Columbia Southern Chemical Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 5, 1952

97 N.L.R.B. 1555 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

COLUMBIA SOUTHERN CHEMICAL CORPORATION 1555
by the Employer. It accordingly follows that Starnes' conduct and statements
are not attributable to the Employer.2e
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Having found that Starnes' conduct and statements were not chargeable to
the Employer and that the facts do not establish interference with the conduct of
the election or the exercise of a free choice of representatives by the employees,
it is recommended that the Petitioner's objections be overruled.
As provided in the Board's Order of June 20, 1951, within ten (10) days of
receipt of this report, any party may file with the Board in Washington, D. C.,
an original and six copies of exceptions thereto. Immediately upon the filing of
such exceptions, the party filing the same shall serve a copy thereof upon each
of the other parties, and shall file a copy with the Regional Director.
26 Interchemical Corp., 83 NLRB 641.
COLUMBIA SOUTHERN CHEMICAL CORPORATION and INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, LOCAL UNION 861, AFL,
PETITIONER. Case No. 15-KC-577. February 5, 1952
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Charles Kyle,
hearing officer. 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 [Members Houston, Murdock, and Styles].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organizations r involved claim to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation of 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:
The Petitioner seeks to sever from the existing production and
maintenance unit represented by the Intervenor two alleged craft
units consisting of (a) electricians, their apprentices and helpers,
and (b) instrumentmen, their apprentices and helpers. In the al-
ternative, if the Board finds that only a single unit of all these em-
i Intervention was granted to International Association of Machinists, Local Lodge No.
1317, herein called the Intervenor.
97 NLRB No. 222.
1556 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ployees is appropriate, the Petitioner is willing to represent them
on such basis. The Employer and Intervenor 2 contend that in view
of the integrated and interdependent operations in the Employer's
plant, and the lack of craft status of the requested employees, the pro-
posed units are inappropriate.
The Employer's Lake Charles, Louisiana, plant, herein involved,
produces chlorine, hydrogen, and caustic soda by an electrolytic
process in which brine pumped from deep wells into the plant is sub-
jected to electric currents and thereby separated into the foregoing
end products. Because no storage facilities exist at intermediate
points of the process, the raw materials, the end products, and the
residual fluids which are reused must flow continuously throughout
the entire process. All phases of the process are interdependent, and
an operating failure in any portion of the plant necessitates a shut-
down of the entire operation.. The plant operates 24 hours a day
every day of the year.
The employees whom the Petitioner seeks to represent work in the
service department of the plant which is headed by a superintendent.
Below him is the general mechanical foreman who in turn is over
4 area foremen. These foremen are responsible for maintenance of
specific plant sectors and supervise crews of employees classified as
service mechanics skilled mainly as welders, pipefitters, riggers, or
machinists. The service department also includes 2 area foremen
who report directly to the superintendent. One of these foremen
supervises approximately 12 service mechanics who possess mostly
electrical skills and 2 apprentices, and the other supervises approxi-
mately 6 service mechanics chiefly skilled as instrumentmen and 1
apprentice. The areas maintained by these latter groups are plant-
wide. The service mechanics and apprentices, in the electrical and
instrumentmen groups are the employees herein sought to be rep-
resented.
The service mechanics spend most of their time working in the
production departments repairing and maintaining plant equipment
and machinery. In performing these duties, service mechanics with
different primary skills work in close contact with each other and with
production operators. A limited amount-of shop work is performed
by the service mechanics in a maintenance shop in which an enclosed
portion is reserved for the "electricians" and "instrumentmen." These
latter employees, however, also use machine tools, such as lathes and
drill presses, located in the maintenance shop for use by all the service
mechanics. The instrumentmen also use the powerhouse shop for
2 The Intervenor also contends that its contrgct with the Employer is a bar t6 this
proceeding. In view of our findings herein , we need not pass on this contention.
COLUMBIA SOUTHERN CHEMICAL CORPORATION 1557
instrument calibration. There is a common toolroom and warehouse
for the storage of parts and equipment for all the service mechanics.
The service department is not organized and does not function on
the basis of strict craft lines. While the service mechanics may be
more skilled in performing certain duties rather than others, they
are not required to possess the journeyman skills of any craft. On
the other hand, for reasons of economy and efficiency, the Employer
hires employees as service mechanics who are familiar with the skills
of several crafts, not just the journeyman skills of a single craft, and
specifically informs new employees that craft lines are not observed
in the assignment of work. Journeyman craftsmen as well as persons
with lesser skills hired by the Employer, receive training to provide
them with the required variety of maintenance skills. The Employer's
apprentice program, through which more than half of the employees
herein involved were obtained, emphasizes development of multicraft
skills, so that upon completion of their training apprentices qualify
as industrial specialists suited for the Employer's plant rather than
as journeymen in traditional crafts. This emphasis is further re-
flected in the rotation of helpeus every 6 months among the various
groups of service mechanics, as provided for by the current contract
with the Intervenor, to broaden their skills and to qualify them for
selection as apprentices.
While in the application of the foregoing policy the "electricians"
and "instrumentmen" spend most of their time performing work con-
sistent with their primary skills, they also frequently perform duties
involving skills typical of other than electrical or instrumentmen's
crafts. Conversely, other service mechanics frequently do electrical
and instrument work identical to that performed by the "electricians"
and "instrumentmen." Thus, "electricians" interchange with service
mechanics primarily skilled as machinists, pipefitters, welders, and
painters, and with shift supervisors, operating foremen, heavy equip-
ment operators, production operators, and toolroom keepers in chang-
ing motor bearings and couplings, water pumps, piping and the
tubular water cooler in the rectifier, changing, charging, and repair-
ing Ford truck batteries, building up crane trolley shoes on overhead
tracks, grinding commutators and slip rings on generators, testing
portable tools, making load checks on plant motors, making conduit
connections to motors and terminal boxes, welding rigid connections,
tending bus bars and cell jumper buggies, doing motor work on fork
trucks, spray painting the winding on motors, dismantling cranes,
and changing the oil in motors and pumps. The "electricians" also
take over the duties of an operator in the rectifier unit for periods
of 8 to 16 hours while the unit is going up or down.
986209-52-vol. 97-99
a
1558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Similarly, the "instrumentmen" frequently interchange with other
service mechanics, particularly those skilled as pipefitters, connect-
ing pressure recording instruments to process lines by steel or rubber
pipelines, installing copper impulse lines running from the liquefac-
tion laboratory to the liquefaction area, installing a reactor level in-
dicator in a reactor tank, changing the tubing in the ammonia com-
pressor, removing and replacing control valves, installing orifice
flanges, and rubber pipelines from the No. 3 cell circuit running to the
control board, painting instruments, running conduits, dismantling,
cleaning, and maintaining instruments,3 hooking up flow meters, and
installing block valves.
Working conditions and employee benefits are uniform throughout
the plant. The Employer has bargained since 1949 with the Inter-
vcnor on the basis of a plant-wide production and maintenance unit.
In view of the Employer's highly integrated and interdependent
operations, the substantial interchange between the "electricians"
and "instrumentmen" with other employees of diverse skills in the
performance of identical duties, the nonobservance of craft lines in
the Employer's plant and the lack of craft requirements for the "elec-
tricians" and "instrumentmen," the mutuality of interests among the
Employer's employees resulting from common working conditions
and benefits, and the successful history of bargaining on a plant-wide
basis, we are satisfied that the proposed units are not appropriate for
separate representation on a craft or any other basis.4 Accordingly,
we shall dismiss the petition herein.
, Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that 5 the petition herein be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
s Approximately 60 percent of the numerous instruments in the plant are controlled by
air- or flow pressures, as distinguished from the remaining instruments which are electroni-
cally controlled. It appears that the maintenance and calibration of these latter Instru-
ments are done exclusively by the "instrumentmen," whereas they and other service
mechanics interchangeably do work on the mechanically controlled instruments
• E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company, Inc., 85 NLRB 1301, and cases cited therein.
The Petitioner now moves that the hearing be reopened to adduce further testimony
concerning the unit issue. In its motion the Petitioner asserts that it was surprised by
the testimony of the Employer's witnesses and that after the hearing, information came
to Its attention revealing in greater detail the Employer's organization, the duties, and
the skills of the employees herein involved. The Petitioner was afforded a full opportu-
nity to participate at the hearing and to present evidence. Furthermore, no claim of sur-
prise was noted by the Petitioner during the hearing. nor did it request any postponement
to obtain and present evidence to rebut the testimony of the Employer's witnesses. For
these reasons, and because no valid explanation has been offered as to the unavailability
of the proffered evidence at the time of the hearing, we hereby deny the Petitioner's motion
Allied Chemical & Dye Corporation (Barrett Division), 65 NLRB 860; Archer-Daniels-
Midland Co., 66 NLRB 246, see also John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, 93
NLRB 778.
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