Aluminum Co. of America

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 17, 1964

146 N.L.R.B. 929 (N.L.R.B. 1964)

ALUMINUM COMPANY OF AMERICA 929
Aluminum Company of America and Office Employees Inter-
national Union , Local 180 , AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case No.
3-R-1310. April 17, 1964
DECISION AND ORDER DENYING MOTION TO CLARIFY
BARGAINING UNIT
On September 5, 1946, the Petitioner was certified as the bargaining
representative of the Employer's employees in the following unit :
All office and works clerical employees of the Company's Mas-
sena plant (including its subsidiary, The St. Lawrence River
Power Company), including laboratory assistants and analysts in
the chemical laboratory, and excluding personnel department
employees, technical employees, plant protection employees, con-
fidential employees, and all supervisory employees with authority
to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes
in the status of employees or effectively recommend such action.
Since then, the parties have executed successive collective-bargaining
agreements covering the employees in the unit, the most recent of
which is currently in effect.
On October 9, 1963, the Petitioner filed u motion to clarify bargain-
ing unit by including therein the positions of procedure analysts, or
programers, alleging that the Company created such positions in
1955, and that the employees manning such jobs are doing work within
the scope of the bargaining unit. Thereafter, the Employer filed an
opposition to the Petitioner's motion, and requested that it be denied
or, alternatively, that a hearing be directed thereon.
On November 14, 1963, the Board issued its order directing hearing,
remanding the matter to the Regional Director for the purpose of
taking testimony with respect to the issues raised by the Petitioner's
motion and the Employer's opposition thereto. A hearing was held on
January 14, 15, and 16, 1964, before Hearing Officer Arthur E. Neu-
bauer. 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 McCulloch and Members Leedom and Fanning].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
At the time of the certification, at least one employee classified as
an accountant was-engaged at the Massena plant in revising and
modernizing paperwork procedures and, where feasible, adapting
146 NLRB No. 109.
930 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
such work to various office machines, such as Burroughs key drive
calculators, Burroughs Moons Hopkins posting and calculating ma-
chines, and Monroe high keyboard posting and calculating machines.
This position was excluded by agreement from the certified unit.
Thereafter, as this type of work has increased and become more com-
plex, the number of employees engaged therein has been increased,
and the name of the position has been designated at various times as
accountant, accountant B, and administrative assistant. About April 1,
1957, the Employer created the classification designation of proce-
dure analyst (sometimes called programers) for this position, and
at the time of the hearing there were seven employees in this classifica-
tion. They spend by far the greater part of their time in devising
new paperwork procedures and adapting them to data-processing office
machines such as the IBM 1401 and the IBM 1410. None of the em-
ployees in the unit performs such work. Although procedure analysts
occasionally operate the machines themselves, such operation appears
to be limited almost entirely to making initial or test runs of proce-
dures which they have devised. On the other hand, the employees
in the bargaining unit who operate these machines do so on a produc-
tion basis.
The record as a whole indicates that the procedure analysts perform
essentially the same kind of duties-the devising of new paper-
work procedures for data-processing machines-as have been per-
formed at the plant since the time of the certification, when such em-
ployees were excluded from the unit. Even though more employees
are engaged in adapting procedures to newer and more complicated
office machinery, the nature of the job performed has not changed.
None of the employees doing this kind of work has ever been included
in the bargaining unit. Moreover, procedure analysts perform func-
tions different from those performed by employees in the unit. The
procedure analysts are therefore not an accretion to the existing unit.
Accordingly, we find that a motion to clarify is not the proper method
for adding procedure analysts to the certified unit, which can only
be accomplished by filing a petition for an election pursuant to Sec-
tion 9 (c) of the Act. We shall therefore deny the Petitioner's motion
to clarify the unit and dismiss the instant proceeding.'
[The Board denied the motion to clarify bargaining unit and dis-
missed the instant proceeding.]
' General Electric Company, 144 NLRB 88. In view of our dismissal for the reasons
indicated above, we find it unnecessary to consider other reasongi advanced by the Employer
for denying the Petitioner's motion.