National Labor Relations Board v. E-Z Davies Chevrolet, National Labor Relations Board v. Carl Simpson Buick, Inc.

On these two Petitions for Enforcement, there is no significant variation in the briefs, oral argument was consolidated, and the issues are the same.

The respondent companies are automobile dealers. The Union filed separate election petitions in which it sought to represent two bargaining units, each composed of the salesmen of one of the companies. In preelection hearings, the companies sought dismissal of the election petitions. They contended that the single-company unit was inappropriate, basing the contention primarily upon certain facts as follows: The companies are members of an employer association called Peninsula Automobile Dealers Association (PADA). There are fifty members of the association, and each is an automobile dealer in the peninsula area south of San Francisco, California. In 1953, a union other than the one here involved had been designated as bargaining representative of the salesmen of all members of the employer association. That union was unable to effect a contract. Later, in 1958, a second union local was designated to represent the salesmen of all the employers. It, too, failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement with PADA. At the time,…