North American Aviation, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 22, 1960

127 N.L.R.B. 356 (N.L.R.B. 1960)

356 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
North American Aviation , Inc.' and International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 21-RC-
6015. April 22, 1960
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Floyd C. Brewer, 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 [Member Rodgers, Jenkins, and Fanning].
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 certain em-
ployees 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 the research, development, and manu-
facture of airframes, missiles, rocket engines, nuclear reactors, and
component parts at its various plants and facilities throughout the
United States. Its operations in the Los Angeles area are divided into
five operating divisions : Los Angeles, Missile, Autonetics, Rocket-
dyne, and Atomics International.
The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit composed of all the employ-
ees of department 704 of the Employer's Atomics International
Division.' The employees sought are located at three facilities in the
Los Angeles area : the Santa Susana facility, the 21600 West Vanowen
facility, and the Desoto Street facility. The Intervenor contends that
1 The Employer' s name appears as amended at the hearing
z The hearing officer properly rejected an exhibit and offer of proof dealing with work
performed at the Employer' s Rocketdyne Division . We have examined the exhibit and
are convinced it has no bearing on the question of the appropriateness of a unit of
department 704 employees at the Atomics International Division.
The Employer 's motion to strike the testimony of witnesses Bowes, Bradfield , Mahoney,
and Faulconer and any other testimony dealing with the relationship between the Em-
ployer's departments 6 and 9 , and department 56, is denied . Although this testimony has
little relevancy to the unit issue , the Employer was in no way prejudiced by its admission
and we do not rely on it as a basis for our Decision and Order.
8 United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, UAW,
AFL-OIO, was permitted to intervene on the basis of both a contractual and a card-
showing of interest.
4 At the hearing, the Petitioner amended its petition to exclude the classifications of
welder, reactor component senior, and welder, reactor component , at the 21600 West
Vanowen and Desoto Street facilities.
127 NLRB No. 50.
NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION, INC. 357
all of these employees are covered by a current collective-bargaining
agreement between the Employer and the Intervenor, and that the
agreement therefore bars any election.
We find no merit in the Intervenor's contention. The record shows
that, with respect to the employees at Santa Susana, there is no
history of collective bargaining I and, with respect to department 704
employees generally, neither the Employer nor the Intervenor has
even treated these employees as part of the existing bargaining unit.'
There remains, however, the question of the appropriateness of a
unit of department 704 employees. The Employer contends that any
unit limited to less than all of the plants of the Employer in the Los
Angeles area is inappropriate, and also that the employees in depart-
ment 704 alone do not constitute a functionally distinct and homo-
geneous group of a kind that the Board has recognized as appropriate
for separate representation.
All of the department 704 employees at the Employer's Atomics
International Division are located at three facilities : Santa Susana,
21600 Vanowen, and Desoto.
Department 704 bears the title of Research and Development Shops
and Electronics Shop on the Employer's organizational chart of the
Atomics International Division. The department 704 employees
sought by the Petitioner have the following job classifications : engine
lathe operator, senior; glassblower, laboratory apparatus; G.S.E.
electrician; G.S.E. electrical installer; instrument mechanic, elec-
tronics; lathe machinist; machinist, engineering development, senior;
machinist engineering development; material stock clerk; mechanic,
A.E.R. laboratory, senior; mechanic, A.E.R. laboratory; mechanic,
engineering laboratory; mechanic, engineering laboratory, junior;
milling machine machinist; milling machine operator, senior; reactor
assembly mechanic; saw operator, band; utility man, machine shop;
5 North American Aviation, Inc, 120 NLRB 1155, 1157.
6In reaching this conclusion, we rely on the following : (1) The uncontradleted testi-
mony of the Employer's corporate director of labor relations that in the entire period
since 1946 during which be has conducted collective bargaining for the Employer, the
Intervenor has never claimed that department 704 employees were part of the existing
bargaining unit; (2) the fact that there are no districts or zones that include depart-
ment 704 employees or district stewards or zone committeemen who represent such em-
ployees as there are for other employees in the bargaining unit; (3) many of the
employees in department 704 are in classifications not covered by the existing collective-
bargaining agreement; (4) the periodic seniority lists covering all bargaining unit em-
ployees in the Los Angeles area, which are furnished to the Intervenor pursuant to the
terms of the collective-bargaining agreement, have never included any department 704
employees, and the Intervenor has never objected to this omission ; (5) the union -security,
check-of, and grievance-procedure provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement have
never been applied to the employees of department 704 ; (6) the nature of past grievances
filed by the Intervenor against the Employer clearly indicates that the Intervenor itself
never considered the department 704 employees to be part of the certified unit as the
grievances are based on the contention that nonbargaining unit personnel were perform-
ing work that was normally performed by bargaining unit employees . See General
Electric Company, 119 NLRB 1233. See also Milens , 124 NLRB 389 ; Red Dot Food8,
Inc., 114 NLRB 145; Bell Aircraft Corporation, 98 NLRB 1277.
358 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and additionally, at Santa Susana, welder, reactor components, senior,
and welder, reactor component.
There are 8 other departments at Atomics International which have
employees with many, if not most, of the same classifications as the
employees in department 704, and in the Los Angeles area there are
a total of 73 departments that have employees with similar classifi-
cations. All of the employees with similar job classifications exercise
similar skills and are interchangeable regardless of the department
and facility in which they work.
The department 704 employees sought by the Petitioner work in
a large number of physically dispersed work areas, and under different
physical and security clearance conditions. They not only have no
contact with the Employer's production employees, but are more
likely to see and work with employees of other engineering depart-
ments than with other employees of department 704.
The employees who comprise department 704 originally came from
other engineering shops of the Employer. They are primarily as-
signed in work teams to assist the Employer's engineers in research
engineering, and are frequently loaned to various engineering de-
partments for specific projects.
There is a substantial amount of interchange between department
704 employees and employees of other departments of the Atomics
International Division. Between January 1, and October 1, 1959, for
example, 12 employees transferred into department 704 from other
Atomics International departments, and during the same period, 35
employees moved from department 704 to other departments.
It is apparent that the department 704 employees do not comprise
a unit which may appropriately be represented separately. The 23
classifications in that department represent a heterogeneous grouping
of employees with differing skills who have been administratively
gathered by the Employer to be used on various engineering research
projects. In view of the foregoing, as well as the wide physical dis-
persion of the employees, the similarity of their work to that of other
employees in similar classifications, and the interchange of department
704 employees with employees of other departments, we find that a
unit limited to department 704 employees is inappropriate.'
At the close of the hearing, the Petitioner made a request for an
alternative unit in the event the Board should deny its primary re-
quest. The alternative request was for a unit of all employees in all
the departments at Santa Susana, 21600 West Vanowen and Desoto
Streets who hold the 23 job classifications in department 704 and who
7 See J. H. Baxter and Company, 118 NLRB 682 ; Wyman-Gordon Co., 117 NLRB 75.
In view of our finding that a unit of department 704 employees is not appropriate as a
functionally distinct departmental unit, we deem it unncessary to consider the Employer's
argument that a unit limited to less than all the Employer 's plants in the Los Angeles
area is inappropriate.
MERLIN NOVELTY CO., INC. 359
are not now covered by any collective-bargaining agreements. The
Employer and Intervenor vigorously objected to this alternative re-
quest and the Petitioner offered no evidence whatsoever as to the ap-
propriateness of the alternative unit. As there is no evidence on which
to determine the appropriateness of the alternative unit, we deny the
Petitioner's request.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
Merlin Novelty Co ., Inc. and United Hatters, Cap & Millinery
Workers International Union, AFL-CIO and Local 144, Serv-
ice, Production and Maintenance Workers, Independent, Party
to the Contract
Local 144, Service, Production and Maintenance Workers, Inde-
pendent and United Hatters, Cap & Millinery Workers Inter-
national Union , AFL-CIO and Merlin Novelty Co ., Inc., Party
to the Contract . Cases Nos. 2-CA-6669 and 2-CB-2638. April
25, 1960
DECISION AND ORDER
On December 16, 1959, Trial Examiner C. W. Whittemore issued
his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that
the Respondent Company and the Respondent Union had engaged in
and were engaging in certain unfair labor practices and recommend-
ing that they cease and desist therefrom and take certain affirmative
action, as set forth in the copy of the Intermediate Report attached
hereto. Thereafter the Respondent Company filed exceptions to the
Intermediate Report.
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 Leedom and Members Rodgers and
Jenkins].
The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made at
the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The
rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Inter-
mediate Report, the Respondent Company's exceptions, and the en-
tire record in the case, and hereby adopts the findings,' conclusions,
and recommendations 2 of the Trial Examiner.
i We do not adopt the Trial Examiner 's finding that the Respondent Union , by execut-
ing the illegal contract , violated the Act since the record clearly shows that the execution
date was more than 6 months prior to the filing of the charge against the Respondent
Union. However , we do find that the Respondent Union , by maintaining and enforcing
the contract within the 6-month period , violated Section 8 ( b)(1)(A) and ( 2) of the Act.-
2 The Trial Examiner recommended that the Respondents be ordered jointly and
severally to reimburse all present and former employees for dues, fees , assessments, or
other moneys unlawfully exacted from them under the contract. We agree that re-
127 NLRB No. 54.