Pan American World Airways, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 2, 1974

212 N.L.R.B. 744 (N.L.R.B. 1974)

744 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Pan American World Airways , Inc. and Pan American
Engineering Support Services Chapter, Florida As-
sociation of Professional Employees , affiliated with
Marine Engineers Beneficial Association , AFL-CIO
and Pan American Eastern Test Range Chapter,
Florida Association of Professional Employees, affi-
liated with Marine Engineers Beneficial Association,
AFL-CIO and Pan American Omehs Chapter, Flor-
ida Association of Professional Employees , affiliated
with Marine Engineers Beneficial Association,
AFL-CIO, Petitioners . Cases 12-RC-4275, 12-
RC-4309, and 12-RC-4313
August 2, 1974
DECISION AND ORDER
BY MEMBERS JENKINS, KENNEDY, AND PENELLO
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section
9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amend-
ed, a consolidated hearing was held before Hearing
Officer John C. Wooten at Patrick Air Force Base,
Florida, and New York, New York. Following the
hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the Board's
Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure,
Series 8, as amended, the Regional Director for Re-
gion 12 transferred these cases to the Board for deci-
sion. Thereafter, the Employer and Petitioner I filed
briefs with the Board.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul-
ings made at the hearing and finds that they are free
from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in these cases, the Board
finds: 2
Pan American World Airways, Inc., the Employer
herein, is a certified scheduled air carrier, carrying
passengers, cargo, and mail primarily on international
and overseas routes. It is also engaged in a number of
other activities including, among others, airport man-
agement and administration, aircraft maintenance,
i Each petition was amended at the hearing to include the name of the local
unit affiliated with the parent labor organization, In each case , representation
is sought on a joint basis. Hereinafter, however, we shall refer to all or any
of the unions as the Petitioner
2 In arriving at our decision herein, we have considered the additional
evidence proffered by Petitioner in its Exh . 31. As rebuttal evidence would
serve no purpose , in view of our dismissal , the Employer's request for an
opportunity to produce such evidence is denied.
The Employer also requested oral argument , and Petitioner filed a letter
opposing the Employer's motion. We hereby deny the Employer's request for
oral argument , as the record , including the briefs, adequately presents the
issues and the positions of the parties.
fire and rescue services, communications and mete-
orological operations, data processing, the sale and
servicing of private jet airplanes, and management
through a wholly owned subsidiary corporation of a
chain of hotels. The Employer's International Ser-
vices Division operates and markets various services
which the Employer performs for other airlines, for
the United States and foreign governments, and for
private aircraft operators. This corporate division in-
cludes the Employer's Aerospace, Services Division,
which operates the three projects: involved in these
cases, and the Airline Services Division which per-
forms services for other commercial airlines.
Petitioner seeks to represent approximately 400 of
the Employer's 2,140 employees who are engaged in
missile and spacecraft support operations in Florida
at Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center, and Pat-
rick Air Force Base. There is no history of bargaining
as to the employees sought herein. However, the Em-
ployer has approximately 1,400 other employees at
these same three projects who are presently organized
and represented by labor organizations certified by
the National Mediation Board pursuant to the provi-
sions of the Railway Labor Act.
The project which is the subject of the petition in
Case 12-RC-4309 is the Eastern Test Range (herein-
after referred to as ETR) where the Employer has
served the United States Air Force as prime contrac-
tor since 1953, providing operation and maintenance
of all instrumentation, utilities, facilities, and grounds,
and support to the Air Force and other Range Users
in the launching of missiles and spacecraft. Petitioner
seeks to represent approximately 299 of the
Employer's employees at ETR, including engineers,
test operations controllers, safety supervisors, quality
assurance personnel, and additional professional and
technical employees. Some 1,276 of Employer's other
employees at the ETR project are represented by la-
bor organizations certified by the National Mediation
Board pursuant to the Railway Labor Act.
In Case 12-RC-4275, Petitioner seeks to represent
approximately 88 of the Employer's employees at the
Engineering Support Services Project (hereinafter re-
ferred to as ESSP) which the Employer operates un-
der contract with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (hereinafter referred to as NASA),
providing specified engineering services in support of
NASA's manned space launch operations at the Ken-
nedy Space Center? The employees sought by Peti-
3 According to the Employer, its contract with NASA has recently expired,
and a new contract has been awarded to another company which will replace
ESSP with a project greatly expanded in size and scope. For this reason, the
Employer has moved that we dismiss the petition in Case 12-RC-4275 The
Employer has also requested special leave to file a reply brief on the unit
issues . Since we are dismissing all three petitions on other grounds , we need
not reach these issues , and the motion to dismiss and the request to file a reply
brief are hereby denied.
212 NLRB No. 99
PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS, INC
tioner are engineers who have engaged in various spe-
cific projects, including detail designing of launch pad
facilities for the Skylab project, preliminary design of
ground facilities to be used for landing and servicing
the Space Shuttle, aircraft modification design, and
numerous modifications to buildings, air-condition-
ing, roads, and other facilities at the Space Center. Of
the approximately 235 employees of the Employer
working at ESSP, 107 are represented by a labor orga-
nization certified by the National Mediation Board
pursuant to the provisions of the Railway Labor Act.
The project which is the subject of the petition in
Case 12-RC-4313 is the Occupational Medicine and
Environmental Health Services Project (hereinafter
referred to as OMEHS) through which the Employer
supplies medical and environmental health services
under a combined contract with both NASA and the
Air Force at their Cape Canaveral area operations.
Petitioner seeks to represent 18 OMEHS employees
employed in that project's Environmental Health
Services Division. The employees sought are engaged
in industrial hygiene, radiological health, environ-
mental sanitation, and chemical analysis in the envi-
ronmental health laboratory. These 18 employees
help monitor work areas in order to minimize envi-
ronmental health hazards, such as the danger of toxic
gases, explosion, and radiological exposure, but they
are not involved in the comprehensive occupational
medicine program which the Employer provides un-
der the contract. The Employer has approximately 89
employees at the OMEHS project, 50 of whom are
represented by labor organizations certified by the
National Mediation Board pursuant to the provisions
of the Railway Labor Act.
As noted, the Employer is engaged as a common
carrier by air and in other activities. In these cases, it
and the Petitioner are in dispute as to whether the
operations and employees referred to above are sub-
ject to the Railway Labor Act 4 or the National Labor
Relations Act.' The Employer maintains that these
functions and employees at least bear more than a
tenuous, remote, or negligible relationship to its car-
rier activities and that statutory jurisdiction over them
is in the National Mediation Board, which Congress
has invested with the responsibility of administering
the Railway Labor Act. Petitioner contends that the
relationship between the employee activities herein
and the Employer's carrier activity is too remote for
the Railway Labor Act to be applicable and that the
4 Title 11, sec 201 , of the Railway Labor Act extends the coverage of that
act to "every common carrier by air engaged in interstate or foreign com-
merce
5 Sec 2(2) of the National Labor Relations Act provides that the term
"employer" shall not include any person subject to the Railway Labor Act
and Sec 2 (3) states that the "employee" shall not include "any individual
employed by an employer subject to the Railway Labor Act . 11
745
National Labor Relations Board should assert juris-
diction under the Act which it administers.
The record reveals that the ETR employees sought
herein participate in the preparation of procedures
used in supporting missile launches and tests, engi-
neering services for various instrumentation systems
on the range (including communications, radar, tel-
metry, timing, firing, and countdown systems), facili-
ties maintenance, and safety supervision of all active
ETR launch complexes. Some of these employees are
engaged in specialized laboratory services, meteoro-
logical services, and support of flight operations.
These flight operations require the Employer's sup-
port by its maintaining a landing strip, a control tow-
er, and ground-handling services for aircraft using the
strip, including Air Force Test aircraft, Range User
aircraft delivering missile hardware, and commercial
charter flights operated by the Employer and Trans
World Airlines. Thus, much of the Employer's activi-
ties and the functions of its employees at the ETR
project are either closely related or identical to trans-
portation activities.
At ESSP, the Employer and its employees have
worked on various aerospace projects, including Sky-
lab, Apollo, Space Shuttle, and some unmanned sci-
entific programs, as well as general engineering
support. It is clear that, through the ESSP and ETR
projects, the Employer is acquiring a familiarity with
new technological developments which it then utilizes
in its airline system. One example is the Inertial Navi-
gation System, first developed, tested, and used in
missiles at ETR and later introduced into the
Employer's commercial aircraft. Another example is
the Employer's involvement at the ESSP and ETR
with the development, handling, and usage of cryo-
genic fuels which are said to be the future source of
energy in the airline transportation industry. At the
ESSP engineers sought to be represented by the Peti-
tioner have worked on designs for automatic fueling
systems which use these newly developed fuels.
Likewise, experience acquired by the Employer and
its employees in the Environmental Health Program
at OMEHS has been useful to the Employer in its
commercial airlines operations. For example, in 1971,
the Employer established an environmental health
section in its airline division, under the direction of an
employee transferred from the OMEHS project. The
airline division program employs environmental sani-
tation techniques developed at OMEHS. These tech-
niques and methods are intended to minimize
employee exposure to hazardous materials and ele-
ments, such as fuel vapors, noise, and vibration, all
problems characteristic of both aircraft and missile
and spacecraft operations. In addition, OMEHS pro-
cedures have been applied to airline food-handling
746 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
problems, such as the preparation of food in foreign
countries.
We agree with the Employer that its activities and
the functions of the employees in issue in this case
bear more than a tenuous, remote, or negligible rela-
tionship to its regular carrier activities.6 The facts re-
cited above and the record as a whole lead us to
believe that these activities and functions are suffi-
ciently flight related as to fall within the jurisdiction
of the National Mediation Board, the agency vested
with jurisdiction over air carriers under the Railway
Labor Act.7 The fact that the National Mediation
6 See Pan American World Airways, Inc., 115 NLRB 493, 495 (1956)
7 Cf. Pan American World Airways, Inc v United Brotherhood of Carpenters
& Joiners ofAmerica, etc, et al , 324 F.2d 217 (C.A 9, 1963), cert denied 376
Board has already asserted jurisdiction over approxi-
mately 1,400 of the Employer's employees at the three
projects before us confirms our belief that that agency
would assert jurisdiction over the employees herein as
well. In these circumstances, and mindful of the appli-
cable statutory provisions recited above, we shall dis-
miss the petitions.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petitions in Cases 12-
RC-4275, 12-RC-4309, and 12-RC-4513 be, and
they hereby are , dismissed.
U S. 964 ( 1964), and Pan American World Airways, Inc, 188 NLRB 121,
where the employer was engaged in housekeeping and general support serv-
ices for the Atomic Energy Commission at a nuclear rocket development
station.