1 - National Labor Relations Board

Representation Cases 49
In Missouri Beef Packers, 15 however, the Board dismissed an
international union's petition to amend certain certifications of
an independent union by substituting the name of the international
on grounds that the independent had affiliated with it.
The Board concluded that an amendment of the certification was
not appropriate, since a question concerning representation was
presented. Although the independent's officials had initially agreed
to the affiliation, they repudiated it well before the vote by the
union membership for affiliation, and continued to oppose it
thereafter. Distinguishing Equipment Manufacturing, supra,
where it found no survival of the old independent after the
affiliation, the Board found that under these circumstances there
was no guaranty of continuity of representation since the certified
labor organization remained a functioning, viable entity opposing
the amendment. In its view, granting the amendment would have
abridged the Act's requirement that the employees select their
own bargaining representative.16
The disaffiliation of a local union from one international, and
its merger with a local union of another international, was found
by the Board not to raise a question concerning representation
of the affected employees under the circumstances present in the
Gate City Optical case." It was the employee's avowed purpose in
effecting the change in affiliation, and causing their newly designated
representative to file a petition for an election, to circumvent
the existing contract and enable their new representative
to negotiate a more favorable one.
The employer conceded the formal defunctness of the certified
incumbent and the majority status of the local with which it had
merged, and expressed a willingness to recognize the petitioner
as representative of the unit employees if it assumed the incumbent's
unexpired contract. The Board found, however, that the
incumbent was not defunct in a substantive sense—particularly
where the formal defunctness was "created as a stratagem to
achieve an end inimical to policies of the Act"—and had not
changed its identity to any significant extent. It pointed out that
an election at this time would disrupt conditions already stabilized
by the existing contract. In view of the fact that the petitioning
union was clearly entitled to recognition, which the em-
"175 NLRB No. 179.
" Members Fanning and Brown for the majority Member Zagoria, concurring in the result,
would find the affiliation vote inadequate in any event, since a number of employees sufficient to
have affected the outcome of the election were disenfianchised because not members of the
independent.
" Gate City Optical Co., A Div. of Cole Natl. Corp., 175 NLRB No. 172.