Noranda Aluminum, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 31, 1970

186 N.L.R.B. 217 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

NORANDA ALUMINUM, INC. 217
Noranda Aluminum , Inc. and United Steelworkers of
America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 14-RC-6363
October 31, 1970
DECISION AND ORDER
BY MEMBERS FANNING, BROWN, AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before Hearing Officer, Neil E. McDarby.
Following the hearing, and pursuant to Section 102.67
of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and
Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as
amended, and by direction of the Regional Director
for Region 14, this case was transferred to the
National Labor Relations Board for decision. Both
the Employer and the Petitioner have filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel.
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 this case, including the
briefs filed herein, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the
policies 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 concern-
ing the representation of certain employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
The Employer is in the basic aluminum industry,
and engaged in the manufacture and distribution of
finished and unfinished aluminum products. Its
operations are conducted at New Madrid, Missouri.
At the time of the hearing, it employed about 38
employees excluding management and supervisors,
professional employees, guards and office clerical
employees at its New Madrid site, with plans to
employ upwards of 425 such employees in the near
future, as new operations start up. Petitioner seeks a
unit of all production and maintenance employees,
and the laboratory technicians, employed at the
Employer's wire and cable plant located at New
Madrid.
The Employer contends that the only appropriate
unit is a unit including all production and mainte-
nance employees employed at the entire New Madrid
facility, including the wire and cable plant and the
reduction mill, and excluding laboratory technicians,
on the ground that the Employer's facility at New
Madrid is an integrated operation. The Employer
further contends that the petition is premature
because the reduction mill is still under construction,
there is not a representative number of employees
employed, an insufficient number of contemplated
job classifications are filled, and there is not a
representative number of employees in a substantial
number of the job classifications.
Noranda Aluminum, Inc., is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Noranda Mines, Limited, a Canadian
corporation, and was formed in 1968 for the purpose
of entering into the basic aluminum industry in the
United States and of supplying aluminum to two other
subsidiaries of Noranda Mines, the Canada Wire and
Cable Company, and Pacific Coast Company. At the
peak performance of the New Madrid facility as
presently being formed, projected to take place
around April 1971, approximately two-thirds of the
aluminum being produced in the reduction mill will
be diverted to Canada Wire and Cable Co. and
Pacific Coast Co., and approximately one-third of it
will be used in the fabrication of wire and cable at the
cable plant at the New Madrid facility. That alumi-
num which will go to the off-site subsidiaries of
Noranda Mines will be manufactured as a semifin-
ished product in the metal services department of the
reduction mill in New Madrid, and will be shipped
mainly in forms of billets, pig and sow and ingots. The
onsite cable plant will get hot metal directly from the
potrooms. Thus, the aluminum which is refined in the
potrooms of the reduction mill will be transported in
the form of hot metal to the cable plant, to be
fashioned into a finished product, and to the metal
services department, for the manufacture of semifin-
ished products.
The entire facility, including the reduction mill and
cable plant, is located at St. Jude Industrial Park in
New Madrid. There is a road that runs between the
reduction mill and the cable plant, and the two are at
present several hundred feet apart, with plans for
possible expansion which will lessen this distance.
Each of these two parts of the facility has a fence
around it, with a guard, and its own parking lot.
At the time of the hearing, the cable plant was the
only department of the New Madrid facility which
was in production, getting its aluminum from an
, We have reviewed the Petitioner's contention that the Hearing our determination of the issues was brought to our attention, and the
Officer's granting of parts of the Employees petition to revoke subpeona Petitioner was not prejudiced by the granting of portions of the Employer's
duces tecum , B-87906 , was in error . We have also examined the entire petition.
record and briefs, and find that all of the relevant evidence necessary for
186 NLRB No. 37
218 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
outside source. About November 1, 1970, the rest of
the facility is expected to be in operation and the flow
of hot aluminum to the cable plant and metal services
is to begin.
The record shows that the cable plant was con-
structed and put into operation before the rest of the
facility for the purpose of building a market for its
product, and because it takes about a year for the
machinery to be completely debugged and production
to reach a standard commercially acceptable to the
manufacturer.
At the time of the hearing, there were about 38
hourly employees at the facility, about 30 of whom
were working at the cable plant. With a hiring
program which is predicted to reach its peak in April
or May of 1971, the Employer expects to employ
upwards of 425 employees, with about 60 employees
at work in the cable plant. The Employer's expecta-
tions are that a representative portion of these
employees will be employed by November 1, 1970,
when the flow of hot metal begins.
The employees in the cable plant are separated from
those in the reduction mill in that they are in a
separate building with a parking lot away from the
other buildings, which is itself surrounded by a fence
with a guard at the gate. In this building they have
their own lunch area, restrooms, and timeclock (as
have other areas of the facility), and they have their
own showerroom. The cable plant also produces a
different product and, for the most part, on different
machines than does the rest of the facility, thus
making the job functions of many of the employees
different from others in the facility. Most of the
employees in the unit sought are under the day-to-day
supervision of the cable plant superintendent. It is not
contemplated that there will be much interchange
between these employees and the employees of the
rest of the facility although a small amount is
contemplated. The cable plant will perhaps work
more or less shifts than some other departments.
These are factors which might lead to a determination
that a unit of cable plant employees is appropriate.
On the other hand, and more compelling, are factors
that lead to a determination that the cable plant is
only another department in a highly integrated
facility. There is one personnel department which
hires employees for the entire facility using the same
job application form. The vast majority of the
employees are hired as trainees at the same pay and
assigned to the departments in need of them, where
they are trained to work on individual machines. The
job functions of many of the employees throughout
the facility are either identical, or require comparable
skills and training. The cable plant employees do not
possess as a group any unique skills other than those
in which they were trained by foremen from through-
out the facility. All employees of the facility enjoy the
same fringe benefits, health insurance plans, and
safety training given by the personnel department.
In management and administration , the entire
facility is integrated . There is one general manager in
charge of the entire facility. Answering directly to him
are a number of staff personnel including the
industrial relations director , who is responsible for
employment , labor relations , safety, first-aid, and
plant protections for the entire facility ; a controller in
charge of all accounting, cost analysis , and related
items for the entire facility; a sales manager and sales
department for the entire facility; one production
planner ; one technical superintendent responsible for
laboratories and quality control ; one purchasing
department , responsible for all purchasing , traffic,
and the general warehouse ; one works engineer; a
mechanical and engineering superintendent who is in
charge of maintenance , throughout the facility
(Although maintenance employees in different de-
partments may be under the day-to-day supervision
of the superintendent of the department). The
superintendents of all the different manufacturing
departments of the facility (including the cable plant),
are also directly responsible to the General Manager.
Functionally, the cable plant is an integral part of
the facility, and its entire facility. Likewise, the record
shows that the productive and uninterrupted opera-
tions of the other departments of the facility are
dependent upon the efficient and continued operation
of the cable plant.
In view of the foregoing, and all the facts as
disclosed in the record, we are persuaded that the
requested unit does not possess a degree of functional
distinctness and autonomy which would warrant a
finding that the cable plant employees have a separate
community of interest apart from the other employees
and therefore it may not be represented as a separate
appropriate unit . We also will not order an election in
a larger unit at this time noting that a representative
number of employees have not yet been employed,
nor a representative number of classifications filled.
However, this does not preclude the Petitioner or any
other labor organization from filing a petition for an
appropriate unit at the proper time and upon the
proper showing of interest . We shall, therefore,
dismiss , without prejudice, the petition herein.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition in Case
14-RC-6363 be , and it hereby is, dismissed.