Avco Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 28, 1992

308 N.L.R.B. 1045 (N.L.R.B. 1992)

1045
308 NLRB No. 151
AVCO CORP.
1 The Regional Director found that the portion of the petition
which seeks to clarify the unit with respect to the data input and sta-
tus analysts and the DEC in the shop floor control office of the Ma-
terial Control Department is untimely and dismissed the petition as
to these job classifications. However, in his order, the Regional Di-
rector inadvertently clarified the unit to exclude those employees.
The order is corrected to dismiss that portion of the petition as un-
timely.
2 Manhattan Construction Co., 298 NLRB 501 (1990); Oxford
Chemicals, 286 NLRB 187 (1987).
3 Sunray Ltd., 258 NLRB 517 (1981).
1 Denver-Colorado Springs-Pueblo Motor Way, 129 NLRB 1184
(1961).
Textron Lycoming Division, Avco Corporation, a
wholly owned subsidiary of Textron, Inc. and
International Union, United Automobile, Aero-
space and Agricultural Implement Workers of
America (UAW) and its Local 787, Petitioner.
Case 4–UC–429
September 28, 1992
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN STEPHENS AND MEMBERS OVIATT
AND RAUDABAUGH
The Board has delegated its authority in this pro-
ceeding to a three-member panel, which has considered
the Employer’s request for review of the Regional Di-
rector’s Decision, Order, and Clarification of Bargain-
ing Unit (pertinent portions of which are attached).
The request for review is granted as it raises substan-
tial issues warranting review.
Having carefully examined the entire record, the
Board has decided to affirm the Regional Director’s
decision.1 In making this determination, we note that
Konyar, data entry clerk (DEC) in receiving inspection,
and Hyde, turbine data coordinator, are dual-function
employees. Each, however, spends a sufficient portion
of her time doing work that the Regional Director
found, and we agree, is plant clerical work to establish
that each is appropriately included in the existing pro-
duction and maintenance unit. Berea Publishing Co.,
140 NLRB 516 (1963).
Unlike our dissenting colleague, we are not per-
suaded that Berea should be overruled and that dual-
function employees should no longer be treated as
analogous to part-time employees. The dissent would
only include dual-function employees in a unit if more
than half their time is spent performing unit work.
Berea is a well-established precedent that has been
reaffirmed in recent years2 and is not without limiting
principles.3 Although a dual-function employee who
performs unit work less than 50 percent of the time
may have a weaker community of interest with the
full-time unit employees than those who spend more
than 50 percent of their time on unit work, voter eligi-
bility and unit placement do not turn only on maximiz-
ing homogeneity among unit employees. See Continen-
tal Web Press v. NLRB, 742 F.2d 1087, 1089–1090
(7th Cir. 1984).
Also, in affirming the Regional Director’s decision,
we reject the Employer’s claim that the classifications
the Regional Director included in the unit by clarifica-
tion are only a portion of the classifications performing
similar data entry work. The classifications cited by
the Employer in support of this argument either were
not newly established, or had not undergone a recent
substantial change in duties, or involved duties which
are office clerical in nature and not of the type appro-
priately included in a production and maintenance unit.
MEMBER RAUDABAUGH, dissenting in part.
I dissent as to the inclusion of employees Konyar
and Hyde in the bargaining unit. In this regard, I
would overrule Berea Publishing Co. and return to the
sound unit placement rule set forth in Denver-Colo-
rado Springs.1 Hence, I would include only those dual-
function employees who spend more than 50 percent
of their time doing unit work.
In Berea Publishing, the Board decided that the rule
applicable to part-time employees should be applied to
dual-function employees. Under the rule for part-time
employees, if an employee works part-time for one
employer and part-time for a different employer, the
employee can be included in the first employer’s unit
even if he works a greater number of hours for the
second employer. In Berea, this rule was applied to
dual-function employees. That is, if an employee
works both in the unit and outside the unit for the
same employer, he can be included in the unit, even
if he works a greater number of hours outside the unit.
I do not agree that dual-function employees should
be treated exactly the same as part-time employees.
With respect to the part-time employee, all of his work
for the employer is spent in the unit. With respect to
the dual-function employee, only some of his work for
the employer is performed within the unit. The dif-
ference is a significant one in terms of community of
interest. As a matter of economic reality, unit employ-
ees are competing against nonunit employees for lim-
ited employer resources. The part-time employee
shares with the other unit employees an interest in hav-
ing these limited resources allocated, to the maximum
extent possible, to the unit employees, even at the ex-
pense of nonunit employees. By contrast, the dual-
function employee may have an interest in having the
employer allocate a greater portion of its limited re-
sources for the benefit of the nonunit employees. This
would be particularly true if the employee spent more
than one-half of his time in the nonunit job.
In sum, it does not necessarily follow that the unit
inclusion rules for dual-function employees must be
1046 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
2 The part-time employee is included in the unit if he is regularly
employed for sufficient periods of time to demonstrate that he, along
with the full-time employee, has a substantial interest in the unit’s
wages, hours, and conditions of employment.
the same as the rules for part-time employees. Hence,
even if the rule for part-time employees is to be left
somewhat vague,2 that is no reason to have the same
vague rule apply to dual-function employees. The 50-
percent rule, applied to dual-function employees before
Berea, has the advantages of certainty, predictability,
and simplicity. I would adhere to that rule.
APPENDIX
3. The Employer is a Delaware corporation engaged in the
manufacture of piston and turbine aircraft engines and related
parts. It has a manufacturing plant (the Plant) and an office
and service hangar (the Airport facility) located in Williams-
port, Pennsylvania which are the subject of the petition. The
Union and the Employer are parties to a collective bargaining
agreement, the most recent of which was effective from
April 18, 1987 through April 20, 1990, covering a unit of
approxiately 818 ‘‘production and maintenance employees,
tool designers, hourly Airport service employees, and . . .
shop clerical employees . . . excluding . . . clerical and of-
fice employees . . . . The Union seeks to clarify the existing
production and maintenance unit to include data entry clerks
(DECs) and data input and status analysts (DISAs) in the
Quality Department—Metrology Lab, the Quality Depart-
ment—Receiving Inspection Area, the Shipping Department,
and the shop floor control office and the overhaul and re-
manufactured parts stockroom in the Material Control De-
partment. The Union contends that these job classifications
were created after contract negotiations for the 1987 contract
and that the employees in these job classifications are plant
clericals who share a community of interest with the produc-
tion and maintenance employees. The Employer takes the po-
sition that the job duties performed by the employees in
issue existed prior to the 1987 contract and that the job du-
ties have not undergone any substantial change so as to war-
rant clarifying the unit. Alternatively, the Employer contends
that the employees sought are office clericals who are ex-
cluded by the collective bargaining agreement and do not
share a community of interest with the production and main-
tenance employees.
The record shows that, because the market currently serv-
iced by the Employer primarily consists of spare parts dis-
tributors, the Employer’s operating computer system, the
Production and Inventory Control System (PICS) installed in
1967, was unable to handle the required data. As a result, in
July or August 1988, the Employer installed a new computer
system, Textron Lycoming Integrated Products Planning Sys-
tem (TIPPS).
PICS is a ‘‘batch run’’ system, i.e., data is input during
the day and batch runs are made at night. PICS transactional
data is available the next day. PICS, which was designed for
planning and controlling engine production, does tracing of
inventory and matches inventory to demands. PICS was not
designed for selling in a market where forecasts for sales of
spare parts are needed. PICS was operated through 14 termi-
nals located in the Management Information Systems (MIS)
Department, the production control office area, four or five
locations on the shop floor and one terminal in the shipping
area. The terminals on the shop floor were used to inquire
about parts availability or location. The terminal in the ship-
ping area was used to inquire about inventory levels and lo-
cation. PICS data entry was, and still is, performed by DECs
in MIS or production control. MIS takes data, manipulates it
and generates reports, which are utilized by various segments
of the Employer’s operations, e.g., human resources, products
service and production control.
TIPPS is an on-line system that plans and controls the
manufacturing of the Employer’s products. By utilizing the
TIPPS system, data is available as soon as a transaction is
made. The Employer anticipated that TIPPS would be fully
operational by midsummer 1990. The TIPPS computer is lo-
cated in the MIS Department where it has about 12 termi-
nals. There are about 35 TIPPS terminals located outside the
MIS Department. These terminals are located in the produc-
tion control department, the spare parts, order entry, finance,
engineering, manufacturing and industrial engineering, stock-
room, shipping and the ‘‘buy parts’’ areas. There are also
TIPPS terminals near the foreman’s desk on the shop floor.
In addition to PICS and TIPPS, the plant also uses the
CO-OP System (CO-OPS). CO-OPS is a computer system
based at the Employer’s headquarters in Stratford, Connecti-
cut. It is a planning and distribution order entry system for
the plant’s turbine aircraft engine product line.
The DECs and DISAs have a different pay scale from the
production and maintenance employees. The DECs and
DISAs in issue are paid a weekly salary and receive straight
time for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week.
The production and maintenance employees receive time and
one-half for all hours worked in excess of 8 hours a day,
may accumulate unlimited sick leave, receive one extra holi-
day, and have scheduled breaks.
Donna McQuillen, DEC in the metrology lab in the Qual-
ity Department, is supervised by Metrology Supervisor James
Lusk. Lusk also supervises some production and maintenance
employees. The Metrology department consists of a lab and
a gage crib. The lab area is where the gages used in produc-
tion and inspection are calibrated. The gage crib is where
gages are stored. The Metrology Department has its own
computer system to keep track of the gages. There are three
terminals in the lab area and five in the gage crib. The first
computer was installed in the metrology department in De-
cember 1986 or January 1987. The data entry work was then
performed by employees who worked in other departments.
McQuillen became a full-time DEC in the metrology lab in
December 1988. She spends about 95 percent of her time en-
tering data from the metrology lab or from the various gages
in the plant. The remainder of her time is spent performing
secretarial functions.
Monica Konyar, DEC for the receiving inspection area in
the Quality Department, is supervised by Manager of Pur-
chase Material Quality Ken Ball and Manager of Engineering
Quality Analysis Jay Mankad. The Employer began using
TIPPS in the receiving inspection area sometime in 1989. If
an item or part received by the Employer requires inspection,
it is sent to the buy parts inspection area, along with a re-
ceiving report. Under the PICS system, a copy of the receiv-
ing report showing the movement of the part into inspection,
the inspection, and the movement of the part to a stockroom,
1047AVCO CORP.
went to production control where a DEC entered the infor-
mation into the system. Now, all three transactions are en-
tered into the TIPPS system by Konyar. Konyar spends from
25 to 50 percent of her time entering data in a TIPPS com-
puter. Konyar also works in the buy parts quality control of-
fice where she enters data involving rework activity on parts
in the shop or other quality data throughout the Quality De-
partment into a non-TIPPS computer. Konyar shares an of-
fice with three engineers. A clerical employee, who is in the
unit, works in an adjoining office. Konyar spends 1 to 3
hours per workday doing word processing and general sec-
retarial and clerical work. Occasionally, Konyar fills in when
needed in the metrology area to do data entry functions.
Lori Adams and Linda Dollarhite, DECs in the Shipping
Department, are supervised by Glenn Flook, supervisor of
the shipping area. Flook also supervises shipping clerks and
production and maintenance employees. Adams and
Dollarhite work in the shipping office with Flook and the
shipping clerks. The Employer installed computers in the
shipping area in January 1988. There are currently TIPPS,
CO-OPS, and PICS terminals in the shipping office or in the
shipping area. The TIPPS computers were installed in De-
cember 1988. Orders received by the Employer are written
by order entry clerks in the Order Services Department.
Under PICS, these orders went to the MIS Department where
the order was keypunched into the system. A pick list was
generated the next day and used to pick the order. After the
order was picked, a packing list was returned to the MIS De-
partment where employees keypunched the information into
the system. Under TIPPS, order entry clerks enter the orders
directly into TIPPS instead of sending them to the MIS De-
partment. At night, TIPPS matches available inventory to the
orders and produces a pick list and pick tickets. The orders
are then picked and the pick list is taken to Adams and
Dollarhite in the shipping department who enter an ‘‘issue
transaction’’ into TIPPS. This generates a preliminary pack-
ing list showing the order and the parts being shipped. The
preliminary packing list is then used to record certain infor-
mation and returned to a shipping clerk who types a shipping
label. The preliminary packing list is given to Adams or
Dollarhite who enter the information in TIPPS and print a
final packing list which causes an invoice to be generated at
night in the MIS Department. If there are shortages, TIPPS
generates a list that notifies the stockrooms that parts need
to be ordered or it informs production planners that parts
need to be built or purchased.
Sue Hyde, turbine data coordinator in the production con-
trol section of the Material Control Department, works in an
office and is an assistant to the turbine engine planner. Hyde
spends about 50 percent of her time entering data, either in
the production control section or in the Shipping Department.
When entering data in the Shipping Department, Hyde oper-
ates the CO-OPS terminal where she enters items picked by
the stockroom attendant into the terminal. The CO-OPS ter-
minal was installed in the shipping office in August 1989.
Joan Fink and Carl Harris, DISAs in the Material Control
Department, and Tambre Paulauski, a DEC in the Material
Control Department, mainly work in the shop floor control
office in the middle of the shop. The offices of Material
Control Manager Kent Weiland and Supervisor of Shop
Floor Control Larry Waldman are in an araa adjoining the
shop control office. Waldman supervises Fink, Harris,
Paulauski and about 25 to 30 material handlers, who are unit
employees, as well as shop floor dispatchers who are not in
the unit. In February 1987, the Employer installed a personal
computer (PC) to record data coming from the shop floor.
Work orders, which include parts needed to build an item,
are sent to the shop floor control office which tells the par-
ticular department involved to release parts and to start track-
ing those parts. The DISAs enter this data into the PC in
preparation for beginning the tracking process. At the same
time, a material requisition form is used to record informa-
tion about the parts. This form is sent to the shop floor con-
trol office where the DISAs enter the information into the
PC. This data is used to generate various reports utilized in
production management meetings. It is anticipated that the
PCs will be replaced by TIPPS. When that occurs, the DISAs
and the DEC will be entering the same information now en-
tered in the PC into TIPPS, except for the initial work order
data which already will be in the system. The record shows
that, for the last 2 or 3 years, Harris and others have entered
the same kind of data in an office across the hall from the
one in which they currently work.
Kathy Weber, DEC in the overhaul and remanufactured
parts stockroom in the Material Control Department, works
at the one TIPPS terminal located inside the overhaul and re-
manufactured parts stockroom and is under the supervision
of Foremen Leonard S. Zay. Zay is in charge of the overhaul
and remanufactured parts stockroom and the new stock
stockroom. Weber inputs data concerning the movement of
parts into and out of the stockroom and the availability of
engines for sale.
It is well established that unit clarification is appropriate
for resolving ambiguities concerning the unit placement of
individuals in a newly established classification or an exist-
ing classification which has undergone recent, substantial
changes in the duties and responsibilities of the employees
involved so as to create a real doubt as to whether such em-
ployees continue to fall within the classification in issue.
Union Electric Co., 217 NLRB 666, 667 (1975). Based on
the record evidence set forth above, I find that the positions
of DEC in the Quality Department-Metrology Lab, Quality
Department-Receiving Inspection Area, Shipping Depart-
ment, and overhaul and remanufactured parts stockroom in
the Material Control Department, and the turbine data coordi-
nator in the production control section of the Material Con-
trol Department are new positions which did not exist before
the parties entered into their most recent contract. Although
certain data entry functions were performed in connection
with the PICS computer system, the positions referred to
above are sufficiently different from the previous positions as
to be considered newly established classifications. Accord-
ingly, I find that the petition to clarify the unit with respect
to these classifications is timely filed and I shall clarify the
unit in this respect. Magna Corp., 261 NLRB 104, 105
(1982); Union Electric Co., supra. However, as to the DISAs
and the DEC in the shop floor control office, the record
shows that PCs were installed and utilized in this area in
February 1987, and that the DISA positions existed before
the effective date of the parties’ most recent contract. Ac-
cordingly, I find that the petition to clarify the unit with re-
spect to the DISAs and the DEC in the shop floor control
office of the Material Control Department is untimely, and
I shall dismiss the petition as to these job classifications.
1048 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Board has recognized that the distinction between of-
fice clericals and plant clericals is not always clear. Hamilton
Halter Co., 270 NLRB 331 (1984). However, in determining
whether an employee is an office or plant clerical, the Board
considers whether the functions performed by the employee
are closely allied to the production facility. Gordonsville In-
dustries, 252 NLRB 563, 591 (1980). In the instant case, the
parties’ collective-bargaining agreement covers ‘‘shop cleri-
cal employees’’ but excludes clerical and office employees.
While the DECs have a different pay scale, some different
benefits, and possess different skills, they work under the
same supervision and work in the same area as unit employ-
ees. Their data entry work is functionally related to the pro-
duction and manufacturing process. Columbia Textile Serv-
ices, 293 NLRB 1034, 1035 (1989). In these circumstances,
I find that the DECs in the Quality Department-Metrology
Lab, Quality Department-Receiving Inspection Area, Ship-
ping Department, and overhaul and remanufactured parts
stockroom in the Material Control Department, and the tur-
bine data coordinator in the production control section of the
Material Control Department are plant clericals.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the production and maintenance
unit represented by the International Union, United Auto-
mobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of
America (UAW) and its Local 787 is clarified to include the
data entry clerks in the Quality Department-Metrology Lab,
Quality Department-Receiving Inspection Area, the Shipping
Department, and the overhaul and remanufactured parts
stockroom in the Material Control Department, and the tur-
bine data coordinator in the production control section of the
Material Control Department. It is further ordered that the
production and maintenance unit is clarified to exclude the
data entry clerk and the data input and status analysts in the
shop floor control office in the Material Control Department.