Ethyl Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 28, 1948

80 N.L.R.B. 9 (N.L.R.B. 1948)

In the Matter of ETHYL CORPORATION ( SODIUM AND TETRAETHYL LEAD
AREAS), EMPLOYER and LODGE 1366, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
MACHINISTS , PETITIONER
Case Nos. 15-RC-38 and 15-RC-39.-Decided October 28, 1948
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing in Case No. 15-RC-39 was
held before a hearing officer of the National Labor Relations Board.
Thereafter, a separate petition in Case No. 15-RC-38 also having been
duly filed, these cases were consolidated, and a consolidated hearing
was held before the same hearing officer. The rulings made at the
hearings by the hearing officer are free from prejudicial error and
are hereby affirmed. Before the hearings were held, and again at
the hearings, the Employer moved to dismiss each of the petitions.
For the reasons set forth in Section 3, below, the motions are granted.
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-man panel consisting of the undersigned Board
Members.*
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The Petitioner, and an intervening union, District 50, United
Mine Workers of America, herein called the Intervenor, are labor
organizations claiming to represent employees of the Employer.
3. The alleged question concerning representation:
The Petitioner seeks two separate units composed, respectively,
of machinists and garage mechanics at the Employer's plant at Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, where the Employer is engaged in the production
of Ethyl Antiknock Compound. The Employer and the Intervenor
contend that the units sought are inappropriate.
The Baton Rouge plant is divided into three production areas.
Each area produces a different ingredient from which, by a series of
'Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Gray.
80 N. L. R. B., No. 4. 9
10 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
chemical compounds and reactions, the Employer's ultimate product
is derived. Two collective bargaining units have been established
in the plant. One unit, consisting of all production and maintenance
employees in two of the three plant areas , the Sodium and Tetraethyl
Lead areas,'- is currently represented by the Intervenor. The other
unit, consisting of all production and maintenance employees in the
third plant area, the Ethyl Chloride area,2 is currently represented by
a labor organization which is not a party to this proceeding.
Proposed machine-shop unit: The Petitioner, in Case No. 15-RC-39,
requests a unit of all machinists and helpers working in the machine
and anode shops located in the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas
of the plant. It urges, as the basis for the severance of such unit
from the existing production and maintenance unit currently rep-
resented by the Intervenor, that the machinists involved constitute a
readily identifiable, homogeneous group of craft employees.
The machine shop for the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas is a
maintenance machine shop which is equipped with typical machinery,
such as lathes, planers, drills, presses, mills, and boring bars. The
anode shop is equipped with machines similar to those in the machine
shop. The machines in the anode shop, however, have been specially
adapted for the manufacture of anodes from carbon blocks.3 Occa-
sionally, although the two shops are separately supervised, machinists
who are assigned to the machine shop use some of the tools and ma-
chines in the anode shop.
Machinists working in the machine and anode shops are classified
as inside machinists. Approximately 24 of them are assigned to the
two shops, with about 13 of them in the machine shop, and the balance
in the anode shop. Six first-class machinist helpers 4 work with the
inside machinists. The work of the machinists in the machine shop
varies. Thus, first-class machinists normally are able to operate all
the machines in the shop. Some of the machinists, however, are spe-
cialists; one of them operates only a drill press for the grinding of
plug cocks, and three of them are engaged solely in the repairing of
pumps. Each of the machinists in the anode shop works with, and
operates, a single kind of machine.
:'This unit was established by the Board in 1944 in a proceeding in which the Board re-
jected a contention that separate bargaining units should be established for production and
maintenance employees in the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas. Matter of E. I. DuPont
de Nemours & Company, 58 N L. R. B 514.
2 The unit of production and maintenance employees in the Ethyl Chloride area of the
Employer's plant has existed since 1940.
3 Anodes made in the anode shop are used in the production of sodium. The shop is
operated on an assembly line principle. In addition to the machinists, its regular com-
plement includes welders, tinsmiths, and iron workers.
* Second and third class helpers are not given permanent work assignments.
ETHYL CORPORATION 11
In addition to the inside machinists whom the Petitioner seeks to
represent, there is another group of approximately 40 machinists a
in the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas who are classified as outside
machinists. Sixteen first-class machinist helpers work with them.
Like the inside machinists and their helpers, the latter group performs
maintenance work and is a part of the Employer's Maintenance De-
partment. The outside machinists are all specialists. Thus, some of
them perform work on the adjustment and repair of scales or re-
frigerators; some work in a toolroom repairing pneumatic tools;
some are classified as steel machinists; and others, classified as field
machinists, repair pumps, reduction gears, and turbines.
The inside machinists in the machine and anode shops appear to
have like employment interests which arise from the similarity of
the work they perform. Nevertheless, they are not, in our opinion,
a group sufficiently differentiated from the numerically larger group
of outside machinists as to warrant their establishment in a unit which
does not include the latter employees. In so concluding, we are
mindful of the following significant factors. Both the inside and
outside machinists are maintenance employees, receive identical wages,
and work the same number of hours under similar working conditions.
Interchange of the inside and outside machinists, though infrequent,
has in fact occurred. While both groups are admittedly skilled, the
record indicates that certain of the outside machinists, such as the scale
machinists, are more highly skilled than many of the inside ma-
chinists. The functions, moreover, of the inside machinists, in certain
instances, overlap those of the outside machinists: thus, some of
the machinists within both groups are engaged in the repair and ad-
justment of pumps; the field machinists, who are a part of the outside
group, utilize, in connection with their repair work, a field machine
shop which, although smaller and not as well equipped as the general
machine shop used by the inside machinists, is nevertheless equipped
with machinery and tools similar to those in the general machine shop
and in the anode shop; and one of the inside machinists regularly in-
spects, and repairs, tool grinders which are located at various sites
within the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas. And lastly, under the
Employer's training and testing program, all new maintenance em-
ployees are placed in a pool and are not given permanent assignments
as helpers to either inside or outside machinists until they have first
completed a 15-month general training period, in which is measurAd
8 The figure does not Include the garage mechanics who are discussed below.
12 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
not only their specific aptitude for either inside or outside machinist
work, but also their general aptitude for the machinist trade 6
Under all the circumstances, therefore, we conclude that a unit
limited to inside machinists and their helpers is not an appropriate
unit because it comprises only a segment of a craft group possessing
similar skills and performing comparable work.7
Proposed garage unit: The Petitioner, in Case No. 15-RC-38, re-
quests a unit of all mechanics assigned to the garage located in, and
operated for, the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas . As in the case
of the unit request discussed above, the Petitioner contends that the
garage mechanics are craftsmen and that they should, therefore, be
severed from the existing unit represented by the Intervenor.
The garage for the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas is an auto-
motive repair and maintenance garage, where work is performed on
bicycles, automobiles, trucks, jitneys, tractors, cranes, and other port-
able gasoline-driven equipment. Although engines are there dis-
mantled and reassembled, the garage is only equipped for minor re-
pair work, such as the changing of tires, the cleaning of carburetors
and spark plugs, and the relining of brakes. Major repair work, such
as engine overhauling, cannot be accomplished, because tools and equip-
ment of the sort generally found in large commercial garages are lack-
ing. Accordingly, if it is necessary to rebore the cylinders of an en-
gine, the engine block is taken to a commercial establishment.
There are eight mechanics and two helpers regularly assigned to the
garage .8 The mechanics are classified as outside machinists, and
receive the same rates of pay as the inside and other outside machinists
discussed above. Although a training program exists for the helpers
in the garage, it is not an apprentice program in the strict sense of that
term. Thus, in the event of a job vacancy among the garage me-
9 The Employer also maintains a machine shop in, and for, the Ethvl Chloride area, and
has machinists in that area who perform tasks similar to those performed by the inside and
outside machinists in the Sodium and Tetraeythl Lead areas. Significantly, however, in
the Ethyl Chloride area, no classification distinction is made between inside and outside
machinists , and all machinists are there used interchangeably and are given assignments
both in and out of the machine ihop.
'r See Matter of Teletype Corporation , 79 N. L. R. B. 1044 , and cases cited therein ; Matter
of Shell Oil Company, 79 N. L R. B. 618.
The facts in this case are distinguishable from those in Matter of International Harvester
Company, 79 N. L. It. B. 1452 , where the Board recently found a toolroom unit appro-
priate even though some of the employee classifications and skills included therein were
duplicated elsewhere in the plant . In the Harvester case, unlike the instant case, there
was no problem of craft severance ; the duplication of classifications and skills occurred
among toolroom employees and production employees who received different wage rates ;
and those toolroom employees who had opposite numbers among the production employees
were semi-skilled and constituted a fringe group with respect to the highly skilled em-
ployees who formed the nucleus of the unit found appropriate.
8 Two of the mechanics spend the greater portion of their time outside the garage, work-
ing on the maintenance of the Employer 's Diesel locomotives.
ETHYL CORPORATION 13
•chanics, an employee not working in the garage, but classified as an
outside machinist, would be accorded a priority in filling the job over
a qualified first class helper permanently assigned to work with the
garage mechanics.
The Board, in Matter of Gulf Oil Corporation,9 recently held that
garage mechanics performing work similar to that performed by the
garage mechanics herein, were not true craft employees; and, on that
ground, refused to permit their severance from an established bargain-
ing unit. Even more persuasive reasons exist for a like conclusion
and treatment in the instant case, where the garage mechanics perform
only a portion of the maintenance and repair work generally carried
on by automotive mechanics working in garages, and the portion which
they undertake is relatively less complex than that which is left undone.
Accordingly, under all the circumstances, we find that the garage
mechanics are not true craftsmen, and may not, therefore, be severed
from the bargaining unit of production and maintenance employees in
the Sodium and Tetraethyl Lead areas io
For the foregoing reasons, we find that no question affecting com-
merce exists concerning the representation of employees of the Em-
ployer, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and
(7) of the Act. Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petitions.
ORDER
IT is HEREBY olDERED that the petitions herein be, and they hereby
are, dismissed.
s Case No 16-R-2238, Supplemental Decision and Order issued on October 8 , 1948 (79
N. L. R. B. 1274).
10 In the Supplemental Decision and Order in the Gulf Oil case, supra , the majority of
the Board also held that garage mechanics may not be severed from an established unit on
a basis other than their existence as a craft. As the majority position now has the status
of Board law, Board Members Houston and Gray deem themselves bound thereby, and
consequently find it unnecessary to reiterate their previously expressed dissenting views.