American Pipe and Construction Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 21, 1968

169 N.L.R.B. 1024 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

1024 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
American Pipe and Construction Co. and Local No.
11, International Brotherhood of Electrical Work-
ers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case 21-RC-10229
February 21, 1968
DECISION AND ORDER
BY MEMBERS BROWN , JENKINS , AND ZAGORIA
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Barton W.
Robertson. Following the hearing, this case was
transferred to the National Labor Relations Board
in Washington, D.C., pursuant to Section 102.67(h)
of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and
Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8,
as amended. Subsequently, the Employer and the
Petitioner filed briefs with the Board which have
been duly considered.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af-
firmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board
finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the pur-
poses of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of certain employees of
the Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1)
and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks an election for a bargaining
unit composed of all electricians and helpers, the
electrical leadman, the warehouseman, and the
oiler, working at the Employer's South Gate,
California, plant. The collective-bargaining history
at this plant shows that, in 1954, the Employer
voluntarily recognized the Los Angeles Building
and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO
(herein called Council), as the exclusive representa-
tive for its production and maintenance employees.
In 1955 the Employer and Council executed a col-
lective-bargaining agreement on behalf of the Coun-
cil's six affiliated or constituent unions' covering
their member employees at South Gate. Successive
agreements were negotiated between the parties in
1960 and 1963, and the latest 3-year renewal agree-
ment was signed by the parties on November 7,
1966. All of the foregoing collective-bargaining
agreements culminated from joint negotiations; i.e.,
the employees' bargaining team is normally com-
prised of the Council's executive secretary, or his
designee, and representatives from the several con-
stituent unions. The Petitioner, however, failed to
participate in the 1966 negotiations to any meaning-
ful extent and has not executed the resulting bar-
gaining agreement. In fact, on or about July 5,
1966, Petitioner, in two letters, notified the Em-
ployer and Council that it had rescinded the
authority previously delegated to the Council to
represent Petitioner in collective bargaining with
the Employer. Further, Petitioner's letter to the
Employer requested that the Employer accord
recognition to Petitioner as the "sole and exclusive
collective bargaining representative of all electri-
cians heretofore covered under the Council-Com-
pany contract," and, that the parties agree on a date
for commencing separate negotiations. Suffice it to
note here, that the Council and the Employer took
no action with respect to Petitioner's notices and
requests, and, subsequently, Petitioner filed its peti-
tion for a separate representation election herein.
Parties' Contentions
The Petitioner contends that the Board should
sanction its purported withdrawal from the multi-
union2 bargaining unit herein, citing, in general sup-
port of its position, recent decisions by the Board
conferring on labor unions a right coequal to that
enjoyed by employers to secede from multiem-
ployer bargaining units.3 On the other hand, the
Employer strenuously objects to the Petitioner's at-
tempt to fragment the long-established multiunion
bargaining unit, contending that, if permitted, it
would seriously jeopardize labor relations stability
in its plant. The Employer urges that the Board's
decision in Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, 162
NLRB 387, constitutes relevant precedent for the
Board's dismissal of the subject petition for
separate representation. Finally, the Employer
maintains that, the electricians sought to be
' The six constituent unions are : ( 1) Southern California District Coun-
cil of Laborers , AFL-CIO, and its affiliated Local#300; (2) International
Brotherhood of Boilermakers , Iron Shipbuilders , Blacksmiths , Forgers
and Helpers Local #92, AFL-CIO; (3) International Union of Operating
Engineers , Local Union #12, AFL-CIO; (4) Los Angeles County Dis-
trict Council of Carpenters , AFL-CIO; (5) Local #420 of the Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Hel-
pers of America; and (6) the Petitioner.
2 Unlike a multiemployer bargaining unit which in its simplest form con-
sists of one labor organization engaging in joint bargaining with a group of
employers, the multiunion unit herein consists of six constituent unions
maintaining a collective-bargaining relationship with a single employer.
3 See The Evening News Association, 154 NLRB 1494, enfd. 372 F.2d
596 (C.A. 6).
169 NLRB No. 138
AMERICAN PIPE AND CONSTRUCTION CO. 1025
separately represented do not comprise an ap-
propriate unit for collective bargaining.
Based upon our consideration of the record
herein, we fmd particular merit in the Employer's
last-noted contention that in the circumstances of
this case the employees sought by the Petitioner
would not constitute an appropriate bargaining unit.
We reach this finding because of the following
reasons:
In 1954 the Employer recognized the Council as
the bargaining agent for the six unions enumerated,
supra. Accordingly, the parties' first collective-bar-
gaining agreement, in June 1955, recited in article
I, inter alia, that "The Los Angeles Building and
Construction Trades Council is hereby designated
as the agent of the `Unions' for the purpose of
negotiating and concluding, for and on behalf of the
`Unions' a collective bargaining agreement with the
[Employer]." Subsequent renewals of the agree-
ment between the parties in effect until the present
time also included similar provisions. While it is
true that the successive labor agreements give in-
dividual union shop stewards the right to handle the
first two steps under the grievance and arbitration
procedure4 and each union now has the right to
negotiate new wage rates when its members are af-
fected by job evaluation modifications, the single,
joint bargaining agreement uniformly controls terms
and conditions of employment for all production
and maintenance workers in the plant. Illustrative
of this finding is the contract proviso empowering
the secretary of the Council to make final and bind-
ing decisions governing the assignment of work
under the contract to a constituent union, and to
determine which of the six unions shall represent
employees working in the job classifications
covered by the contract. Thus, the bargaining histo-
ry, including the resulting agreements, constitutes
a significant factor favoring the appropriateness of
the existing plantwide bargaining unit.5
As for the electricians and helpers which Peti-
tioner primarily seeks to represent, it is evident that
the electrical maintenance functions they perform
and the installations made by them frequently
require a good working knowledge of their special-
ty. However, there is no formal apprenticeship
training requirement for electricians sponsored by
the Employer. Most of the present complement of
top-rated grade XVII electricians transferred into
electrical maintenance from other jobs in the plant.
Essentially, the requisite competence to perform
the work acceptably is achieved on the job, and
after a period of about 4 years an electrical worker
progresses to the highest pay classification in the
plant, grade XVII.
Another factor typifying the community of in-
terest prevailing between the electricians and other
classes of employees in the plant is evidenced by
the Employer's supervisory structure. Electricians
are supervised through the electrical leadman by
the general foreman of maintenance, who also su-
pervises eight or nine mechanics who belong to the
Boilermakers, eight or nine carpenters who belong
to the Carpenters Union, and three utility men who
are members of the Laborers Union. Quite
frequently, electricians devote an appreciable
amount of time working cooperatively with other
employees, such as machinists and mechanics,
while installing electrical motors, controls, and wir-
ing for certain unique concrete pipe-laying and
fabricating machinery produced by the Employer,
both for its own use and for resale.6 Although the
record shows that electricians are treated as a
separate group for the annual scheduling of vaca-
tions, they use all of the same plant facilities as do
the other employees and, as mentioned supra, they
are subject to the same standardized terms and con-
ditions of employment pursuant to the terms of the
bargaining agreement.
Therefore, upon our review of the record herein,
we conclude that it will not effectuate the purposes
of the Act to permit the disruption of the existing,
established multiunion production and maintenance
unit by directing an election for separate represen-
tation, as requested by the Petitioner. We find that
the interests served by maintenance of stability in
the existing bargaining unit of production and main-
tenance employees outweigh the interests served by
permitting electricians to change their mode of
representation and thereby disrupt the existing pat-
tern of representation.7
In the light of the electricians' community of in-
terest with other personnel in the existing plantwide
production and maintenance unit, the inclusion of
the electricians in that unit since 1954, and, in the
absence of any compelling countervailing con-
siderations, we find that the unit sought by the Peti-
tioner is inappropriate. Accordingly, we shall
dismiss the petition."
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
4 The Council's secretary then takes up the grievance if a satisfactory
solution has not been achieved as a result of processing through the first
two steps.
5 See General Metalcraft, Inc., Olympia Division, 106 NLRB 1131.
Electricians have spent as much as 300-500 hours performing electri-
cal work in building each Helical Weld Machine in conjunction with other
employees.
7 As for the interest of the electricians, we note that five of the best
qualified electricians in this plant are currently receiving the highest pay
provided in the classification schedule under the present contract at the
grade XVII level. Although this case does not directly raise craft
severance issues, we note that the Board in Mal(,nckrodt Chemical
Works, supra, and in other craft severance casesi has balanced the respec-
tive interests of the group sought to be severed against the interests of the
larger group.
8 General Metalcraft, Inc., Olympia Division , supra.