Allied Chemical Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 9, 1967

165 N.L.R.B. 235 (N.L.R.B. 1967)

ALLIED CHEMICAL CORPORATION 235
Allied Chemical Corporation , National Aniline
Division , Employer and United Brother-
hood of Carpenters and Joiners of America,
AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case 3-RC-3382
June 9,1967
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS BROWN,
JENKINS, AND FANNING
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Arthur E.
Neubauer. The Hearing Officer's rulings made at
the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are
hereby affirmed.' Following the hearing, this case
was transferred to the National Labor Relations
Board in Washington, D.C., pursuant to Section
102.67 of the Board Rules and Regulations and
Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended.
Subsequently, the Employer filed a brief with the
Board which has been duly considered.2
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board
finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists
concerning the representation of certain 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:3
The Petitioner seeks an election in a unit of all
carpenters working at the Employer's Buffalo, New
York, plant. It would sever that unit from a broader
unit of production and maintenance employees
currently, and for about 22 years, represented by the
Intervenor. The Employer and the Intervenor
oppose severance, relying mainly on the highly
integrated nature of the plant's operation and urging
as additional reasons against severance the long and
successful bargaining history in the existing
production and maintenance unit and the
community of interest shared by the carpenters with
other hourly paid employees in that production unit.
The Employer is engaged at its Buffalo plant in
the manufacture of industrial chemicals, including
dyestuffs, used primarily for textile, plastic, and food
coloring, and synthetic organic chemicals, some of
which are used in the national defense missile
program. The production of these chemicals and
dyestuffs involves a series of chemical reactions
encompassing a number of steps requiring the
movement of intermediate compounds from building
to building within the Employer's manufacturing
complex by means of approximately 10 miles of
pipeline and in containers.
The record shows that although the Employer has
divided its Buffalo operation into six distinct areas
representing various stages in the production
process, each of these areas is dependent for its
successful operation upon the performance of the
others. Thus, the manager of one of these areas,
plant area E, testified that the safety and economy of
the operation require that the stages in the
production process from raw material to final
product progress uninterruptedly. A breakdown in
one stage will delay all prior and subsequent phases
of the round-the-clock, 7-day-a-week operation, and,
due to the highly volatile and flammable nature of
many of the component chemicals, may increase the
danger of explosion.
The current collective-bargaining agreement
divides the hourly paid employees into two major
groups-"operating" and "mechanical or trades."
The carpenters are designated "mechanical or
trades" employees.
Work performed by the carpenters includes the
installation , repair, and fabrication of buildings,
equipment, and accessories made of wood or wood
substitutes. In this work they use carpenters' hand
and shop tools and machines. The collective-
bargaining agreement describes a tradesman,
including a carpenter, as an employee who is
"skilled and experienced in a trade requiring an
extensive period of training and practice" and as
being "capable of executing without close
supervision the layout, fabrication, and installation
of his trade."
Record evidence establishes that there is
considerable contact between carpenters and
production employees. Almost all of the carpenters'
work is performed in production areas of the plant
and in close cooperation with operating personnel.
For example, when it is necessary to make certain
repairs on rubber or enamel parts, or to install wood
filters, the carpenters work on the job with
production employees. In emergency situations,
where highly explosive chemicals may be involved,
' The Employer has appealed to the Board from certain adverse
rulings by the Hearing Officer on the introduction of additional
evidence In view of our decision herein , we find it unnecessary to
rule on the Employer's appeal
2 District 50, United Mine Workers of America, Local 12330,
intervened at the hearing on the basis of its contractual interest
Thereafter, on June 15, 1966, the Intervenor filed a motion to
dismiss the petition , contending that the Petitioner no longer
commands the requisite showing of interest in the requested unit
As a showing of interest is determined administratively and is not
litigable, this motion is hereby denied
3 The Employer ' s motion for oral argument before the Board is
hereby denied because the entire record in this case, including
the Employer's brief, adequately sets forth the issues and
positions of the parties We also deny for the same reason the
motion of the Manufacturing Chemists Association requesting,
interalta, permission to file a briefanucus curiae
165 NLRB No. 23
236 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
carpenters frequently work together with operating
employees to repair mechanical defects.
Although there is a central carpentry foreman who
assigns them work, the carpenters are also
supervised by operating supervisors who direct the
work of production employees. Thus, carpenters
must receive from an operating supervisor a "line
breaking permit" or a "tank entry permit" indicating
that a line or tank is safe and free from harmful
solvents or gases before they can perform certain
required work. There is also a considerable amount
of overlap between the duties of the carpenters and
those of other plant employees. For instance, H. I.
Russell, general superintendent of mechanical
power and plant engineering, testified that a certain
job is done by "labor B" production employees as
well as by carpenters. It further appears that
craftsmen, including carpenters, are assigned to
production tasks during times when insufficient
craft work is available. This is specifically provided
for by the current labor agreement which states that
"when the work involved falls outside the scope of
any of the following trades [including carpentry]
when qualified tradesmen are available, they may be
assigned to perform said work at the Company's
discretion."
In addition to working in close proximity to, and
substituting for, production employees, the
carpenters receive the same fringe benefits and use
the same employee facilities as the hourly paid plant
employees.
Since 1942, the vast majority of hourly paid
employees at the Buffalo plant, including
carpenters, have been included in the plantwide
production and maintenance unit represented by the
Intervenor. The Petitioner, however, currently
represents two separate bargaining units: one a unit
of sheet metal workers and the other a unit of garage
mechanics and shop machinists.' At one time, the
Petitioner had also separately represented two other
craft groups-pipefitters and scale mechanics. The
pipefitters, however, in 1955 voted to rejoin the
production and maintenance unit and, in 1963, the
scale mechanics also did so.
Besides the carpenters, pipefitters, and scale
mechanics, the overall production and maintenance
unit includes other skilled tradesmen such as
electricians, brickmasons, welders, field machinists,
power engineers, boilermakers, and blacksmiths.
There is no evidence that the bargaining interests
of the carpenters or other craftsmen have been
neglected or prejudiced by virtue of their
representation in the overall unit; their wage rates
' One of the Board's principal considerations, stated in
American Potash & Chemical Corp., 107 NLRB 1418, for deciding
craft severance cases was whether the union requesting
severance was the traditional representative of the craft
employees sought In Malltnckrodt Chemical Works, 162 NLRB
387, the Board retained this consideration among others also to be
weighed The Petitioner contends here that as the traditional
which are higher than those prevailing for the great
majority of noncraft employees reflect recognition of
their greater skills.
In 1953, in National Aniline Division, Allied
Chemical and Dye Corporation, 102 NLRB 129,
132-133, the Board directed a severance election,
inter alia , in a unit of carpenters and apprentices at
this plant, in which separate representation was
rejected. The Petitioner contends that this decision
constitutes binding precedent. However, in this 1953
decision the Board considered only whether the
requested employees were craftsmen. Recently, in
Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, 162 NLRB 387, we
revised the principles applicable to craft severance
petitions and indicated that we would weigh, on a
case-by-case basis, all relevant factors, including
the extent to which the employees in the proposed
unit have established and maintained their separate
identity during their inclusion in the broader unit,
the degree of integration of the employer's
production processes, and the extent to which the
successful operation of these processes is dependent
on the assigned functions of the requested
employees.
Upon reviewing the facts in this case, we conclude
that it will not effectuate the purposes of the Act to
allow disruption of the production and maintenance
unit by permitting the Petitioner to represent a
separate unit of carpenters. Despite the fact that the
carpenters are craftsmen, they do nearly all of their
work in production areas of the plant where they
may work jointly with, or substitute for, operating
personnel and where they may be supervised by
individuals who also supervise production
employees. The work of the carpenters is important
to the continuous flow of production processes used
in the handling and making of various chemical end
products, and helps to reduce the potential hazards
that could result from an interruption in the flow of
materials.
In light of the carpenters' close functional
integration in the plant's operations, their
community of interest with operational personnel in
the production and maintenance unit , and their 22-
year inclusion in that unit, and in the absence of any
compelling countervailing considerations, we
conclude that the unit sought by the Petitioner is
inappropriate. Accordingly, we shall dismiss the
petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
representative of carpenters it has satisfied one of the
prerequisites for severance We note, however, that the Petitioner
cannot claim that it has devoted all its attention to representing
the special interests of carpenters , or that it has represented them
exclusively , as it has represented other employees than
carpenters at the here-involved plant
ALLIED CHEMICAL CORPORATION 237
MEMBER FANNING, dissenting:
I dissent from my colleagues' decision to deny the
carpenter-craftsmen involved in this case an
opportunity to select the Carpenters Union as their
collective-bargaining representative. All of the
carpenters in this case work solely as carpenters.
They install, repair, and fabricate buildings,
equipment, and accessories out of wood or wood
substitutes. In performing such work, the carpenters
use hand and shop tools and machines and perform
all work commonly performed by carpenters.
Carpenters at this plant must undergo extensive
apprenticeship training, and all parties acknowledge
that the carpenters are craftsmen "who are skilled
and experienced in a trade requiring an extensive
period of training and practice" and are "capable of
executing without close supervision the layout,
fabrication and installation of [their] trade."5
Carpenters work out of a central shop and all their
work is assigned by the carpenter foreman and is
carried out under his direction. There is no
interchange between carpenters and other crafts or
production employees. Carpenters work only on the
day shift although the production workers work on a
round-the-clock basis.
The plant involved herein has had a long history of
craft elections. The sheet metal workers and the
garage mechanics and machinists are presently
represented in separate units. In the past, the
pipefitters and the scale mechanics have been
represented separately, although both groups are
now part of the production and maintenance unit.
There is absolutely no evidence that this history of
severance elections and separate representation for
craftsmen has in any way obstructed the efficient
operation of the Employer's complex and
complicated production processes. In view of the
fact that the carpenters work only on the day shift,
even though the production process continues
around the clock, it is apparent that the presence of
carpenters is not a necessary condition to the
continuous efficient and safe functioning of the
Employer's continuous flow production process,
even though the work they do undoubtedly
contributes to the orderly functioning of that
process.
The foregoing facts demonstrate beyond doubt
that, notwithstanding their inclusion in the
production and maintenance unit for the past 22
years, the carpenters constitute a functionally
distinct group of craft employees with a clearly
defined community of interest separate from that of
other employees in the existing unit. In these
circumstances, my colleagues' conclusion that the
carpenters may not constitute a separate
appropriate unit, if they so desire, seems to me to be
an obvious departure from their oft-stated policy of
deciding these cases on a case-by-case basis rather
than on the basis of a mechanically applied
preference for or against craft severance.
As I believe the facts in this case dictate a
conclusion contrary to that reached by my
colleagues, I dissent from their refusal to grant the
carpenters an opportunity to seek separate
representation at the hands of a union peculiarly
qualified to represent their interests.
5 The carpenters are so described in the collective-bargaining
agreement between the Employer and the Intervenor.