Indiana & Michigan Electric Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 21, 1956

115 N.L.R.B. 512 (N.L.R.B. 1956)

512 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Indiana & Michigan Electric Company and Utility Workers Union
of America, AFL-CIO,' Petitioner . Case No. 9-RC-2646. Febru-
ary 21,1956
. 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 Orville E. Andrews, 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 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.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) andSection 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The parties are in agreement that a production and maintenance
unit at the Employer's Tanners Creek generating station is ap-
propriate. However, the Employer, contrary to the Petitioner, would
exclude master results men and laboratory testers as technical em-
ployees and the senior stores attendant and stores attendants as cleri-
cal employees 3 There is no history of collective bargaining in the
plant.
The master results men are employed in the results department and
perform highly skilled work in repairing, installing, adjusting, cali-
brating, and servicing mechanical, electronic, pneumatic, and hydrau-
lic instruments and control equipment. Other employees in the re-
sults department, classified as results helper, junior results man, and
results man, are less skilled, but perform or assist others to perform
similar functions. They are included in the unit by agreement of
the parties. Master results men are required to be high school grad-
uates and to have additional technical training in the fields of mathe-
matics, physics, and electricity which can be obtained at technical
schools, by correspondence course, by home study, or possibly by ex-
perience and training in the plant. In addition, the Employer sends
these men to schools run by industrial concerns from whom it pur-
i The AFL and CIO having merged subsequent to the hearing in this proceeding, we
are amending the identification of the affiliation of the Petitioner accordingly.
2 Subsequent to the hearing the Employer and Petitioner filed briefs. Thereafter, the
Employer filed a motion to delete appendixes to the Petitioner 's brief on the ground that
they contain natter not placed in the record herein . This motion is denied as the Board
has based its determination herein solely on the facts contained in the record and has
considered the briefs only for the purpose of ascertaining the positions of the parties and
the arguments in support thereof All factual matter in the briefs which was not placed
in the record has been disregarded.
3 The Employer also contends that the senior stores attendant is a supervisor.
115 NLRB No. 84.
INDIANA & MICHIGAN ELECTRIC COMPANY 513
chases equipment for further training with respect to that equipment.
Technical knowledge and training is also required, but to a lesser de-
gree, of the results men. Master results men work up through the
lower classifications in the results department and must have 2 years'
experience as results men. Progression through the lower classifica-
tions to master results man depends upon passing written and oral
examinations as well as upon experience and training.4 Master re-
sults men may be promoted to assistant results engineers but must
have professional engineering degrees or their equivalent to get
this promotion.
The various jobs performed by the master results men are outlined
to them by the results engineer or assistant results engineer. The
master results men then organize the job and set up the necessary
steps for its completion. They work with other employees in the
results department and may perform the work themselves or turn
it over to results men. They exercise skill and discretion in deciding
whether repairs or adjustments need to be made. Part of their time
is spent in the results shop and part at the locations of the various
instruments they service. At least half of the time they use hand
and power tools in the course of their duties.
While the master results men may possess a higher degree of skill
and technical knowledge than other production and maintenance
employees, their function, along with the others in the results de-
partment, consists essentially of the maintenance and repair of the
complicated control equipment essential to the Employer's produc-
tion of electrical energy. Accordingly, we find that the master results
men are no more than highly skilled maintenance employees and are
not technical employees within the sense that the Board uses that term.'
We shall therefore include them in the unit.
The laboratory testers are employed in the laboratory department
where they perform chemical tests of coal, ashes, metals, water, lubri-
cants, and petroleum fuels and use chemcials to treat water and oil.
About 80 percent of their time is spent in the laboratory, which is a
separate room in the powerplant, and the rest of their time is spent
in various parts of the plant where they collect samples and obtain
instrument readings essential to their tests. They must be able to use
chemical laboratory equipment, to run chemical analyses, and to com-
pute and interpret test results. The laboratory testers must be high
school graduates and have technical training in chemistry beyond the
high school level. Some powerplant experience as a filter operator and
sampler is also required. Laboratory testers may be able to get the
necessary technical training in the plant, but not in the course of duties
4 This also is true in the case of a number of other promotions in the plant.
5 Phtlco Corporation , 110 NLRB 184
390609-56-vol. 115-34
514 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
as filter operator. A written examination must also be passed as a job
requirement. Laboratory testers may assist in maintenance work
when a generating unit is shut down or on their regular days off.
Otherwise they perform no maintenance functions.
It is clear from the description of the skills, knowledge, and duties
of the laboratory testers that their work is of a technical nature, in the
sense that the Board uses the term, and that they are therefore tech-
nical employees.6 Accordingly, as the Employer objects to their in-
clusion in the production and mainteance unit, we shall exclude them
from the unit'
The senior stores attendant and the stores attendants are in the
stores department under the separate supervision of -the stores super-
visor. The stores attendants spend 95 percent of their time in a sepa-
rate storeroom, and the senior stores attendant is located in an adjacent
office. These employees receive, issue, store, and maintain necessary
records in connection with materials, tools, supplies, and equipment
used at the plant. Over 50 percent of the stores attendants' time, and
an even greater portion of the senior stores attendant's time, is spent
in clerical duties. On occasion, these employees make local trips out-
side the plant to pick up and deliver materials. They have contact
with production and maintenance employees when such employees
come to the storeroom to requisition tools and supplies. They have
some physical duties in connection with the handling of storeroom
items.
In a previous case, involving this plant, the Board found that the
stores attendants were plant clericals 8 and there is no evidence of
any change in their duties and functions since that decision. More-
over, it appears on the present record that these employees are essen-
tially the same as employees whom the Board has found to be plant
clericals in other cases.9 Accordingly, we find that they are plant
clericals.
At the hearing the parties stipulated to exclude plant clerical em-
ployees from the unit. Although this stipulation was made with spe-
cific reference to the power station clerks, judging from the facts that
the only issue litigated at the hearing or argued in the briefs with re-
spect to the stores attendants, the only clericals in dispute, was whether
they were physical employees or clerical employees and that no con-
tention was made that the stores attendants should be included in the
unit if the Board found that they were clerical employees, we con-.
6 Detroit Edison Company, 84 NLRB 478
v Gerber Plastics Company, 108 NLRB 403.
s Indtiana-Machtgan Electric Company, 98 NLRB No 1. (Not reported in printed vol-
umes of Board Decisions and Orders ) In that case the stores attendants were found to
be factory clericals and were excluded from the unit in accordance with the stipulation
of the parties to exclude factory clericals
9 Piel Brothers, 109 NLRB 894 , Fsltrol Corporation, 109 NLRB 1071.
MEMPHIS COTTON OIL MILL 515
strue the stipulation as evidencing the intention of the parties to ex-
clude all plant clerical employees from the unit. Accordingly, having
found that the stores attendants and senior stores attendant are plant
clericals, we shall exclude them from the unit.'°
We find that the following employees of the Employer constitute a
unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the
meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act :
All production and maintenance employees employed at the Em-
ployer's Tanners Creek generating division, Lawrenceburg, Indiana,
on an hourly rated basis, including the following classifications : mas-
ter results man, results man, junior results man, and results helper in
the results department; filter operator and sampler in the laboratory
department; assistant control operator and auxiliary equipment op-
erator in the operations department; crane operator, coal operator,
barge handler, and yard helper in the yard department; master main-
tenance man, maintenance man, junior maintenance man, and main-
tenance helper in the maintenance department; laborers and utility
man in the utility department; and janitors; but excluding the divi-
sion manager, assistant division manager, operations supervisor,
maintenance supervisor, chief chemist, chemist, personnel supervisor,
plant engineers, results engineers, shift operations engineer, assistant
shift operations engineers, test engineers, safety supervisor, super-
visor of janitors, foreman-yard, assistant foreman-yard, mainte-
nance foremen, labor foremen, office supervisors, power station clerk,-
senior stores attendant, stores attendants, laboratory testers, control
room operators, co-op students, all probationary, temporary, part-
time, confidential, technical, professional, office clerical, and plant
clerical employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
MEMBER BEAN took no part in the consideration of the above Deci-
sion and Direction of Election. .
10Axeison Manufacturing Co., 110 NLRB 624 Accordingly , we find it unnecessary to
consider the Employer ' s contention that the senior stores attendant is a supervisor.
Armour and Company, d/b/a Memphis Cotton Oil Mill and Local
196, International Union of United Brewery , Flour, Cereal, Soft
Drink & Distillery Workers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner.
Case No. 32-RC-884. February 21,1956
DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before John E. Cienki, hearing
115 NLRB No. 82.