American Cyanamid Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 18, 1968

172 N.L.R.B. 2116 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

2116 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
American Cyanamid Company and Textile Workers
of America , AFL-CIO, CLC, Petitioner and In-
ternational Chemical Workers Union , Petitioner.
Cases 15-RC-3862, 15-RC-3876, and
15-RC-3877
September 18, 1968
DECISION, ORDER , AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTIONS
BY MEMBERS FANNING, JENKINS, AND ZAGORIA
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section
9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as
amended, a consolidated hearing was held before
Hearing Officer James M. Pratt of the National
Labor Relations Board. Following the hearing and
pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations and State-
ments of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, these
cases were transferred to the National Labor Rela-
tions Board for decision. The Employer and the In-
ternational Chemical Workers Union (Chemical
Workers) filed briefs which have been considered
by 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
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af-
firmed.
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 labor organizations involved claim to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. Questions affecting commerce exist concern-
ing the representation of certain employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Sections 9(c)( 1)
and 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
' Both unions stated their willingness and desire to participate in elec-
tions in whichever unit or units the Board finds to be appropriate
Prior Board proceedings involving the same plant and parties as those
herein include On February 2 1961, the Board, at 130 NLRB I. found
that a unit of production and maintenance workers petitioned for by the
Textile Workers to be appropriate and directed an election therein, and it
found inappropriate a unit of maintenance employees petitioned for by
Pensacola Building and Construction Trades Council Thereafter, in March
1961. the Board granted a motion for reconsideration and after recon-
sideration of the issues vacated its previous Decision, Order, and Direction
of Election and found that either a unit of production and maintenance em-
ployees or a unit of maintenance employees alone would be appropriate
and directed self-determination elections in the two voting groups See 131
4. The Chemical Workers seeks to represent a
combined unit of production and maintenance em-
ployees and laboratory and technical employees at
the Employer's Santa Rosa, Florida, plant. The
Textile Workers of America, AFL-CIO, CLC (Tex-
tile Workers) petitions for a unit limited to the
production and maintenance employees.' The Em-
ployer contends that the unit sought by the Chemi-
cal Workers is inappropriate and that only separate
units of production and maintenance employees
and laboratory and technical employees would be
appropriate There is no history of collective bar-
gaining for any of the plant employees.'
The Employer manufactures acrylic fibers at its
Santa Rosa plant. The plant is headed by a plant
manager . The plant has seven departments: en-
gineering , production, quality control, main-
tenance , personnel, accounting, and development.
The department heads report directly to the plant
manager . The production department contains all
the production functions including the chemical
area , fibers area, and utilities. The maintenance de-
partment covers area maintenance, central main-
tenance, maintenance engineering and planning.
There are approximately 660 employees at the Em-
ployer's Santa Rosa plant, including 350 production
and maintenance employees who are paid at an
hourly rate, and approximately 120 employees who
are employed in the "laboratory and technical"
group. Twenty employees of this latter group are
paid hourly while the remainder are salaried.
The Employer contends that the production and
maintenance employees and the laboratory and
technical employees comprise separate appropriate
units , on the basis of differing working conditions,
employee benefits, skills, and job functions , and the
lack of common supervision, contact, or in-
terchange. We find merit in the Employer's conten-
tion. The production and maintenance employees
are physically separated from the laboratory and
technical workers. The two groups of employees
have different supervision and there is no in-
terchange of employees between them. Only at the
lowest level is there any transfer of employees from
one group to the other. The production and main-
NLRB 909 On March 18, 1966, the Textile Workers filed a petition
claiming to represent the production and maintenance employees. The
Chemical Workers intervened and an election was conducted, neither
union receiving a majority of the votes cast. On April 29, 1966, the
Chemical Workers petitioned for a unit of laboratory and technical
workers and an election was subsequently held which the Chemical
Workers did not win On March 14, 1967, the Textile Workers and the
Chemical Workers filed petitions to represent the production and
maintenance employees An election was held with neither union receiving
a majority On April 27, 1967, the Chemical Workers filed a petition claim-
ing to represent a unit of laboratory and technical employees Prior to an
election being held the Petitioner withdrew its petition
172 NLRB No. 241
AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY 2117
tenance employees are hourly paid while most of
the laboratory and technical employees are nonex-
empt salaried.' Hence, the production and main-
tenance employees are paid weekly while the
laboratory and technical employees are paid
semimonthly; the production and maintenance em-
ployees are covered by the hourly employees hand-
book while the laboratory and technical employees
come under the nonexempt salaried employees
handbook; and there are different rules pertaining
to vacations, seniority, and layoffs for the produc-
tion and maintenance employees than for the
nonexempt salaried employees.
The production employees operate the equip-
ment used to produce the chemicals and chemical
fibers manufactured by the Employer. The main-
tenance employees perform the varied maintenance
work for the entire plant. While the work per-
formed by the production and maintenance em-
ployees requires no special scientific skill or ex-
perience, that performed by the laboratory and
technical employees involves the use of complex
testing equipment for which a higher educational
standard and scientific background is required as
well as greater initiative and personal responsibility
than that exercised by the production and main-
tenance employees.'
On the basis of the foregoing, we find that the
laboratory and technical employees are readily
identifiable as a group of employees whose similari-
ty of functions and skills create a community of in-
terest separate from that possessed by the produc-
tion and maintenance employees, and that the two
groups of employees constitute separate units
which are appropriate for purposes of collective
bargaining.'
There is some question as to whether the head
storeroom clerk, spares control clerk, storeroom
clerk, receiving clerk, head warehouse and shipping
clerk, and nonroutine product and inventory clerk,
all of whom are nonexempt salaried, are plant cleri-
cals and should be excluded from the bargaining
units in accordance with the parties stipulation to
exclude plant clericals. The head storeroom clerk is
located in an office adjacent to the stores
warehouse and is responsible for the inventories,
control of stock, and the general operations of the
stores warehouse. Approximately 80 to 90 percent
of his time is spent in clerical duties which include
making out and checking requisitions, purchase or-
ders, and IBM cards pertaining to stores. He is also
in charge of the spares control clerk, the storeroom
clerk, and the receiving clerk. The spares control
clerk is located in the same office as the head
storeroom clerk, and his duties include cataloguing
of spare and of obsolescent parts, composing spare
parts lists from vendors catalogues, and assisting
the storeroom clerk and the maintenance
mechanics when a question of spare parts nomen-
clature arises. He will occasionally relieve the
storeroom clerk and do some spot checking of
stores, but approximately 80 to 90 percent of his
time is spent performing clerical duties. The receiv-
ing clerk has an office located in the store
warehouse and receives the material as it is
delivered, makes up receiving and damage reports
and IBM cards; he reports and compares materials
received with the purchase requisitions and
although he does some moving of materials in the
stores warehouse approximately 50 percent of his
time is spent at his desk performing clerical func-
tions. The storeroom clerk is located at a counter in
the stores warehouses. He issues stores and spare
parts, assists mechanics in looking up parts in the
catalogue, makes out IBM cards, fills bills of
material and checks them for proper charges. Ap-
proximately 50 percent of his time is spent in cleri-
cal duties. The head warehouse and shipping clerk
is located in the shipping warehouse in an office
partitioned from the rest of the warehouse area. His
duties include preparing packing lists and way bills
for transfer of Employer's products. He supplies
lists to the material loaders to load on particular
trucks, trailers, and rail cars, and does all the paper
work associated with the shipping operation. Ap-
proximately 95 percent of his time is spent on cleri-
cal duties. The nonroutine product and inventory
clerk works in an office adjacent to the shipping
warehouse. His duties, all of which are clerical, in-
clude assembling information on products that for
one reason or another do not meet the Employer's
commercial products specifications called from all
' The term "nonexempt salaried" derives from the fact that these em-
ployees are covered by provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,
as amended
' A substantial portion of the hearing in this case was devoted to develop-
ing a record of the responsibilities and skills of the approximately 44 job
classifications in the "laboratory and technical" group and the training
required of employees to satisfactorily perform the duties of those posi-
tions The parties are agreed that none of the employees involved is a
professional employee We are satisfied on the basis of the entire record
that the skills, education, and training possessed by employees in this group
mark them as technical employees as that term is used in Board decisions
See for example Litton Industries of Maryland, Incorporated, 125 NLRB
722, Slicffteld Corporation, 134 NLRB 1 101
' Our conclusion herein is also based on the fact that both unions have
heretofore recognized the separate community of interests of the two
groups of employees involved herein by filing petitions for and participat-
ing in elections limited to one group or the other See fn 1, supra We note
further that though the Chemical Workers contends that an overall unit in-
cluding both groups of employees is the most appropriate unit, it does not
retreat from its earlier position that the laboratory and technical employees
constitute a separate appropriate bargaining unit for it urges that the Board
conduct "globe" elections to give these employees an opportunity to de-
cide for themselves whether they wish to be represented in a unit with the
production and maintenance employees
2118 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
parts of the plant and his own files. We find that
work performed by the head storeroom clerk,
spares control clerk, storeroom clerk, receiving
clerk, head warehouse and shipping clerk, and the
nonroutine product and inventory clerk is essen-
tially clerical and therefore, in accordance with the
parties stipulation that plant clericals be excluded,
we find these employees to be plant clericals" and
will exclude them from both units.
In accordance with the foregoing, we shall direct
elections in the following bargaining units which we
find to be appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of
the Act:
(a) All hourly production employees, including
utility employees, maintenance employees, and
warehouse employees who are employed at the Em-
ployer's Santa Rosa, Florida plant, excluding office
clerical employees, plant clerical employees, all
laboratory and technical employees, including all of
the quality control laboratory employees, textile
evaluation employees, fibers application laboratory
employees, analytical development employees,
"The Ma) Department Store3 Company, dlh/a Funioui-Barr Co?npam.
153 NLRB 341. 344
Although there are approximately 20 laboratory workers who are
hourly paid, the record discloses that their duties and skills are similar to
the salaried laboratory employees, and we find that they share a communi-
ty of interests with the other laboratory employees and will include them in
this unit
" An election eligibility list , containing the names and addresses of all the
eligible voters , must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director
for Region 15 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and Direction of
Election The Regional Director shall make the list available to all parties
chemical development employees, fiber develop-
ment employees, pilot-plant employees, prepilot-
plant employees, process and product improvement
employees, professional employees, watchmen
and/or guards, and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
(b) All laboratory and technical employees at
the Employer's Santa Rosa, Florida plant, including
all of the quality control laboratory employees, tex-
tile evaluation employees, fibers application labora-
tory employees, analytical development employees,
chemical development employees, fiber develop-
ment employees, pilot-plant employees, prepilot-
plant employees, process and improvement em-
ployees; excluding, production employees, utility
employees, maintenance employees, warehouse
employees, office clerical employees, plant clerical
employees, professional employees, watchmen
and/or guards, and supervisors as defined in the
Act.7
[Direction of Election 8 9 omitted from publica-
tion. ]
to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be granted by the
Regional Director except in extraordinary circumstances Failure to
comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election
whenever proper objections are filed L i c/slor U,u/erwtear Ins , 156 NLRB
1236
"The Textile Workers has not submitted a sufficient showing of interest
to appear on the ballot herein, however , since it indicated at the hearing a
willingness and capability of producting the necessary showing of interest,
it is placed on the ballot contingent on his showing of interest being sub-
mitted to the Regional Director prior to the date of election