Monsanto Chemical Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 19, 1950

89 N.L.R.B. 1478 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter Of MONSANTO CHEMICAL COMPANY, MOUND LABORATORY,.
EMPLOYER, and UNITED GAS, COKE AND CHEMICAL WORKERS, C. I. 0.,
PETITIONER
Case No. 9-RC-683.-Decided May 19, 1950
.DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 ( c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Harold L. Hudson , 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 organization involved claims to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c)
(1) and Section 2 (6) and ( 7) of the Act , for the following reasons:
The Employer is engaged in certain operations connected with
atomic energy at its Miamisburg , Ohio, Mound Laboratory ,2 the only
plant involved in this proceeding.
The Employer 's Laboratory consists of an outer , fenced-in area of
about 177 acres, and , within this outer area , another fenced -in area of
about 18 acres . For administrative purposes , the Employer has
broken down its operations at the Laboratory into 7 divisions : Re-
search and Development , Health, Business , Operations , Security, In-
dustrial Relations, and Engineering . • At the time of the hearing, the
1 Monsanto Chemical Company, Clinton Laboratories , Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 76 NLRB
767, and cases cited therein.
2 Hereinafter called the Laboratory.
89 NLRB No. 201.
1478
'MONSANTO CHEMICAL COMPANY 1479
Employer had approximately 786 employees at the Laboratory, com-
prising 216 administrative employees, 205 professional employees,
73 plant protection employees, 203 maintenance employees, and 89
technical employees. The Employer classifies as technical employees,
health surveyors, instrument operators, laboratory aides, and elec-
tronics technicians. Ninety-five percent of the work of the Employer's
professional and technical employees is done in 5 buildings located in
a compact group within the inner area of the Laboratory. Although
the record does not specifically show where the rest of the employees
work, we assume that they normally work throughout the entire area
of the Mound Laboratory.
Following consent elections, the Board, on March 23, 1949, certified
Mound Laboratory Patrol, No. 1, as the exclusive bargaining repre-
sentative of plant guards at the Laboratory; and, on May 10, 1949,
certified the Petitioner as the exclusive collective bargaining repre-
sentative of all the Employer's employees at the Laboratory, exclud-
ing office clericals, glass blowers, laboratory aides, instrument opera-
tors, health surveyors, electronic technicians, research precision ma-
chinists, professional employees, guards, and supervisors.4 On August
12, 1949, the Employer and the Petitioner's Local No. 420 entered into
a collective bargaining agreement for the latter unit. This contract
was drawn to remain in effect until August 12, 1950, and, in the
absence of notice, for subsequent yearly periods.
The Petitioner now seeks to include the junior and senior health
surveyors at the Laboratory in its existing unit, or in a separate unit,
if the Board finds that their inclusion in the Petitioner's existing unit
would be improper. The Employer contends (1) that health sur-
veyors.have no community of interest with employees in the over-all
unit and therefore may not be properly included in that unit, and (2)
that health surveyors constitute only a part of the Employer's in-
tegrated and closely related technical work force and therefore may
not constitute a separate appropriate unit.
The Employer generally requires health surveyors 5 to have formal
training or to have studied extensively in such fields as mathematics,
chemistry, physics, and biology. Approximately 60 percent of the
senior health surveyors are college graduates ; all of them have had at
least 2 years of college training. Approximately 30 percent of the
junior health surveyors have had some college training; all except two
' Case No. 9-R0-389.
4 Case No. 9-RC-342. As the Employer apparently has no production employees at the
Laboratory , the unit certified in this case presumably consists of maintenance employees
alone.
5 At the time of the hearing, the Employer had 11 junior and 5 senior health surveyors.
1480 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
of them have had 4 years of high school training. In their work duties,
which are described below, health surveyors employ algebraic formu-
las, and must have some knowledge of algebra, physics, and biology.
To further their scientific training, health surveyors attend lectures
given by members of the Employer's professional staff on radioactive
energy, its detection, and its effects upon the human body.6
Health surveyors regularly work in several buildings under the
supervision of a Section Chief in the Employer's Health Division.'
Health surveyors inspect these buildings for evidences of radioactive
contamination, test radioactive materials for contamination both in
plant areas and in laboratories, use various instruments for these pur-
poses, distribute and collect containers for medical purposes, direct
employees known as decontamination workers to clean up contami-
nated areas, and issue permits to maintenance employees to remain in
"hot" or dangerous areas for specified periods of time.
Instrument operators s work in laboratories where they test for con-
tamination specimens brought to them by laboratory aides or, in some
instances, by health surveyors. Instrument operators use some of the
same instruments for radiation detection as are used by health
surveyors. A witness for the Employer testified that the only dif-
ference between the duties of the health surveyors and those of the
instrument operators is that instrument operators have samples
brought to them for analysis in their laboratories, whereas health sur-
veyors in many cases analyze samples in plant areas.
Laboratory aides work in laboratories and in plant areas, prepare
containers for the collection of samples by health surveyors, collect
and prepare samples for analysis by instrument operators, and record
data on these samples in accordance with the findings of the instru-
ment operators. Laboratory aides also make tests of radioactive ma-
terials themselves, using the same general type of instruments as those
used by health surveyors and instrument operators, although the rec-
ord indicates that the tests made by laboratory aides are preliminary
to those made by instrument operators.
Electronics technicians work in the same laboratories as instrument
operators, and design, maintain, and repair the instruments used by
health surveyors, laboratory aides, and instrument operators to detect
and measure radioactive energy.
8 Laboratory aides and electronics technicians also attend these lectures.
'At the time of the hearing , one junior health surveyor was working temporarily under
the supervision of an engineer in the Employer 's Engineering Division.
8 The record is not clear as to the number or supervision of instrument operators,
laboratory aides, or electronics technicians . It seems. however, thr± each of these categories
of employees is assigned to the Employer ' s Health Division and at least one other of its
. administrative divisions.
MONSANTO CHEMICAL COMPANY 1481
Upon the entire record, we find that the health surveyors, instru-
ment operators, laboratory aides, and electronics technicians are all
technical employees .9
Having found that the health surveyors are technical employees,
we may not, under Board policy, include them in the unit of mainte-
nance employees 10 for which the Petitioner has been certified 11
As stated above, the Petitioner, in the alternative, requests a separate
unit of health surveyors. The record shows, however, that the duties
of health surveyors are similar to, and integrated with those of the
other technical employees of the Employer considered above. Accord-
ingly, we find that a separate unit of health surveyors would not be
sufficiently comprehensive, and therefore would not constitute an
appropriate unit.12
As we have found that health surveyors neither may be included
in the Petitioner's existing unit, nor may constitute a separate appro-
priate unit, we shall dismiss the petition.13
.ORDER
Upon the entire record in this case, the National Labor Relations
Board hereby orders that the petition herein be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
0 Cf. Buckeye Rural Electric Co-operative, Inc., 88 NLRB 196.
10 See footnote 4, above.
11 See Continental Motors Corporation, 73 NLRB 888, and cases cited therein.
12 Cf. Philco Television Service, Inc., 86 NLRB 899.
11 As we are dismissing the petition for the reasons given above, we find it unnecessary
to consider the other issues raised by the parties to this proceeding.