NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

158 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Board has recognized that changes in the facts and circumstances
which are of importance in determining the appropriate unit
may work a corresponding chancre in the unit which has been found
appropriate for the employees o ' particular company. A situation
in which this recognition is an important factor is that in which a
labor organization has organized only part of the employees who
might otherwise constitute an appropriate unit.
In Gulf Oil Corporation, 77 the Board said :
Wherever possible, it is obviously desirable that, in the determination of the
appropriate unit, we render collective bargaining of the company's employees
an immediate possibility. In the instant proceeding the record clearly indicates
that a majority of the boilermaking employees at Port Arthur refinery have
authorized the boilermakers to act as their bargaining agent and that that
labor organization has for the past four or five years been recognized by the
company as the representative of its members. On the other hand, there is no
evidence that the majority of the other employees at the refinery belong to any
union whatsoever ; nor has any labor organization petitioned the Board for
certification as representative of the refinery employees on a plant-wide basis.
Consequently, even if the boilermaking employees do not constitute the most
effective bargaining unit, as the oil workers contend, nevertheless, in the existing
circumstances, unless they are recognized as a separate unit, there will be
no collective bargaining agent whatsoever for these workers, who for years
have actually engaged in collective bargaining with the company."
It should be noted that the fact that a union has organized only
part of the employees who would otherwise constitute an appropriate
unit does not have the same effect as in the cases above discussed,
where another union has organized on the basis of the larger unit.7°
The Board has also recognized that it may be called on to find a
change in the unit which it finds appropriate in a 'particular proceeding.
In Matter of Great Lakes Engineering TVork8, 8° where one
group of unions contended that the employees m three craft groups
constituted a single unit, and another union contended that an industrial
unit was proper, the Board found that the craft employees constituted
three separate units. It stated, however:
If the association wins the election, we will certify it as the representative of
all of the employees in the unit, but this certification is not to preclude the
expansion of this unit to include other crafts in which the associaion may
have majority membership, since it is set up as an industrial union.
The certifications to be made herein will not prevent the council from being
designated by the individual craft unions as their joint representative to deal
with the company for the purposes of collective bargaining.
TT Matter of Gulf Oil Corporation and International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron
Shipbuilders, Welders & Helpers of America, 4 N. L. ft. B. 133.
" See also : Matter of Associated Press and The American Newspaper Guild, 5 N. L.
R. B. 43 (offices in three cities covered by the company's service) ; Matter of United Shipyards,
Inc. and Locals No. 12, No. 13, No. 15 of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding
Workers of America, 5 N. L. R. B. 742 (three of the company's four plants) ; and
Matter of Postal Telegraph-Cable Company of Massachusetts and American Radio Telegraphists
Association, 7 N. L. R. B. 444 (the Boston area of the company's nationwide
telegraph system). Compare Matter of Mackay Radio Corporation of Delaware, Inc.
and Mackay Radio ti Telegraph ComPany, a Corporation and American Radio Telegraphists'
Association, 5 N. L. R. B. 657, which distinguishes these cases where the union has organized
the company's entire system • and Matter of Daily Mirror, Inc. and The Newspaper
Guild of New York, 5 N. L. R. 362, where the fact that the union involved had previously
bargained for editorial employees alone, and was presently bargaining for such
employees, only, at other companies, did not prevent it from claiming a larger appropriate
unit when it had succeeded in organizing on the larger basis. The rule applicable in cases
of this type was originally formulated in Matter of R. C. A. Communications, Inc. and
American Radio Telegraphists' Association, 2 N. L. R. B. 1109.
79 Matter of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. and American Radio Telegraphists
Association, 6 N. L. R. B. 166.
80 Matter of Great Lakes Engineering Works and Detroit Metal Trades Council, 3 N. L.
R. B. 825.
11 See also : Matter of Associated Oil Company and Sailors Union of the Pacific, 5 N. L.
R. B. 893; and Matter of The American Brass 'Company and The Waterbury Brass Workers'
Union, 6 N. L. It. B. 723.