Boeing Airplane Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 14, 1950

92 N.L.R.B. 716 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of BOEING AIRPLANE COMPANY, EMPLOYER and DISTRICT
LODGE No. 70, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, PETI-
TIONER
Cases Nos. 17-RC-790 and 17-RC-791.-Decided December 14, 1950
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing in these consolidated cases was held before
Charles F. McCoy, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made
at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. District Lodge No. 70, International Association of Machinists,
claims to represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to add to the production and maintenance
unit, which it has represented since 1943,1 two categories of employees
who have not previously been included in that unit: Contact printers
and rivet control clerks.2 Although the Employer indicated that it
might consider contact printers professional employees, and rivet con-
trol clerks clerical employees, it did not press either contention. It is
the duty of contact printers to transfer blueprints to pieces of metal
by a photographic process, prior to cutting and stamping. They are
a part of the tooling section, the other employees of which are in-
cluded in the bargaining unit. Rivet control clerks are engaged in
the distribution of rivets from a central location in the plant to bins
in the shops from which individual employees procure the rivets.. In
connection with such work, they see that the rivets returned by em-
ployees are kept in the proper bins in the shops, and maintain inven-
tory of the number distributed and used. Under all these circum-
' The present contract between the Employer and the Petitioner , which . covers all the
production and maintenance employees was executed November 6, 1949.
2 Rivet control clerks have not been covered as such in the production and maintenance
unit. However , rivet chasers , who performed part of the duties presently assigned to rivet
control clerks, were formerly included in the bargaining unit.
92 NLRB No. 123.
716.
BOEING AIRPLANE COMPANY 717
stances, we are of the opinion that the Empolyer's contact printers
and rivet control clerks have a sufficient community of interest with
production and maintenance workers to be included in the existing
production and maintenance unit.
- As no question of representation in the basic production and main-
tenance unit exists at the present time,3 we shall direct an election
among the contact printers and the rivet control clerks, excluding all
other employees and all supervisors as defined in the Act 4 If a ma-
jority of the employees voting in the election cast their ballots for the
Petitioner, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be a
part of the over-all production and maintenance unit and the Peti-
tioner may bargain for the contact printers and rivet control clerks
as a part of that unit.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
a Cf. Waterous Company, 92 NLRB 76.
' Armour and Company, 40 NLRB 1333 ; Great Lakes Pipe Line Company , 92 NLRB 583.
For reasons stated in his dissent in the Great Lakes Pipe Line case , Member Murdock would
decline to direct an election for this fringe group. However , deeming himself bound by the
action of the majority in the earlier case, he joins in the decision here.