General Electric Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 19, 1964

147 N.L.R.B. 558 (N.L.R.B. 1964)

558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
General Electric Company and International Union of Electri-
cal, Radio & Machine Workers , AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case
No. 1-RC-7805. June 19, 1964
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 Hearing Officer A. Gene Niro.
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 Leedom, Fanning, and Brown].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction
herein.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.'
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of
Section 9(c) (1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Employer's Fitchburg plant (designated as the Fitchburg
department by the Employer) is engaged in the manufacture of small
steam turbine engines. The Fitchburg department consists of seven
buildings. The department, headed by a general manager, maintains
five sections : finance, employee relations, manufacturing, marketing,
and engineering. Each section is under the supervision of a manager
and is further divided into subsections under the supervision of sub-
section managers. The engineering section is subdivided into the
following five subsections : development and standards engineering,
drafting standards and reproduction, navy and marine engineering, in-
dustrial turbine engineering, and utility turbine engineering. Within
each of tie last three subsections there is a drafting unit under the im-
mediate supervision of a unit manager. The drafting standards and
reproduction subsection (herein called the reproduction room) and
the three drafting units (herein collectively called the drafting room)
are, located on the second floor of building 2. The drafting room em-
ployees are situated in a single area and are separated from the repro-
duction room by a corridor. All other employees in the engineering
section and subsections, such as engineers, engineering technicians,
and others, are located in a different building.
American Federation of Technical Engineers , AFL-CIO, was permitted to intervene at
the hearing on the basis of its showing of interest.
147 NLRB No. 69.
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 559
The Petitioner seeks to represent all employees working in the draft-
ing room and all employees working in the drafting standards and
reproduction subsection of the engineering section excluding all other
employees, professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined
in the Act. The Intervenor agrees that such unit is appropriate.
However, both the Petitioner and the Intervenor have indicated their
willingness to proceed to an election in any unit which the Board finds
appropriate under the circumstances of the case. The Employer con-
tends that the unit request of the Petitioner is inappropriate on the
grounds that (1) technical employees are sought to be represented
with clerical employees, (2) there is a lack of community of interest
between the employees in the drafting room and the employees in the
reproduction room, and (3) the inclusion of the technical employees
who are considered to be part of the reproduction room would require
the inclusion of all technical employees working in the plant. The
Employer asserts that a unit comprised of the draftsmen and designers
employed in the drafting room is appropriate and that it is willing
to go to an election in such unit. Neither the Petitioner nor the In-
tervenor challenges the appropriateness of a unit of draftsmen and
designers.
The drafting room is composed of 3 unit managers, 3 stenotypists,
approximately 69 draftsmen, and designers. The designers create
designs from engineering specifications and customer requests for
turbine components for the manufacturing section. As to the drafts-
men, their duties involve the detailing of tracings and drawings from
the created designs. Both designers and draftsmen are highly skilled
employees with a background of a number of years of education in
technical or trade schools. The designers and draftsmen work side
by side. They are under separate supervision, and are physically
segregated from employees in the reproduction room, with the excep-
tion of the three technical employees placed in the drafting room due
to lack of space. The Board has found draftsmen and designers to
comprise a highly skilled, well-defined, and homogeneous group of
technical employees, who may constitute a separate bargaining unit .2
There remains for consideration the question whether the employees
in the reproduction room are an appropriate part of a unit of drafts-
men and designers. The reproduction room has approximately 18
employees who provide printing and reproduction services to all sec-
tions in the plant.' Three technical employees assigned to and under
the supervision of the reproduction room manager are located in the
2 General Electric Company, 89 NLRB .726, 735. See also Bethlehem Steel Company,
95 NLRB 1508, 1511.
3 The record indicates that the reproduction room services the marketing section more
than it services drafting.
560 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
drafting room because of lack of space in the reproduction room. The
reproduction room employees are located in a separately situated room
and are under separate supervision.
The reproduction room consists of office machine operators, clerks,
stenotypist, photo-litho and photography technicians, and the three
technicians located in the drafting room. The office machine operators
prepare prints and tracings of draftsmen, operate microfilm camera
and process the microfilm, and produce copies of tracings, drawings,
or of any other material required by any section of the department.
The clerks involved are parts-list clerks who take parts lists from the
drafting room and prepare cards for use by either manufacturing or
finance sections ; the stationery clerk is in charge of stationery and
related supplies for the entire Fitchburg department; the microfilm
file clerk maintains the microfilm aperture cards and files, and replaces
the cards as required to refill print orders requested by other sections
of the department; the tracing vault clerks make accessible engineer-
ing drawing prints by removing them from the file; the general clerk
collates various materials requested by the other sections in the depart-
ment. The photo-litho technician processes film material of drawings
of photo-litho materials for draftsmen, marketing personnel, or other
reproduction personnel. The photography technician develops and
prints negatives for all of the sections in the department as well as
doing the photography work for all sections. The stenotypist types
for the reproduction room manager and performs other clerical duties.
The three technicians assigned to the reproduction room, but located
in the drafting room, are drafting data and standards specialist, in-
struction book technician leader, and engineering technician. They
are under the supervision of the reproduction room manager. Al-
though some of their work, such as the preparation of standards for
the draftsmen, is related to the work of the draftsmen, much of their
work is directly involved with customer relations. Thus the instruc-
tion book technician leader prepares instruction books for customers
dealing with the operation and maintenance of turbines; the engineer-
ing technician prepares illustrative material that is put in the instruc-
tion books given to customers, and in commercial books. None of
these employees performs any drafting work.
The above facts demonstrate that the duties and interests of the
reproduction room employees are substantially different from those
of the draftsmen and designers. In the circumstances of this case,
we shall exclude them. As for the stenotypists located in the draft-
ing room, it is clear that their duties are entirely clerical and that they
lack the unique skill and interests which render the draftsmen and
designers an appropriate unit. We shall therefore also exclude them
from the unit found appropriate herein.
PINKERTON NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY 561
In view of the foregoing, and as the parties are in substantial agree-
ment that a unit of draftsmen and designers is appropriate, we find
that the following unit of employees of the Employer at its Fitchburg
plant, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, is appropriate for purposes of col-
lective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act :
All draftsmen and designers of the Employer at its Fitchburg,
Massachusetts, plant, excluding all employees in the reproduction
room, the drafting data and standards specialist, instruction book
technician leader, engineering technician, the drafting room steno-
typists, professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined
in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
Pinkerton National Detective Agency and International Guards
Union of America. Case No. 17-CA-.297. June 22, 196.4
DECISION AND ORDER
On March 27, 1964, Trial Examiner Horace A. Ruckel issued his
Decision in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that Respondent had
engaged in certain unfair labor practices, and recommending that it
cease and desist therefrom, and take certain affirmative action, as set
forth in the attached Trial Examiner's Decision. Thereafter, the
Respondent filed exceptions to the Trial Examiner's Decision, and the
General Counsel filed an answering brief to the Respondent's excep-
tions, as well as cross-exceptions.
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 McCulloch and Members Fanning and Jenkins].
The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made at
the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The
rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Decision
and the entire record in this case, including the Respondent's excep-
tions, and the General Counsel's answering brief and cross-exceptions,
and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of
the Trial Examiner.
ORDER
Pursuant to Section 10 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as
amended, the Board hereby adopts as its Order, the Order recom-
mended by the Trial Examiner, and orders that the Respondent,
147 NLRB No. 80.
756-236-65-vol. 147--37