Marquardt Aircraft Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 30, 1952

101 N.L.R.B. 163 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

MARQUARDT AIRCRAFT CO. 163
WE WILL NOT interrogate our employees concerning their union member-
ship and activities, or threaten them with reprisals because of such activities.
WE WILL NOT keep under surveillance meetings Of INTERNATIONAL WOOD-
WORKERS or AMERICA, CIO, or of any other labor organization.
WE WILL make whole the following named individuals for any loss of pay
suffered as a result of the discrimination against them:
Fleetwood Sykes Johnnie Brickhouse
Dude Dunbar Malachi Midgett
Jake Boston
WE WILL NOT In any manner interfere with, restrain, or coerce our em-
ployees in the exercise of the right to self-organization, to form labor organi-
zations, to join or assist INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO, or
any other labor organization, to bargain collectively through representatives
of their own choosing and to engage in other concerted activities for the
purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, or to
refrain from any or all such activities except to the extent that such right
may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organiza-
tion as a condition of employment as authorized in Section 8 (a) (3) of
the Act.
All our employees are free to become or remain members of the above union,
or any other labor organization. We will not discriminate in regard to hire
or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment, because of
membership in or activity on behalf of any such labor organization.
TYRRELL COUNTY LUMBER COMPANY,
Employer.
Dated -------------------- By ------------------------------------------
(Representative) (Title)
This notice must remain posted for 60 days from the date hereof, and must not
be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
MARQUARDT AIRCRAFT Co. and INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MA-
CHINISTS , DISTRICT LODGE #727, A. F. L., PETITIONER
MARQUARDT AIRCRAFT Co. and INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MA-
CHINISTS , DISTRICT LODGE $ 727, A. F. L., PETITIONER. Cl ams Nos.
21-RC-2657 and 21-RC-2058. October 30,1952
Decision and Direction of Elections
Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before H. C. Bumgarner, 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 these cases, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
2. International Association of Machinists, District Lodge #727,
A. F. L. (the Petitioner in both cases), herein called the IAM, and
101 NLRB No. 47.
242305-53-12
164 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 11, AFL,
herein called the IBEW, are labor organizations claiming to repre-
sent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of the employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The appropriate units :
In Case No. 21-RC-2657, the IAM petitioned for a unit of all the
employees in the machine shop. In Case No. 21-RC-2658, the IAM
petitioned for a unit of all employees in the maintenance department.
The IBEW, as Intervenor in the latter case, seeks a unit of all main-
tenance and construction electricians assigned to the maintenance
department. At the hearing, the IAM stated that it did not wish to
oppose the IBEW with respect to the representation of the electricians,
but would include the electricians as part of the maintenance depart-
ment unit if the Board found inappropriate the separate unit re-
quested by the IBEW. The Employer opposes the units sought by
both Unions herein, contending that because of the research and ex-
perimental character of its business, the high degree of interchange
among its employees, and the essential integration of its operations,
the only appropriate unit is one substantially embracing all the pro-
duction and maintenance employees in the plant.
The Employer's Operations
The Employer, as a prime contractor to the Department of Defense,
is engaged in the research and development of jet-propelled power
plants and accessories. It employs about 800 employees, the large
majority of whom function in professional and administrative ca-
pacities. The remainder are hourly paid factory workers, of whom
approximately 195 are concerned with the manufacture and develop-
ment of the numerous items conceived and engineered by the profes-
sional employees. An additional 45 employees were engaged at the
time of the hearing in routine aircraft assembling operations which
the Employer undertook to perform for Douglas Aircraft Company.
Excepting the latter group of employees engaged in the Douglas as-
sembling operations, the hourly paid employees are distributed in 4
major departments of the Employer, i. e., sheet metal; machine shop;
tooling and machine assembly; and maintenance. There is no history
of collective bargaining at the Employer's plant?
IIn June 1949 and in May 1951, separate consent elections were conducted by the
Board in which the IAM, the sole contending union, was unsuccessful. The Employer
hero contends that because the IAM in each of these consent elections sought a production
and maintenance unit, it is now precluded from asserting the appropriateness of the
smaller units it requests herein . We find no merit in this contention , as the prior consent
cases Involved no Board determinations and resulted in no conclusive bargaining history.
MARQUARDT AIRCRAFT CO. 165
The Machine Shop
There are 41 employees in this department, classified as general and
experimental machinists, who are sought to be separately represented
by the IAM. They are located and supervised separately from the
other employees in the plant. In their work these employees are
responsible for the operation of the customary precision tools of the
machinist's trade. They are regularly called upon to perform work
at close tolerances and generally to exercise a high degree of skill.
Although the Employer has no formal apprenticeship program for
machinists, the record shows that it employs machinists who have
already undergone apprenticeship training and who possess consider-
able experience in the trade. Machine shop employees are not inter-
changed with production employees. However, machinists have been
transferred on a voluntary basis to the maintenance or sheet metal
departments "for a day or two" when temporarily out of work in the
machine shop.2 In these instances, the machinists retained their same
pay and classifications. There is also evidence of 1 permanent trans-
fer of a machinist to the maintenance department, and the transfer
of 1 sheet metal employee to the machine shop, but there are no
instances of transfer of any maintenance employees to the machine
shop.
The Maintenance Department
The employees in this department, also sought to be represented
separately by the IAM, work under the separate over-all supervision
of the plant engineer. They consist of eight carpenters, three paint-
ers, three construction electricians, three maintenance electricians,
nine maintenance mechanics, three shop helpers, and seven janitors.
In the course of their maintenance work, they come into frequent con-
tact with other plant employees outside their regularly assigned
working location.
The Electricians
There are three construction electricians and three maintenance
electricians employed in the plant, who are sought to be represented
separately by the IBEW. As indicated above, these employees are
assigned to the maintenance department. The construction elec-
tricians 3 concededly possess and utilize the skills of journeymen in
their trade. Two of them hold licenses needed by the Employer in
its electrical operations. The maintenance electricians, though rela-
2 Machinist Roberts testified that in the course of his employment with the Employer
for a period of 1 year, he never had occasion to be transferred out of the machine shop,
temporarily or otherwise.
'The construction electricians do not share in many of the benefits provided for other
employees in the plant but are engaged by the Employer pursuant to special conditions
prescribed by the American General Contractors of Southern California.
166 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tively inexperienced when first hired, do regularly use in their work
the tools of the trade and are called upon independently to exercise
certain craft skills. In most of their work, however, they function
as helpers to the construction electricians in connection with a long-
range program of installing and remodeling electrical facilities
throughout the Employer's plant.
Conclusions
Clearly, in our opinion, the foregoing record facts establish the basic
craft character of the machine shop unit and the electricians unit
sought herein. These units, for purposes of separate representation,
would therefore ordinarily be found appropriate. Likewise, in the
absence of a bargaining history affecting the maintenance depart-
ment employees, a separate bargaining unit of such employees, as
requested by the IAM, would customarily be granted by the Board.4
As previously noted, however, the Employer contends that only an
over-all industrial type of unit is appropriate at its plant, in view of
the integration of its operations and the essentially nonproductive
nature of its research and experimental activities. In respect to this
contention, we do not find in the record any justification for distin-
guishing the research operations of the Employer from other types
of businesses in which the Board permits representation in craft and
departmental units. Nor do we find the necessary showing that the
respective groups of employees sought herein to be represented sepa-
rately are engaged in repetitive, routine, or prescheduled work at fixed
stations along a line of production, or that their particular functions
are otherwise so closely integrated with those of the employees in the
plant as to be indistinct.'
The IAM at the hearing recognized that the electricians in question
are part of the group of maintenance department employees it seeks
as a separate unit. As already shown, such a departmental unit,
under the facts in this case, may be appropriate for bargaining pur-
poses within the Armstrong Cork decision., A craft unit of electri-
cians in this case may also be appropriate. However, the IAM on
the record stated in effect that it did not wish to compete with its
coaffiliate, the IBEW, respecting the electricians.
In the circumstances of this case we cannot give effect to these de-
sires of the IAM in issuing our direction of elections herein. As a
proper part of the maintenance department, the electricians should,
we believe, at least be given an opportunity to vote for representation
4 Armstrong Cork Company, 80 NLRB 1328.
5 See, e g, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 75 NLRB 638; The Reliance Electric
and Engineering Co., 98 NLRB 488.
6 Supra.
HOMEDALE TRACTOR & EQUIPMENT CO . 167
in such a unit .7 Accordingly, we shall direct separate elections among
the following employees at the Employer's Van Nuys, California,
plant, excluding all other employees and supervisors as defined in the
Act :
(1) All construction and maintenance electricians.
(2) All employees in the maintenance department, excluding the
employees in voting group (1), above.
However, we shall make no final unit determination at present with
respect to the electricians and the maintenance department employees.
If a majority of the employees in voting group (1) vote for the
IBEW, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be repre-
sented separately from the other employees in the maintenance de-
partment.
We find, further, that all employees in the machine shop at the
Employer's Van Nuys, California, plant, excluding all other employ-
ees and supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9 (b) of the Act.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this
volume.]
MEMBER HOUSTON took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Direction of Elections.
I Cf. Goodyear Engineering Corporation , 100 NLRB 971.
C. W. RADCLIFFE AND W. W . MANCKE, CO-PARTNERS , DOING BUSINESS
AS HOMEDALE TRACTOR & EQUIPMENT Co. and INTERNATIONAL ASSO-
CIATION OF MACHINISTS , LOCAL LODGE 1491. Case No. 19-CA-542.
October 31,192
Decision and Order
On March 10, 1952, Trial Examiner Howard Myers issued his Inter-
mediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the Re-
spondents had engaged in and were engaging in certain unfair labor
practices and recommending that they cease and desist therefrom and
take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy of the Inter-
mediate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Respondents filed
exceptions to the Intermediate Report and a supporting brief.
The Board 1 has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made at
the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The
1 Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act, the
Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three -member panel
[ Chairman Herzog and Members Murdock and Peterson].
101 NLRB No. 55.