The Boeing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 5, 1963

144 N.L.R.B. 382 (N.L.R.B. 1963)

382 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
(e) Notify the Regional Director for the Third Region, in writing, within 20 days
from the date of the receipt of this Intermediate Report, as to what steps the
Respondent has taken to comply herewith.21
21 If this Recommended Order is adopted by the Board, this provision shall be modified
to read: "Notify said Regional Director , in writing , within 10 days from the date of this
Order, what steps the Respondent has taken to comply herewith."
APPENDIX
NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS OF LOCAL 11, BRICKLAYERS, MASONS AND PLASTERERS
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO
Pursuant to the Recommended Order of a Trial Examiner of the National Labor
Relations Board, and in order to effectuate the policies of the Labor Management
Relations Act, we hereby notify our employees that:
WE WILL NOT cause or attempt to cause Cooper and Craib, Inc., to discrimi-
nate against Walter Love or any other employee, in violation of Section 8 (a) (3 )
of the Labor Management Relations Act.
WE WILL NOT in any other manner restrain or coerce employees in the exer-
cise of the rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the aforenamed Act, except to the
extent that such rights may be affected by an agreement requiring membership
in a labor organization as a condition of employment, as authorized by Sec-
tion 8(a)(3) of that Act.
WE WILL make Walter Love whole for any loss of pay he may have suffered
as a result of the discrimination against him.
WE WILL notify Cooper and Craib, Inc., that we have no objection to the
employment of Walter Love, and we will serve him with a copy of such notice.
LOCAL 11, BRICKLAYERS, MASONS AND PLASTERERS
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO,
Labor Organization.
Dated------------------- By-------------------------------------------
(Representative) (Title)
This notice must remain posted for 60 consecutive days from the date of posting,
and must not be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
Employees may communicate directly with the Board's Regional Office, Fourth
Floor, The 120 Building, 120 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, New York, Telephone
No. TL 6-1782, if they have any question concerning this notice or compliance with
its provisions.
The Boeing Company and International Brotherhood of Electri-
cal Workers, Local 217, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 27-RC-
2317. September 5, 1963
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Clinton M.
Elges.i 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.
I The petition was filed on September 4, 1962, but was administratively dismissed by the
Regional Director. The dismissal was timely appealed to the Board by the Petitioner, and
on February 7, 1963, the Board directed the Regional Director to hold a hearing to resolve
certain factual Issues raised by the appeal . After the hearing was held, the Regional
Director referred the case to the Board for decision.
144 NLRB No. 47.
THE BOEING COMPANY 383
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion 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:
Petitioner seeks to represent a group of maintenance electricians
employed at the Employer's Ogden, Utah, facility, known as Plant 77.
The Employer and IAM 'have advanced a number of contentions why
the petition should be dismissed, among them that the unit sought is
inappropriate because it does not conform to their multiplant bargain-
ing pattern. We find merit in this contention.'
Pursuant to various Board certifications, the Employer and IAM
had for at least 15 years bargained for separate units, referred to as
primary locations, at Seattle-Renton, Washington; Wichita, Kansas;
and Brevard County, Florida. In 1960, they entered into a 2-year
nationwide agreement covering all these units, which was to expire
on September 15, 1962. The agreement also specified as within its
coverage employees at temporary or semipermanent operations, re-
ferred, to as Remote Locations, established by the Employer anywhere
in North America as an adjunct to work performed at the primary
locations. Plant 77, where operational Minuteman missiles are as-
sembled, is a remote location which is an adjunct to Seattle-Renton
where other work on these missiles is performed.
The Employer's Aerospace Division, headquartered at Seattle-
Renton, is engaged in the production of missiles and rockets for the
U.S. Air Force. The Bomarc missile, now being phased out, and the
experimental Minuteman missile were produced at this location.
When Minuteman became operational, the Employer and other Air
Force contractors began the manufacture of its hardware components.
The Employer also obtained, a contract for the final assembly of Min-
uteman missiles, with responsibility for combining all components into
a single operational system and for delivery of the completed missile
to the Air Force. On receipt by the Air Force, the missiles are shipped
to other sites, where they are installed and maintained. The Em-
ployer's production and maintenance employees at the missile sites are
also covered by the agreement between Boeing and IAM.
When it obtained the Minuteman assembly contract in 1958, the
Employer formed a nucleus of administrative and engineering per-
sonnel at Seattle-Renton to plan and manage the project. In 1959,
the Air Force decided that the contract would be performed at Hill
'International Association of Machinists , AFL-.CIO, referred to here as IAM, inter-
vened as the representative of a multiplant unit of Boeing employees
3 As we agree with the Employer and IAM that the unit sought is not appropriate, we
do not deem it necessary to decide whether the intervention of the Federal Government
into IAM's contract dispute with the Employer , which occurred after the instant petition
was filed , should bar an election here See 4erojet- General Corporation, 144 NLRB 368.
384 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Air Force Base near Ogden, Utah, about 900 miles from Seattle. That
part of the base which has been assigned to Boeing is now called Plant
77. Construction of new facilities at the base began in September
1960, while the work group assigned to plan the project continued to
operate from Seattle-Renton.
The first permanent transfer, of about 150 employees, from Seattle
to Plant 77 occurred in July 1961. Since then, the employee comple-
ment has been increased to about 900, through transfer of other em-
ployees from Seattle-Renton, including some who had worked on
Bomarc missiles, transfers from other company plants, and through
local hiring. The 1960 IAM agreement was applied to all production
and maintenance employees at Plant 77, as soon ias operations began
there in 1961. The first Minuteman was completed for delivery in
February 1962, and assembly will continue there until the contract
with the Air Force expires in June 1964. Meanwhile, the Employer
continues to manufacture Minuteman components at Seattle-Renton.
The nationwide 1960 agreement establishes a common labor rela-
tions policy for all the Employer's operations at its various facilities.
Wages, hours, vacations, retirement, grievance procedures, and other
working conditions are standard throughout the multiplant produc-
tion and maintenance unit, including all remote locations. Job classi-
fications have been standardized for all of the Employer's plants, and
where a particular job description must be redrafted to conform to
functions performed only at a particular location, it is evaluated in
accordance with a factoring system which is uniformly applied to all
locations under the contract. Employees at Plant 77 are paid from
Seattle. There was testimony that when Plant 77 is closed, its em-
ployees will be afforded the opportunity of employment at Seattle-
Renton in accordance with the Employer's past practice.
The record clearly establishes that the Employer's Aerospace Divi-
sion is engaged in a continuing program of developing and producing
missiles and other armament for the Defense Establishment. The
Minuteman missile is part of that program. Assembly of the various
components of Minuteman into an operational system is an interme-
diate step between the manufacture of the components and the deliv-
ery of the completed missile to an installation site. We are satisfied
that participation by the employees at Plant 77 in this complex, yet
unified; program indicates that they share a substantial community
of interest with all other employees engaged in the Employer's
missile program. Plant 77 cannot therefore be regarded, as contended
by the Petitioner, as a separate, self-contained operation entitled to a
self-determination election. Rather, in view of the nature of the Em-
ployer's business, the multiplant bargaining history, and the afore-
mentioned factors indicating a community of interest among all the
employees in the unit represented by IAM under its 1960 agreement,
SCHNELL TOOL & DIE CORPORATION, ETC. 385
we find that the employees at Plant 77 are an accretion either to the
Seattle-Renton or to the larger nationwide employee grouping, which-
ever may constitute the appropriate bargaining unit, a matter on
which we do not pass in this proceeding.4 Even conceding arguendo
their status as craftsmen, it follows that a unit limited to the main-
tenance electricians at Plant 77 is inappropriate as being only a seg-
ment of the maintenance electricians in the multiplant unit .5 We shall,
therefore, dismiss the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
MEMBERS FANNING 'and JENKINS took no part in the consideration
of the above Decision and Order.
4 See Simmons Company, 126 NLRB 656, 658-659; Richfield Oil Corporation, 119 NLRB
1425, 1427; Hudson Pulp and Paper Corporation , 117 NLRB 416, 418; Red Ball Motor
Freight, Inc., 118 NLRB 360, 362; Borg-Warner Corporation, 113 NLRB 152, 154;
J. W. Rem Company , 115 NLRB 775, 776-777.
International Ladies' Garment Workers Union v. N.L.R.B. ( Bernhard -Altmann Texas
Corp.), 366 U. S. 731, relied on by Petitioner as establishing that the 1960 agreement un-
lawfully deprived the employees at Plant 77 of their right to select a bargaining repre-
sentative is inapposite. In that case violations were found where a union which had not
established its majority status was accorded exclusive recognition , whereas here the status
of IA:M as majority representative in the multiplant unit is not questioned . As an accre-
tion to an existing unit, the employees at Plant 77 were properly covered by the contract
for the multiplant unit without a self- determination election. The Great Atlantic and
Pacific Tea Company, 140 NLRB 1011.
6 General Motors Corporation, 120 NLRB 1215, 1221.
Schnell Tool & Die Corporation , and Salem Stamping & Manu-
facturing Co., Inc. and United Steelworkers of America, AFL-
CIO. Case No. 8-CA-30?1. September 6, 1963
DECISION AND ORDER
On June 19, 1963, Trial Examiner William Seagle issued his Inter-
mediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the
Respondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor
practices, and recommending that it cease and desist therefrom, and
take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the attached Intermediate
Report. The Trial Examiner also found that the Respondent had not
engaged in certain other unfair labor practices alleged in the com-
plaint and recommended dismissal of the complaint as to them. There-
after, the Respondent filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and
a supporting brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board has
delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Members Leedom, Fanning, and Brown].
144 NLRB No. 52.