E. I. Dupont de Nemours & Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 17, 1955

111 N.L.R.B. 649 (N.L.R.B. 1955)

E. I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY 649
E. I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY ' ( SAVANNAH RIVER PLANT)
and OPERATING ENGINEERS , LOCAL UNION No. 470 , INTERNATIONAL
UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS , AFL,2 PETITIONER
E. I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY ( SAVANNAH RIVER PLANT)
and SAVANNAH RIVER ATOMIC TRADES COUNCIL , METAL TRADES
DEPARTMENT , AFL,3 PETITIONER . Cases Nos. 11-RC-640 and
11-RC-641 . February 17,1955
Decision and Direction of Elections
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held
before Robert Cohn, 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 these cases, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged at its Savannah River project in the
manufacture of fissionable materials of the kind and in the quantity
prescribed by the Atomic Energy Commission under a cost-plus-fixed-
fee contract with the commission. Despite the Board's assertion of
jurisdiction over similar operations of the Employer at another atomic
energy project, the Dana plant,' the Employer contests jurisdiction
of the Board in the present case for the reason that the United States
Government owns all the manufacturing facilities, raw materials,
products, and property. In the recent Maytag case 5 the Board
decided that it would assert jurisdiction over enterprises which are
engaged in providing goods or services directly related to national
defense pursuant to Government contracts, including subcontracts,
in the amount of $100,000 or more a year. The Employer herein
meets the national defense standard of the Maytag case, as it is
currently operating under a Government contract with the Atomic
Energy Commission involving more than $100,000. Accordingly,
we find that the Employer is engaged in commerce within the mean-
ing of the Act and that it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to
assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. Questions affecting commerce exist concerning the representa-
tion of the employees of the Employer in Cases Nos. 11-RC-641 and
11-RC-640 within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2
(6) and (7) of the Act.
The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing.
z Herein called the Engineers.
Herein called the Council.
'E. 1. Dupont de Nemours and Company ( Dana Plant ), 107 NLRB 1504.
6 Maytag Aircraft Corp , 110 NLRB 594
111 NLRB No. 110.
650 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
4. In Case No. 11-RC-641 the Council seeks a unit of all main-
tenance employees excluding power department employees and train
crews (engineers, conductors, and switchmen). No labor organiza-
tion seeks the power department employees on a separate basis. In
Case No. 11-RC-640 the Engineers seeks a unit of train crewmen.
The Employer contends that, in its highly integrated operations,
only a production and maintenance unit is appropriate. There is
no history of bargaining involving any of the employees concerned.
At the hearing, the Employer moved to dismiss the petitions herein
on the ground that the Board, in the Dana case, had adjudicated
the unit issues presented herein. In effect, the Employer contends
that the Board had applied the National Tube principle 6 to the highly
integrated atomic energy operations at the Dana plant and found that
only a production and maintenance unit was appropriate. We find
no merit in this contention. The Board dismissed the petitions in
the Dana case because the units requested therein were intrinsically
and inherently inappropriate. It did not do so because only a plant-
wide unit was appropriate, nor because it was applying the National
Tube doctrine. In the recent American Potash case,' the Board con-
sidered again the National Tube principle and, after adverting to
the industries in which the principle had been applied, stated unequiv-
ocally that the National Tube doctrine would not be further extended.
We reiterate this clear expression of policy and shall not extend the
National Tube principle to the basic atomic energy industry. Accord-
ingly, we deny the Employer's motion to dismiss and shall consider
the appropriateness of the maintenance and train crews units requested
herein.
The Savannah River plant is located on a site of approximately
200,646 acres and employs approximately 1,000 production and 2,416
maintenance employees. Included among these maintenance employ-
ees are 481 power department employees and 27 members of the train
crews. The approximately 280 buildings are connected by 159 miles
of highway and 82 miles of railroad track. The various production
facilities are located in areas, each being at least 5 miles from the
perimeter of the site and 2 miles from each other. The operation re-
quires highly involved and complex machinery and the presence of
radioactivity makes the process extremely dangerous.
The Maintenance Unit-Case No. 11-RC-641
The plant is divided administratively into four broad divisions-
(1) production, (2) works technical, (3) works engineering, and (4)
general services. The maintenance employees, including those sought
6 National Tube Company, 76 NLRB 1199.
7 American Potash & Chemical Corporation , 107 NLRB 1418.
E. I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY 651
by the Council, comprise the hourly paid employees in the last two
divisions.
In the works engineering division, the hourly paid employees are
subdivided into four departments: (1) Mechanical maintenance, (2)
electrical maintenance, (3) instrument maintenance, and (4) power.
Mechanical maintenance employees perform the physical, mechanical
work of keeping the buildings, equipment, and services in repair.
For example, their duties include boiler overhaul, pipefitting, sheet-
metal, carpentry, millwright, painting, welding, and machine work.
Electrical maintenance employees maintain certain parts of special
and complex electrical devices and controls installed in the process
equipment and process serving equipment of the plant. Instrument
maintenance employees are concerned with the normal operation of
measurement and automatic control apparatus which guides and op-
erates the production process and are principally concerned with
measuring variables, such as fluid flow rate, pressure, temperature,
liquid level, specific gravity, and weight. Power department employ-
ees operate and maintain power equipment and thus furnish electric-
ity, water, steam, heat, and air-conditioning.
In the general services division, the hourly paid employees work in
two departments: (1) Services and (2) traffic and transportation.
In services, the employees serve the entire plant, rendering housing,
janitorial, laundry, and fire fighting services. In the traffic and trans-
portation department, there are four sections: (a) Labor and heavy
equipment operation, (b) automotive operation, (3) railroads, and
(4) equipment maintenance. The employees in the labor and heavy
equipment operation section, including riggers, crane operators, truck-
drivers, laborers, filling station attendants, and toolroom attendants,
engage in excavation and earth work, heavy rigging and scaffold erec-
tion, handling and transportation of materials, maintenance of per-
manently installed hoisting equipment and elevators, and maintenance
of highways and grounds. Employees in the automotive operation
section include equipment inspectors, who inspect in connection with
maintenance of forklift trucks and light automotive equipment in pro-
duction departments; truckdrivers; automobile drivers; and motor
pool attendants, who furnish personnel transportation and messenger
service. The hourly paid employees in the railroads section are train
crews (engineers, conductors, and switchmen), who operate trains in
the transportation of materials and trackmen, who maintain the track.
In the equipment maintenance section, the hourly paid employees are
automotive mechanics, heavy equipment mechanics (including shop-
men located in the locomotive shop), truckdrivers, tube and tire men,
filling station attendants, and servicemen, who supply fuel, service,
and prescheduled maintenance to the units of transportation and
652 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
heavy equipment, ranging from portable gas powered pumps and
compressors up to cranes, locomotives, and railroad cars.
A majority of the employees in the four departments in the works
engineering division-mechanical, electrical, and instrument mainte-
nance and power employees-are permanently stationed in the pro-
duction area while the rest serve the plant as a whole. The various
departments in the general services division also serve the entire plant
but do not appear to have permanent stations in production areas.
All of the maintenance employees described above, including the
power department employees, receive on-the-job training, the amount
varying up to as much as 5 years in some cases, depending on the job
classification, experience, and aptitudes of the employee. No formal
apprenticeship exists for the various job classifications and the em-
ployees become specialists equipped to do the job required in the Em-
ployer's plant rather than particular kinds of craftsmen.
The Council seeks to represent all hourly paid employees of the
works engineering division and of the general services division, ex-
cluding only power department employees and train crews. We do
not believe that such a maintenance unit excluding power department
employees, not sought to be represented on a separate basis, is appro-
priate. The Employer administratively classifies, power department
employees with maintenance employees and apparently considers them
more related to maintenance employees than to any other group, such
as production or technical employees. While the Council does not
seek to represent the power department employees it inconsistently re-
quests employees, such as truckdrivers in the general services division,
who are no more closely related to the maintenance employees than the
power department employees. The Board has in the past, in the ab-
sence of bargaining history and where the group is distinct and iden-
tical, set up maintenance employees in a single bargaining unit.'
However, the Board has customarily included power employees in a
maintenance unit where no labor organization seeks to represent them
on a separate basis.' On the other hand, it has held inappropriate a
maintenance unit from which power employees, not sought separately,
were excluded.10 The omission of the power department employees
from the maintenance unit herein would result not only in fragmenta-
tion of units but also in the lack of any representation of such em-
8 Courtaulds ( Alabama ) Inc, 109 NLRB 571; The Ruberosd Company, 109 NLRB 257.
9Shoreland Freezers, Inc, 108 NLRB 723 (power engineers ) , Tuxedo Candy Company,
106 NLRB 1399 ( powerhouse engineers ). The union preferred to represent them in main-
tenance but the same union was willing to represent them separately . The Board placed
them in the maintenance unit. Carboloy Department of General Electric Company, 104
NLRB 596 ( powerhouse employees).
10 Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Electronic Tube Division, 102 NLRB 275 at p. 277.
The fact that the steam and other products furnished by power department employees are
used in the production process does not disassociate them from maintenance employees nor
make them production employees See General Foods Corporation, Maxwell House Di-
vision, 110 NLRB 265, The Formica Company, 109 NLRB 964.
E. I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY 653
ployees." Finally, the record shows that the Council had in 1952
attempted to organize all the production and maintenance employees
and lost the Board-directed election.12 It thus appears that the only
basis for finding a maintenance unit, excluding power department
employees, to be appropriate would be the extent of the Council's
organization among the employees, which we are forbidden to do by
Section 9 (c) (5) of the Act.13
In view of the foregoing, and as the Board has considered that
power department employees properly belong with the other main-
tenance employees, we find that the unit of maintenance employees,
excluding power employees, requested by the Council, is inappropri-
ate. However, the Council has indicated its willingness to represent
the power department employees with the other maintenance employ-
ees in the broad overall maintenance unit, which we find appropriate
within the meaning of the Act. We shall direct an election among the
maintenance employees, including the power department employees.
Accordingly, in view of the foregoing, we find that all maintenance
employees in the works engineering and general services divisions,
including power department employees, at the Employer's Savannah
River Plant at Aiken, South Carolina, but excluding train crews, all
other employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act, con-
stitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
The Train Crews Unit-Case No. 11-RC-64
The Engineers seeks a unit of train crews, which the Employer con-
tends is inappropriate because it does not include all employees doing
railroad work. The 27 locomotive engineers, conductors, and switch-
men, who comprise the train crews sought by the Engineers, are a part
of the railroads section in the traffic and transportation department
discussed above. They operate conventional railroad equipment in
the movement of materials over the 82 miles of standard gauge rail-
road track on plant property and exercise the normal functions and
skills of their classifications. Eighty-two percent of the train crews
had previous railroad experience and the remainder were trained by
the Employer. However, all receive specialized training. Their
rates of pay are among the top paid in the plant and they perform no
duties except operating trains. These railroad employees are sepa-
rately supervised and do not interchange with other employees. Al-
"Compare Bachmann Uxbridge Worsted Corporation, (Uxbridge Mill ), 109 NLRB 868;
Thomas Electronics , Inc., 107 NLRB 614.
'a E. I. Dupont de Nemours & Company, Inc., Explosives Department , Atomic Energy
Division, Case No 11-RC-485, not reported in printed volume of Board Decisions and
Orders ( the petition was filed December 19, 1952 , and the election was held May 22, 1953).
'a The Curtis Bay Towing Company, 105 NLRB 524; Morton Salt Company , 100 NLRB
610; Pacific Laundry Company , Limited, 99 NLRB 1011.
654 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
though, because of radioactivity, there are some production operators
who by remote control electrically operate a locomotive in and out of
a production building (separations) , this is not the operation of a train
in its normal sense but is more akin to electrical production work.
These employees perform production rather than railroad work and
are properly excluded from the railroad crew unit hereinafter found
appropriate. As the train crews are separately located and super-
vised, do not interchange with other employees, perform customary
railroad work, and exercise the skills of their classification, we con-
clude that a separate unit of the train crews is appropriate.14
Accordingly, we find that all train crews, including engineers,
switchmen, and conductors, at the Employer's Savannah River Plant
at Aiken, South Carolina, but excluding all other employees and super-
visors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of
the Act.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication.]
CHAIRMAN FARMER took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Direction of Elections.
1 Kennecott Copper Corporatvon, Ray Mines Division., 106 NLRB 390, Ravenna Arsenal,
Inc , et at., 100 NLRB 1129 , Western Equipment Company, 96 NLRB 1376.
LINDSAY NEWSPAPERS, INC., D/B/A SARASOTA HERALD TRIBUNE AND
JOURNAL and INTERNATIONAL PRINTING PRESSMEN AND ASSISTANTS'
UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 10-RC-
2892. February 17,1955
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Allen Sinsheimer, Jr., hear-
ing 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. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
The Employer contends the Petitioner is incapable of serving as
bargaining representative because of alleged assistance by company
1 The Employer moves to dismiss the petition on grounds relating to (1) the Petitioner's
representative status, (2) the existence of a question concerning representation , and (3)
the appropriateness of the requested unit. For the reasons indicated hereinafter, the
motion is denied
111 NLRB No. 115.