North American Rockwell Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 27, 1971

193 N.L.R.B. 985 (N.L.R.B. 1971)

NORTH AMERICAN ROCKWELL CORP. 985
North American Rockwell Corporation , Aerospace &
Systems Operations (Los Angeles Division)' and
Aerospace Professional & Technical Association,
Petitioner .2 Case 31-RC-1491
October 27, 1971
DECISION AND ORDER
By CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS
FANNING 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 Kenneth L. Keith. By
direction of the Regional Director for Region 31, this
case was transferred to the National Labor Relations
Board for decision. Thereafter, the Employer and the
Petitioner filed briefs.3
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 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, and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organizations4 involved claim to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation 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 Aerospace & Systems Operations of the
Employer has five divisions located in the Los
Angeles area: Autonetics, Space, Los Angeles, Atom-
ics International, and Rocketdyne. The Employer has
two other divisions outside California as well as other
facilities in different parts of the country. The Los
Angeles Division, with which this case is concerned,
has its main facilities at Inglewood, California, and is
primarily engaged in the fabrication and production
of military aircraft.
The Petitioner seeks a unit of all professional
employees at the Employer's Los Angeles Division.
The Employer and the Intervenor contend that the
i Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing
2 Petitioner 's name is amended to delete its previous affiliation with
Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, AFL-CIO, in accord with a letter
from the Petitioner notifying the National Labor Relations Board of this
change
3 Consolidated briefs were filed in this case and in Case 21-RC-11734,
reported at 193 NLRB No 152, both proceedings involving the same
parties and related issues.
only appropriate unit is one consisting of all profes-
sional employees at all five divisions in the Los
Angeles area . Neither the Employer nor the Interve-
nor raises any contention as to the appropriateness of
a unit of professional employees if a single division
unit is found appropriate . The Intervenor additionally
indicated that it desired to participate in any election
that may be directed.
The parties stipulated that the Board should
incorporate certain parts of the record in Case
21-RC-11734, mentioned above . The relevant por-
tion of that record involves a single- versus multi-
division unit issue , raised by a petition for certain
employees at the Employer 's Autonetics Division. In
that case we found that the requested unit was
inappropriate because , inter aka, the Employer's
operations are highly integrated and centralized, and
because collective bargaining has historically been
conducted on a multidivisional basis. Also, the
employees there sought were but a segmented group
with others in similar classifications performing
similar tasks who are also unrepresented or who are
part of the existing multidivisional production and
maintenance unit . Therefore , we concluded that the
employees sought in that case could appropriately be
represented only on a multidivisional basis.
In the instant case the Petitioner seeks a unit of
professional employees , as to whom there is no history
of bargaining . It is long established that a multiplant
or a multiemployer bargaining history respecting
certain categories of employees does not control the
unit disposition of other classifications as to whom
there is no bargaining history where the unrepresent-
ed classifications have an internal homogeneity and
cohesiveness which permits them to stand alone as an
appropriate unit .5 Professional employees , by their
very nature under the Act, have an internal homo-
geneity and cohesiveness which permits them to stand
alone as an appropriate unit apart from production
and maintenance employees . The question, however,
is whether the unit as requested is sufficiently broad in
scope or whether the professionals at the Los Angeles
Division have such interests in common with those at
the other divisions as to require our rejection of the
Petitioner's request.
Based on our view of the record facts, we find ment
in the position of the Employer and the Intervenor.
There is extensive evidence to support this finding,
but a summary of some of it will suffice.
4 International Union, United Automobile , Aerospace & Agncultural
Implement Workers of America, UAW , and its affiliated Local 887 were
permitted to intervene , without objection
5 The Los Angeles Statler Hilton Hotel, 129 NLRB 1349 , 1351 The
argument that the presumption that a single -plant unit is appropriate
applies to this case is patently without ment . There is no basis for equating
a division (consisting of many plants ) with a single plant
193 NLRB No. 153
986 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
As of September 27, 1970, the Employer's Los
Angeles area divisions employed 8,252 professional
employees in some 67 job classifications, of which the
Los Angeles Division employed 1,159 professionals in
28 job classifications. The record established that the
same skill and technical specialties are, to a large
extent, found among the professional employees in all
divisions. Thus, of 435 skill specialties set up by the
Employer for its own internal use, 265 were found at
all five divisions, 100 at four divisions, 48 at three
divisions, and 17 at two divisions. A similarly
widespread distribution of 13 technical specialties
main categories is shown. It is thus clear that there is a
considerable overlapping in duties performed and a
duplication of capabilities.
In major programs there are often two or three
divisions involved, although the division most closely
associated with the program remains in charge.
Nevertheless, employees frequently meet and confer
on projects, and there is extensive employee inter-
change, both by loans and transfers, as needed by the
divisions. It has long been the Employer's policy to
encourage employee mobility, and the Employer
maintains a computerized system by which it can
readily identify and locate personnel with skills for
any particular need. This is run by the central office
(A&SO) of the Aerospace and Systems Group for all
divisions, and in effect completely integrates person-
nel from all divisions. Although each division handles
its own transfers, all are required to follow detailed
procedures by A&SO .6 It is also quite clear that
although division seniority may be determinative for
some purposes, an employee who transfers carries his
company seniority with him.
The divisions primarily have separate locations, but
they do share some facilities. All of the facilities of the
five divisions are in the same geographic area, being
from 4 to 78 miles apart, but the Employer points out
that the longest distance and drive between facilities is
between two parts of the Autonetics organization. It
also appears that all divisions draw their employees
from a single labor market. There is extensive
centralized control of labor relations7 and all aspects
of the business operations, and wages, hours, working
conditions, and benefits of employees throughout the
Los Angeles area are almost completely uniform.8
8 The statement of our dissenting colleague that "transfers are strictly
handled between the respective division personnel offices" is obviously a
misconstruction of the record evidence if it intends to convey the idea that
such transfers are handled only by such offices Rather , as indicated above,
the division offices process these matters under procedures strictly
proscribed by A&SO, and the record reveals that any disputes between
divisions are resolved by A&SO
' While division personnel departments perform many local functions,
they do so under A&SO control, and we do not deem such activities
determinative of the unit issue
8 Contrary to the impression conveyed by the dissenting opinion,
division policy conforms to the group policy as to layoff and recalls and
only very infrequently varies
On the whole record before us, we cannot conclude
that the professional employees at the Los Angeles
Division are a homogeneous, cohesive group with
separate interests which warrant finding that they
constitute a separate appropriate unit. Further, we are
of the opinion, in view of the character of the
bargaining history affecting a large proportion of the
Employer's employees, that stability in a collective-
bargaining relationship for the professional employ-
ees can only be achieved on a multidivisional basis,
and that the unit requested by the Petitioner is too
limited in scope, and therefore inappropriate. Accord-
ingly, we shall dismiss the petition herein.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition herein be, and
it hereby is, dismissed.
MEMBER JENKINS, dissenting:
I dissent, and would grant the petition requested for
the reasons hereinafter stated.
The record clearly establishes that the multiplant
bargaining established by UAW, and on which basis
the majority erroneously concludes that the petition
herein must be dismissed, is applicable only to
production and maintenance employees. We are here
dealing with a requested unit of professional employ-
ees whose distinctiveness from other units of employ-
ees is recognized by the Act itself.
It may not be amiss to briefly summarize the genesis
of the Employer, North American Rockwell, Aeros-
pace and Systems Group (A&SG). The North
American Aviation Company (NAA) prior to World
War II maintained only one plant to manufacture
aircraft.9 In the early 1950's NAA became a major
defense contractor engaged in research, development,
and manufacture of aircraft, missiles, rockets, space
vehicles, and component parts. As a result of the
expansion of the activities of NAA various divisions
were set up by NAA throughout Southern California;
however, the original facility, engaged in the manu-
facture of airframes, with which we are concerned
here, became the Los Angeles Division (LAD).
Subsequently NAA merged with the Rockwell Stand-
ard Corporation and became known as North
American Rockwell Corporation. This merger result-
8 UAW signed its first collective-bargaining agreement in 1938 with
NAA for a welders unit at NAA Inglewood plant, its only location at the
time In 1941, UAW was certified by the Board as representative of the
production and maintenance employees at the same plant. As NAA
expanded in the Los Angeles area and employees were transferred from
Inglewood to the new plants in the Los Angeles area the collective-
bargaining agreement and unit followed. However, there were no Board
petitions or certifications relative to this expanding of the original UAW
unit . The present unit covered by the present UAW Master Agreement is
national in scope It came into being as a result of individual certifications
by the Board for similar units in the various plants of the expanded
company. The multiplant unit for the Los Angeles area , as contended for
by the Employer , is not as a result of any Board decision.
NORTH AMERICAN ROCKWELL CORP. 987
ed in the formation of two principal product groups,
North American Rockwell, Commercial Products
Group, and the Aerospace and Systems Group
(A&SG). This latter group, A&SG, became what was
NAA. AS&G was in turn organized into functional
groups, of which LAD was one. In A&SG the former
executive or general offices of NAA were redesignat-
ed as Aerospace and Systems Operations (A&SO).
The record discloses that A&SO performs those tasks
generally performed at the corporate level and line
(division) management remains responsible for the
performance of their own operations. This includes
personnel departments, recruiting and hiring of new
employees, college recruitments coordinated with
A&SO, salary offers up to $30,000 per year, discipli-
nary action, discharge, citations for violations of
security rules, and enforcing plant rules which are
groupwide. Layoffs for weekly and Advanced Techni-
cal Positions are determined by line supervisors and
division management . Seniority is not determined by
multidivisional rights but divisional rights in case of
layoff. They may apply at other divisions where there
is no layoff. On the other hand, as to salaried
nonsupervisory employees, seniority is a seldom
employed factor. Such reductions of salaried nonsu-
pervisory employees is determined by operating
management and divisional departments. Salaried
employees are not declared "excess" as is the case
with weekly or ATP employees; they are put on "open
transfer" status and remain in such status until
transferred to another job, laid off, or terminated.
Recent college graduates who are salaried employees
are immune in most cases to layoff for 12 months after
hire. Whether a salaried employee is put on an open
transfer status depends entirely upon how he is
ranked by his supervisor among the other salaried
employees. While there is a group policy as to layoff
and recalls no salaried employee can exercise recall
rights at any division other than from which he is laid
off. The divisions are authorized to implement the
group policy and have issued their own policy which
may be at variance with such group policy.
Insofar as interdivisional transfers are concerned,
the record shows that these matters are strictly
handled between the respective division personnel
offices . In 1970, data submitted by the Employer
discloses that there were 1,894 salaried employees
working at LAD, 8 were transferred in from other Los
Angeles area divisions and 61 were transferred out.
The percentage of LAD salaried employees involved
in transferring was approximately 3.24 percent of the
total. This latter percentage is subject to further
downward revision since the Employer's data did not
distinguish between the various classifications of
salaried employees such as management, supervisors,
confidential employees, and professionals.
As briefly summarized above, it is clear that salaried
nonsupervisory employees, which would include
professionals, stand in a different category from that
of production and maintenance employees.
In face of the fact that the record does not support a
basis for a finding that bargaining for a unit of
professional employees must be on multiplant basis in
the Los Angeles area, the majority so found. The
majority, in my opinion, misconstrues our holding in
North American Aviation, Inc., 131 NLRB 399, as to
require a multidivisional unit for professional employ-
ees instead of a divisional unit as requested by
Petitioner.
The 1961 North American Aviation case was a
consolidation of two petitions-one filed by the
IBEW and one by IUOE-each seeking different
units among employees of the Atomics International
and Rocketdyne Divisions at Santa Susanna and
Canoga Park, California. The IBEW sought an
election among certain research and development
(R&D) employees of Atomics International. We
found that the R&D employees did not of themselves
constitute a distinct grouping, and that the employees
in the proposed unit were freely transferred out of that
unit . In the instant case the record shows that
transfers into or out of the proposed professional unit
are minimal and highly formalized when they do
occur. In our 1961 case we cited a previous NAA case
(120 NLRB 1155) involving the Employer's Santa
Susanna facility for the proposition that the Santa
Susanna operation was "an integral part of the
Employer's Los Angeles operations." However, we
did suggest that the Santa Susanna facility might be
an appropriate unit itself. In substance what we
decided in the 1961 case was that the Santa Susanna
facility was in fact an integral part of the Employer's
Power Systems Division. In the instant case no
question is presented that part of a division is an
integral part of the same division. The evidence herein
clearly indicates that whatever interdivisional integra-
tion exists, does not outweigh the fact that the
divisions are autonomous in all relevant respects.
The IUOE part of the 1961 decision includes a
petition seeking an election among the unrepresented
production and maintenance employees at the Santa
Susanna facility. Those employees were in the same
classifications which, at other divisions, were covered
by the UAW Master Agreement. Accordingly, the
multidivisional collective-bargaining history was ap-
plicable. In the instant case , the Petitioner is not
seeking any employees who have any history of
collective bargaining anywhere within the Company.
Further, the IUOE petition crossed division lines
which is not present in the instant case. Furthermore,
the two petitions in the 1961 case failed to include
other employees who had a community of interest
988 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
with those included in the petitions. No such
exclusion exists in the instant petition. And finally,
the Board there did not consider the question when
applied to professional employees who have not been
represented and are not now represented in any
division of the Company.
In short, the 1961 decision in substance held
appropriate a unit in what is now a division of the
employer. The fact that other, and, on the record,
little-related, divisions have been added and the
employer is now a "conglomerate" is no reason for
retreating from our former view that the community
of interest within this segment of the enterprise is
sufficient to sustain an appropriate unit.
We have found in previous cases that single separate
division units were appropriate where there was a
multidivision alternative; that multidivision bargain-
ing is not controlling were such bargaining has at no
time been concerned with the disputed employees; 10
and that distances between the Employer's facilities
likewise are not controlling. ii
I have previously stated above that Section 9(b)(1)
of the Act limits the power of the Board to create
bargaining units of employees who are both profes-
sional and nonprofessional.12 In the instant case the
employees sought to be included in the unit have been
stipulated to be professionals. Nor was any evidence
introduced in the record by the Employer that there
does not exist among the professionals in LAD a
community of interest separate and distinct from all
other employees at LAD. It appears clear that most
elements of the professional employees' relationship
with division management are common to them and
to no other grouping (salary, salary schedules, fringe
benefits, seniority rights, evaluations, and similar
matters).
I would find no merit in the Employer's contention
that a single division is inappropriate, and that any
unit of employees short of all unrepresented employ-
ees is similarily inappropriate. To adopt the Employ-
er's contention, as was done by the majority, requires
that only a unit of thousands of employees, spread
throughout Los Angeles and Orange Counties, is
appropriate and ignores that fact that lesser units may
be appropriate, as Congress specifically recognized in
10 Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company, 173 NLRB 1441, 1442.
11 National Cash Register Company, 166 N LRB 173, Parsons Investment
Company, 152 NLRB 192, J W Mays, Inc, 147 NLRB 968, Black and
Decker Manufacturing Company, 147 NLRB 825, Dixie Belle Mills, 139
NLRB 629
12 Cf Westinghouse Electric Corporation v N L R B, 236 F 2d 939 (C A
3)
13 P Ballentine & Sons, 141 NLRB 1103
providing in Section 9(b) that a single-plant unit is
presumptively appropriate. The practical result of the
majority's decision is to frustrate any possibility that
the unorganized employees of this conglomerate
employer, as well as the employees of other large
conglomerates, would ever be able to assert their right
of self-organization as guaranteed by the Act. We
have in the past reversed ourselves when we found
that multidivisional units have frustrated any possibil-
ity of organizing.13
I find that the record discloses that community of
interest among the professional employees in the
LAD is substantial. We have in our past decisions
found that there be only some degree of community of
interest for a finding of single-plant
appropriateness.14 We have also found that given the
measure of community of interest and distinctiveness,
as exist here, to deny the single-plant unit would have
the "practical effect of denying the right to bargain
collectively and the fullest freedom in exercising
rights guaranteed by the Act." 15 This, in my opinion,
is the result of the majority's decision.
In summation, I would find that the single unit of
professional employees at the LAD division is under
Board law an appropriate unit and that denial of the
petition is contrary to long-established Board practice
that, even where there is some evidence of integration
or interchange that would tend to prove that a
multiplant unit might be appropriate, we have
consistently found that the existence of this broader
unit does not preclude a finding of a single-plant unit.
Board decision are legion wherein it has been
established that it has not been the policy of the Board
to compel labor organizations to seek representation
in the most comprehensive grouping or indeed in any
larger unit, unless an appropriate unit compatible
with that requested does not exist or such grouping
constitutes the only appropriate unit.16
I would, therefore, order an election for the
following described unit:
All professional employees employed at the Los
Angeles Division at its main complex in El Segundo,
California; excluding all technical, managerial, and
administrative employees, guards, and supervisors as
defined in the Act.17
14 Sylvania Electric Products, Inc, 135 NLRB 768
15 Joseph E Seagram & Sons, Inc., 101 NLRB 101.
16 McCoy Co, 151 NLRB 383; Montgomery Ward& Co, Incorporated
150 NLRB 598, 600-601; Bagdad Copper Company, 144 NLRB 1496; P
Ballantine & Sons, supra, Dixie Belle Mills, supra
17 Included only as professional employees are those on the list
stipulated to by the parties