NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

VII. PRINCIPLES ESTABLISHED 173
The practice of giving controlling weight to the desires of a majority
of the employees m a craft., where there is a dispute between
proponents of craft and industrial forms of organization, has met
with the disapproval of one member of the Board. In several cases
in which the doctrine of the Globe case has been applied, Mr. Edwin S.
Smith has dissented from the conclusion reached by the majority of
the Board, and in other cases, he has concurred only in the result.
In Matter of Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, 41 Mr. Smith
said, in a dissenting opinion :
I cannot concur in this decision, because, under all the circumstances, I feel
the Board is here abandoning its necessary judicial function under the act of
making a reasonable determination of the appropriate bargaining unit in accordance
with the facts of the particular case.
The decision vests in the hands of a small group of employees the choice of
determining whether in this mass-production plant, employing nearly 10,000
workers, a complete industrial unit, or one from which one or more crafts have
been severed, is most appropriate to promote collective bargaining. * * *
Permitting minorities to set themselves off, as all the indications are they would
do in this instance, succeeds in providing full self-determination for the minority
but only at the expense of entirely disregarding the interests of the majority.
The statute states that the Board shall decide in each case the appropriate
bargaining unit "in order to insure to employees the full benefit of their right to
self-organization and to collective bargaining and to otherwise effectuate the
policies of this act." Among other things, the policies of the act are clearly
aimed at establishing that form of collective bargaining which will be most
likely to lead to industrial stability and peace. Having in mind the broad
purposes of the act, the appropriate unit in this„ as in other cases, must be
decided on the particular facts presented.
Aside from separate bargaining by organized craft groups for a short time
many years ago, the whole recent and significant history of sentiment regarding
collective bargaining in the Allis-Chalmers plant points to the emergence
of the industrial type union as the choice of the overwhelming mass of the
employees. * * *
* * * If the oilers and firemen and the skilled maintenance electricians
bargain separately, by so much is the united economic strength of the employees
as a whole weakened. Anything which weakens the bargaining power
of the employees will tend to lessen reliance upon peaceful collective bargaining
as the means for achieving the workers' economic ends. Such a tendency
is plainly contrary to the purposes of the act.°
Mr. Smith has concurred in the result of other decisions of the
Board which applied the doctrine of the Globe case, where no union
claimed a majority in an industrial unit," or where there had been
a course of separate collective bargaining on behalf of the craft
employees in question. 44 In Matter of American Hardware Corporation,
45 Mr. Smith concurred in a separate opinion, as follows :
Although other facts on which this decision is based would seem to indicate
that the industrial unit is here the one most appropriate to achieve the pur-
41 Matter of Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company and International Union, United
Automobile Workers of America, Local 248, 4 N. L. R. B. 159. The facts of this case are
described above In this section.
4° Mr. Smith also dissented in the following cases: Matter of Schick Dry Shaver Company
and Lodge No. 1557, International Association of Machinists, 4 N. L. R. B. 246;
Matter of Worthington Pump and Machinery Corp. and Pattern Makers Association of
New York and Vicinity, Pattern Makers League, 4 N. L. R. B. 448; Matter of Combustion
Engineering Company, Inc. and Steel Workers Organizing Committee, etc., 5 N. L. R. B.
344; Matter of Armour d Company and International Association of Machinists, Local 92,
5 N. L. R. B. 535; Matter of Joseph S. Pinch i Co., Inc. and United Distillery Workers
Union, Local No. 3, 7 N. L. R. B. 1; and Matter of Fairbanks, Morse d Company and
Pattern Makers Association of Beloit, 7 N. L. R. B. 229.
43 Matter of Waterbury Manufacturing Company and International Association of
Machinists, Local 1335, 5 N. L. R. B. 288.
"Matter matter of Shell Chemical Company and Oil Workers International Union, etc. 4
N. L. R. B. 259; Matter of American Hardware Corporation and United Electrical and
Radio Workers of America, 4 N. L. R. B. 412.
Matter of American Hardware Corporation and United Electrical and Radio Workers
of America, 4 N. L. R. B. 412.