United Biscuit Co. of America

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 22, 1951

92 N.L.R.B. 1447 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

In the .Matter Of SAWYER BISCUIT COMPANY, DIVISION OF UNITED
BISCUIT COMPANY OF AMERICA, EMPLOYER' and DISTRICT No. 8,
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, PETITIONER
. Case No. 13-RC-1489.-Decided January 22, 1951
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Irving M. Friedman, hear-
ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its power in connection with this case to a three-member
panel.
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 organizations 2 involved claim to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the repre-
sentation 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 Petitioner requests a unit,. as amended at the hearing,' con-
sisting of all the Employer's maintenance men, class A and B, ex-
eluding all other employees. The Petitioner contends that these em-
ployees constitute a craft group of highly skilled maintenance machin-
ists which may appropriately be severed from the unit of production
and maintenance employees represented by the Intervenor.' The Em-
ployer and the Intervenor contend that these employees are not crafts-
2 The Employer's name is amended to conform to the record.
2 Factory Bakers Union, Local 100 of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers Interna-
tional Union of America, AFL, herein called the Intervenor, was granted intervention.
2In its petition the Petitioner requested a unit of all machine shop employees of the
Employer. The Petitioner further described this unit at the beginning of the hearing as
including the following employees of the Employer's mechanical department : Construction
machinist, maintenance men, class A and B, helpers, and oilers. At the close of the
hearing the Petitioner moved to amend its unit description by limiting the unit to mainte-
nance men, class A and B. The Intervenor's objection to this motion was properly over-
ruled by the hearing: officer as the amendment did not prejudice the Intervenor's position.
92 NLRB No. 224.
1447
1448 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
men and that their interests are sufficiently related to those of other
employees in the existing unit to preclude. separate representation for
them.
The following employees are employed in the mechanical depart-
ment : Five maintenance lnen, class A, one maintenance man, class B,
a painter, an oiler, two helpers, an oven fireman, four stationary
engineers, an electrician, a carpenter, two porters, and a sweeper.'
All these employees are directly supervised by the assistant plant
superintendent.
The duties of the maintenance men, class A, include adjusting and
repairing the Employer's production machinery and equipment when
breakdowns occur. They also assemble, install, and tear down
machinery, and occasionally build and assemble conveyors for use
in the plant. Each of these employees owns a set of ordinary hand
tools, including measuring instruments, such as calipers and dividers,
which he uses in performing his duties. Most of this work is done
at the situs of the machines in the production departments. Occa-
sionally a job is taken to the mechanical department repair shop which
contains a lathe, planer, shaper, and two drill presses.5 These power-
driven tools are used infrequently,' and generally in those instances
where a replacement part from the Employer's stock is not available
or does not fit properly. In such event a stock part is machined to
proper size or a substitute part is improvised. Usually exact replace-
ment parts are obtainable from stock or are ordered from the manu-
facturer. It appears, that the repair shop machines are about 40
years old and incapable of turning out close precision work, and it is
the Employer's practice to send jobs requiring close tolerance work
to outside machine shops.
The maintenance men, class A, also do welding and brazing, sheet
metal work, and pipe fitting. It does not appear, however, that they
exercise any craft skills in the performance of such work. Thus, one
of the maintenance men testified that he does most of the welding
for the maintenance men, but admitted that he had never had formal
training as a welder and that he does not regard himself as a skilled
welder. The shee, • metal work consists only of making guards or
.tanks out of sheet metal, and the pipe fitting work is limited to
4 The stationary engineers work in the boiler room . These employees as well as the
electrician and the carpenter are not bargained for by the Intervenor, but are represented
by the particular craft unions of which they are members.
5 The repair shop is in an enclosed room on the fourth floor of the plant building. In
addition to the metal cutting tools used by the maintenance men it also contains wood-
working tools used by the carpenter.
6 One of the maintenance men spends 50 percent of his time in the shop . The other
maintenance men spend only 10 to 30 percent of their time in the shop.
SAWYER BISCUIT COMPANY 1449
replacing the piping in the water system of the plant and some steam
piping.
- The maintenance man, class B, is less skilled than the maintenance
men, class A. He repairs faucets and flush tanks, does some pipe work
and heavy work disassembling machinery similar to that of a laborer.
One of the helpers spends 70 percent of his time helping the painter
and spends the rest of his time cleaning the boiler room, the repair
shop, and around the machines where. the maintenance men have
worked. He devotes only a little time to helping the maintenance
men. The other helper usually works with the electrician, and occa
sionally helps the carpenter and the maintenance men. The oiler per-
farms routine lubricating operations on the production machines and
equipment and helps the engineer clean the boilers. In addition he
sometimes helps the painter, electrician, and the carpenter, and also
relieves the elevator operator 7 during lunch periods. The oven
fireman ignites the oven fires, greases the oven machinery, pulls watch-
men's clocks, and cleans the bake shop, ovens, and the repair shop.
The porters and sweepers perform janitorial duties throughout the
plant and offices.
In hiring maintenance men the Employer does not require them to
be journeymen machinists.$ Although the Employer expects the
maintenance men to be able to operate the tools in the repair shop
they need not be capable of working to close tolerance with these
tools; nor does the Employer require them to be journeymen in any
craft. None of the maintenance men have served an apprenticeship
in a craft or have requisite training and experience to qualify them as
journeymen in any craft. The Employer has no apprentice or other
training program for the maintenance men and there is no program
for the advancement of less skilled employees to the position of main-
tenance man, class A, on the basis of training or experience.
The maintenance men, class A, like the other employees in the exist-
ing unit, are hourly paid and have the same working conditions, em-
ployee benefits, and facilities as the other employees. Their hourly
rate is the highest in the plant. Seniority is on a departmental basis.
Under all the circumstances, we are satisfied that the maintenance
men are not machinists in a craft sense.9 We find that they are essen-
4 The elevator operator is not in the mechanical department.
8 One of the maintenance men, class A, testified that during a period of more than 3
years he has operated the planer about six times and the shaper once, and indicated that
he was unfamiliar with the operation of the tools in the repair shop.
s Rice-Stir Dry Goods Company, 85 NLRB 541. In support of its contention that these
employees are craft machinists, the Petitioner relies on our decision In National Biscuit
Company, 88 NLRB 313, in which we held that certain employees involved in that pro-
ceeding were craft machinists. We found in that case that "the record [shows] that the
machinists in the maintenance department possess, and in their work exercise, the high
degree of skill normally found in the machinist craft." The record in the instant case does
not permit such a conclusion with respect to the maintenance men herein involved.
929979-51=vol. 92-93
1450 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tially mechanics who at various times perform in limited degree the
functions of several crafts, but who neither possess nor exercise suffi-
cient skill in the performance of these functions to warrant the con-
clusion that they are members of a craft . Accordingly , and because
no other reason appears to justify their severance from the produc-
tion and maintenance unit in which they are presently included, we
shall dismiss the petition herein:
ORDER
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and upon the entire
record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders
that the petition herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed.