OGS Technologies, Inc. (“OGS”) purchased the assets of a button-making company and subsequently removed its die-engineers from the collective-bargaining unit of its production and maintenance employees, subcontracted their remaining die-cutting work, and eliminated the die-engineer classification.  The Board majority (Chairman Liebman and Member Becker) found that OGS had acted unlawfully by excluding the die engineers from the bargaining unit, by subcontracting its die-cutting work, and by eliminating the die-cutting classification, all without giving the union notice and opportunity to bargain.  The majority found that, under the Supreme Court’s decision in First National Maintenance v. NLRB, 452 U.S. 666 (1981), the subcontracting at issue was not exempted from mandatory bargaining because it did not rise to the level of a change in the scope of the enterprise.  Member Hayes dissented, in part,  asserting that OGS decided to subcontract in order to take advantage of new die-cutting technology – and that its decision thus qualified as a core entrepreneurial decision under First National Maintenance, supra.

Charge filed by United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Local 376.  Administrative Law Judge Clifford Anderson issued his decision August 23, 2006.  Chairman Liebman and Members Becker and Hayes participated.