Avco Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsOct 24, 1974

214 N.L.R.B. 282 (N.L.R.B. 1974)

282 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Avco Lycoming Division (Stratford Plant), Avco Cor- poration I and International Union, United Automo- bile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), Petitioner. Case 2-RC-16427 October 24, 1974 DECISION AND ORDER BY MEMBERS FANNING, KENNEDY, AND PENELLO Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Howard Shapiro. Following the hearing, and pursuant to Sec- tion 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, and by direction of the Re- gional Director for Region 2, this case was transfer- red to the National Labor Relations Board for deci- sion. Both the Employer and the Petitioner have filed briefs. 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 au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul- ings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed. 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 rep- resent certain employees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting commerce exists concern- ing the representation of 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 Employer, a Delaware corporation with an of- fice and plant located in Stratford, Connecticut, is engaged in the development and manufacture of gas turbine aircraft engines and their components, con- stant speed drivers, and missile components. There are approximately 3,700 employees at the Stratford plant, of whom more than 1,000 perform nonsupervi- sory work of a clerical or technical nature. About 180 office clerical and technical employees are in a unit represented by Local 376, UAW. In the instant proceeding, Petitioner seeks a unit of all technical employees and office clerical employees of the industrial engineering department, IB, 2B, 3B, and 4B, as an appropriate unit. In the alternative, it 1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing. seeks to allow those employees to vote to be added to the existing office clerical and technical unit repre- sented by Local 376. The Employer contends, inter alia, that the peti- tioned-for unit is not appropriate by itself, nor should it by itself be added to the existing unit, as it is a residual group which should be included with all unrepresented technical and office clerical employees in a residual unit. The unit sought by the Petitioner consists of 22 employees in the industrial engineering department, 3 of whom are clericals and 19 of whom the parties have stipulated are technicals. Two clerk-typists and one steno "A" make up the clericals. Included in the technicals are a proposal coordinator, who is on spe- cial assignment, a project improvement methods en- gineer, three shop methods engineers, five employees classified as methods and standards engineer "A," one methods and standards. engineer "B," one senior facilities analyst, two industrial engineering analysts, three estimators, and two process change estimators. Two employees in industrial engineering doing plant layout work are presently in the unit represented by Local 376, UAW. The proposal coordinator, also called the Taiwan coordinator, is an employee on special assignment whose function is to coordinate information concern- ing production at Avco with the needs of the Taiwan Government through its contractual relations with Avco. In doing this work, he will have contact with all levels of manufacturing and operations personnel and functions, including other engineering sections. The work itself consists of reviewing equipment spec- ifications, operation sheets, methods inspection sheets, etc., necessary for providing information re- quired by Taiwan to set up production of a plant. The function requires knowledge acquired in attain- ing an engineering degree or the equivalent, and the specific employee in question has a degree in aero- nautical engineering. The project improvement methods engineer con- ducts investigations of a broad scope concerning any programs which the Company has embarked upon, to assure that such progress is in line with the Company's original objectives concerning cost, feasi- bility, etc. Although he reports to the chief of indus- trial engineering, he works throughout the plant quite independently and has the authority to withhold the issuance of labor standards where he feels the cost is not justified. He spends about 25 percent of his time in industrial engineering. The specific employee in this job possesses a degree in industrial administra- tion, necessary for his work, and is the same labor grade as the supervisors in industrial engineering. Methods and standards is made up of three shop 214 NLRB No. 65 AVCO LYCOMING DIVISION 283 methods engineers and six methods and standards engineers "A" and "B," all under one supervisor. The methods and standards engineers perform what might be called timestudy work, observing and re- cording the performance of operators and machines and comparing them with what is considered normal. In doing this, these engineers attempt to determine which methods of performing specific operations are the most economical and beneficial, and propose method changes where present methods appear in- adequate. The shop methods engineers also study different operations on the floor of the plant and, in addition, are responsible for reviewing the studies of the methods and standards engineers, determining what methods need to be studied, setting up audits of labor standards, and studying the variances between existing and proposed labor standards. In performing these functions , the nine engineers in this section work closely with many other departments and sec- tions in the plant, including, inter alia, production services and maintainability, data processing, plant engineering, process engineering, and quality engi- neering. Under operations analysis are the senior facilities analyst and the industrial engineering analysts. Their job entails maintaining records of all the plant facili- ties and machinery, and analyzing the coordination between manpower and machinery to insure optimal productivity. The analysts also compute manpower requirements, determine equipment availability, and evaluate machine adaptability. Estimating consists of estimators and process change estimators. Basically, their job is to study time and cost factors relating to various machinery processes and product lines to find the most feasible means of production. They establish labor standards for parts and manufacturing processes, and for engi- neering changes. In doing this, they work with opera- tion sheets, blueprints, bills and materials, and speci- fications determining production quantities and pro- duction rates. The results of their studies are relayed to other departments such as finance , etc., to de- termine cost and feasibility of production. The three remaining employees in the sought unit are clericals, two clerk-typists and one steno "A". The parties stipulated that the clerk-typists are not confidential employees, but the Employer contends that the steno "A" is a confidential employee. In de- partments where Local 376 represents employees, the steno "A" classification has been specifically exclud- ed. Two plant layout employees are also in industrial engineering; they are already represented by Local 376 in the existing unit. They are primarily layout draftsmen who are concerned with the actual layout of the plant in terms of the arrangement of equip- ment. In carrying out this work, they have close con- tact with such sections as plant engineering and maintenance. Industrial engineering is not classified as a sepa- rate department by the Employer, but is one of four subsections of manufacturing engineering, which in turn is one of three sections of the manufacturing department. The Employer contends that the industrial engi- neering subsection does not constitute a distinct and homogeneous group of employees, but rather that the employees in this subsection have skills similar to those of hundreds of other unrepresented technicals in its operation and that there is considerable func- tional interface between the industrial engineering employees and a large number of these unrepresent- ed technicals, who are excluded from the petitioned- for unit. Further, as is true of the employees in indus- trial engineering, these excluded employees work side by side with represented employees in many depart- ments. There is no departmental union representation of technicals at the Employer's plant. Rather, the ap- proximately 180 technicals and clericals represented by Local 376 come from several different depart- ments and sections. One example of this is process engineering, another subsection of manufacturing engineering, where some of the process engineers are represented while others are not, and are not now sought. The Employer in a large amount of evi- dence of similarity ;of' skills and functional interface between the petitioned-for employees and unrepre- sented and unsought employees, including employees in other subsections of manufacturing engineering with whom the industrial engineering employees have close daily contact in their work. For example, the unrepresented liaison process engineer in process engineering works with represented employees in that same subsection. He utilizes the same skills as industrial engineering employees in determining the most efficient and effective machine processes or equipment to use to process a particular part. The estimator in the toolroom utilizes skills similar to those of the estimator in industrial engineering in estimating costs of tools and evaluating proposals of vendors. The unrepresented process engineers in research and development utilize the same skills as, and have direct contact with, the petitioned-for employees in their work of determining the most feasible method for processing a particular part, etc., and in acquiring 284 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD the data necessary for the transferral of the product line from the prototype aspect to the production as- pect. Liaison engineers act as coordinators between pro- duction and research and development efforts. Further evidence of functional interface between industrial engineering and other unrepresented em- ployees possessing similar skills or background shows that the estimators have contact with the unrepre- sented employees in performance measurement, quality engineering, and design and project engineer- ing. The analysts have contact with plant engineering and accounting and finance. Methods and standards engineers have regular contact with plant engineering and the unrepresented process engineers. Although Local 376 represents employees in many different departments, the Employer submitted evi- dence that some of the employees now sought by the Union have been specifically excluded from the unit in the past, including the classification of steno "A." Further, although employees doing the work and falling under the same job classifications as the em- ployees the Union now seeks to represent have been present in the Employer's plant since the original cer- tification of the Union in 1952, the Union never in the past sought to represent them. The evidence also shows that the petitioned-for employees enjoy the same fringe benefits and are on the same pay scale as many of the other represented employees, and that these are not the same as the benefits and pay of the employees in the unit. The technical employees in industrial engineering enjoy a higher rate of pay than all but a few of the represented employees. The evidence presented shows that there has been substantial personnel interchange between the unrep- resented employees with like background and experi- ence, although the Employer's policy is that all em- ployees are eligible for transfer when a job opens. Promotions usually go to someone within the same department, although this is not necessarily so. Lay- offs are also usually carried out within a department, and not just a section or subsection. The record as a whole in this case does not con- vince us that the petitioned-for employees in the in- dustrial engineering subsection constitute a distinct or homogeneous group of employees. Thus, other technicals both within the manufacturing engineer- ing section and without, who are presently unrepre- sented and are excluded from the requested unit, possess background, experience, and skills similar to those of the employees in the unit sought by the Peti- tioner. Also, the record shows that these unrepresent- ed employees have considerable functional inter- change with the employees in industrial engineering, as do represented employees. Accordingly, we find that the employees in the in- dustrial engineering department do not constitute an appropriate unit in themselves. Nor do we believe that the petitioned-for employees, to the exclusion of other unrepresented technicals and clericals, consti- tute an appropriate voting group. We'shall therefore dismiss the petition.2 ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition in Case 2- RC-16427 be, and it hereby is, dismissed. 2 in view of our decision herein , we do not find it necessary to rule on the additional grounds advanced by the Employer for dismissing the petition.