Timken Roller Bearing Company v. NLRB, 15097.

• Decision Date: 21 December 1963
• Docket Number: No. 15097.,15097.
• Citation: 325 F.2d 746
• Parties: The TIMKEN ROLLER BEARING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

325 F.2d 746 (1963)

The TIMKEN ROLLER BEARING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent.

No. 15097.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

December 21, 1963.

John G. Ketterer, Canton, Ohio (Day, Cope, Ketterer, Raley & Wright, R. M. Rybolt, Canton, Ohio, on the brief), for petitioner.

Melvin J. Welles, Atty., N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C. (Stuart Rothman, Gen. Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Associate Gen. Counsel, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Vivian Asplund, Atty., N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C., on the brief), for respondent.

David E. Feller, Elliot Bredhoff, Jerry D. Anker, Michael H. Gottesman, Washington, D. C., Herschel Kriger, Canton, Ohio, on the brief amicus curiae for United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO.

Before MILLER and WEICK, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAM E. MILLER, District Judge.

SHACKELFORD MILLER, Jr., Circuit Judge.

The petitioner, The Timken Roller Bearing Company, hereinafter referred to as the "Company," seeks to set aside an order of the National Labor Relations Board issued on August 3, 1962, which held that petitioner violated Section 8(a) (5) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, Section 158(a) (5) and (1), Title 29 United States Code. The Board in its answer to the petition has requested enforcement of its order. It is agreed by the parties that the court has jurisdiction of the proceeding.

This is a so-called "wage data" case, in which the Company is charged with having illegally refused to comply with the Union's request for information relating to the method used to establish the wages received by its employees. The Company's refusal to comply with this request is alleged to have been a refusal to bargain in good faith, thereby constituting an unfair labor practice, in violation of Section 8(a) (5). The violation of this section of the Act in turn results in the Company engaging in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of Section 8(a) (1) of the Act.

The Company, an Ohio corporation, maintains its principal office and place of business in Canton, Ohio, where it is engaged in the manufacture, sale and distribution of roller bearings. For many years the Union^* has been the bargaining representative of the production and maintenance workers at the Company's plant at Canton, Ohio. Each product and operation performed in the plant carries a fixed wage rate, which is determined by a very complex system of detailed time studies, operation observations, personal motions recordings, and a myriad set of detailed evaluations of every separate element and aspect of the production process. The basic and precise elemental factors considered were all reduced to writings called time-study sheets. As the changing needs of the Company develop, old methods are reevaluated, new products are conceived, improved and more efficient methods are evolved, and, in consequence of successive studies and evaluations of work effort by the individual employee operators, changed basic time studies are produced and new and different wage rates established.

The Company's practice of using this complex technique for establishing the wage structure of the employee has been recognized in bargaining contracts between the parties prior to the contract involved in the present case, which was executed February 21, 1960. The 1960 contract provides that the wage structure in existence at the moment the current contract is signed shall be frozen for the duration of the agreement except as changed during its life pursuant to the contract provisions themselves. Article V, paragraph B, provides with respect to new rates:

"It is recognized that the Company at its discretion may find it necessary or desirable from time to time to establish new wage rates or to adjust existing wage rates because of any of the following circumstances: * * *."

The contract thereafter lists six "circumstances," such as changes or improvements made in equipment, new or changed standards of manufacture, establishment of changed or new occupations in the plant, and the introduction of new products and additions to the present line of products in the plant. Under Article V, paragraph C, the Company agrees that when it deems it necessary or desirable to establish a new wage rate, it shall develop and install the new rate in accordance with the Company's practice in effect on the date of the agreement. Article V, paragraph C, also provides that a grievance may be filed by any employee who is affected by such new rate. Article IX sets forth the procedure for adjustment of grievances, which includes four successive steps, the last of which is arbitration.

In the summer of 1960, among the pending grievances, there were five directly arising from newly established wage rates, which the employees contended were a reduction of rates and improperly established under the contract. These five pending grievances had proceeded beyond the third step of the grievance procedure as far back as the summer of 1959 and awaited hearings before a chosen arbitrator in each instance. They were held in abeyance as the parties met in negotiation sessions aimed at a renewal of the 1956 contract due to expire on August 24, 1959. A new two-year contract was signed on February 21, 1960. There is no substantial difference, in terms of wage provisions or grievance procedures, between the two agreements.

On July 18, 1960, the Union wrote a letter to the Company in which it requested wage rate information relating to the grievances involved in all five of the pending arbitration cases referred to above. This request included the original time study sheets and other documents relative to both the prior rates and the new rates, all other data and information which was used to determine the rate of pay for each job, and all documents, studies and other information that were used to evaluate such job, both prior to the change and thereafter, including full information as to the weights given to each factor used to arrive at a final decision on the established rate and what factors were considered in making such decision. It explained that this information was needed because "each of these cases protest the institution of new reduced rates in place of rates theretofore in effect and/or the adequacy, fairness and method of establishment of new rates in their stead." The letter further requested the Company to supply time study manuals, instructions and procedures used in the making of time studies of jobs in the plants. The letter stated that the information requested was necessary to the Union so that it might intelligently evaluate the various rates of pay in the plants, especially as they may be changed from time to time, and "to properly administer the contract."

The Company responded to the Union's request by letter of August 1, 1960, in which it stated that it would not comply with the request. The Union repeated its demand by letter of August 29. The Company again denied the request by letter of September 15. The Company's position was that its obligation to bargain with the representative of its employees, once the contract had been entered into, was to bargain on matters covered by the contract in the manner of bargaining prescribed by the contract; that it had no obligation to agree to any modification of the terms and conditions contained in the contract as long as it remained in effect; that the contract contained adequate provisions for the discussion and settlement of any and all grievances arising under the contract that dealt with the establishment of new rates; that if there was any information that the Union needed for the proper disposition of the listed rate grievances, it was its obligation to secure this information in accordance with the grievance provisions of the contract; and that under the contract, employees working under a new rate might choose to either file a grievance or not to do so, and that it was only when a grievance was filed that the Union had any responsibility with regard to the new rate, and then its interest was confined to the newly established specific rate and not to the rate structure in general. The Company stated that it was willing to proceed with respect to rate grievances strictly in conformity with the 1956 and 1960 agreements whichever was applicable, but it was not interested in negotiating a new contract dealing with the subject of rate establishment. In two grievances which went to arbitration the Company's action was consistent with this position, in that it declined to furnish requested wage information unless the arbitrator ruled that it was required to do so. In one of these matters the arbitrator ruled that the Company was not required to furnish the information requested. In the other matter the arbitrator asked the Company to deliver some of the requested wage data to the Union and the Company complied with this direction.

Following a charge by the Union on November 25, 1960, a complaint was issued on January 5, 1961, by the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board alleging that the Company had committed an unfair labor practice affecting commerce within the meaning of Section 8(a) (1) and (5) of the Act. Following the filing of an answer by the Company and a hearing, the Board concurred in the findings and rulings of the Trial Examiner and issued its order of August 3, 1962, directing the Company to cease and desist from refusing to bargain collectively with the Union by refusing to furnish to the Union information and data concerning time studies and methods used for establishing wage rates, and affirmatively directing the Company to furnish such time studies, wage data and information to the Union upon request. This is the order which is before us on review.

It appears to be well settled that an employer is guilty of an unfair labor practice in refusing to bargain collectively as required by Sections 8(a) (5) and 8(d) of the Act, by...