General Electic Co., 14 (1970)

General Electric Company and International Union of Electrical , Radio and Machine Workers,

AFL-CIO-CLC, and its Local 705. Case 8-CA-5591

October 16, 1970 DECISION AND ORDER

BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS

FANNING AND BROWN

On May 7, 1970, Trial Examiner Harold X.

Summers issued his Decision in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the Respondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor practices and recommending that it cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the attached Trial Examiner's Decision. Thereafter, the Respondent filed exceptions to the Decision and a supporting brief, and the Charging Party filed a brief in answer to the Respondent's exceptions.

Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel.

The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Trial Examiner's Decision, the exceptions and briefs, and the entire record in this case, and hereby adopts the findings,' conclusions, and recommendations of the Trial Examiner.2 ORDER

party in this kind of dispute. I would dismiss the complaint.

i We hereby correct the Trial Examiner's inadvertent error in referring to the filing date of the unfair labor practice charge as October 27, 1969, instead of September 16, 1969.

2 While we agree with our dissenting colleague that an employer's obligation to supply relevant and necessary information does not also entail the obligation that such information be made available in the exact form requested by a union, we fail to see how the application of this principle can serve to resolve the issue before us In the present case, the Trial Examiner recognized that the Union had no right to insist that the information be provided in the precise manner and form requested.

Accordingly, the Trial Examiner found it necessary to determine whether or not the video tapes offered by Respondent would have served as a reasonable substitute for the in-plant job evaluations requested by the Union In passing on this question, the Trial Examiner, on the basis of the credited evidence, concluded that the video tapes would not constitute a necessarily reliable and reasonably expeditious substitute for an in-plant evaluation We can perceive of no legitimate basis for overturning this finding of the Trial Examiner and, as a consequence, we are constrained to conclude that there was no justification for Respondent's refusal to comply with the Union's request.

TRIAL EXAMINER'S DECISION HAROLD X. SUMMERS, Trial Examiner: In this proceeding, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (herein called the General Counsel and the Board, respectively) issued a complaint' alleging that General Electric Company (herein, Respondent), at its so-called Dover Wire and Fabrication Operation, had engaged in and was engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of 8(a)(1) and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act). The answer to the complaint admitted some of its allegations and denied others; in effect, it denied the commission of any unfair labor practices. Pursuant to notice, a hearing was held before me at New Philadelphia,

Ohio, on December 16, 1969; all parties were afforded full opportunity to call and examine and to cross-examine witnesses, to argue orally, and thereafter to submit briefs.

Upon the entire record 2 in the case, including my evaluation of the reliability of the witnesses based upon my observation of their demeanor, I make the following:

Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board adopts as its Order the Recommended Order of the Trial Examiner, and hereby orders that Respondent, General Electric Company, New Philadelphia, Ohio, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall take the action set forth in the Trial Examiner's Recommended Order.

CHAIRMAN MILLER, dissenting:

I had thought the rule of law to be that while an employer must supply relevant and necessary information to a union, he need not supply it in precisely the form requested. Here the Respondent offered video-tapes as a substitute for the union proposal of on-site evaluation. The Union's summary rejection of the offer is what brought this case to issue. Had the Union observed the tapes, this entire dispute might have been avoided. I do not see that the Act is best effectuated by encouraging adamant stands by either FINDINGS OF FACT

1. JURISDICTION Respondent is a New York corporation with enterprises in various States of the United States. This proceeding involves the plant it operates at Dover, Ohio, known as the Dover Wire and Fabrication Operation (herein, Dover plant), where it is engaged in the manufacture of i The complaint was issued on October 27, 1969 . The unfair labor practice charge initiating the proceeding was filed on September 16, 1969

   2 On or about January 6, 1970, Respondent filed a 'request ' for certain corrections in the transcript of hearing herein and, on March 31 , I issued an order to show cause why the transcript should not be corrected in specified respects some but not all of which corrections were contemplated by Respondent's request. No good cause to the contrary having been shown, the corrections indicated in the order to show cause (which is hereby received in the record as Trial Examiner 's Exhibit 1) are hereby ordered made, with the following exceptions the correction proposed by the show-cause order at page 51 , line 9 ('R-18' for 'R-17') will not be made, in addition to the corrections proposed by the order, 'contested' is hereby substituted for 'concluded' at page 14, line 22, and 'manners' is hereby substituted for 'matters' at page 83, line 9 Respondent 's request is (Continued) 186 NLRB No. I molybdenum wire and fabricated molybdenum parts for the lamp and electronic industries. Each year, in the course and conduct of its business operations at this plant,

   Respondent ships manufactured products valued at more than $50,000 directly from the Dover plant to points outside the State of Ohio.

   Respondent is an employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act.

   2. THE UNION The charging party herein , International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers , AFL-CIO-CLC, and its Local 705 (herein called the Union 3), is a labor organization within the meaning of the Act.

   3. THE ALLEGED UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES A. Background and Setting Between 1966 and 1969, there was a 'National Agreement' between General Electric Company on the one hand, and the International and various of its locals on the other, covering the working conditions of employees in a number of bargaining units represented by the International and/or those locals. The agreement, by its terms, went into effect for the original signatories as of October 3, 1966;

   was to apply to other bargaining units when and if the International and/or other locals acquired appropriate Board certifications; and was to be effective for at least 3 years.

   Article XIII 2(b)(2) of the contract concerns the second step of the grievance procedure and states as follows:

   Meetings between representatives of the Local and local management shall be arranged at mutually agreeable times for the purpose of discussing such grievance. In those cases where it is mutually agreed by Management and Local representatives that an inspection of the job would be helpful in settling the case, a sub-committee of the Local with Management representatives shall be allowed to make an inspection of the job. Local representatives may include the Business Agent or his Assistant or officers of the Local.

   On or about April 27, 1967, the International-which, at the Dover plant, acted through Local 705-was certified by the Regional Director for Region 8 of the Board as exclusive bargaining agent for a unit consisting of:

   All production and maintenance employees [at the Dover plant] including group leaders and production plating specialists, excluding all office clerical employees, engineering technicians, shipping and receiving clericals and professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act, hereby granted to the extent it seeks corrections which have been made by this order, in all other respects, it is denied 3 Except when it becomes necessary to distinguish between the International and Local 705

   4 The Union's joinder in the stipulation was without prejudice to its contention-being made in other Board proceedings now pending-that a multi-General Electric-plant umt is likewise an appropriate bargaining unit 5 Unless the contrary is indicated, all dates referred to herein fall within 1969

   6 Throughout the hearing, different names were used for the jobs in question The General Counsel and his witnesses continually referred to and thereupon, pursuant to the terms of the National Agreement, the Union became a party thereto.

   I find, pursuant to the stipulation of the parties,4 that the unit described above is appropriate for the purpose of collective bargaining within the meaning of the Act.

   2. Chronology of Events On May 19, 1969,5 Local 705, through a steward, filed a grievance concerning the wages being paid for two jobs being performed at the plant, jobs 'in the Fabrication Department, namely Grinding and Set-up Punch Press.' In effect, by its action, Local 705 was seeking to restore the pay for the first job, now rated at 'R-16' on Respondent's pay scale, to the R-17 rating from which it had been downgraded in 1965, and to upgrade the second job from its present R-17 to R-19; and it requested a written answer by next day. On the 20th, Respondent, through several foremen, responded: 'We feel the General Operator and Set-up...