Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 17, 1948

78 N.L.R.B. 1064 (N.L.R.B. 1948)

In the Matter of LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, EMPLOYER and
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, LOCAL B-11,
PETITIONER
Case No. 21-R-4028
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION
AND
CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
August 17, 1948
On May 7, 1948, the National Labor Relations Board directed an
election to be held among the maintenance electricians A. and B and
their apprentices at the Employer's plant at Burbank and Van Nuys,
California.'
On June 12, 1948, an election by secret ballot was conducted pur-
suant to the foregoing Direction under the supervision of the Regional
Director for the Twenty-first Region. At the conclusion of the elec-
tion a Tally of Ballots was furnished the parties in accordance with
the Rules and Regulations of the Board 2 The Tally, shows that 67
ballots were cast, of which 33 were for the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers, Local B-11, hereinafter called the Petitioner,
26 were for the International Association of Machinists, Aeronautical
Industrial District Lodge No. 727, 1 was for neither organization, and
7 were challenged by the Employer on the ground that the employees
casting those ballots were not on the eligibility list used at the polls.
As the challenged ballots may be determinative of the outcome of
the election, the Regional Director, pursuant to Section 203.61 of the
Board's Rules and Regulations, investigated the issues raised by the
challenges. On June 30, 1948, the Regional Director issued and served
upon the parties his Report on Challenges and Recommendation to
Reopen the Record, in which he recommended that four of the chal-
lenges be sustained, that one be overruled, and that the record be
'77N.L R.B 507
2 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-man panel consisting of the undersigned
Board Members [Houston, Reynolds, and Gray].
78 N. L. R. B., No. 147.
1064
LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION 1065
reopened to determine the eligibility of the two remaining challenged
voters and of five other employees who did not vote, all seven being
employed by the Employer as electronics electricians. No exceptions
were filed to the Regional Director's report by any of the parties within
the time provided therefor.
The Eligibility of the Electronics Electricians
Two of the challenged ballots were cast by W. E. Norman and Lewis
Hopkins, who, together with five others, are employed as electronics
electricians. The electronics electricians were not included in the
.'voting group'set'up in the Board's Decision and Direction of Election
of May 7, 1948, in this case, and prior to the election they were told
by the Employer that it did not consider them eligible to vote. Five
of them, in fact, did not vote.
The Regional Director in his Report describes the duties of the
electronics electricians and expresses the view that there is no clear-
cut line of demarcation between the work of the electronics electricians
and that of the maintenance electricians, only the latter of whom were
included by the Board in the instant voting group. He, accordingly,
recommended that the Board reopen the record in this case for the
purpose of taking additional testimony concerning the duties of the
electronics electricians.
The petition in this case requested only a unit of maintenance elec-
tricians and apprentices. The question of the appropriateness of such
a unit was fully litigated at the hearing held herein. None of the
parties at that time suggested the inclusion of the electronics elec-
tricians in the proposed unit, nor has the Board as yet received any
such suggestion from the parties themselves. We do not believe it
would be good administrative practice, particularly in the absence of
an appropriate request by a party to the case, to reopen the record at
this time to afford the parties an opportunity to be heard on the ques-
tion of the inclusion of the electronics electricians in the proposed unit.
For these reasons, we are unable to concur in the Regional Director's
recommendation that the record be reopened and we shall sustain the
challenges to the eligibility of W. E. Norman and Lewis Hopkins. As
the remaining challenged ballots are not sufficient to affect the outcome
of the election, we need not pass on the issues raised by the challenges
to those ballots.
The Petitioner having received a majority of the valid votes cast,
we find that the maintenance electricians A and B and their appren-
tices at the Employer's Van Nuys and Burbank plants constitute a unit
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining, and we shall
1066 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
certify the Petitioner as the representative of the employees in that
unit.
CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
IT IS HEREBY CERTIFIED that International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers, Local B-11, has been designated and selected by a majority
of the employees of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank and
Van Nuys, California, in the unit hereinabove found to be appropriate
as their representative for the purposes of collective bargaining, and
that, pursuant to Section 9 (a) of the Act, as amended, the said organi-
zation is the exclusive representative of all such employees for the,
purposes of collective bargaining with respect to rates of pay, wages,
hours of employment, and other conditions of employment.