Monsanto Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 16, 1970

183 N.L.R.B. 415 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

MONSANTO COMPANY 415
Monsanto Company and Communications Workers
of America , AFL-CIO. Case 14-RC-6002
June 16, 1970
DECISION ON APPEAL AND ORDER
By MEMBERS FANNING, MCCULLOCH, BROWN, AND
JENKINS
On August 7, 1968, the Communications Wor-
kers of America, AFL-CIO, hereinafter CWA, filed
a petition seeking to represent certain employees at
the Employer's St. Peters, Missouri, plant. On Sep-
tember 5, 1968, the Regional Director for Region
14 administratively dismissed the petition finding
that the maintenance unit sought was inappropriate
as the maintenance employees in his view did not
constitute a readily identifiable group of employees
with a distinct community of interest apart from
other employees. Thereafter, the CWA filed an ap-
peal from the Regional Director's dismissal with the
National Labor Relations Board in Washington,
D.C., contending that the maintenance unit sought
was appropriate.
The Board concluded that the appeal raised sub-
stantial and material issues which could best be
resolved on the basis of record testimony and, ac-
cordingly, on October 11, 1968, reversed the Re-
gional Director's dismissal of the petition, rein-
stated the petition, and directed that a hearing be
held on the issues raised by the appeal. The hearing
opened on November 7, 1968, and was continued
on various dates thereafter until May 20, 1969. Fol-
lowing the hearing and pursuant to Section
102.67(h) of the Board's Rules and Regulations
and Statements of Procedure , Series 8, as amended,
the Regional Director by an order dated May 23,
1969, transferred the case to the Board in Washing-
ton, D.C., for decision. Thereafter, the parties filed
briefs in support of their respective positions.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af-
firmed.
Upon the entire record in the case,' including the
briefs, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of certain employees of
the Employer within the meaning of Section 2(6)
and (7) of the Act for the following reasons:
The CWA seeks a maintenance unit of approxi-
mately 57 employees, including electronic main-
tenance technicians, mechanical maintenance
technicians, maintenance utility men, a quartz
repairman, and custodians. The CWA contends
that the maintenance employees constitute an ap-
propriate unit in that they compose an identifiable
homogeneous group of employees sharing a com-
munity of interest which is separate and distinct
from that of the production employees. Alternative-
ly, the CWA, as stated at the hearing, seeks to
represent only the electronic and the mechanical
maintenance technicians who, it contends, exercise
electronic and mechanical craft skills. The Em-
ployer contends that the petition should be
dismissed and that, because of the highly integrated
nature of its operations and the mutuality of in-
terests and homogeneity of all hourly employees,
only an overall plant unit of production and main-
tenance hourly employees is appropriate.
At its St. Peters' plant, the Employer is engaged
in the development and manufacture of electronic
grade silicon semiconductor material, which is used
for military electronic computers, missile guidance
systems, radar systems, sonar systems, nuclear
systems, space vehicle control systems, solar cells,
and testing and measuring equipment. It employs
some 484 employees. The entire plant operates 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, on a four-shift basis.
The plant began production in 1960 and has ex-
panded in size from 15,000 square feet under roof
to 80,000 square feet under root. The plant's
operations are automated and extensively instru-
mented. Its equipment is of a highly sophisticated
nature. The manufacturing operation is divided into
six basic process areas in which the silicon semicon-
ductor material is produced from chemical solution
and the raw material processed by a variety of
methods. Before the finished product emerges it
will have been refined by one or more crystalliza-
tion processes and thereafter ground, sawed,
lapped, and polished to extremely close tolerances
by production employees. One end use of the
product calls for the deposition of an ultra-thin
layer of a metallic substance or substances on the
surface of the silicon crystal. The mechanical and
other equipment in use is often a product of the
Employer's own design or is standard equipment
modified by the Employer to meet its particular
requirements.
Although the maintenance classifications are
under the primary superintendent-level responsibili-
' As the record and briefs adequately present the issues and the positions
of the parties, the Employer 's request for oral argument is hereby denied
183 NLRB No. 53
416 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ty of the plant's mechanical superintendent, this in-
dividual also has manufacturing responsibilities for
one of the six process areas with authority over
more than 100 production classification employees.
He also has responsibility for the purchasing,
receiving, and stores functions in the plant.
Furthermore, while the maintenance classification
employees are assigned to four administrative
group leaders for the purposes of pay, record
handling, overtime equalization, vacation schedul-
ing, and handling leaves, sickness, grievances, and
other personnel matters, the contact between main-
tenance personnel and their group leaders is limited
and the leaders share their administrative authority
with the production foremen who directly supervise
all maintenance employees who are assigned to
maintenance work in the respective production
areas. There is little work contact among main-
tenance classification employees of the same ad-
ministrative group and no work contact between
employees of different administrative groups.
Each of the six process area groups and each
rotating multiclassification production group con-
tain production and maintenance salaried and
hourly classifications, all of whom regularly work
within the same process areas2 on the same kinds of
equipment and under the immediate direction and
control of production supervisors. In fact, 34 of the
37 electronic and mechanical maintenance techni-
cians, who comprise a majority of the requested
unit , spend 80 to 95 percent of their time perform-
ing on-site routine preventive maintenance,
troubleshooting, and general repair functions in
production areas in contact and in conjunction with
the work performance of production classifications.
The area-adjunctive shops are used infrequently by
maintenance employees, and then only for perform-
ing minor repairs and adjustment requiring little
time and for holding occasional safety talks or ad-
ministrative meetings . Work functions have
frequently been reassigned from maintenance clas-
sifications to production classifications and vice
versa. Similarly, production and maintenance clas-
sification employees perform many of the same or
similar functions, frequently and regularly work
together, and during slack production periods,
production employees are regularly assigned to
maintenance utility crews to avoid laying them off.
Only production supervisors determine work
requirements and maintenance priorities. In addi-
tion, production supervisors have authority to
recommend the discharge of maintenance em-
2 There is a I-year to 1-1/2 year minimum service requirement in each
process area
' There is no basis in the instant case for concluding that the employees
sought have similar skills On the contrary , it appears that they are a diverse
ployees as well as of production employees,
although all hiring and firing is done by the person-
nel department.
Employees in the production and maintenance
classifications are subject to common safety stan-
dards and provisions, attend on-the-job training and
instruction sessions together, utilize the same
operating procedures distinctive to each process
area, and are trained with the same source materi-
als and operating procedures. In hiring employees
for general maintenance jobs, the Employer im-
poses no experience or background requirement.
As to the electronic and mechanical maintenance
technician classifications, the record shows that the
Employer merely requires some practical ex-
perience and a basic knowledge of the fundamen-
tals of electronics or mechanics. In fact, 22 of the
37 employees in the electronic maintenance techni-
cian and mechanical maintenance technician clas-
sifications, the one quartz repairman, and all the
maintenance utility employees were originally
production employees. The record clearly demon-
strates that maintenance classification personnel in
the electronic and mechanical maintenance techni-
cian categories can and do "bump back" to
production classification jobs in the event of a
reduction in force. In like fashion, the record shows
that maintenance classification personnel in the
electronic and mechanical maintenance technician
classifications bid into production technician jobs.
Plant seniority is determinative on all job bids and
with respect to layoffs and recalls. All employees,
regardless of classification, share substantially the
same working conditions and enjoy the same fringe
benefits.
Based on the entire record, we are persuaded
that any separate community of interest which the
maintenance employees might enjoy3 has been lar-
gely submerged in the broader community of in-
terest which they share with the production em-
ployees.4 This is so by reason of the fact that, as
noted, the majority of the maintenance classifica-
tions spend 80 to 95 percent of the time on the
production floor in contact with production em-
ployees and work in conjunction with them under
common supervision, that production and main-
tenance employees perform similar functions and
frequently work together using the same
procedures and tools, that work functions have
frequently been reassigned from maintenance clas-
sifications to production classifications and vice
versa, that maintenance employees are recruited
group of employees ranging from unskilled custodians to relatively skilled
technicians.
4 Dundee Cement Company, 170 NLRB 422 , U.S Plywood-Champion
Papers, Inc , 174 NLRB 292
MONSANTO COMPANY
largely from the production ranks, that main-
tenance employees have the right to "bump back"
into production work in the event of a layoff, and
that both production and maintenance employees
enjoy common working conditions and fringe
benefits.
In view of the above, it is apparent that American
Cyanamid Company, the case on which our dissent-
ing colleague places primary reliance, involves en-
tirely different facts and is thus inapplicable.' We
also note that in that case the Board did not state
that every maintenance department must automati-
cally be found to be an appropriate unit , but only
that such a unit may be appropriate where the
record esgablishes "that maintenance employees
are readily identifiable as a group whose similarity
of function and skills create a community of in-
terest such as would warrant separate representa-
tion."' In applying this dynamic standard, which
takes into account the circumstances of each case,
the Board has since both granted and denied
separate representation to maintenance department
employees depending on the particular facts before
it.
Upon our evaluation of the facts of this case, as
set forth above, we conclude that the maintenance
unit sought herein is not composed of a distinct and
homogeneous group of employees with interests
separate from those of other employees, and hence
is not an appropriate unit.
Furthermore, we conclude that the electronic
and the mechanical maintenance technicians do not
constitute a separate appropriate unit on a craft ba-
sis.' None of the electronic or mechanical main-
tenance technicians is a licensed journeyman, and
none was selected for his job because he possessed
a particular craft skill. In essence they are equip-
ment area specialists or technicians rather than
craftsmen and neither possess nor exercise the full
gamut of craft skills. The Employer has no ap-
prentice programs or formal training courses lead-
ing to a status of journeyman craftsman. All train-
ing is on the job and equipment-related. Moreover,
major repairs are performed by independent con-
tractors. Finally, it is clear that by far the greater
number of them need possess no more than limited
skills in order to perform the functions required of
them for the maintenance of the Employer's auto-
mated production process.
' 131 NLRB 909 We find that decision is distinguishable on its facts and
is not controlling in the instant case Thus, in contrast with the findings
herein, there was no interchange between production and maintenance
employees , the majority of the maintenance classifications did not spend
80 to 95 percent of the time on the production floor in contact and in con-
junction with the work performance of the production employees and
under the immediate direction and control of production supervisors, and
all the maintenance department employees had similar functions and skills,
whereas in the instant case the employees sought are a diverse group rang-
417
Accordingly, we shall, in view of the foregoing,
grant the Employer's motion to dismiss the petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
MEMBER FANNING, dissenting:
Having remanded this case to the Region for a
hearing , my colleagues now dismiss , finding a
separate maintenance unit at this unorganized plant
inappropriate.
In the group sought by Petitioner are electronic
maintenance technicians and mechanical main-
tenance technicians-about 37 of these, who, it ap-
pears, are the highest paid group of hourly em-
ployees at the plant-plus maintenance utility men,
a quartz repairman, and custodians, altogether a
total of 57. Characterizing these maintenance em-
ployees as "diverse, ranging from unskilled custodi-
ans to relatively skilled technicians," my colleagues
conclude that any inherent common interest the
group may have had as maintenance employees has
been "largely submerged" in the broader interest
which occurs by working in proximity with other
employees no matter what their function or specific
skill.
Actually this is typical maintenance unit. Three
employees work full time in the machine shop in
the modification building. Six rotate round the
clock, with the rotating production shifts, in order
to keep operative equipment which can be kept
running without major repair. The others, who are
the great preponderance of the noncustodial main-
tenance employees, work a fixed-day shift from 8 to
4 or 4:30 doing precautionary maintenance, and
making major repairs and modifications, pursuant
to schedules drawn up by maintenance supervisors
who work the same fixed shift. Units of main-
tenance employees engaged in similar work have
long been granted by the Board on initial organiza-
tion." Increased automation, of course, has meant
that electronic skills are more and more included.
Essentially the unit sought is the unit approved by
my colleagues in the lead case ofAmerican Cyana-
mid Company, 131 NLRB 909. That decision re-
versed a dismissal in the same case grounded on the
presence of another union seeking a combined
production and maintenance unit (130 NLRB 1, fn.
6). I dissented. In reversing, my colleagues agreed
mg from unskilled custodians to relatively skilled technicians The other
cases cited in the dissenting opinion are also inapposite as their facts are
entirely different from the facts herein
lbid at 910
' Potlatch Forests, Inc, 165 NLRB 1065, Dundee Cement Company,
supra
" Allied Chemical & Dye Corporation , 120 NLRB 63 , 67, and cases there
cited
418 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
with my position and, with full cognizance of auto-
mation, technological change, and industrial ad-
vancement, found that these maintenance em-
ployees at an acrylic fiber plant having "integrated
operations" had not lost their identity as perform-
ing a function separate from production.
;Although there is no union here that wishes to
represent both production and maintenance em-
ployees, and although the Employer asserts con-
tinuous operation less as a fact than an asserted
necessity because of the defense orientation of sil-
icon production and the "job order" nature of the
plant's business,9 my colleagues deny a main-
tenance unit. 10 In reaching their result they rely on
recent cases which supplied the pattern for today's
full-cycle change of position from American
Cyanamid, lead case since 1961. I dissented in Dun-
dee." Member Zagoria and I dissented in U.S.
Plywood-Champion Paper, Inc.12 One was a new
plant and the other had had no organization for a
period of years. At both, plantwide as well as main-
tenance units were being sought; plantwide units
were granted by my colleagues.
Perhaps my colleagues equate Dundee and U.S.
Plywood-Champion Paper with a new rule, one
which no longer permits separate maintenance
units at an unorganized plant in any circumstances.
If so, then surely it is time to say, in so many words,
that American Cyanamid is overruled. Orderly
procedure and fairness to those seeking to
represent maintenance employees would seem to
require that."
The Employer here repeatedly asserts that there
is little distinction between "production techni-
cians" and "maintenance technicians." The latter
and other maintenance employees it refers to as
only one of many "support" employees. Yet it
quotes testimony in its brief belying the lack of
distinction between production and maintenance.
For example, at p. 79: "Production technicians
don't have the time to go into major repair work.
° This does not appear to be a continuous flow plant as in E I DuPont de
Nemours & Co , 162 NLRB 413, 415, where, as my colleagues and I found,
"maintenance work must be done in such a manner as to keep the produc-
tion process operating constantly, even during repair of the electrical and
electronic controls which regulate the flow of the product " There, em-
ployees did not personally process the raw or finished product at any time,
contrary to the import of the instant record concerning raw material
processing Here, according to the Employer, the production of silicon is
"tailor-made" to customer specification; "production requirements" are
"slack" at times in some work areas and production employees are then
assigned to other duties; "site development of products and processes" is
the norm-and "substantive and substantial plant changes" occur for
"each advanced and changed variant "
10 Compare the result here with that in Mesta Machine Company, 167
NLRB 99, where-no broader unit being sought-my colleagues granted a
powerhouse unit, and with DuPont. referred to in the footnote above,
where only an electrical craft unit was sought and this was granted despite
the continuous manufacturing process (on which point American Cyanamid
was cited) and despite frequent employee contact between electricians and
production employees, the former spending 90 percent of their time in the
This is what the mechanical maintenance and elec-
tronic maintenance are therefor." And, at p. 72, it
describes the six-shift EMT's (electronic main-
tenance technicians) "who rotate across the plant's
continuous operations" in order to keep running
that equipment which can be kept operative "with-
out a major repair." Testimony of this sort
hardly supports the conclusion that industrial
progress has reached the point at this plant of
obliterating the distinctiveness of the maintenance
function. Nor, would I say, that the fixed, day-shift
work schedule of the great preponderance of main-
tenance employees and of their supervisors sup-
ports any such conclusion. Nor do the four rotating
production shifts support that conclusion because
of their help from the six-shift EMT's. Nor does the
Employer's emphasis on production supervision of
maintenance personnel, which, on careful study,
seems revealed as the power to veto scheduled
overhaul rather than to direct maintenance work in
progress. In American Cyanamid my colleagues
spoke of "adjusting" future Board decisions to
reflect the "evolving realities of industrial
progress." I did not understand those words to
mean adjustment for adjustment's sake, regardless
of industrial reality.
My colleagues purport to distinguish American
Cyanamid in a context of broadly generalized
testimony amassed over an 18-month period con-
cerning the maintenance function at this plant. 14 I
would direct an election in the maintenance unit as
requested. No broader unit is sought. Employees
with specific skills of the sort represented here-
and their support employees-engaged in precau-
tionary maintenance, major repairs, equipment
modifications, and troubleshooting, are entitled
under the Act to that choice.
To me it seems time for my colleagues to fish or
cut bait with respect to American Cyanamid, the
lead case of the last decade on the subject of main-
tenance units at unorganized plants.
production area after reporting to one of four focal points for electricians
170 NLRB 422
tY 174 NLRB 292
" In its brief the Petitioner stresses the similarity in the maintenance or-
ganization at American Cyanamid and that at the instant plant , both having
maintenance carried out by separate departmentalized sections with their
own first-line supervision , in addition to second-line maintenance supervi-
sion The Union also stresses the function of production workers, as in
American Cyanamid, to clear or set up equipment for repairs, but without
any joint participation in the repair itself other than the turning of a switch
or checking a dial in the course of the repair by maintenance personnel
" I agree wholeheartedly with my colleagues that the standard set forth
in American Cyanamid is "dynamic," the more so perhaps because the facts
were so broadly stated there separate departmental sections of main-
tenance employees with own supervision, varied maintenance work for en-
tire plant , exercising the particular skills required, and frequent work in
groups, sometimes in conjunction with production workers whose function
is incidental to the preparation of equipment for repairs by maintenance
employees Nevertheless my colleagues continue to "read in" factual
distinctions with current cases even as here where no other unit is sought