Homestake Mining Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 29, 1953

105 N.L.R.B. 198 (N.L.R.B. 1953)

198 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
guards within the meaning of the Act . 8 Rather we find that they
are a classification similar to the "standby fireman," and the
boiler engineer in plant 1,, who are recognized by the parties
as being part of the existing production and maintenance unit.
As the watchmen-firemen are thus part of that unit, and as it
does not appear that any issue is herein dispute other than the
question of their status as guards , above discussed , we find
that no question exists concerning their representation. We
shall therefore dismiss the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.
8 Trenton Foods , Inc., 101 NLRB 1769; Sunday School Publishing Board, National Baptist
Convention , USA, Inc , 100 NLRB No 193; Wiley Mfg . Inc , 92 NLRB 40.
HOMESTAKE MINING COMPANY and UNITED STEEL-
WORKERS OF AMERICA, C. I.O., Petitioner . Case No.
18-RC-1839 . May 29, 1953
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 Alan Bruce,
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 [Members Houston, Murdock, and
Peterson].
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 organizations involved claim to represent
certain employees of the Employer.2 ,
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation 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 appropriate unit:
The Petitioner seeks a unit consisting of all production and
maintenance employees in the Employer ' s Lead, South Dakota,
operations , including the deadwood slime plant employees,
and the Kirk power station employees , but excluding the em-
ployees at the Spearfish sawmill, the three hydropower plants,
the Hanna pumping plant , and the logging operations conducted
1 The request of the Employer for oral argument is denied inasmuch as the record and
briefs adequately and fully present the issues and positions of the parties.
2At the hearing - United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America , A.F L., was
permitted to intervene.
105 NLRB No. 18
HOMESTAKE MINING COMPANY 199
by Golden Gate Timber Company, a wholly owned subsidiary
of the Employer. The Employer contends that the only appro-
priate unit is one embracing not only the above employees,
whom the Petitioner proposes to include , but also the em-
ployees at the sawmill, hydropower plants, the pumping plant,
and the logging operation. As its alternative position, the
Petitioner agrees to the inclusion of the 'sawmill, hydropower
plants, and pumping plant ' employees but not the logging
employees. On the other hand, the Intervenor asserts that
the sawmill employees constitute a separate appropriate unit,
although it indicated at the hearing that it was also willing to
represent the logging employees . The Petitioner and the Em-
ployer are also in dispute with respect to the inclusion of
certain job classifications which are later discussed.4 There
is no history of collective bargaining.
The Employer , a California corporation , is the largest gold
producer in the United States, with mining shafts and plants at
Lead, South Dakota, and other facilities in surrounding areas.
Its operations are divided into ( a) the mine and metallurgical
departments , which are the main production departments,
and (b) the electrical, mechanical, lumber and timber, supply,
employment , construction , safety, hospital , and geological de-
partments , which are the service departments.
At Lead, the mine department mines gold -bearing ore which
the metallurgical department refines at the nearby cyanide
sand plants . The ore is further processed at the deadwood
slime plant , some 3 miles away, where approximately 10 per-
cent of the total gold produced is recovered.
Power for all of the Employer ' s operations is furnished by
the Kirk power station, a steampower plant operated by the
mechanical and electrical departments , and 3 hydropower
plants, operated by the electrical department. The Kirk
power station is located about 1 mile from the main plants.
Hydropower plants Nos . 1 and 2 are located in Spearfish
Canyon approximately 20 miles from the main plants and the
Englewood hydroplant, employing 1 man, is approximately 6
miles away . The power generated by these plants flows into
one unified grid system at the Kirk power station and from
there is dispatched to the various departments of the Com-
pany.
The mechanical department also operates the water -pumping
plants known as the Hanna pump station . This facility furnishes
over 9 million gallons of water used each day in mining and
iSo stated in the Petitioner's brief
4The parties agreed by stipulation to include in the unit load dispatchers, the leadman in
the air motor repair shop, the master electrician, the carpenter crew boss, the chief mechanic
at the sawmill, assayers and assistant assayers, the storekeeper in the mechanical depart-
ment, compressor operators, the mine messenger, the warehouse clerks in the mechanical
and lumber and timber departments, senior and junior refiners, janitors, hoistmen, crowbar
men, and assistant foremen. They also agreed to exclude office clerical employees, telephone
operators, pinsetters, bullion guards, guards, shift bosses, the foreman in the water depart-
ment, the foreman in the carpenter department, the foreman in the uranium operation, and
other supervisors as defined in the Act.
291555 0 - 54 - 14
200 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
refining the sold-bearing ore. In addition, it provides at a
small cost 2i million gallons of water to the nearby mining
community for daily domestic consumption.
The lumber and timber department operates a sawmill at
Spearfish, South Dakota, approximately 20 miles from Lead,
which produces virtually all the lumber and timber required
by the Employer for its mining service operations .5 Golden
Gate Timber Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Employer , supplies the sawmill with the logs for processing.
These logging operations are conducted within a 30-mile area
from the sawmill . Both the sawmill and logging operations
are supervised by the same department manager, who utilizes
the same office personnel in the discharge of th6se duties.
The sawmill and logging employees work the same shift hours,
are paid the same rates of pay, for comparable job classifi-
cations, and interchange between the two locations . Approxi-
mately one-half of the employees engaged in logging reside in
Spearfish where the majority of sawmill employees live.
The sawmill and logging operations , as well as the hydro-
power plants , the pumping station, and the production de-
partments are serviced , in turn ,. by the various service de-
partments which perform, among other things, the necessary
mechanical and electrical repair, maintenance , and construction
work.
In addition to the functional relationship of the Employer's
different operations as demonstrated above , the record dis-
closes that the Employer follows a centralized management
and administrative policy under the overall supervision of a
general manager . At the main office at Lead, all business
and labor relations policy decisions originate . Here, the
accounting department handles matters for all the departments
including the Golden Gate Timber Company' s logging opera-
tions . A single payroll is maintained here for all the Em-
ployer's and Golden Gate's employees. All hiring is done at
a central employment office in Lead which assigns employees
throughout the Employer's operations . Moreover , all employees
are subject to the same general working conditions , receiv-
ing the same rates of pay for comparable job classifications,
and sharing the same paid vacations, holidays , pensions,
night - shift differentials , and hospital and medical benefits.
Notwithstanding the foregoing , the Petitioner contends that
the hydropower plant employees should be excluded from the
unit because of their physical isolation from the other em-
ployees , and because they have different conditions of em-
ployment . However, it would include the Kirk power station
employees who perform comparable functions to the hydro-
power plant employees , because admittedly the Kirk power
station is an integral part of the Employer ' s mining opera-
5 In the course of processing timber to meet its needs, the Employer is required, under
United States Forest Services regulations , to also process logs unsuited to its purposes
These products, as well as the byproducts resulting from the processing of mine timber,
are sold commercially and represent about 50 percent of its lumber and timber production.
HOMESTAKE MINING COMPANY 201
tions. As the hydropower plants are similarly integrated with
the Employer's operations, and as the hydropower employees
enjoy the same general conditions of employment, we shall
include the hydropower plant employees in the unit.
Although conceding that the Hanna pump station supplies
water necessary to the operation of the Employer's plant,
the Petitioner contends, however, that these employees, four
in number, should be excluded on the ground that the pump
station is an independent enterprise, selling water to the
surrounding communities. As the pumping station is an integral
part of the Employer's gold-producing operations, we shall
include these employees.
Finally, the Petitioner would exclude the employees at the
Spearfish sawmill and at the Golden Gate' s logging operation
because of their physical distance from Lead, the commercial
nature of their activity, the fact that the Intervenor is seeking
to represent the sawmill employees, and the fact that the
Golden Gate Timber Company is a separate corporate entity.
However, as indicated above, the sawmill is an essential part
of the Employer's operations, supplying all the required mine
timber and lumber. As for Golden Gate, it is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the Employer, whose activities are also in-
tegrated with the Employer's operations. And lastly, the
Intervenor has failed to make a substantial showing of interest
in either a sawmill or a sawmill and logging unit which the
Board has held is necessary to entitle a union intervening for
a smaller unit in a representation case involving a larger
unit.6 In these circumstances, we shall include the sawmill and
logging employees in the unit.7
We now turn to the question of the inclusion of various job
classifications in the unit. The Petitioner would exclude, and
the Employer would include, tabulating machine mechanics,
the warehouse clerk in the general office, the hospital janitor,
and the janitresses in the mine office, personnel office,
recreation office, and main office. The Petitioner contends
that these employees have interests similar to those of the
office clerical employees excluded from the unit.
Tabulating machine mechanics repair and service office
machinery in the general office and are under the nominal
supervision of the chief accountant. Office janitresses are
assigned to clean and care for different offices. They are
supervised by the respective department managers in charge
of these offices, except that the mine office department
janitress is more directly supervised by the mine department
timekeeper -accountant. The hospital janitor maintains and
cleans the hospital and is supervised by the hospital director.
We find that the nature of the work of the tabulating machine
mechanics, the office janitresses, and the hospital janitor' is
6Seaboard Machinery Corporation, 98 NLRB 537; Boeing Airplane Company, 86 NLRB 368.
7In view of the above finding, the Employer's motion to dismiss the petition as setting
forth an inappropriate unit is hereby denied
'California Spray-Chemical Corp.. 86 NLRB 453; The Steel Products Engineering Company,
76 NLRB 318.
202 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
that of maintenance which allies them more closely with produc-
tion and maintenance employees than with office employees.
Therefore, we shall include them in the unit.
The warehouse clerk in the general office performs the same
warehouse duties of receiving and issuing stock and supplies
as the other warehouse clerks in the electrical and lumber
and timber departments whom the parties agree to include
in the unit. We shall therefore, contrary to the Petitioner's
contention , include the warehouse clerk.
Accordingly, we find the following unit appropriate for the
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section
9 (b) of the Act:
All production and maintenance employees at the Employer's
Lead, South Dakota, operations , including the employees at
the deadwood slime plant , the Kirk power station , the Engle-
wood hydropower plant , the hydropower plants Nos . 1 and 2,
the Spearfish sawmill, the Golden Gate Timber Company logging
operation , load dispatchers , watchmen , the leadman in the air
motor repair shop, the master electrician , the carpenter crew
boss, the chief mechanic at the sawmill , assayers and as-
sistant assayers , the storekeeper in the mechanical department,
compressor operators , the tabulating machine mechanics, the
mine messenger , warehouse clerks , senior and junior refiners,
janitors , office janitresses , hoistmen, crowbar men, and as-
sistant foremen , but excluding office clerical employees, tele-
phone operators , pinsetters , bullion guards, guards, shift
bosses , the foreman in the water department , the foreman in
the carpenter department, the foreman in the uranium operation,
and other supervisors as defined in the Act.9
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
9Although this unit is broader than that requested by the Petitioner, the Petitioner has
made a sufficient showing of interest in the broader unit and we shall direct an election in
that unit. If the Petitioner does not wish to participate in an election for the unit herein
found appropriate, it may withdraw its petition filed in this proceeding upon notice to that
effect given to the Regional Director within ten (10) days from the date of the direction of
election herein.
JEFFERSON CO., INC., and SERVICE CORPORATION OF
AMERICA and CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZA-
TIONS, Petitioner. Case No. 10-RC-2276. May 29, 1953
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., 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 [ Members Houston , Murdock, and
Styles].
105 NLRB No. 4.