Paasche Airbrush Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 13, 1952

101 N.L.R.B. 277 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

PAASCHE AIRBRUSH COMPANY 277
PAAscm AIRBRUSH COMPANY and SHEET METAL WORKERS LOCAL
UNION No. 115, SHEET METAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIA-
TION, A. F. L., PETITIONER
PAASCHE AIRBRUSH COMPANY and LOCAL 1031, INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, A. F. L., PETITIONER. Cases
Nos. 13-RC--281 and 13-RC-,2907. November 13, 1952
Decision and Direction of Elections
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before
Albert H. Kleen, hearing 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 National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
these cases to a three-member panel [Members Houston, Styles, and
Peterson].
Upon the entire record in these cases, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
2. The following labor organizations claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer : Sheet Metal Workers Local Union No.
115, Sheet Metal Workers International Association, A. F. L.; Local
1031, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, A. F. L.;
Local 1119, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America;
District Lodge No. 8, International Association of Machinists; and
International Jewelry Workers Union, Local No. 4; herein called
the Sheet Metal Workers, I. B. E. W., U. E., I. A. M., and Jewelry
Workers, respectively.
3. Questions affecting commerce exist 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.
4. The appropriate units; the determination of representatives:
The Sheet Metal Workers, the Petitioner in Case No. 13-RC-2842,
seeks to sever, on a craft basis, a unit of all employees except paint
sprayers employed in the Employer's sheet metal department. The
I. B. E. W., the Petitioner in Case No. 13-RC-2907, and the Jewelry
Workers each seeks to represent a unit of all the remaining production
and maintenance employees. The U. E., the I. A. M., and the
Employer contend that the only appropriate unit is one composed of
1 The hearing officer referred to the Board the Employer ' s motion to dismiss the petition
filed by the Sheet Metal Workers and the U. E.'s motion to dismiss both petitions filed
herein on the ground that the units sought are inappropriate. For the reasons stated in
paragraph numbered 4, infra, the motions to dismiss are hereby denied.
101 NLRB No. 70.
278 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
all production and maintenance employees, including the sheet metal
workers. The Employer and the U. E. assert that the integrated
nature of the operations, the transfer of employees from the sheet
metal department to other production or maintenance jobs, the
asserted lack of craft characteristics of these employees, and the
6-year history of collective bargaining on a plant-wide basis 2 in
which these employees have acquiesced, preclude the establishment
of a separate unit of sheet metal workers.
The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of industrial spray
painting equipment and maintains its only plant in Chicago , Illinois.
It carries on all its operations in a single, 2-story building. Depart-
ment 5, its sheet metal department, is located in the northwest section
of the first floor and, unlike the other 5 departments in the plant,
is supervised by both a foreman and a superintendents There are
21 employees in this department, who, with the exception of 2 paint
sprayers," are engaged in the manufacture of spray booths, automatic
conveyors, and drying equipment, such as infrared ovens and steam-
heated ovens. Over 90 percent of these products are custom built.
Although some of these products require machining or incidental
work by employees in other departments, most of the work performed
in department 5 is independent of that done in other departments
of the plant. Thus, these employees work from raw sheet metal,
shearing and forming the metal, laying out the finished product
from blueprints or sketches, and assembling it by riveting, welding,
or bolting into the completed product. Moreover, although employees
in other departments occasionally also perform certain tasks per-
formed by department 5 employees, such as welding or pipe threading,
these tasks are incidental to the work done in department 5 and do not
require the wide range of skills exercised by the sheet metal workers.
Because most of the products manufactured in the sheet metal
department are custom built and because of intermittent temporary
shortages of materials, there are occasions when there is insufficient
work in that department to occupy all the employees. On these occa-
sions, the Employer, instead of laying off any employees, transfers
2 In 1946, following a consent election , the U. E. was certified by the Regional Director
as the bargaining representative of all production and maintenance employees employed
at the Employer's Chicago , Illinois , plant. The Employer and the U . E. thereafter entered
into a series of collective-bargaining agreements covering the employees in this unit, the
most recent of which expired on September 15, 1952.
s One foreman supervises the employees in departments 1, 3, and 4 , the automatie
machines , miscellaneous assembly , and art gun assembly departments . Another foreman
is in charge of department 2, which is engaged in commercial gun assembly and miscellaneous
gun assembly . Supervision of department 6, which is a nonproduction department com-
posed of stockroom employees , shipping and receiving employees , toolmakers and machin-
ists, inspectors, and production control employees , is divided among several foremen.
4 There is one experienced paint sprayer in the department and one painter who works
at night as a general utility man , neither of whom does any sheet metal work . As stated
above, the Sheet Metal Workers would exclude both these employees from its proposed unit.
PAASCHE AIRBRUSH COMPANY 279
them temporarily to sheet metal maintenance or other maintenance
tasks or to production jobs in other departments. These transfers
occur infrequently, however, and last only a short time, ranging from
1 day to a few weeks8
As stated above, the Employer and the U. E. oppose the establish-
ment of a separate unit of sheet metal workers on the following
grounds: (1) That these employees do not possess craft skills; (2)
that these employees are transferred to other production and main-
tenance jobs throughout the plant; (3) that the Employer's opera-
tions are highly integrated; and (4) that there is a 6-year history
of bargaining on a plant-wide basis.
However, it is clear that the employees in department 5, with the
exception of the 2 paint sprayers whom the Sheet Metal Workers
does not seek to represent, are engaged in traditional sheet metal
work, exercising the skills of the sheet metal trade, which the Board
has consistently recognized as a craft.6 Thus, of these 19 employees,
12 are highly skilled journeymen 7 and the remaining 7 are less skilled
sheet metal workers who are in various stages of learning the trade.
These employees work from blueprints and sketches, using the stand-
ard power machinery used in the sheet metal trade and their own
personal hand tools. Although there is no formal apprenticeship pro-
gram at the Employer's plant, the Employer either hires experienced
sheet metal workers for these jobs or trains them .8 Moreover, the
fact that some of the employees in the proposed unit may occasionally
perform duties outside the limits of their recognized craft or work
on products originating in other departments of the plant does not
destroy their identity as a separate craft group , as a major portion
of their time is spent within the recognized scope of their craft8
' The Employer asserts that during May, June , and July , 1952, approximately 10 percent
of the hours worked by department 5 employees was devoted to work outside the depart-
ment . However , this estimate includes jobs performed outside the department by the two
sprayers , one of whom works as a utility man.
4 Goodyear Synthetic Rubber Corporation , 99 NLRB 882; Air Conditioning and Refrig-
erating Association of North Florida, 98 NLRB 1810 ; Campbell Soup Company, 98 NLRB
741; General Foods Corporation (Maxwell House Division ), 97 NLRB 1243 ; Armstrong
Cork Company ( Lancaster Floor and Closure Plants ), 97 NLRB 1057; Ford Motor Company,
Aircraft Engine Division, 96 NLRB 1075.
7 The Employer contends that only seven of these journeymen are journeymen sheet
metal workers because the remaining five do not have skills which are distinctive of the
sheet metal craft . Two of these men, the power press operator and the shear operator,
are highly skilled craftsmen who work exclusively on sheet metal . With respect to the
other three craftsmen , who are classified as are welders , the Board has held that where,
as in the instant case , skilled welders are regularly assigned to work with a particular
craft and none of the welders in the plant works out of a general pool , they may properly
be included in the unit of the craft to which they are permanently assigned . Jefferson
Chemical Company, Inc., 98 NLRB 805; International Paper Company ( Southern Kraft
Division ), 96 NLRB 295 ; McCarthy Chemical Company , 86 NLRB 14.
' See Campbell Soup Company, footnote 6, supra ; General Foods Corporation ( Maxwell
House Division ), footnote 6, supra ; Detroit Hardware Manufacturing Company, 98
NLRB 366.
' Paciio Coast Shipbuilders and Ship Repairers, et at., 98 NLRB 196, Jefferson Chemical
Company, Inc., footnote 7, supra.
280 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Furthermore, we do not find, on the record before us, that the
Employer's operations are so integrated as to prevent craft sever-
ance.10 We are convinced that the employees in the Employer's
sheet metal department, excluding the two paint sprayers, are engaged
in performing duties traditionally associated with their craft and
that, although their skills are used for production purposes, they
remain a separate distinct group of craft employees whose work
is neither repetitive nor synchronized with assembly line operations 11
With respect to the contention that craft severance is precluded by
the 6-year history of bargaining on a plant-wide basis, the Board
has often held under the amended Act that a history of bargaining
on a more comprehensive basis does not, of itself, render craft units
inappropriate.-
Accordingly, we find that the employees in the unit sought by the
Sheet Metal Workers comprise a well-defined craft group and may,
if they so desire, constitute a separate appropriate unit. However,
a production and maintenance unit, including the employees in the
sheet metal department, may also be appropriate, and the sheet
metal workers may, if they so desire, remain part of the existing
production and maintenance unit. We find further that the unit
requested by the I. B. E. W. and the Jewelry Workers, that is, a
residual production and maintenance unit, excluding the employees
in the unit sought by the Sheet Metal Workers, may also be appro-
priate for the purposes of collective bargaining.
We shall direct separate elections among the following groups
of employees employed at the Employer's Chicago, Illinois, plant,
excluding office clerical employees, professional employees, guards,
and all supervisors as defined in the Act :
(a) All employees employed in the Employer's sheet metal de-
partment, department 5, excluding paint sprayers and all other
employees.
(b) All remaining production and maintenance employees, in-
cluding paint sprayers, but excluding all other employees employed
in the Employer's sheet metal department.
If a majority of the employees in each of the voting groups (a) and
(b) select the same labor organization, the employees in voting group
(a) will be taken to have indicated their desire to remain part of the
production and maintenance unit, and the Regional Director conduct-
ing the elections herein is instructed to issue a certification of repre-
10 See Air Conditioning and Refrigerating Association of North Florida, footnote 6,
supra; Pacific Coast Shipbuilders and Ship Repairers, et at., footnote 9, supra; Fora
Motor Company, Aircraft Engine Division, footnote 6, supra.
11 Air Conditioning and Refrigerating Association of North Florida, footnote 6, supra;
Pacific Coast Shipbuilders and Ship Repairers, et al., footnote 9, supra.
12 The Reliance Electric i Engineering Company, 98 NLRB 488; Pacific Coast Ship-
builders and Ship Repairers, et al., footnote 9, supra.
PABCO PRODUCTS, INC. 281
sentatives to the labor organization selected by the employees in such
groups, which the Board, under such circumstances, finds to be a single
unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining. If, on
the other hand, a majority of the employees in voting group (a) vote
for the Sheet Metal Workers, they will be taken to have indicated
their desire to constitute a separate appropriate unit, and the Regional
Director conducting the elections is instructed to issue a certification
of representatives to such labor organization for this group, which
the Board, under such circumstances, finds to be a separate unit ap-
propriate for the purposes of collective bargaining. Similarly, if a
majority of the employees in either voting group (a) or voting group
(b) select a labor organization which is not selected by a majority of
the employees in the other voting group, the Regional Director
conducting the elections is instructed to issue a certification of
representatives to the labor organization selected by the employees
in each of these groups, which the Board, under such circumstances,
finds to be separate units appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining. In the event that the employees in either or both of these
voting groups do not select any labor organization, the Regional Di-
rector conducting the elections herein is instructed to issue a certificate
of results of election with respect to such voting group or groups.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this
volume.]
PABCO PRODUCTS, INC. and LOCAL 68, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERAT-
ING ENGINEERS, AFL, PETITIONER . Case No. 4-RC-1721. Novem-
ber 13,1952
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 Eugene M. Levine, hearing
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 powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Murdock and Peterson].
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 involved claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer.
101 NLRB No. 88.