Bechtel, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 25, 1976

225 N.L.R.B. 197 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

BECHTEL, INCORPORATED 197
Bechtel , Incorporated and International Brotherhood
of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and
Helpers of America, Teamsters Local 959 , State of
Alaska, Petitioner . Case 19-RC-7630
June 25, 1976
DECISION ON REVIEW
BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND PENELLO
On November 6, 1975, the Regional Director for
Region 19 issued a Decision, Direction of Election,'
and Order 2 in the above-entitled proceeding in
which he found that the Employer's quality control
department employees employed on the Trans Alas-
ka Pipeline are statutory employees and comprise a
unit appropriate for collective bargaining. Accord-
ingly, he directed an election among them. Thereaf-
ter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the Nation-
al Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Employer
filed a timely request for review of the Regional
Director's decision on the ground, inter alia, that in
failing to find that the quality control department
employees are managerial employees who are ex-
cluded from the coverage of the Act, he departed
from officially reported Board precedent.
By telegraphic order dated November 26, 1975, the
Board granted the request for review. Thereafter, the
Employer filed a brief on review.
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 considered the entire record in this
proceeding, including the Employer's brief on re-
view, with respect to the issue under review and
makes the following findings:
The Employer, Bechtel, is employed by Alyeska
Pipeline Company as an engineering, procurement,
and management administrator for the construction
of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. In order to achieve full
compliance with environmental and technical stipu-
lations and requirements imposed on the construc-
tion of the pipeline, the Employer maintains a staff
of quality control department employees who, for the
most part, perform inspection functions along the
i The Pipelmers Local Union No 798 and the International Union of
Operating Engineers , Local 2, were permitted to intervene in this proceed-
in¢
2 The Regional Director also dismissed the petition in Case 19-RC-7672,
which was consolidated with the instant case, finding that the Pipeliners
requested unit, limited to those quality control department employees asso-
ciated with pipelaying and welding, was inappropriate No request for re-
view was filed with respect to this finding
path of the pipeline construction.' Generally, the de-
partment employees are responsible for the inspec-
tion and monitoring of the pipeline construction as it
is completed by the construction contractors, and for
the maintaining of associated records. The depart-
ment is comprised of approximately 185 inspectors,
13 record coordinators, and 13 material testers. All of
these individuals report to five section QC supervi-
sors,' each of whom is responsible for 150-225 mile
sections of the pipeline. Also employed in the depart-
ment are a welding qualifier and an NDE qualifier,'
both of whom were stipulated to be supervisors.
The record discloses that the inspectors are re-
sponsible for inspecting the construction of the path-
way and pipeline as various stages are completed by
the construction contractors. These stages include
the cleaning and grading of the land, the placement
of the vertical support members, ditching, installa-
tion of the pipeline, and cleanup and restoration. In-
spectors perform their duties utilizing copies of the
specifications for the construction work being done
and check to insure that the contractors are perform-
ing in accordance with those specifications. If the
construction work being performed has been done in
accordance with the specifications and stipulations
thereto, it is approved by the inspector. If not, the
inspector confers with the construction foreman in
an effort to have the work corrected. If this is not
successful, the inspector has the authority to halt
construction until the specifications are met.' Inspec-
tors also monitor the work of certain craft employees
of the contractors and can request the removal of an
employee or "pull" his qualification card, if neces-
sary. The record does not disclose the frequency with
which the latter action has occurred.
Records coordinators in the quality control de-
partment are responsible for insuring that the inspec-
tors have the correct forms with them and for screen-
3 Permission to construct the Trans Alaska Pipeline was subject to an
agreement and grant of right-of-way and certain stipulations appended
thereto between the owners of the pipeline and the United States Govern-
ment Sec 9 of the agreement provides that there shall be a comprehensive
quality assurance program designed to assure full compliance with the envi-
ronmental and technical stipulations and requirements
The parties stipulated that the section QC supervisors are supervisors
within the meaning of the Act
5 The welding qualifier administers tests to welders to determine whether
they are qualified to work on the pipeline and also assists in the administer-
ing of examinations to welding inspectors The NDE qualifier examines and
certifies inspectors who perform nondestructive examinations, i e , examina-
tions of radiographs taken by the employees of the construction contractors
The NDE qualifier also monitors the NDE inspectors through spot checks
along the pipeline path to insure that inspectors are properly reading and
documenting the radiographs
6 The record discloses that when an inspector makes the decision to halt
construction he fills out a stop work order, which must be signed by the
section QC supervisor Inspectors also fill out work performance reports by
which the Employer keeps track of whether or not construction errors are
corrected In effect, the work performance report is a backup document for
a stop work order
225 NLRB No. 19
198 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
mg and processing the forms. Material testers gather
the materials that must be tested, such as soils and
concrete, and perform laboratory testing. They also
"make up" the data for compliance with the engi-
neering design. As indicated, inspectors comprise the
largest group in the department. All of the quality
control department employees are salaried and ap-
proximately one-quarter of them are engineers.
The Employer contends that the members of the
quality control department are managerial and ex-
cluded from the Act inasmuch as they are manage-
ment representatives inspecting the immensely costly
construction of the pipeline. It points particularly to
the functions of the inspectors and their authority, on
behalf of the Employer, to reject the work product of
the contractors performing the construction and to
halt the construction if necessary. It further asserts
that the inspectors in accepting the pipeline construc-
tion by their approval of the work are analogous to
buyers who have authority to commit the credit of
their employers and who are found to be managerial.
Contrary to the Employer's contentions, we find
that the quality control department employees, in-
cluding the inspectors, are not managerial and are
therefore covered by the Act.
The Board defines managerial employees as those
who "formulate and effectuate management policies
by expressing and making operative the decisions of
their employer, and those who have discretion in the
performance of their jobs independent of their
employer's established policy." I We do not view the
functions of the quality control department employ-
ees as falling within that definition. The record re-
veals that the inspectors' decisions to accept or reject
a contractor's work product are predicated upon
written specifications. In essence, these specifications
are preexisting standards which provide the sole ba-
sis for comparing and ultimately judging the accepta-
bility of the contractor's work. Thus, the judgments
and decisions made by the inspectors appear to be
primarily technical in nature and limited by preexist-
ing established policy.
Moreover, we note that the Employer has a degree
of oversight over the inspectors' functions. As indi-
cated, the record discloses that the duties of the NDE
inspectors are monitored by the NDE qualifier who
makes spot checks along the pipeline path. There is
also some degree of participation by the section QC
supervisors in the issuance of stop work orders.
7 See General Dynamics Corporation, Corvair Aerospace Division , San Die-
go Operators, 213 NLRB 852 (1974), citing Palace Laundry Dry Cleaning
Corporation, 75 NLRB 320 (1947), and Eastern Camera and Photo Corp, 140
NLRB 569 (1963) For current judicial approval of the definition see
N L R B v Bell Aerospace Company, Division of Textron, Inc, 416 U S 267
(1974)
In sum, we conclude that the quality control de-
partment employees are not managerial employees
since they lack a significant degree of discretion in
the performance of their jobs independent of their
Employer's established policy.8
The Employer further argues that unionization of
the inspectors would create a conflict of interest be-
tween the performance of their job responsibilities
and their loyalty to the union. Specifically, the Em-
ployer contends it will be denied the undivided loyal-
ty of the inspectors if they are represented by the
same union which represents the employees whose
work they inspect. On this record, we find no merit in
the Employer's contention.
As discussed above, the inspectors' duties are com-
prised essentially of comparing the work product of
the construction contractors with predetermined
specifications and stipulations. Further, the inspec-
tors are subject to the supervision and oversight of
the section supervisors to whom they report and the
NDE qualifier who monitors the work of certain in-
spectors. It would thus appear that the Employer has
a substantial degree of control over the work perfor-
mance of the inspectors, and we find no basis for
presuming that representation of these employees, if
they so choose, will result in an impairment of the
performance of their duties. Moreover, should some
question arise concerning the improper performance
of an inspector, the Employer has the means to cor-
rect the situation. Therefore, we do not find that rep-
resentation of the quality control department em-
ployees would create a conflict of interest in the
circumstances herein.
In view of the foregoing and the record as a whole,
we find that the quality control department employ-
ees are statutory employees entitled to the coverage
of the Act, and we hereby affirm the Regional
Director's decision.
Accordingly, the case is hereby remanded to the
Regional Director in order that he may conduct an
election in the unit found appropriate by him, as de-
scribed below, pursuant to his Decision and Direc-
tion of Election, except that the eligibility payroll pe-
riod therefore shall be that ending immediately
before the date of this Decision on Review:9
All Quality Control Department employees of
the Employer employed on the Trans Alaska
Pipeline, excluding all other employees, confi-
dential employees, managerial employees,
guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.
8
Contrary to our dissenting colleague , we do not find that the inspectors'
functions of accepting or rejecting a contractor's work which may result in
the commitment of large sums of the owners ' funds make the inspectors
managerial employees
Excelsior footnote omitted from publication
BECHTEL, INCORPORATED 199
CHAIRMAN MURPHY, dissenting:
I cannot agree that the inspectors in the quality
control department should be included in the unit. I
would find that those inspectors are managerial per-
sonnel and, therefore, are not employees within the
meaning of the Act.10
The disputed inspectors exercise important inspec-
tion and monitoring functions on behalf of their Em-
ployer, Bechtel. Thus, if they accept completed work,
the pipeline is finally buried. On the other hand, they
have authority to halt work by a subcontractor which
does not conform to specifications. Each thus has the
power to make determinations affecting investments
and expenditures valued in the millions of dollars.
Contrary to my colleagues, the fact that their deter-
mination is based on a comparison with specifica-
tions does not detract from the nature or importance
of their authority. For all operations of any engineer-
ing project, from start to finish, are based on such
specifications, without which even an operation of
far lesser magnitude than the Alaska pipeline would
be a shambles. The ability to comprehend the re-
quirements and evaluate the performance is hardly
comparable to a routine inspection function per-
formed on projects made in the shop and subject to
10 N L R B v Bell Aerospace Company, Division of Textron, Inc, 416 U S
267 (1974)
further inspection by the purchaser and correction or
replacement if an error is discovered. Rather, as ar-
gued by the Employer, these inspectors are the final
eyes and ears of management.
Bechtel is responsible for the engineering of, pro-
curement for, and management of the entire con-
struction project. Therefore, as representatives of Be-
chtel with the authority to accept finally or to reject
the performance of other firms, the inspectors' func-
tion is the corollary of protecting the interests of their
Employer and of the owners and is tantamount to
committing unusually large sums of the owners'
funds. They are thus, in essence, part of the
Employer's and the owners' management group.
There is no doubt, as the Employer points out, that
these disputed inspectors exercise responsibilities far
greater than do incumbents of positions which have
been found to be managerial in other cases.'1
In light of the facts of this case, I can reach no
other conclusion than that the quality control depart-
ment inspectors are managerial and may not be in-
cluded in this unit. I would so find.
11 E g, N L R B v North Arkansas Electric Cooperative, Inc, 446 F 2d 602
(C A 8, 1971), Astronautics Corporation of America, 210 NLRB 652 (1974),
General Dynamics Corporation, Convair Aerospace Division, 213 NLRB 851
(1974), advance system project engineer and other categories with more
than routine type authority at 859 , plant construction engineer A at 861