North American Aviation, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 14, 1954

108 N.L.R.B. 863 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION, INC. 863
NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION, INC. and LOCAL 11, INTER-
NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS,
A. F. OF L., Petitioner . Case No. 21-RC-3271. May 14, 1954
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 Leo Fischer,
hearing officer . The hearing officer ' s rulings made at the
hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby
affirmed.'
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 em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning
of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all employees
classified as maintenance ! electricians A, B, and C, and lead-
men employed in the Employer's facilities in southern Cali-
fornia , 5 but excluding all other employees and supervisors as
defined in the Act. The Employer and United Automobile, Air-
craft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Local
887, CIO, herein called the Intervenor, contend that such a unit
is inappropriate and the present production and maintenance
unit represented by the Intervenor is the only appropriate unit.
In 1937 the Employer recognized Local 228 of the UAW-CIO
as collective-bargaining representative for a production and
maintenance unit in the Los Angeles area, and Local 257, UAW-
CIO, as the representative of a unit of both production and
maintenance welders.4 On April 14, 1941, pursuant to a Board-
ordered election, 5 UAW-CIO, Local 683, was certified 6 as
representative of all the Employer's production and mainte-
nance employees in the Los Angeles area, excluding engineer-
'For the reasons stated in paragraph 4, infra, the Employer 's motion to dismiss the in-
stant petition is denied and the Petitioner 's motion to amend the petition is granted.
2 The petition would also include "construction electricians A, B, and C." However, as there
are no employees so classified , discussion of this aspect of the petition is omitted in the text.
6 The Employer's 21 facilities in southern California include the following : Los Angeles
Plant; Dormant Tooling Storage Yard ; Pacific Aviation Facility; Jefferson Facility; Long
Beach Facility; Downey Plant; Mason-Rogers Facility; Maywood Facility; Vernon Facility;
Torrance Facility; Olympic Facility; Advance Facility; Westchester Facility; Engineering
Training School ; Florence Facility; Aviation Boulevard Facility; Crenshaw Facility, Culver
City Facility; Slauson Facility; Aerophysics Training School, and Firestone Facility. All the
above facilities are within an 18-mile radius of the Employer 's main plant and central offices
at the Los Angeles International Airport.
4Subsequently , Local 257 disaffiliated from UAW-CIO and affiliated with an independent
association of welders.
529 NLRB 148; 29 NLRB 154.
630 NLRB 1196.
108 NLRB No. 119.
864 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ing employees and welders. Since July 1942, the Employer and
Intervenor T have entered into a series of collective-bargaining
agreements covering all production and maintenance employ-
ees at the Employer' s various facilities in the Los Angeles
area . The last such agreement expired on October 23, 1953. At
the time of the hearing (September 14-18, 1953), the Employer
and Intervenor were negotiating a new contract.
The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of airframes,
jet aircraft, and guided missiles for the United States Air
Force and Navy. The Employer has plants in the area of Los
Angeles, California, Columbus, Ohio, and Fresno, California.
The Los Angeles plants are the only ones involved herein. The
21 facilities in the Los Angeles area are engaged in production,
experimental , engineering , and storage operations . The total
number of the Employer's employees in the Los Angeles area
is approximately 35,000.
There are approximately 203 employees at the Employer's
Los Angeles facilities who are classified as maintenance
electricians A. B, and C.
The Employer's maintenance operations are under the super-
vision of the plant engineer and are divided into 4 departments:
Departments 41 (machinery maintenance) and42 (buildingmain-
tenance), which operate out of the main plant; department 46,
which is located at the Employer's Downey plant; and depart-
ment 78 , which is awork - control section supporting the 2 main-
tenance departments at the main plant . Most of the electricians
here sought spend the bulk of their time in either department
41 or 46, and occasionally are detailed to certain of the fa-
cilities outside these departments. The rest of the electricians
sought herein are permanently assigned to 4 of the facilities. 8
While employed in department 41 or 46, these electricians
have separate immediate supervision . While assigned or de-
tailed to other facilities, they have the same supervisors as
various classifications of production or maintenance employees
with whom they work.
The various grades of maintenance electricians perform the
following duties:
Maintenance electricians A: They install and maintain elec-
trical systems and such equipment as the electronic controls on
spot-welding machines, skin mills, three-phase motors, public
address and recording systems, and electric furnaces. They
determine the routing of wire and conduits using blueprints,
diagrams, and other specifications. In installing and maintain-
ing the above -mentioned equipment they use wire, wire strippers
and pullers , tape , solder , soldering irons, conduit , insulators,
fuses , and precision instruments such as wire guages, am-
meters , voltmeters, wattmeters , and ohmmeters . They are
t The Intervenor is the successor of Local 683.
8 These facilities are the Crenshaw Facility, Advance Facility, Jefferson Street Facility,
and Pacific Aviation Facility.
NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION, INC. 865
required to perform the mechanical operations necessary to
the dismantling , disassembly , repair , and installation of elec-
trical units.
Normally 3 years' training and experience are required to
acquire the skills necessary for satisfactory performance of
this job.
Maintenance electricians B: They install conduit, junction
boxes, plugs, switches, and lighting fixtures, following verbal
instructions and other specifications. They pull wire, install
and maintain such equipment as public address and recording
systems ( excluding electronic controls ), buzzer systems, door-
bells, chimes , sirens, warning horns , electric door locks,
single-phase motors, machine transformers , and small genera-
tors with less than 150-ampere output. Theywind and tape coils,
and maintain circuit breakers and buss fuses. They also re-
pair portable electrical equipment such as hand drills, buffers,
grinders, and floor polishers. Like maintenance electricians
A, they do mechanical operations necessary to dismantling,
disassembling, repair, and installation of electrical machinery
and use similar materials and tools . They assist maintenance
electricians A as required.
Normally 2 years' training and experience are required to
acquire the skill necessary for the satisfactory performance of
this job. After 3 years in the B classification, an incumbent is
eligible for advancement to maintenance electrician A.
Maintenance electricians C: Their duties are to cut, thread,
bind, couple , and strap conduit as well as to replace light bulbs,
plugs, light fuses , and extensions cords . They oil and grease
electric motors and generators according to routine mainte-
nance schedules and verbal and written instructions. They re-
pair such items as switches , sockets, plates, junction boxes,
and extension cords, and do soldering when necessary. They
disassemble motors, generators , and other electrical equip-
ment, preparatory to repairing and rewinding . They prepare
new extension cord , cut wire and conduit , and wind motors
following detailed instructions. For the most part, they use the
same tools , equipment, and materials as maintenance electri-
cians A and B. They assist the A and B maintenance electri-
cians as required . Normally 3 months ' training is required to
acquire the skills necessary for satisfactory performance of
this job . After 2 years in this classification , an incumbent is
eligible for advancement to maintenance electrician B.
Some of the employees in the foregoing classifications are
also engaged in the construction , as well as maintenance, of
electrical power controls on hydraulic test stands used for
testing purposes to simulate flying conditions , and in the
construction and maintenance of electrical field units used in
the Employer's guided missile department.9
9 The record does not show how many of these maintenance electricians are classified as
A. B, or C.
339676 0 - 55 - 56
866 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
None of the maintenance electricians is required to have a
license . Although the Employer has no apprentice training
program , any employee hired as a maintenance electrician C
receives on-the -job training if he has had no previous electri-
cal experience.
In view of the foregoing , we find that the maintenance elec-
tricians here sought constitute a true craft group such as the
Board has , on numerous occasions , established in separate
units for the purposes of collective bargaining in the aircraft
industry, among others , despite a history of bargaining on a
broader basis. 11
The Employer contends , however , that (1) the duties of the
maintenance electricians are so integrated with those of produc -
tion workers that they may not properly constitute a separate
bargaining unit, and (2 ) the maintenance electricians, in any
event , constitute only a segment of the Employer' s employees
exercising the skills of the electricians ' craft.
As to (1), the principal duties of the maintenance electricians,
as indicated above, are to repair electrical equipment and
electrically powered machinery whenever breakdowns occur,
and to install and rearrange electrical circuits and equipment.
Thus their duties are not repetitive or geared to an assembly-
line operation . In general , there is no interchange of jobs or
duties between these electricians and other production or main-
tenance employees. u
We find, therefore , that the maintenance electricians' work
is not so integrated with that of production employees as to
preclude the severance here sought.
The Employer 's second contention is that the maintenance
electricians unit sought is inappropriate because it does not
include various other employees who allegedly exercise skills
similar to those of the employees sought . To meet this conten-
tion, the Petitioner at the hearing moved to amend its petition
to provide, as an alternative position , for the inclusion in the
unit, in addition to the maintenance electricians, of the follow-
ing categories : "maintenance repairmen who do any electrical
machine labor or maintenance inspectors who do any electri-
cal work." The Intervenor objected to the proposed amendment,
asserting that the Petitioner had not made a sufficient showing
of interest for such an enlarged unit . The motion to amend was
accordingly referred to the Board by the hearing officer. Any
inadequacy in a petitioner ' s showing of interest is not a valid
ground for denying leave to amend a petition , and the motion to
amend the instant petition is hereby granted.
As thus amended , the Petitioner , in effect, seeks, as an
alternative unit position , to add to the maintenance electri-
ICE. g., Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, 77 NLRB 507; Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Cor-
poration, 88 NLRB 49; Ryan Aeronautical Company, 85 NLRB 1189.
u The maintenance electricians do no production work, except on Sundays and on the grave-
yard shift when they will, upon request, load and unload furnaces, change furnace tempera-
tures , and start airplanes, which are jobs ordinarily handled by production employees.
NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION, INC. 867
cians already discussed any other employees who maintain or
repair electrical power units in machinery and all inspectors
of all electrical maintenance work.
To evaluate properly the Employer' s second contention--that
the unit sought is not comprehensive enough- -as applied either
to the original , or alternative , unit position of the Petitioner, it
is necessary to consider all the categories of the Employer's
employees who allegedly exercise the same skills as the
maintenance electricians. They are as follows: Instrument
technicians and instrument mechanics, portable small tool
repairmen , training unit electricians , electrical test equipment
builders, developmental aircraft electricians, production as-
sembly-line electricians (wire workers -electrical bench, as-
semblers-electrical bench, aircraft assemblers -electrical
bench, aircraft assemblers -electrical and radio, final as-
semblers-checkout electricians , assembly line inspectors),
flight-line production electricians , and electronics electricians
who work on aircraft.
Six instrument technicians are engaged in the development,
fabrication , and maintenance of testing equipment for aircraft
instrumentation . This testing equipment is used primarily for
research work and to a lesser degree for testing electrically
powered systems such as automatic flight and power controls
in aircraft . Although instrument technicians use some skills,
tools , and materials similar to those used by the maintenance
electricians , they do not work in the direct line of progression
within the electricians ' craft. Accordingly, we shallnotinclude
them in the group of maintenance electricians. 12
Six instrument mechanics A and 11 instrument mechanics B
repair, calibrate , and check out instruments which are used in
the aircraft being manufactured on the production lines. In
many instances they go down the assembly line and install in-
struments and remove defective instruments . The recordindi-
cates that the instrument mechanics have only a routine knowl-
edge of electricity and they do not exercise all the skills of the
electricians ' craft. Accordingly, we shall not include them in
the maintenance electricians ' group.
Approximately 2 1 portable small tool repairmen , who work
in the Employer' s maintenance department , inspect and main-
tain electrically and pneumatically powered portable tools and
equipment such as spray guns , electric sanders and saws, port-
able pumps, and vacuum cleaners . They replace armatures,
coils, and brushes in small electric motors and repair exten-
sion and lead-in cords. Although these employees have some
knowledge of basic electrical principles , they are not engaged
in general electrical work. Major electrical maintenance prob-
lems such as the repair and overhaul of large electric motors
are handled by the maintenance electricians and not by the
portable small tool repairmen . Such employees, therefore,
2 See e. g. American Potash & Chemical Corporation. 107 NLRB 1418.
8 68 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
may not appropriately be joined with the maintenance electri-
cians. 13
Six training unit electricians plan and assemble electrically
and electronically controlled systems of training units used to
demonstrate mechanisms , systems, controls , and special fea-
tures of aircraft . Although these employees exercise some of
the skills of the maintenance electricians , they do not work in
the direct line of progression within the electricians ' craft.
Accordingly, we shall not include them in the group of main-
tenance electricians.
Approximately 45 electrical test equipment builders and 6
electrical test equipment inspectors are employed in the Em-
ployer' s electrical and radio department . These employees
build, maintain, and inspect electrical test equipment which is
used to make various checks on the many electrical systems
installed in the aircraft during the production process. These
checks are made under simulated flight conditions.
Developmental aircraft technicians are composed of 150 air-
craft mechanics and 61 electrical and radio "mock-up" men
working together as a team. The mechanics perform all - around
mechanical work on experimental aircraft but the record does
not indicate what, if any, electrical work they perform. The
"mock-up" men plan, fabricate , and assemble wiring, har-
nesses, and electrical and radio panels in experimental air-
craft.
Wire workers - electrical bench perform a routine type of wire
fabrication which, the Employer admits, requires no skill such
as is required of the maintenance electricians.
Assemblers-electrical bench assemble wire harnesses usedin
the aircraft produced by the Employer . In addition , they assist
electrical and radio "mock-up" men and electrical test equip-
ment builders.
Aircraft assemblers-electrical and radio install electrical
and radio equipment in the aircraft on the production assembly
line.
Final assemblers -checkout electricians make the final opera-
tional checkout of the entire electrical and communication sys-
tems of all aircraft as they come from final assembly and prior
to delivery to the flight field for preflight operations. They
diagnose and locate the cause of malfunctions in an aircraft's
electrical and communications systems and make any neces-
sary adjustments , alterations , or repairs on the assembly line.
Assembly-line inspectors , as their classification implies,
inspect the aircraft along the assembly lines and on final
assembly to see that the electrical systems installed in the
aircraft are in conformity with specifications.
Flight line production electricians are comprised of flight
line electricians A and B, flight line checkout electricians,
13General Electric Company, 89 NLRB 726 at page 753.
NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION, INC. 869
and flight line electrical inspectors A and B. These employees
work on the assembly line. After final assembly of aircraft,
they diagnose, correct, and repair any malfunctions found in
the automatic pilot, bomb controls, and the heating, ventilating,
and radio systems. They make their diagnoses under simulated
flight conditions.
Aircraft electronics electricians comprise four classifica-
tions of employees : Electronics checkout men, electronics
mechanics , electronics inspectors , and inspectors - electronics
equipment. These employees have trouble-shooting and check-
ing-out duties with respect to the aircraft electronic systems,
such as radar , fire control , and the automatic pilot.
We do not agree with the Employer ' s contention that the
foregoing categories of employees exercise skills similar to
those of the maintenance electricians . Although most of these
employees have a basic knowledge of electricity , they do not
perform all phases of electrical maintenance work as do the
maintenance electricians . Most of them , moreover, perform
work that is an integral part of the production process.
We believe the employees sought herein meet the test for
severance of a craft unit recently enunciated by us in the
American Potash n case . They constitute a distinct group of
craft employees such as the Board has traditionally deemed to
be entitled to separate representation despite a history of
bargaining on a broader basis . The Petitioner, moreover, is
affiliated with an international union which has historically
represented separate units of maintenance electricians in
industrial plants, including aircraft manufacturing plants.
In view of the foregoing , and upon the entire record, the
Board finds that the following employees may, if they so
desire , constitute a separate appropriate unit for the purposes
of collective bargaining: All maintenance electricians A, B, and
C and leadmen employed in the Employer's facilities in south-
ern California , excluding all other employees , guards and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
If a majority vote for the Petitioner , they will be taken to
have indicated their desire to constitute a separate appropriate
unit, and the Regional Director conducting the election directed
herein is instructed to issue a certification of representatives
to the Petitioner for that unit which the Board , under such
circumstances , finds to be appropriate for purposes of collec-
tive bargaining. In the event a majority vote for the Intervenor,
the Board finds the existing plantwide unit to be appropriate
and the Regional Director will issue a certification of results of
election to such effect.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
14107 NLRB 1418.