E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 11, 1957

119 N.L.R.B. 723 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

E. I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY , 723
ing and stores employees, but excluding office clerical, employees, pro-'
fessional employees, guards, watchmen, and supervisors as defined in
the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Company (Savannah River Plant)
and Local Union No. 1909 , International Brotherhood of Elec-
trical Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 11-RC-986.
December 11, 1957
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Richard H. Frahm, 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 Bean 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,Petitioner seeks to represent a unit limited to the electrical
maintenance employees at the Employer's Savannah River plant.
It contends that these employees are entitled to separate representa-
tion as a craft group within the meaning- of the American Potash
Company 1 craft bargaining principle. The- Employer asserts that
its maintenance employees are not true craftsmen but are ,instead a
heterogeneous grouping of operating and servicing, specialists trained
primarily to perform the particular functions required in its extraor-
dinary type of manufacturing process. It therefore moved to dismiss
the petition on the ground that these employees do not meet the craft
standards of the American Potash decision and that, in any event, the
Board ought not permit separate representation of craft employees
1 American Potash & Chemical Corp., 107-NLRB 1418.
119 NLRB No. 99.
724 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
in the basic atomic energy industry? There is no history of collective
bargaining in this plant.
The Employer's Savannah River plant manufactures fissionable
material for the Atomic Energy Commission. It occupies 315 square
miles and employs approximately 1,000 production employees and
2,416 maintenance employees. Plant operation is divided into 9 pro-
duction areas, including 2 separation plants, 5 reactor plants, a heavy
water plant and a raw material plant. Each area, functioning as a
plant in itself, is an integrated unit of manufacturing groups which
.are administratively designated as production, works technical, works
,engineering, and general services divisions. Because of the extremely
hazardous nature of the operations, each area is at least 21/2 miles
,distant from any other area and is 5 miles from the outer perimeter
of the overall site.
The electrical maintenance department is included within the works
engineering division together with mechanical maintenance, instru-
ment maintenance, and power departments. Mechanical maintenance
employees perform the physical, mechanical work of keeping the
buildings and equipment in repair; instrument maintenance em-
ployees are responsible for the normal operation of measurement and
automatic control apparatus which guides and operates the produc-
tion process, and they are principally concerned with measuring vari-
ables, such as fluid control rate, pressure, temperature, liquid level,
specific gravity, and weight; power department employees operate
and maintain power equipment, thereby furnishing electricity, water,
steam, heat, and air-conditioning. Tile electrical maintenance em-
ployees maintain certain parts of special and complex electrical devices
and controls installed in the process equipment itself and the process
serving equipment of the plant.
Each of the manufacturing groups is integrated into a production
unit through the agency of an area committee which functions under
the direction of a production superintendent coordinating the activi-
ties of the manufacturing personnel. The electrical maintenance
department, as a component element of its manufacturing group, has
representation on the committee in the person of an area engineer of
the electrical maintenance department. As a result, the assignment
of work, the determination of how it is to be accomplished, and quite
often, step by step on the line supervision of the work is production
supervision.
Because of the unique complexity and specialization in this plant
all production and maintenance facilities were designed and adapted
by DuPont to the manufacture of fissionable material. All produc-
8 To the extent that the motion to dismiss rests on an appeal for an industrywide policy
precluding craft units, it is clearly without merit and is denied. E. I. DuPont de Nemour8
and Company, 111 NLRB 649.
E. I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & COMPANY 725
tion and maintenance employees must receive from 6 months to 5
years on-the-job training; in fact adaption to the equipment is a con-
tinuous process. Of the approximately 260 employees in the unit
sought by the Petitioner, about 100 were hired as "green help" without
any electrical background at all and trained on the job to perform
a particular function. No formal training or apprentice program
exists for any of the electrical maintenance employees. Rates of pay
for all maintenance employees are broken down into classes so that
a mechanical and instrument maintenance employee receives the same
rate of pay as an electrical worker with the same proficiency. Trans-
fers of electrical maintenance employees from one area to another
are generally limited to cases of personal request or a shift in the
workload. In each instance the Employer must train any employee
to the new equipment and if additional hiring is contemplated for
replacement or expansion reasons, employees from other departments
are first considered for retraining before hiring from the outside.
Tools are placed in a common room to be used by any production or
maintenance employee as the need arises. Possibilities for similar
employment outside the Employer's plant is limited to about 5 percent.
Of the total complement of electrical maintenance employees less
than 5 percent of them are assigned to the areas' electric shops in
which motor repair jobs are done away from the equipment. A little
over 9 percent of the employees here involved are permanently
assigned to the general group who spend over 90 percent of their time
at various locations throughout the entire plant performing such
works as maintaining powerlines, street lights, and circuits. The pre-
dominance of the employees, roughly 84 percent, are permanently
assigned to specific locations in the production areas. Seventy to
eighty percent of their duties are prescheduled, routine and repetitive
control, and inspection and on-the-job repair, which must generally
be performed by interlocking teams of mechanical, electrical and
instrument employees under production supervision. The remainder
of their time is spent in emergency repair and no more than 5 percent
of their time is spent away from the assigned machines and devices.
On the record before us, we are not satisfied that the Petitioner has
established sufficient craft training, skill, and performance among
the employees it seeks to represent, apart from the other employees
in the plant, to warrant establishment of a craft bargaining unit for
them. We deem it particularly significant to the issue that the vast
majority of the electrical maintenance employees are permanently
stationed in the production area, that less than 5 percent of them are
assigned to a central electrical shop, that the group has largely been
hired with no previous experience or training, that there exists no
formal apprenticeship training program, and that if they transfer
from one area of the large plant to another, additional training is re-
726 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
quired for them to perform the electrical maintenance work there.
It appears, instead, that the unique intricacies of the fissionable mate-
rial production process, and the extensive training and skill required
for adequate performance by these employees have produced very spe-
cialized workmen particularly adapted to the processes of this plant.
Unlike craftsmen, however, specialists, because of their close integra-
tion with production workers, are not entitled to separate representa-
tion on a craft unit basis.' Indeed, the Board has indicated in an
earlier proceeding involving the entire maintenance group of this very
plant, and on the basis of a more comprehensive record, that "the em-
ployees become specialists equipped to do the job required in the Em-
ployer's plant rather than particular kinds of craftsmen." 4
Accordingly, on these facts and on the basis of the record as a whole,
we find that the employees sought are not craftsmen entitled to sepa-
rate representation. As no other basis appears for establishing a
separate bargaining unit for them, we shall dismiss the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
s Saco -Lowell Shops, 94 NLRB 647.
E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 111 NLRB 649.
See, also, E. I . DuPont de Nemours & Co., 116 NLRB 286, and 107 NLRB 1504, each in-
volving the Employer's Dana Plant, devoted to production of "heavy water" and also
operated on behalf of the Atomic Energy Commission , where the Board twice refused to
find pipefitters ( maintenance mechanics ) to be craftsmen.
Local 169, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of
America , AFL-CIO and Carpenters District Council of Tri-
Counties , Illinois and W. H. Condo , Brick Contractor and
Mason Contractors' Association of East St . Louis. Case No.
14-CD-65. December 12, 1957
DECISION AND DETERMINATION OF DISPUTE
This proceeding arises under Section 10 (k) of the Act, which pro-
vides that "whenever it is charged that any person has engaged in an
unfair labor practice within the meaning of paragraph (4) (d) of Sec-
tion 8 (b), the Board is empowered and directed to hear and deter-
mine the dispute out of which such unfair labor practice shall have
arisen."
On August 21, September 18, and October 2, 1956, W. H. Condo,
Brick Contractor,' and Mason Contractors' Association of East St.
Louisa hereinafter referred to collectively as Charging Parties , joint-
ly filed with the Regional Director for the Fourteenth Region a charge
1 Hereinafter referred to as Condo.
a Hereinafter referred to as Association.
119 NLRB No. 102.