issue a certification of representatives
to the Petitioner for the unit described in paragraph numbered 4,
above, which the Board, under such circumstances, finds to be appro-
priate for purposes of collective bargaining. In the event a ma-
jority vote for the Intervenor, the Board finds the existing unit to be
appropriate, and the Regional Director will issue a certification of
results of election to such effect.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
MEMBERS MURDOCK and PETERSON, dissenting :
We do not believe that an election should be directed in this case.
The Employer and Intervenor have maintained a bargaining relation-
ship since 1937. At the request of the Employer, in order to conform
the existing contract with all other labor agreements applicable to the
Employer's various plants, the parties on December 28, 1951, acceler-
ated the termination and automatic renewal dates of their contract
by 1 month. Thus, the termination date became September 30, 1952,
2 Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 75 NLRB 978.
8 That patternmakers and their apprentices in the ensuing election and in the later con-
sent election held in Case No. 4-RC-1314 (not published in the printed volumes of the
Board 's Decisions and Orders ) voted against separate representation and were bargained
for as part of the Intervenor's larger unit , does not, contrary to the Intervenor 's conten-
tion, preclude such representation at this time. Hudson Pulp d Paper Corporation, 94
NLRB 1018 ; Westinghouse Electric Corporation, supra.
272 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and the automatic renewal or "Mill B" date was advanced to August 2,
1952. The petition in this proceeding was filed on August 29, 1952.
A majority of the Board finds that the petition raises a question con-
cerning representation apparently because, although untimely filed
with respect to the automatic renewal date of the present contract,
it was filed before the automatic renewal date of a contract discarded
by the parties more than 6 months earlier. We do not agree.
In representation cases the Board is faced almost invariably with
the necessity of reconciling two important concepts, namely, granting
freedom to employees to change representatives and maintaining
stability in bargaining relationships. In order to preserve an
equitable balance, too much emphasis should not be placed upon one
at the expense of the other. Our colleagues apparently consider the
action of the Employer and the Intervenor as constituting an un-
warranted infringement upon the right of employees to challenge
through another union the incumbent's representative status at a pre-
dictable and reasonable interval. In effect, they hold that a period
of approximately 6 months was not a reasonable amount of time for
dissident employees and rival unions to learn of the changes which
the parties had made in their contract. Such a holding, it seems to us,
ignores the fact that a contracting union must of necessity publicize the
terms of its agreement so that employees will know the benefits which
have been achieved. That being so, it is almost inconceivable that
a potential rival union in the course of its organizing campaign would
not find out within such a long period of time what changes were
effected in the existing contract. We do not believe that full recogni-
tion of the basic right of employees to change bargaining representa-
tives requires the subordination of the equally basic concept of
industrial stability where, as here, the employees and the Petitioner
had a reasonable opportunity to put in issue the Intervenor's majority
status.
The premature extension doctrine, which a majority of the Board
seemingly applies to a reverse factual situation, was designed to pre-
vent a particular representative which no longer enjoys the support
of a majority of employees from having its status perpetuated by the
devious method of foreclosing rival petitions 4 It is patent here that
there was no such attempt to forestall a rival claim; rather the parties
brought forward the day when the Intervenor could be exposed to a
valid claim. In these circumstances, we would find the contract a bar
to a present election.
+ Raytheon Manufacturing Company , 98 NLRB 1330; 98 NLRB 785; Cushman's Song,
Inc., 88 NLRB 121.