International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, & Agricultural Implement Workers v. National Labor Relations Board
International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, & Agricultural Implement Workers v. National Labor Relations Board
Opinion of the Court
Petitioner is a Union which for more than twenty years prior to the present proceeding had been the bargaining representative of the production and maintenance employees of Pierce Governor Company, Inc., a small manufacturing company operating in Anderson, Indiana. The Union filed an unfair labor practice charge
Pierce Governor Company, Inc., respondent-intervenor, informed the Union at a contract renewal negotiation meeting in December, 1964, that it was consider
At the time of this announcement the Company and the Union were already negotiating for a renewal of their existing bargaining agreement,
The Board held, inter alia,
The Company had a well-defined position on transfers, which it stated, explained and discussed at great length. This position did not change throughout the bargaining, but such a course is not unlawful.
The other principal point presented upon this petition, according to the prehearing conference stipulation, is whether the Board properly found that the Company was under no obligation to bargain with “the Union” as to the terms and conditions of employment at the new Upland plant. This question turns upon what may be properly considered “the Union” for purposes of bargaining. The problem frequently arises and is generally clouded.
The Local was not the certified bargaining representative of these employees. The trial examiner found as a fact that the International was certified as the “exclusive bargaining agency” for them. He continued that since 1941 contracts had been made between the Company “and the International and its Local 940, jointly (herein called ‘the Union’), as the ‘exclusive bargaining agency’ for the employees * * *.” The Board made similar findings. Thus it clearly appears that the International was the certified bargaining representative but that the International and the Local “as an integral part” of the joint bargaining agent negotiated and signed the contracts. How the Local became engrafted into the process is not shown on the record. At any rate it was never the certified bargaining agent nor an independent bargaining entity; at most it was a de facto agent.
The Company at no time refused to bargain with the certified bargaining representative, the International. Quite the contrary is the fact. On January 28, 1965, the Company wrote to the Director of the Regional Office of the UAW a long letter outlining “the principles generally acceptable to us.” The first of these was “Recognition of a UAW-CIO Local at Upland.” And the second was “Consummation of a 5-year contract.” The letter referred to prior conversations. It was prefaced with the statement “That we are not obligated to recognize Local 940” for any purpose other than at Anderson, but stated its willingness to “arrive at some agreement with you” about Upland. After considerable delay the Regional Director wrote the Company, replying to each point in the Company’s letter. He said in part: “POINT 1. Your offer to recognize UAW-AFL-CIO as the bargaining agent for the Pierce Governor employees at the Upland plant is, of course, acceptable.” He expressed preference for a three-year contract. Thus it is quite clear that the Company did not fail or refuse to recognize the International Union.
We also think the Board was correct if the situation is viewed from the. standpoint of the Local. In the first place, where the International has been certified, an employer could hardly be held guilty of an unfair labor practice for failing to recognize a local union which was not certified. And we think this rule must apply even if the Local acts as an integral part of the single joint representative of the employees at the bargaining table. An uncertified organization cannot, it seems to us, inject itself, or be injected by a friendly parent, into a labor relationship where there is a certification, in the face of the statutory provisions as to exclusiveness, certification, etc.
It is certainly clear that the Upland employees had a right to bargain about their own working conditions and therefore to name their own bargaining agent. This right is basic in our labor law.
The record in this case shows that the Union representative assured the Company representative at a meeting “that it was not essential that Local 940, as an entity, continue to be, at Upland, the ‘local’ part of the joint representative of the employees there but that, after an agreement had been reached with the International covering the Upland plant, a new local could be established and an election scheduled at which the Upland employees could select their own bargaining committee.”
It is established that, although a plant relocation does not in itself invalidate a union’s representative status,
In the case at bar the Company gave its Anderson employees ample notice
We think the business of changing jobs is of no small consequence and may indeed involve a number of perplexing problems. Moving one’s job for even so short a distance as forty miles may involve not only such direct factors as long drives and different times for arising in the morning and reaching home in the evening each day, but also collateral matters such as comparative labor customs and people, problems of schools, both as to the impact of change and as to comparable quality, social affiliations, interests and habits. These and many other factors which are small in a textbook thesis loom large and real in the lives of ordinary people, especially those who live and work in small towns.
The first few production employees at Upland were hired during February of 1965. By August 1st the employee complement was 212, and thereafter there were at least 190 employees on the payroll. Only one person worked at both Anderson and Upland. The Company wrote the Union on October 5th that “No Anderson employee has presented himself at Upland for employment at the Upland plant.” The Union made no effort to count its membership at the Upland plant, and in this proceeding it made no claim that it did represent a majority of those employees. The fact is that employees formerly at Anderson who were members of Local 940 did not constitute a majority of employees at Upland.
In sum, then, on this part of our problem the Company had reasonable grounds to believe that a majority of the people who applied and were hired at Upland did not belong to Local 940. When the Company reflected its concern and posed the question by offering to recognize any union which could show membership of a majority of its employees, the burden would seem to shift to the Union to make such a showing. Certainly the burden does not rest with the Company to show a lack of majority. If the question had been membership in the International, perhaps a different question would be presented. But in the situation here depicted it would seem correct to say, as the Board did, that the Union had failed to sustain its charge that the Company committed an unfair labor practice by failing to recognize Local 940 as the bargaining agent of its Upland employees.
The Union says, and the trial examiner held, that it need not sustain the burden of showing a majority at the new plant, that since the relocation of the plant was so short a distance from the old site, and since the management and the business remained the same, there is a presumption that a majority of the employees remained the same. The Union relies upon Cooper Thermometer Company v. NLRB,
We are of opinion that the Board was not in error in its determination of the problems presented here, and its disposition of the matter is therefore
Affirmed.
. Sec. 8(a), Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a):
“Sec. 8(a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7;
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“(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 9(a).”
. It was stipulated that as of September 1, 1964, the physical condition of the plant at Anderson had deteriorated to a point where its continued operation without proper repair and remodeling created unsafe and unhealthful working conditions.
. Local 57, International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union AFL-CIO v. NLRB, 126 U.S.App.D.C. 81, 374 F.2d 295, cert. denied, 387 U.S. 942, 87 S.Ct. 2078, 18 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1967).
. NLRB v. Rapid Bindery, Inc., 293 F.2d 170 (2d Cir. 1961). See NLRB v. Great Dane Trailers, Inc., 388 U.S. 26, 87 S.Ct. 1792, 18 L.Ed.2d 1027 (1967).
. The parties began bargaining in September, 1964, for a new agreement to replace the one which terminated on October 30, 1964.
. The Board also found that the economic strike which began in November, 1964, was never converted into an unfair labor practice strike, because the Company engaged in no conduct violative of the Act.
. NLRB v. Insurance Agents’ International Union, 361 U.S. 477, 80 S.Ct. 419, 4 L.Ed.2d 454 (1960); NLRB v. American National Ins. Co., 343 U.S. 395, 72 S.Ct. 824, 96 L.Ed. 1027 (1952); NLRB v. Southwestern Porcelain Steel Corp., 317 F.2d 527 (10th Cir. 1963); NLRB v. Mayer, 196 F.2d 286 (5th Cir. 1952); Aluminum Ore Co. v. NLRB, 131 F.2d 485, 147 A.L.R. 1 (7th Cir. 1942).
. Sec. 8(d), Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 142, 29 U.S.C. § 158 (d):
“For the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively is the peiformance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, and the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party, but such obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the malting of a concession: * * (Emphasis supplied.)
. See Rose, Relationship of the Local Union to the International Organisation, 38 Va.L.Rev. 843 (1952), and Note, Labor Ldw Problems in Plant Relocation, 77 Habv.L.Rev. 1100 (1964).
. See. 9(a), Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 143 (1947), 29 U.S.C. § 159(a):
“Representatives designated or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment: * *
. Sec. 7, Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 140 (1947), 29 U.S.C. § 157:
“Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities * *
. Sec. 8(a) (1), (2), (3), Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 140 (1947), 29 U.S.C. § 158(a) (1), (2), (3):
“Sec. 8. (a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7;
“(2) to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it; * * *;
“(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization: * *
. Supra note 10.
. California Footwear Company, 114 N.L.R.B. 765, 767-769 (1955), enforced in part sub nom. NLRB v. Lewis, 246 F.2d 886 (9th Cir. 1957). A similar analysis applies where there is a change in ownership of an employing enterprise; where the seller’s enterprise itself remains otherwise substantially unchanged, the seller’s duty to bargain devolves upon the purchaser. NLRB v. Downtown Bakery Corp., 330 F.2d 921 (6th Cir. 1964).
. Brooks v. NLRB, 348 U.S. 96, 75 S.Ct. 176, 99 L.Ed. 125 (1954).
. Supi'a note 3.
. Supra note 4, at 176.
. 2 Cir., 376 F.2d 684 (1967).
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
I read the majority opinion to say that the Upland plant was not a continuation of the old Anderson facility. I disagree. But if my brethren are correct it is wholly unnecessary to reach the question of representation at the new plant.
Accordingly, anything the majority says about representation at Upland has no bearing on the union’s Section 8(a) (5) complaint which was based on the assumption that the Anderson unit continued. In any event the distinction drawn by the majority between Local 940 and the International for purposes of representation is untenable. Employees have the right to bargain through representatives of their own choosing.
The Court is correct in not relying on Cooper Thermometer v. NLRB
I would remand to the Board to reconsider the continuation issue in light of the foregoing.
. N. L. R. B. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 33, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1936).
. NLRB v. Wooster Division of Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U.S. 342, 350, 78 S.Ct. 718, 2 L.Ed.2d 823 (1958).
. 376 F.2d 684 (1967).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW) v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Pierce Governor Company, Inc., Intervenor
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published