Indiana & Michigan Electric Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsFeb 21, 1956

115 N.L.R.B. 512 (N.L.R.B. 1956)

512 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Indiana & Michigan Electric Company and Utility Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO,' Petitioner . Case No. 9-RC-2646. Febru- ary 21,1956 . DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Orville E. Andrews, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and 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. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em- ployees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa- tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) andSection 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The parties are in agreement that a production and maintenance unit at the Employer's Tanners Creek generating station is ap- propriate. However, the Employer, contrary to the Petitioner, would exclude master results men and laboratory testers as technical em- ployees and the senior stores attendant and stores attendants as cleri- cal employees 3 There is no history of collective bargaining in the plant. The master results men are employed in the results department and perform highly skilled work in repairing, installing, adjusting, cali- brating, and servicing mechanical, electronic, pneumatic, and hydrau- lic instruments and control equipment. Other employees in the re- sults department, classified as results helper, junior results man, and results man, are less skilled, but perform or assist others to perform similar functions. They are included in the unit by agreement of the parties. Master results men are required to be high school grad- uates and to have additional technical training in the fields of mathe- matics, physics, and electricity which can be obtained at technical schools, by correspondence course, by home study, or possibly by ex- perience and training in the plant. In addition, the Employer sends these men to schools run by industrial concerns from whom it pur- i The AFL and CIO having merged subsequent to the hearing in this proceeding, we are amending the identification of the affiliation of the Petitioner accordingly. 2 Subsequent to the hearing the Employer and Petitioner filed briefs. Thereafter, the Employer filed a motion to delete appendixes to the Petitioner 's brief on the ground that they contain natter not placed in the record herein . This motion is denied as the Board has based its determination herein solely on the facts contained in the record and has considered the briefs only for the purpose of ascertaining the positions of the parties and the arguments in support thereof All factual matter in the briefs which was not placed in the record has been disregarded. 3 The Employer also contends that the senior stores attendant is a supervisor. 115 NLRB No. 84. INDIANA & MICHIGAN ELECTRIC COMPANY 513 chases equipment for further training with respect to that equipment. Technical knowledge and training is also required, but to a lesser de- gree, of the results men. Master results men work up through the lower classifications in the results department and must have 2 years' experience as results men. Progression through the lower classifica- tions to master results man depends upon passing written and oral examinations as well as upon experience and training.4 Master re- sults men may be promoted to assistant results engineers but must have professional engineering degrees or their equivalent to get this promotion. The various jobs performed by the master results men are outlined to them by the results engineer or assistant results engineer. The master results men then organize the job and set up the necessary steps for its completion. They work with other employees in the results department and may perform the work themselves or turn it over to results men. They exercise skill and discretion in deciding whether repairs or adjustments need to be made. Part of their time is spent in the results shop and part at the locations of the various instruments they service. At least half of the time they use hand and power tools in the course of their duties. While the master results men may possess a higher degree of skill and technical knowledge than other production and maintenance employees, their function, along with the others in the results de- partment, consists essentially of the maintenance and repair of the complicated control equipment essential to the Employer's produc- tion of electrical energy. Accordingly, we find that the master results men are no more than highly skilled maintenance employees and are not technical employees within the sense that the Board uses that term.' We shall therefore include them in the unit. The laboratory testers are employed in the laboratory department where they perform chemical tests of coal, ashes, metals, water, lubri- cants, and petroleum fuels and use chemcials to treat water and oil. About 80 percent of their time is spent in the laboratory, which is a separate room in the powerplant, and the rest of their time is spent in various parts of the plant where they collect samples and obtain instrument readings essential to their tests. They must be able to use chemical laboratory equipment, to run chemical analyses, and to com- pute and interpret test results. The laboratory testers must be high school graduates and have technical training in chemistry beyond the high school level. Some powerplant experience as a filter operator and sampler is also required. Laboratory testers may be able to get the necessary technical training in the plant, but not in the course of duties 4 This also is true in the case of a number of other promotions in the plant. 5 Phtlco Corporation , 110 NLRB 184 390609-56-vol. 115-34 514 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD as filter operator. A written examination must also be passed as a job requirement. Laboratory testers may assist in maintenance work when a generating unit is shut down or on their regular days off. Otherwise they perform no maintenance functions. It is clear from the description of the skills, knowledge, and duties of the laboratory testers that their work is of a technical nature, in the sense that the Board uses the term, and that they are therefore tech- nical employees.6 Accordingly, as the Employer objects to their in- clusion in the production and mainteance unit, we shall exclude them from the unit' The senior stores attendant and the stores attendants are in the stores department under the separate supervision of -the stores super- visor. The stores attendants spend 95 percent of their time in a sepa- rate storeroom, and the senior stores attendant is located in an adjacent office. These employees receive, issue, store, and maintain necessary records in connection with materials, tools, supplies, and equipment used at the plant. Over 50 percent of the stores attendants' time, and an even greater portion of the senior stores attendant's time, is spent in clerical duties. On occasion, these employees make local trips out- side the plant to pick up and deliver materials. They have contact with production and maintenance employees when such employees come to the storeroom to requisition tools and supplies. They have some physical duties in connection with the handling of storeroom items. In a previous case, involving this plant, the Board found that the stores attendants were plant clericals 8 and there is no evidence of any change in their duties and functions since that decision. More- over, it appears on the present record that these employees are essen- tially the same as employees whom the Board has found to be plant clericals in other cases.9 Accordingly, we find that they are plant clericals. At the hearing the parties stipulated to exclude plant clerical em- ployees from the unit. Although this stipulation was made with spe- cific reference to the power station clerks, judging from the facts that the only issue litigated at the hearing or argued in the briefs with re- spect to the stores attendants, the only clericals in dispute, was whether they were physical employees or clerical employees and that no con- tention was made that the stores attendants should be included in the unit if the Board found that they were clerical employees, we con-. 6 Detroit Edison Company, 84 NLRB 478 v Gerber Plastics Company, 108 NLRB 403. s Indtiana-Machtgan Electric Company, 98 NLRB No 1. (Not reported in printed vol- umes of Board Decisions and Orders ) In that case the stores attendants were found to be factory clericals and were excluded from the unit in accordance with the stipulation of the parties to exclude factory clericals 9 Piel Brothers, 109 NLRB 894 , Fsltrol Corporation, 109 NLRB 1071. MEMPHIS COTTON OIL MILL 515 strue the stipulation as evidencing the intention of the parties to ex- clude all plant clerical employees from the unit. Accordingly, having found that the stores attendants and senior stores attendant are plant clericals, we shall exclude them from the unit.'° We find that the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act : All production and maintenance employees employed at the Em- ployer's Tanners Creek generating division, Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on an hourly rated basis, including the following classifications : mas- ter results man, results man, junior results man, and results helper in the results department; filter operator and sampler in the laboratory department; assistant control operator and auxiliary equipment op- erator in the operations department; crane operator, coal operator, barge handler, and yard helper in the yard department; master main- tenance man, maintenance man, junior maintenance man, and main- tenance helper in the maintenance department; laborers and utility man in the utility department; and janitors; but excluding the divi- sion manager, assistant division manager, operations supervisor, maintenance supervisor, chief chemist, chemist, personnel supervisor, plant engineers, results engineers, shift operations engineer, assistant shift operations engineers, test engineers, safety supervisor, super- visor of janitors, foreman-yard, assistant foreman-yard, mainte- nance foremen, labor foremen, office supervisors, power station clerk,- senior stores attendant, stores attendants, laboratory testers, control room operators, co-op students, all probationary, temporary, part- time, confidential, technical, professional, office clerical, and plant clerical employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] MEMBER BEAN took no part in the consideration of the above Deci- sion and Direction of Election. . 10Axeison Manufacturing Co., 110 NLRB 624 Accordingly , we find it unnecessary to consider the Employer ' s contention that the senior stores attendant is a supervisor. Armour and Company, d/b/a Memphis Cotton Oil Mill and Local 196, International Union of United Brewery , Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink & Distillery Workers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 32-RC-884. February 21,1956 DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before John E. Cienki, hearing 115 NLRB No. 82.