Commercial Castings Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 21, 1957

117 N.L.R.B. 1681 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

COMMERCIAL CASTINGS COMPANY 1681
tuber operators, machine tenders, and quality inspectors, but excluding
office and clerical employees, administrative and professional em-
ployees, testers, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
Commercial Castings Company , Engineering Division 1 and Con-
tract Tool Engineers, Local 179, American Federation of Tech-
nical Engineers, AF]L-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 91-RC-4543.
May. 1,1957
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Norman H. Greer, 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 [Chairman Leedom and Members Murdock and Jenkins].
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 organization involved claims to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No 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, for the following
reasons:
The Employer, with offices at 8855 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los
Angeles, California, is engaged in rendering contract drafting and
engineering services to other concerns primarily in the airframe and
guided missile field. The Employer maintains its own premises for
the performance of such contract work at the Santa Monica Boulevard
location in Los Angeles, at 2 locations in Culver City, at 1 location in
Burbank, all within Los Angeles County, and at Tucson, Arizona. In
addition, employees of the Employer are assigned to work at the plant
locations of various companies who have contracted for such service.2
Edward Reaume and Charles Davis are partners registered under the name appearing
in the caption as amended at the hearing.
2 Included among such customer locations are the plants of Magnavox , Fletcher Aviation,
Marquardt Aircraft, Benson-Leachner , Santa Anita Engineering , Hughes Aircraft, Northrop
Aircraft (both Hawthorne and Anaheim plants), Applied Physics, Hiller Aircraft, Parsons
Engineering, Thompson Products , and Menasco Manufacturing , all in Los Angeles County,
and those of Beech Aircraft at Wichita, Kansas, Grand Central Rocket at Redlands,
California , and A. C. Sparkplug in Milwaukee , Wisconsin.
117 NLRB No. 218.
423784-57-vol. 117-107
1682 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
All administrative functions are conducted at the Santa Monica
location.
The Petitioner seeks to represent the Employer 's tool designers and
requests an election in either of the following units :
1. All tool design division employees of the Employer in Los
Angeles County, excluding clerical employees , publication employees,
loftsmen, and all supervisors.
2. All tool design employees , including their detailers , helpers and
assistants , employed by the Employer in Los Angeles County, ex-
cluding loftsmen and all supervisors.
The Petitioner contends that the first described unit is appropriate
as a departmental unit, and that the second is appropriate , either as
a craft or a professional unit. The Petitioner would leave to the dis-
cretion of the Board the question of whether tool planners should be
included in either of the proposed units. However, the Petitioner does
not desire :in election in any unit which is more comprehensive than
those outlined above.
The Employer asserts that the Petitioner 's alternative unit pro-'
posals are based solely on extent of organization and that the petition
should, therefore ; be dismissed . The Employer contends that because
of the nature of its work and the manner of its operation the only
appropriate unit is one including all employees except office clericals
and supervisors . In this respect the Employer asserts that there is
no tool design department or division as such and that its fluid or-,
ganizational structure , interchange of employees and work, frequent
transfer of employees between the several company and customer lo=
cations and , from one job classification to another , the similarity of
work skills of the various classifications-particularly those of tool
designers and design engineers-along with the prevalence of identical
working conditions , militate against any unit composed of a segment
of its employees . Further , the Employer contends that if an election
is directed in any unit, professional employees should be afforded a
separate vote. There is no prior bargaining history.
The record discloses that as of the payroll period preceding the
hearing there were 132 tool designers , 2 tool engineers , 133 'design
engineers , 2 aerodynamics ' engineers , 3 stress engineers , 56 detailers•
(sometimes referred to as draftsmen ), 13 planners , 10 loftsmen, and
6 publication employees including illustrators and technical writers.
The-parties regard the first five mentioned classifications as profes-
sional employees within the meaning of Section 2 ( 12) (a) and (b)
of the Act. One supervisor is in charge of the Employer 's tool design
work which is carried on primarily at the Employer 's Santa Monica
Boulevard and Burbank locations and at various customer locations.
Another supervisor is in charge of design engineering work primarily
COMMERCIAL CASTINGS COMPANY ' 1683
performed at the Employer's two Culver City locations and'at various
customer locations. Of the 132 employees classified as tool designers,
68 are located in either the Santa Monica or Burbank offices. The re-
mainder are assigned to various customer locations. Of the 133 de-
sign engineers, 67 work at one or the other of the 2 Culver City loca-
tions and the rest are assigned'to various customer locations.
As noted above, employees in both tool designer and design en-
gineering classifications are regarded as professional employees. The
work of both is primarily creative design, making use of knowledge
generally attained in institutions of higher learning plus extensive
practical knowledge and experience and an aptitude for creative work.
The Employer's tool designers and design engineers, because of the
extremely varied nature of the work in contract engineering-or what
is commonly called a job shop-must be able to apply the principles of
a variety of engineering fields such as mechanical, metallurgical, by
draulic, electrical, and stress engineering. In this they must have a
working command of higher mathematics.3 Although calculus is
not a strict requirement because the same results for the Employer's
purpose may be reached through the use of algebra, geometry, and
trigonometry, its application affords a desirable shortcut in the per-
formance of the calculations necessary to designing.
In addition to educational prerequisites the Employer requires a tool
designer to have at least 5 years' experience. Approximately 12 per=
cent of the employees so classified have engineering degrees. Of the
remaining, 85 percent have taken academic courses in mechanical
engineering, mathematics, and design, which are equivalent to engin-
eering degrees. All have substantial experience. For a design en-
gineer the Employer prefers an engineering degree plus a minimum
of 3 years' experience. Approximately 50 percent of the design
engineers have engineering degrees. The remaining have the equiva-'
lent in special courses at a professional level and 8 to 10 years' experi-
ence: One of the reasons comparatively fewer of the tool designers
have professional degrees is because of the relative infancy of this
special field which became widespread only with the advent of in-
dustrial automation, and, more particularly for this Employer, its ap-
plication to avionics. Very few universities have yet inaugurated such
8 Testimony indicates , and the parties agree, that tool design work for the Employer
differs substantially from that of tool designers working in manufacturing plants in that
the demands upon the latter are limited to the needs of the particular type of plant opera-
tion and further that in some plants employees classified as too ] designers are often highly
skilled tool and the makers and may not be professional employees . Further, tool de-
signers in manufacturing plants follow through to the production and installation of the
tool or fixture whereas'in the Employer's operation it is the rare situation where the part
designed is actually produced even in model form The work is predominantly that of
conceiving and drawing the design In other words, the Employer's end product is gen-
erally the paperwork
'1684 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
courses. Those institutions of higher learning which have included
tool designer degrees carry a curriculum identical to that for me-
chanical engineering degrees with the substitution of a few specialized
subjects. However, an applicant with an engineering degree will not
qualify for either tool design or design engineering work with the
Employer but will be placed in the classification and perform the work
of detailers until, through working with tool designers or design
engineers, they attain sufficient knowledge and experience and have
proven their aptitude for creative designing.
Tool designer and design engineer classifications are regarded by
the Employer as having the same level of skill. In other words, tool
designer is not a subordinate classification in the progressive steps to-
ward achieving a design engineering status, although many tool de-
signers do, in the Employer's operation, become design engineers and
vice versa. They have common progressive steps. Thus a draftsman
or detailer may become either a tool designer or design engineer,
whichever best fits his aptitude in the creative field. If a detailer can-
not, after a period of experience and education, succeed as a tool de-
signer the Employer will shift him to engineer design detailing. If
he cannot make the grade there, the Employer may not retain him, for,
because of the shortage of both tool designers and design engineers,
the Employer is concerned that detailer positions should be filled by
prospective designers in one field or the other. Also, because of this
shortage of accomplished designers, the Employer encourages pro-
gression through higher education and urges employees to pursue
such a course by arranging working hours of individual employees
so they can attend classes in colleges and design schools.
All tool designers and design engineers as well as other employees,
except for supervisors and some office employees, are paid on an hourly
basis. This practice has been adopted primarily because the Em-
ployer's contracts are estimated, and audited by the customer, on that
basis. The tool designer rates, companywide, average $3.30 per hour
while the design engineer rates average $3.52. This is partly due to
the fact that contract rates for design engineering are higher. How-
ever, the rates in both classifications vary as much as 75¢ to $1 per
hour and there are employees classified by the Employer as tool de-
signers who work for a higher rate than most of the design engineers.
In the practical operation of the Employer's business it is necessary
that employees be exceedingly versatile. For when a particular con-
tract is completed the Employer prefers to use experienced personnel
on other contracts rather than lose them. Thus, an employee may
be hired as a tool designer assigned at Santa Monica, transfer to an
assignment at a customer's plant as a design engineer, and, when that
contract is completed, return to a design engineering assignment at
COMMERCIAL CASTINGS COMPANY 1685
Culver City . Similarly, this may operate in reverse depending upon
the then current contract requirements'
Although the work performed at the Santa Monica and Burbank
locations of the Employer is primarily that of tool design, and sim-
ilarly design engineering work is concentrated at the Employer's two
Culver City locations , the assignment of personnel to perform such
work is largely dependent , as noted above , upon the immediate needs
of contract performance and the capabilities of particular employees.
In addition approximately 50 percent of the employees are assigned
to locations of various customers under contract . These assignments
are filled by employees taken from the several locations of the Em-
ployer. While on such assignments the employees generally carry
the classification specified in the contract without regard to their
previous location or classification.
Thus, the payroll job classifications generally are based upon the
type of work currently being performed by the employee , and em-
ployees frequently are temporarily assigned to work at higher or
lower rated jobs without having a pay rate or title change, but changes
are made if the altered work assignment is considered relatively per-
manent, such as the duration of a specific contract . At least 100
employees on the payroll preceding the hearing have at various times
worked for the Employer in job classifications other than that cur-
rently assigned , and most of those 100 employees have worked for the
Employer at various locations.
The record discloses that the classification of tool designer and de-
sign engineer is frequently determined by the customer contract, in
which the classification is in turn determined by the use to be made
by the customer of the design produced . Thus, where the item de-
signed is a component part or is the end product for the customer, the
designing work is regarded as design engineering. However, if the
item designed is to be used in the plant of the customer for the pur-
pose of producing another and different end product , or component
part thereof , the designing work is labeled tool designing. Thus
what may be engineering design for one customer may be tool design-
ing for another.' Applying the use test , the type of designing work
being performed by the Employer in most instances is fairly well
4 One employee classified as a tool designer is a California State accredited instructor
in tool design and holds a teaching position in a State school. This employee has per-
formed calculus work on a design engineering contract , and has also performed stress
engineering work as well as other engineering design work for the Employer , although he
is primarily a tool designer . Such interchange of work is not uncommon among employees
classified as tool designers and design engineers Occasions have arisen when an entire
contract project of design engineering has been brought from Culver City to Santa
Monica with approximately half of the necessary personnel , the remaining being assigned
to that project from tool designers working at Santa Monica
5A familiar example of this would be automatic cigarette-forming machines . For the
company manufacturing such a machine for sale to a tobacco company, the design would
be engineering whereas the same design made for a tobacco company to produce its
cigarettes would be tool design.
1686 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
defined, especially where automation production machinery is in-
volved. But there are a number of areas where no clear distinction
could be drawn by the parties or their witnesses between tool designing
and design engineering, such as the field of quality control and hy-
,draulic and/or electronic testing equipment, or in plant layout and
Production engineering . Some of this type of design work is per-
formed by employees classified as tool designers while the rest is per-
formed by design engineers.
In view of the foregoing, and the entire record, it is clear that tool
designers and design engineering classifications of the Employer are
closely related specialties within the same profession. Without deter-
mining whether under other circumstances tool designers could con-
stitute a separate appropriate unit, we find that the conditions of
employment under consideration here, including the fluidity of the
Employer's operations as to classifications, work, and location assign-
ments, makes a clear delineation between tool designers and design
engineers either on a departmental or work performance basis vir-
tually impossible, ,and do not warrant the establishment of a separate
professional unit.' As we have found that tool designers working for
the Employer are a segment of a profession rather than a craft, we
find no merit in the Petitioner's request for a separate unit for them
on a craft basis 7 We further find that, in view of the frequency of
interchange in the type of work performed, the location and the classi-
fication assigned to individual employees, as set forth above, sufficient
reason for an appropriate unit on a departmental basis does not exist.'
Nor can we find that the assignment of responsibility for tool design
work to one individual supervisor is sufficient to establish a sepa-
rate cohesive department of a type which would warrant separate
representation.
Thus, the sole remaining basis for seeking a unit of tool designers
only is the extent of the Petitioner's organization , one upon which a
unit finding may not be solely based. As the Petitioner does not wish
6 See Westinghouse Electric Corp. ( Elevator Division), 112 NLRB 590, and cases cited
therein. Also see Westinghouse Electric Corp . ( Elevator. Dtivmton ) v. N. L. R. B., 236 F.
2d 939 ( C A. 3), affirming 115 NLRB 181, wherein the court observed ". . . Technical
and scientific progress gives every promise of increasing the number of fields of pro-
fessional employees as defined by Section 2 (12) of the Act. Professional employees may
possess advanced knowledge in specialized fields and engage in work predominantly in-
tellectual and involving the exercise of discretion , but such qualtities and performances
do not necessarily standardize them as to job categories for collective -bargaining purposes.
The needs of such employees will vary widely and the Board must be permitted to exercise
wide discretion . . While we have been somewhat troubled by the fact that the ex-
cluded methods engineers and junior engineers were professional employees with an identity
of interest with those included in the unit , the [circumstances , including their existing
contract which created their exclusion] and the fact that they may at a proper time in
the future determine whether they will be included in the . . . unit , leads us to accept
their present exclusion as justified . . .
7 Cf. Westinghouse Electric Corporation , Small Motor Division, 111 NLRB 497, 501
8 See Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Lamp Divtistion, 80 NLRB 591 ; Standard Oil
Company, 107 NLRB 1524.
ENCINO SHIRT COMPANY 1687
to represent a unit including the design engineers, and we have found
that a unit limited only to a segment of the related professional
-employees of this Employer would not be appropriate, we shall dismiss
the petition herein.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
Encino Shirt Company, Petitioner and Los Angeles Joint Board,
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO. Case
No. 21-EM-398. May 21,1957
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF
RESULTS OF ELECTION
Pursuant to a Decision and Direction of Election dated January
_9, 1957,1 an election by secret ballot was conducted on February 8,
1957, under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director
for the Twenty-first Region among the employees in the unit found
appropriate by the Board. Following the election, a tally of ballots
was furnished the parties which shows that of 54 valid votes cast, 9
were cast for the Union, 45 were cast against the Union, 13 were
challenged, and there were no void ballots. The challenged ballots
were not determinative of the results of the election. On February
13, 1957, the Union filed timely objections to the election, a copy of
which was served on the Employer.
Pursuant to Rules and Regulations of the Board, the Regional
Director conducted an investigation of the objections and on April 2,
1957, issued his report on objections in which he recommended that
the objections be overruled and that the results of the election be
certified. Thereafter, the Union filed timely exceptions to the report.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Leedom and Members
Murdock and Jenkins].
The Objections
Objection No. 1: The first objection stated that foreladies were
present in the plant while the election was being conducted. The
investigation showed there were two foreladies in immediate charge
of the employees. The Union produced no evidence that these fore-
ladies were present anywhere in the vicinity of the polling place dur-
ing the election. One of the foreladies stated in an affidavit that she
was in the production area of the plant throughout the election. The
other stated that she was not in the plant at all during the election.
111,7 NLRB 48.
117 NLRB No. 217.