NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

174 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
poses of collective bargaining in the plants of the respondent, I am ready to
concur in the decision because of what the record discloses of the history of
the machinists' attempts to organize on a craft basis.
The I. A. M. began organization approximately a year before the advent of
the industrial union and the other craft unions. Its members engaged in a
5 weeks' strike in the fall of 1936, thereby demonstrating the solidarity of
their craft convictions. There have also been several attempts at bargaining
by the machinists with favorable results to the workers. These results can
probably be fairly attributed to the stand taken by the machinists' representatives.
The efforts zealously and effectively made to build up this craft as a
bargaining entity should not, I think, be wiped out, in deference to the interests
of the majority of the employees, without permitting a vote of the sort here
provided for.
3. MIIT'TJAL INTEREST
Under the terms of the act, the Board, in determining the appropriate
unit, attempts to insure to employees the full benefit of the
right to self-organization and to collective bargaining. The chief
object of the Board, therefore, is to join in a single unit only such
employees, and all such employees, as have a mutual interest in
the objects of collective bargaining. The appropriate unit selected
must operate for the mutual benefit of all the employees included
therein. To express it another way, the Board must consider whether
there is that community of interest among the employees which is
likely to further harmonious organization and facilitate collective
bargaining
In Matter of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of California,"
the inclusion of certain employees known as "squadron men" in a
unit for production and maintenance employees was considered.
The "squadron men" were employees who received special training
under the supervision of the company's management, and who were
used by the company to deal with emergencies and to fill in whereever
needed. The Board held that they should be excluded from the
unit, saying:
There can be little doubt that the squadron men are a select group. While
It is true that there is nothing essentially supervisory about their position,
they are under the special guidance and care of, and have an intimate relation
with, the management, and cannot be considered as having the same problems
as the non-squadron, production workers. It is clear that they do not belong
in the same unit with the latter for the purposes of collective bargaining.
The fact that an employer operates different departments or plants
as a single business enterprise has been considered by the Board as a
factor indicating that the employees in such departments or plants
constituted a single unit. 4T Conversely, the fact that two geographically
separated units of a company's operations have been conducted
as separate enterprises tends to indicate that the employees in such
units do not constitute one appropriate unit." Similarly, the Board
has found that the maintenance of a single employment office for
different groups of employees indicates the existence of a mutual
"Matter of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of California and United Rubber
Workers of America, Local 131, 3 N. L. R. B. 431.
Matter of Todd Shipyards Corporation, et al. and Industrial Union of Marine and
S'hipbui/d4ng Workers of America, 5 N. L. R. B. 20; Matter of Standard Oil Company of
California and Oil Workers International Union, Local 299, 5 N. L. R. B. 750; and Matter
of Fried, Ostermann Co. and Local 80, International Glove Workers of America, A. F. L.,
7 N. L. R. B. 1075.
"Matter of Jacob A. Hunkele, Trading as Tri-State Towel Service of the Independent
Towel Supply Company and Local No. 40 United Laundry Workers Union, 7 N. L. R. B.
1276.