McGraw-Edison Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 23, 1970

180 N.L.R.B. 961 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

NATIONAL ELECTRIC COIL DIV. OF MCGRAW-EDISON CO. 961
National Electric Coil Division of McGraw-Edison
Company and International Union of Electrical,
Radio & Machine Workers, AFL-CIO-CLC and
its Local 647 , Petitioner. Cases 9-RC-7879 and
9-UC-29
January 23, 1970
DECISION, ORDER , AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY MEMBERS FANNING, BROWN, AND JENKINS
Upon petitions duly filed under Sections 9(b) and
(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as
amended, a hearing was held before Harold M.
Kennedy, Hearing Officer.' Thereafter, the
Petitioner and the Employer filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National 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
affirmed.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board
finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein."
2. At the hearing, the Employer refused to admit
that the Petitioner is a labor organization. The
record shows that the Petitioner admits employees
to membership and exists for the purpose of dealing
with employers concerning wages , hours, and
conditions of employment, and is therefore a labor
organization as defined in the Act.
3. A question affecting commerce exists
concerning 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.
4. The Employer is engaged in the manufacture
and repair of armature stator and field coils, and
repair of electric motors and other products at its
Bluefield, West Virginia, plant . Petitioner , in Case
9-UC-29 seeks to clarify the existing unit by adding
certain heretofore excluded employees to the unit at
the Employer's Bluefield, West Virginia, plant. In
Case 9-RC-7879 Petitioner seeks an election among
'The hearing was directed by the Board on November 6, 1968 , when it
reversed the Regional Director 's administrative dismissal of the petition in
Case 9-RC-7879 . On January 9, 1969 , Petitioner filed its petition in Case
9-UC-29 , and on January 17, 1969 , the Regional Director issued an Order
Consolidating Hearing and Notice of Representation.
'The Employer argues that dismissal of the present petition is required
by Section 102.67(b) of the Board 's Rules and Regulations and Statements
of Procedure , Series 8, as amended , in the light of the Regional Director's
dismissal of an earlier petition seeking the same employees as involved
herein . We find no merit in this contention . See Chrysler Corporation, 173
NLRB No. 160.
the following unrepresented employees:
All engineering department employees at the
Employer's Bluefield, West Virginia, plant,
excluding all production and maintenance
employees, office clerical employees, truck
drivers, watchmen, shop clerks, and professional
employees, guards and supervisors as defined in
the Act, and all other employees.
Case 9-UC-29: Petitioner's petition for clarification
of the existing production and maintenance unit
seeks to clarify the status of the engineering
department employees, including lab employees,
specification writers, catalogue writers, mechanical
engineer , assistant chief engineer, chief engineer, and
engineering department clerical employees.
Petitioner contends that these employees are
technical employees.
Petitioner's basic argument in support of
including technical employees in the existing unit by
clarification is that they were excluded from that
unit by historical accident in that they were
automatically excluded from the existing unit as
defined by the Board in its decision which issued
prior to the Board's decision in The Sheffield
Corporation.3 In The Sheffield Corporation, the
Board abandoned the policy of automatic exclusion
of technical employees from a production and
maintenance unit if either party objected to their
inclusion . Petitioner in effect now contends that they
should be automatically included. We do not agree
with this contention, In the Sheffield case, the Board
abandoned an arbitrary rule of exclusion where an
election is sought in an overall unit. It did not,
however, adopt a mechanical rule of inclusion, but
rather spelled out in detail that in future cases
involving the issue of unit placement and voting
eligibility of technical employees their inclusion or
exclusion would result from a "pragmatic
judgment" in each case based on several critical
factors. That rule is not applicable in the instant
case where no election is sought.4 Rather, we agree
with the Employer that inasmuch as the
classifications sought herein were in existence and
had previously been excluded from the production
and maintenance unit at the time the Petitioner was
certified, and the employees in the classifications
had been specifically excluded from voting in the
election, the relief sought cannot be granted in a
clarification proceeding.' We shall therefore dismiss
the petition in Case 9-UC-29.
Case 9-RC-7879: In this petition, Petitioner seeks a
unit involving certain employees in the Employer's
engineering department. In support of the unit it
seeks, Petitioner asserts that engineering department
'134 NLRB 1101.
See, e .g., D V. Displays Corp. 134 NLRB 568, 571.
'Ladish Co., 176 NLRB No 150. As we are dismissing the petition in
Case 9-UC-29, we find it unnecessary to pass on the Employer' s contention
that the petitions in Cases 9-UC-29 and 9-RC-7879 are inconsistent and
mutually exclusive under the Act and our Rules and Regulations.
180 NLRB No. 143
962 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
employees in various classifications are technical
employees , and that they constitute a distinct and
separate homogeneous group of employees having a
close community of interest . Employees included
within the group petitioner contends are technicals
are the assistant to the chief engineer, specification
writer , jr., specification writer trainee , catalogue
technicians or clerks, and lab technicians. Although,
as noted above , Petitioner ' s basic contention is that
these employees are technical employees that
constitute a separate unit, Petitioner , both at the
hearing and in its brief, made its position clear that
it seeks to represent those employees in the
engineering department in the broadest and most
inclusive unit possible within the limits of the
engineering department . Because of this position,
and as there are substantial questions regarding the
technical status of several of the employees within
the requested unit, we find merit in Petitioner's
alternate position that the engineering department
constitutes a separate appropriate unit.' The
Employer opposes an election in the engineering
department on the ground that the department is
not a distinct and separate homogeneous group of
employees.
The engineering department is under the direction
and supervision of the chief engineer and an
assistant chief engineer , both of whom are
professional engineers and admitted supervisors.
Two other employees, Ramage and Yost, identified
as specification writers and assistants to the chief
engineer , are also claimed by the Employer to be
supervisors . In addition to these individuals,
employee Hess is employed as a specification
writer-trainee , Kitts is employed as the lab man,
Walker , Kegley, Henderson , and Bridges are
catalogue clerks , and Alice Borden is the
engineering department secretary.
As to the functions of the engineering department,
the record shows that in the course of operating its
service and repair business , the Employer is required
to accumulate , maintain , and disseminate extensive
and comprehensive data on a multitudinous variety
of electric motors, generators , transformers , etc., for
the purpose of making reference to this data when
an inquiry is made by a customer regarding repair
of his equipment . The carrying out of this function
has been assigned by the Employer to the
engineering department.
The initial customer contact for repair or service
comes into the general office. While the customer is
still on the line, the office contacts the engineering
department where a catalogue clerk makes a search
through the Employer 's catalogues to determine if
'Although there is substantial doubt on the record before us as to the
technical status of the catalogue clerks, we find it unnecessary to pass on
their status at this time . However, the record clearly shows that their work
requires some understanding of the technical processes involved, and the
skills they employ and exercise are more closely identified with technical
duties than clerical duties, justifying their inclusion in a single unit with the
specification writers. Brown & Root-Northrup. 174 NLRB No. 146.
manufacturing data is available for the equipment in
question . If the motor is readily identifiable and
data is available, the customer is so advised and a
repair or service order is made. Similar customer
inquiries after the office closes are received directly
by the engineering department employees where the
same initial catalogue research is made . When the
service or repair order is received, the catalogue
clerk rechecks the catalogues to verify the work data
and then pulls the tracings from the files and runs a
print containing the basic information necessary for
manufacturing the coils in question . A production
order is then prepared and sent on to production. If
the identity of the motor or coil is not readily
ascertainable and cannot be found in the Employer's
catalogues , the catalogue clerks obtain as much
information as possible regarding the particular coil
in question by researching the catalogues and
recording this information for the specification
writer. What information is available is turned over
to the specification writer who, after obtaining
additional information through a visual examination
of the motor or coil, prepares a working sketch of
the coil with details for production. Again, prints
are prepared from the sketch and sent on to the
production department.
From the above, it is clear that the engineering
department works as a basic unit functioning
primarily in the initial stage of the Employer's
Bluefield operation.7 The employees involved work
as a unit with many of the various job functions
involved being handled by any one employee in the
department regardless of the job classification
involved. Thus, we have the specification writers
occasionally performing routine tasks such as taking
initial inquiries and checking catalogues when he is
available and the catalogue clerks are tied up
elsewhere. The record also shows a clear line of
work or job progressions within the department
from the incoming order taking to the specification
writers creating sketches of previously uncatalogued
motors and coils. At the same time, the record
shows that the basic functions of the engineering
department are not duplicated by any other group of
employees at the Employer's Bluefield operation, the
department is separately supervised, the employees
are salaried whereas the production and
maintenance employees are paid on an hourly basis,
the work area is a self-contained area separated
from the production area, there is substantial and
periodic interchange among the employees of the
engineering department between the day shift and
the evening shift, as well as with the lab technician;
and although it is not a job requirement, the record
clearly shows that the engineering department
employees all possess or are undergoing advanced
educational training , including studies in
mathematics and engineering courses in furtherance
of their work with the Employer, and with its
'While the record clearly shows that employees in the engineering
department maintain a continuing contact with the production employees
NATIONAL ELECTRIC COIL DIV. OF MCGRAW-EDISON CO. 963
knowledge and support. In these circumstances, we
find that the engineering department constitutes a
separate appropriate unit, and we shall direct an
election therein.
The Employer also opposes an election in the
engineering department on the ground that it is not
a residual unit encompassing all of the remaining
unrepresented employees at the Bluefield operation.
Specifically, the Employer asserts that any election
directed should be in a unit of all unrepresented
employees including the shop clerks, who have been
excluded from the production and maintenance unit
as plant clerical employees. The Petitioner opposes
the inclusion of plant clericals in a unit limited to
the engineering department. We agree with the
Petitioner. First, as found above, the engineering
department is a separate, distinct, and homogenous
group of employees, that by itself constitutes an
appropriate departmental unit. Secondly, the record
shows that the shop clerks have little if any
community of interest with the engineering
department employees. They are under separate and
different supervision, depending on the production
areas; in which they are located, they are hourly
paid, work in the immediate production areas and
although they have frequent contact with the
engineering department employees, it is limited, in
most instances, to purely clerical functions relating
more to the production function rather than the
operation of the engineering department. In such
circumstances, we shall exclude the plant clericals
from the engineering department unit.'
There remains for consideration the placement of
the time-study man. Petitioner, in seeking a
technical employee unit, took the position that if he
is a technical employee it was willing to represent
him. However, neither Petitioner or the Employer
contend that he would properly be included in a unit
limited to the engineering department. In these
circumstances, and in the absence of any showing in
the record that the time-study man possesses any
real community of interest with the engineering
department employees, we shall exclude him from
the unit.
The Employer also contends that specification
writers Yost and Ramage are supervisors, and as
such, should be excluded from any unit found
appropriate herein. The record shows that Yost is
the senior specification writer on the day shift, and
that Ramage is the senior specification writer on the
night shift. The record also shows that the day shift
of the engineering department is under the direct
and immediate supervision of chief engineer Harris
and assistant chief engineer Stoker, both
professional engineers and admitted supervisors. The
record also shows that either one or both of the
when questions regarding production specifications come up , this contact is
ancillary to their primary function of preparing and routing the initial sales
or service orders and converting them into production orders.
'The parties agree that office clerical employees outside the engineering
department should be excluded.
engineers are usually at the plant during the day
shift, and that almost all of the nonroutine work
assignments are made by either Harris or Stoker.
Thus, Yost does not assign work, responsibly direct
employees, or in any way exercise authority or
discipline over his coworkers. In addition, to find
Yost a supervisor would be to create a ratio of three
supervisors to five employees on the day shift. In
these circumstances, and absent any indicia of
supervisory authority as spelled out in Section 2(11)
of the Act, we find that Yost is not a supervisor,
and we include him in the unit. As to Ramage,
however, the record shows that he is the senior man
on the night shift, that he makes work assignments
to the employees, that his direction of the employees
is other than routine,' and that in the words of one
of the night-shift employees Ramage is the "group
leader; he's responsible for the night shift work in
that department." In such circumstances, and in
view of the fact that the engineering department, a
separate and unique segment of the Employer's
operation, would be without any immediate
supervision during the entire night shift, we find that
Ramage is a supervisor, and accordingly, we exclude
him from the unit.
On the basis of the foregoing, the parties
stipulations, and the entire record herein, we find
the following employees constitute a unit
appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining.
All engineering department employees employed
at the Employer's Bluefield, West Virginia, plant,
excluding all production and maintenance
employees, office clerical employees, truck
drivers, watchmen, shop clerks, the time-study
man, professional employees, guards and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
in Case 9-UC-29 be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
[Direction of Election10 omitted from publication.]
'The record shows that although much of the night shift work is left over
from the day shift, orders are frequently received at night requiring
Ramage to assign a particular priority to the order , and to assign, and
where necessary work with, the clerks in handling this order
"In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity to
be informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right to vote, all
parties to the election should have access to a list of voters and their
addresses which may be used to communicate with them. Excelsior
Underwear Inc, 156 NLRB 1236; N L.R B v. Wyman-Gordon Company,
394 U S. 759. Accordingly, it is hereby directed that an election eligibility
list, containing the names and addresses of all the eligible voters, must be
filed by the Employer with the Regional Director for Region 9 within 7
days of the date of this Decision and Direction of Election. The Regional
Director shall make the list available to all parties to the election. No
extension of time to file this list shall be granted by the Regional Director
except in extraordinary circumstances Failure to comply with this
requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election whenever proper
objections are filed