Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 30, 1950

90 N.L.R.B. 685 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

0
In the Matter of LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION , EMPLOYER and
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, LOCAL
UNION No. 11, AFL, PETITIONER
Case No. 21-RC-1260.-Decided June 30, 1950
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 Daniel J. Harrington,
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 [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Styles].
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 employees
of the Employer.'
3. The Petitioner seeks a unit of all maintenance electricians, their
apprentices, and maintenance electrician leadmen at the Employer's
Burbank and Van Nuys, California, plants. The Intervenor contends
that its present contract, executed August 22, 1949, to expire August
22, 1951, is a bar to so much of this proceeding as relates to main-
tenance electrician leadmen.
In an earlier proceeding,2 wherein the present Petitioner sought a
similar unit, the Board established a separate unit for maintenance
electricians and their.apprentices, but excluded the maintenance elec-
trician leadmen on the ground that they were supervisors. On August
17, 1948, the Board certified the Petitioner as the bargaining repre-
sentative for that unit. On May 18, 1949, the Petitioner filed a
motion for a redetermination of the supervisory status of the mainte-
nance electrician leadmen. This motion was granted by the Board
and an additional hearing was held on August 1, 1949. The Board
'International Association of Machinists , District Lodge No . 727. herein called the
Intervenor , was permitted to intervene at the hearing.
177 NLRB 507.
90 NLRB No. 113.
885
686 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
issued its Decision and Order therein on November 14, 1949, finding,.
upon the basis of new evidence introduced at the second hearing,.
that the leadmen involved were not supervisors.3 The Petitioner then
filed a petition on December 22, 1949, requesting the Board to deter-
mine whether or not the leadmen in dispute should be included in the
unit of maintenance electricians for which the Board had previously
certified the Petitioner, or in the residual plant-wide unit represented
by the Intervenor. On March 28, 1950, the Board dismissed the
foregoing petition without prejudice to the filing of a new petition.
seeking a unit of maintenance electricians and maintenance electrician
leadmen. The Petitioner thereupon filed the present petition.
On August 22, 1949, after the holding of the hearing for the purpose
of redetermining the status of maintenance electrician leadmen, but
prior to the Board's finding that these leadmen are not supervisors,,
the Intervenor and the Employer executed a contract covering all
employees except those for whom the Board had certified another
bargaining agent, and containing certain other exclusions not perti-
nent hereto. The contract contains provisions relating to working
conditions and wages for leadmen. The Intervenor contends that
when the Board, on November 14, 1949, found that the maintenance
electrician leadmen were not supervisors, they reverted to the plant-
wide residual unit and were thereafter covered by the Intervenors.
contract. Although the Employer has applied the Intervenor's con-
tract to the maintenance electrician leadmen, it takes a neutral position,
in this proceeding.
For the reasons hereinafter stated, the maintenance electrician
leadmen are appropriately a part of the maintenance electricians'
unit. Accordingly, to the extent that it purports to cover the main-
tenance electrician leadmen, the contract covers an inappropriate
unit of employees.4 Therefore the Intervenor's contract is no bar to a
present determination of representatives among the Employer 's main-
tenance electrician leadmen.
We find, therefore, that a question affecting * commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of certain employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the
Act.
4. As noted above, the Petitioner seeks a unit of all maintenance
electricians A, B, and C, their apprentices, and maintenance electrician
leadmen, excluding all other employees and all supervisors. The
Intermenor contends that electrician leadmen should be excluded from
'87 NLRB 40.
a Duquesne Light Company , 57 NLRB 770.
LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION 687'
the unit. The Employer takes no position with respect to the unit
placement of these employees.
We have heretofore found that the maintenance electricians at the.
Employer's plants involved herein constitute a skilled craft capable
of forming a separate appropriate unit.,' The present record indicated"
that the duties of these employees have remained unchanged. The.
Employer now has a classification of maintenance electricians C that
did not exist at the time of the prior decision. However, it was-
agreed by all parties that the addition of this classification involved.
no new job duties but only a job reclassification of maintenance elec-
tricians B.
We have also found that the maintenance electrician leadmen are,
not supervisors within the meaning of the Act.- The present record
indicates that the duties and working conditions of these leadmen:
have remained unchanged since our prior finding. The Intervenor
contends, however, that the maintenance electrician leadmen are
appropriately a part of the plant-wide unit and should, therefore be.
excluded from the unit herein proposed.
The Employer's maintenance operations are performed by numerous
maintenance groups. A group is composed of employees of several.
crafts, and is under the immediate direction of a leadman. The
leadman receives orders and, in accordance with those orders, assigns
work to the employees in his group. He also works along with the
other employees. Maintenance electrician leadmen are journeyman
maintenance electricians who have been promoted to their positions,
from that classification, and the groups which they lead are composed,,
among others, of maintenance electricians. The maintenance electri-
cian leadman devotes a substantial part of his time to performing the
work of a journeyman electrician.'
We find that the interests of the maintenance electrician leadmen
are similar to and allied with those of the maintenance electricians
and we shall include them in the same unit with the maintenance,
electricians.
We find that all maintenance electricians A, B, and C, and their
apprentices, and maintenance electrician leadmen at the Employer's
Burbank and Van Nuys, California, plants, excluding all other em-
ployees and all supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a separate
appropriate unit for purposes of collective bargaining.
77 NLRB 507.
e 87 NLRB 40.
+A more detailed description of the duties of the maintenance electrician leadmen is set
forth in our earlier decisions , cited in footnotes 2 and 3, supra.
688 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
DIRECTION OF ELECTION 8
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by
secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than
30 days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and super-
vision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this case was
heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees in the
unit found appropriate in paragraph number 4, above, who were
employed during the payroll period immediately preceding the date
of this Direction of Election, including employees who did not work
during said payroll period because they were ill or on vacation or
temporily laid off, but excluding those employees who have since quit
or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated
prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees on strike
who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether they
desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bargaining, by
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local Union No. 11,
AFL, or by International Association of Machinists, District Lodge
No. 727, or by neither.
B Either participant in the election directed herein may, upon its prompt request to, and
approval thereof by , the Regional Director , have its name removed from the ballot. .