Operations In Fiscal Year 1988 - National Labor Relations Board

Representation Proceedings 43Further, the Board noted that fmding contract-bar principlesinapplicable to the present case would ,be contrary to the Board'sgeneral approach toward employers' voluntary recognition ofcollective-bargaining representatives. "In a mixed unit of professionaland nonprofessional employees, as with most other units,an employer under the general rules of voluntary recognitionneed only be satisfied that the union has the majority support ofthe entire unit," stated the Board. Moreover, as was explained inVincent Drugs, "the legislative history of Section 9(b)(1) does notdemonstrate an outright hostility to voluntarily recognized mixedunits." The Board concluded that neither Utah Power nor . WellsFargo presented any new evidence to impeach this earlier interpretation.Finally, the Board noted that the employer and the intervenorhad had successive collective-bargaining agreements since 1977,and that there were legally recognized opportunities during thewindow periods in 1980 and again in 1983 in which to file atimely petition. Because -there was no evidence to suggest thatthe professional employees had been precluded from availingthemselves of those opportunities, the Board concluded that itwas not unreasonable to defer the exercise of the professionalemployees' right of self-determination until the end of the thencurrentcontract.In Georgia Kaolin Co., 5 the Board considered whether a schismexisted within a union such that a current collective-bargainingagreement did not bar an election. The Board majority concluded,applying Hershey Chocolate Corp., 6 that the contract did barthe election because there was no basic intraunion conflict at theinternational union's highest level.The petition was filed after the merger of two internationals,which resulted in one of the unions becoming a division of theother. Under the terms of the merger agreement, a new vicepresidencywas created to serve on the merged international'sgoverning executive council. The agreement specified the procedurefor filling that position. Following an election for the position,conducted at a consolidated convention, disaffected members,who were dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, createda new labor organization and filed a petition seeking to representthe unit covered by the existing contract. The Board majorityfound that no basic policy dispute at the unions' highestlevel existed because neither the members of the international'sgoverning body nor the delegates to the consolidated conventionexpressed dissatisfaction with the election procedure. Accordingly,the majority concluded that the defmition of schism was notmet under Hershey and dismissed the petition.'287 NLRB No. 50 (Chairman Dotson and Member Babson; Member Johansen dissenting).6 121 NLRB 901, 907-908 (1958).