Westinghouse Electric Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 15, 1954

110 N.L.R.B. 872 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

872 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION, SUNNYVALE PLANT and INTER-
NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, AFL, PETITIONER.
Case No. f2O-RC-.627. November 15, 1954
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before L. D. Mathews, Jr.,
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. A 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.
Local 1008 contends that no question concerning representation
exists on the grounds that (1) the petition was filed within the year
following its certification as bargaining representative of the em-
ployees involved herein, and (2) a collective-bargaining contract bars
this proceeding.
As to (1), on September 3, 1953, Local 1008 was certified as the
representative of the electrical production and maintenance unit at
the Employer's Sunnyvale plant .2 Thereafter, the national agreement
in effect between Local 1008's parent organization, herein called the
UE, and the Employer was extended and made applicable to the
employees in the certified unit.' Acting pursuant to the terms of that
agreement, which provides for the negotiation of "local supplements"
to "cover the procedures for administering the provisions" therein,
Local 1008 and the Employer then entered into bargaining negotia-
tions. They executed certain supplements in October 1953 and
February 1954, and were in the process of negotiating another supple-
ment when the instant petition was filed on July 23, 1954.
1 United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Local 1008 (UE), herein
called Local 1008, International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO,
and International Association of Machinists, District Lodge No. 93, AFL, were permitted
to intervene at the hearing without objection.
z Case No 20-RC-2322
In pertinent pact, the national agieement provides as follows : "Any units for which
the Union or any of its Locals shall be lawfully certified by the National Labor Relations
Board as the exclusive bargaining representative, shall, upon assent in writing to this
Agreement by such representative, be included in and covered by this Agreement as of
the date of certification
110 NLRB No. 144.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION 873
In the recently decided Ludlow Typograph case 4 the Board held
that where an employer and a certified union enter into a collective-
bargaining agreement within the certification year, the certification
year merges with that contract, after which there is no need to protect
the certification further, the contract becoming controlling with re-
spect to the timeliness of a rival petition s
Local 1008 contends in substance that this case does not fall within
the rule of the Ludlow Typograph case, for the reason that negotia-
tions for "local supplements" to the national agreement were not yet
completed when the present petition was filed. We do not agree
with this contention. In our opinion, as the record shows (a) that
Local 1008, following its certification, became bound by the existing
national agreement with respect to the certified unit, (b) that such
national agreement is a comprehensive document which established
certain uniform terms and conditions of employment for various
plants of the Employer, and (c) that "local supplements" merely fill
out the terms of the national agreement, which is the basic agree-
ment between the parties, the rule of the Ludlow Typo graph case is
plainly applicable to the present case.6 It follows, therefore, that
the petition was not untimely merely because it was filed prior to
the end of the certification year.
With respect to (2), it is the national agreement referred to above
which Local 1008 asserts as a bar to this proceeding. That agree-
ment was effective until June 30, 1954, and from year to year there-
after in the absence of a 60 days' notice in writing of an intent to
terminate. The contract permitted either party thereto to request
unlimited contractual changes or additions after April 1, 1954, but
provided that all changes or additions should take effect not earlier
than July 1, 1954. It also provided that if no agreement on proposed
changes or additions was reached before July 1, 1954, the UE could
strike to enforce its demands, in which event either party could termi-
nate the contract upon 1 day's written notice to the other.
Sometime between April 1 and 30, 1954, the UE, acting on behalf
of itself and its interested locals, including Local 1008, served writ-
ten notice upon the Employer that it desired to open the national
agreement for the purpose of negotiating amendments thereto. As
the result of negotiations pursuant of this notice, the UE and the
Employer signed an agreement on July 24, 1954, which was made
effective as of July 1, 1954, and which specified that the national
4 Ludlow Typo graph Company, 108 NLRB 1463.
6 See Pioneer Division, The Flintkote Company, 109 NLRB 1273.
6It is noteworthy that, as appears hereinafter, Local 1008 relies upon the national agree-
ment itself as a bar to this proceeding.
874 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
agreement was to remain in full force and effect as modified therein.
The modifications agreed upon effected substantial changes in the
national agreement, including increased wage and salary rates, a
change in the vacation provisions, a new provision on seniority, the
removal of certain units from the contract's coverage, and the ex-
tension of the terminal date to October 15, 1955. As noted above,
the present petition was filed on July 23, 1954.
Local 1008 contends that because notice was served under the modi-
fication instead of the termination provisions of the national agree-
ment, that agreement automatically renewed itself prior to the filing
of the petition and is therefore a bar. On the basis of all the above,
however, we believe that the modification provisions in question,
which permitted contract modifications without limit, granted the
UE the right to strike to enforce its modification demands, and pro-
vided for the contract's termination by either party in the event of
a strike, insured no greater degree of industrial stability than does
the usual automatic renewal clause. In view thereof, and inasmuch
as the petition was filed after the UE's timely notice to modify but
before the execution of the modified contract, we find, for reasons
more fully detailed in General Electric Company,' that no contract
bars an election at this time.8
4. The parties herein are in agreement, and we find, that the fol-
lowing employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for
the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section
9 (b) of the Act:
All electrical production and maintenance employees at the Em-
ployer's Sunnyvale, California, plant, including employees engaged
in winding, treating, wiring, assembling, painting, testing, packing,
and crating panel boards, switchgear apparatus, transformers, Buffalo
motors, T & G motors, regulators, circuit breakers, water heaters, and
home heaters, employees engaged in insulation detail fabrication and
stamping and forming of bus bar copper, and all maintenance elec-
tricians and their helpers and apprentices, but excluding all mechani-
cal production and maintenance employees, maintenance carpenters
and their helpers and apprentices, transportation and warehouse
employees, office and clerical employees, technical employees, pro-
fessional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
4 108 NLRB 1290.
8 In view of our disposition of this issue , we find it unnecessary to consider the other
contentions with respect thereto.
Members Murdock and Peterson, who dissented in the Ludlow Typograph case and
from the majority 's rationale in the General Electric case , consider themselves bound by
those decisions and therefore join in the decision in this case.