Northrop Grumman Ship Yard

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 30, 2011

357 N.L.R.B. 2015 (N.L.R.B. 2011)

NORTHROP GRUMMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC.
357 NLRB No. 163
2015
Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, Inc. and Interna-
tional Association of Machinists and Aerospace
Workers, AFL–CIO, Petitioner. Case 05–RC–
016292
December 30, 2011
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN PEARCE AND MEMBERS BECKER
AND HAYES
On May 29, 2009, the Regional Director for Region 5
issued a Decision and Direction of Election (pertinent
portions are attached as an appendix), in which he found
that a unit of radiological control technicians (RCTs),
calibration technicians, laboratory technicians, and RCT
trainees, all of whom work in the E85 radiological con-
trol (E85 RADCON) department, was appropriate be-
cause they had a community of interest sufficiently dis-
tinct from other technical employees at the shipyard op-
erated by Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, Inc. (the
Employer). Thereafter, in accordance with Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board’s Rules
and Regulations, the Employer filed a timely request for
review, contending that only a unit of all technical em-
ployees at its shipyard was appropriate. On July 30,
2009, the Board granted the Employer’s request for re-
view.1 The Employer and the Petitioner filed briefs on
review.
The Board has carefully considered the entire record,
including the briefs on review. For the reasons set forth
in the Regional Director’s decision and the additional
reasons set forth below, we affirm the Regional Direc-
tor’s finding that a departmental unit of radiological con-
trol technicians (RCTs), calibration technicians, laborato-
ry technicians, and RCT trainees in E85 RADCON is
appropriate for bargaining.
Facts
The facts are fully set forth by the Regional Director.
In brief, the Employer operates a shipyard in which it is
principally engaged in constructing nuclear-powered
submarines and aircraft carriers for the U.S. Navy and in
refueling and overhauling existing Navy ships. The Em-
ployer employs approximately 18,500 people at the ship-
yard. Of those, approximately 2400 are employed in
about 10 technical job classifications.2 The unit that the
Regional Director found appropriate would contain ap-

1 The Board affirmed the order granting review on August 27, 2010.
2 Those technical classifications include quality inspectors, test tech-
nicians, designers, engineering technicians, dimensional control techni-
cians, laboratory technicians, chemical handlers, calibration techni-
cians, planners, and RCTs.
proximately 140 RCTs, 20 laboratory technicians, 3 cali-
bration technicians, and 60 RCT trainees.
RCTs essentially perform a safety function: providing
independent radiological oversight for nuclear work are-
as. RCTs track radiation levels and ensure that individu-
al employees’ exposure remains within safe limits. They
are also responsible for ensuring that employees meet the
radiological control standards required for the Employer
to maintain its license to work with nuclear 69 materials.
The Employer’s overall radiological control philosophy
is known as ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achieva-
ble), and RCT independence is key to that approach.
Under ALARA, although all nuclear workers are ex-
pected to minimize both their personal exposure and
wider contamination, RCTs are responsible for maintain-
ing protocols and achieving the required containment.
Therefore, under the ALARA program, it is common for
RCTs to be in a separate department from the rest of the
work force—as they are here—in order to facilitate over-
sight that is independent of both production and quality
control.
RCT oversight has two prongs: maintaining radiologi-
cal control areas and performing routine radiological
surveys. RCTs set up control areas to restrict access near
nuclear reactors, work sites, components, and materials,
both on ships and in the shops. They use Technical
Work Documents (TWDs) and drawings to make a map
of areas that require controls and then survey to establish
the baseline radiation levels and find “hot spots,” which
are then marked on the maps. In monitored controlled
areas, RCTs set up barriers, signs, and employee check-
points. In less restricted control areas, RCTs simply
leave an area roped off with signs designating the re-
quirements for entry.
At monitored control areas with established check-
points, RCTs observe and restrict employee traffic. Only
employees with radiological safety training can enter,
and RCTs question them about their jobs and the materi-
als and tools they are taking in with them. Then, RCTs
assign each employee a dosimeter, to record the employ-
ee’s dose of radiation, and brief employees about the hot
spots before allowing entry. As employees leave, RCTs
collect the dosimeters, note employees’ exposure, con-
firm that they follow control protocols (including “frisk-
ing out” to limit contamination), and screen materials
that they bring out of the area. When they observe con-
tamination or irregularity, they order that work be
stopped and submit a radiological deficiency report.
RCTs conduct routine radiological surveys around the
shipyard on rotations ranging from daily to annually, in
addition to performing surveys that are required during
particular tests and projects. For “contamination sur-
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2016
veys,” RCTs wipe surfaces to test for contaminants, and
in “radiation surveys,” they use a probe to take contact or
ambient radiation readings. Surveys can take anywhere
from 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the type of
survey required. Initial entry surveys for setting up con-
trol areas require a team of up to five RCTs.
In addition to RCTs, the Regional Director also in-
cluded in the unit other technical employees who work in
E85 RADCON. E85 RADCON laboratory technicians
included in the unit test the materials collected by the
RCTs, help calibrate dosimetry equipment, and screen
potentially contaminated materials that require Lab Ser-
vices tests. E85 RADCON calibration technicians in-
cluded in the unit inventory, maintain, and calibrate the
instruments used by RCTs. As a result, they are quali-
fied to operate all of the instruments that RCTs use.
They interact with RCTs when they pick up and replace
faulty equipment. RCT trainees, also included in the unit
by the Regional Director, perform some of the routine
surveys and monitor limited control points during their
on-the-job training. They can set up the area and allow
certain workers inside.
Occasionally, other technical employees not included
in the unit found appropriate by the Regional Director
perform work similar to the surveys performed by RCTs.
Environmental lab techs perform radiation and contami-
nation surveys of drainage ditches and outfalls to make
sure that various contaminants do not spread to the envi-
ronment, but it is unclear from the record how often they
do this. Nuclear chemical handlers are qualified to do
radiation and contamination surveys on their vehicles,
although, again, the record does not show how often they
actually do so. There are no temporary transfers into or
out of E85 RADCON classifications. However, there
have been permanent transfers. There is evidence that
RCTs have transferred into other technical classifica-
tions, but no evidence about how many or how often this
occurs.
RCTs receive highly specialized training. They attend
orientation at the shipyard for their first month, and then
leave for a 22-week training course run by the U.S. Na-
vy. This training requires math and physical sciences
aptitude, and only half of RCT trainees graduate. After
graduation, the Employer conducts 5 weeks of training at
its facility, and then administers a full-day oral examina-
tion. RCTs must take requalification training every 30
months and attend “spill drills” to practice responding to
emergencies on a quarterly basis. Other technical em-
ployees receive, at most, only a few days of radiological
safety training. Like most other employees, RCTs are
required to possess government security clearance of
“confidential” or higher.
RCTs use specialized tools, including approximately
27 radiation detection instruments. They receive orange
kit bags and additional supplies such as “wipes, laws,
tweezers, [and] bags.”3 Only RCTs receive the orange
bags. A few other technical classifications are qualified
to use some of these tools, including environmental lab
techs and nuclear chemical handlers who perform occa-
sional surveys.4
RCTs have daily, work-related contact with all em-
ployees who enter radiological control areas. Most of
these are trades employees (painters, machinists, pipefit-
ters, etc.), supervisors, and other nontechnical employ-
ees. At certain stages during refueling overhauls and
during the final months of new ship construction, RCTs
have increased contact at control points with other tech-
nical employees, mostly quality inspectors and test techs,
but also designers and engineering techs. Contact with
employees at the control points is brief and involves
monitoring them as described above, not working togeth-
er to perform technical or production-oriented jobs. Dur-
ing new construction, there is a period of 5 or more years
of planning before RCTs are present on the ships. Even
during refueling overhauls, which require radiological
oversight from the beginning, RCTs’ contact with other
techs varies substantially throughout the period of the
ship’s availability depending on the phase of production,
and whether RCTs are assigned to the ship or the shops.5
Discussion
The Act does not require a petitioner to seek represen-
tation of employees in the most appropriate unit possible,
but only in an appropriate unit. See, e.g., Overnite
Transportation Co., 322 NLRB 723 (1996).6 The Board

3 Tr. 43.
4 There is testimony that employees other than RCTs who work in
radiological areas are allowed to “self frisk out” by using some of the
RCTs’ instruments. However, RCTs set the “alarm point” on the in-
struments, monitor the employees as they “frisk out,” and respond if the
instrument alarms. There is also some evidence that employees other
than RCTs occasionally collect data by taking swipes or using probes
while they are in controlled areas. But again, this is performed at the
RCTs’ direction and with their oversight, and there is no evidence that
these employees are otherwise qualified to use RCT equipment.
5 Given these facts, our dissenting colleague’s reference to “the high
degree of functional integration” in the technical work force is puz-
zling.
6 For this reason, the dissent’s suggestion that the history of collec-
tive bargaining in a plantwide production and maintenance unit some-
how “supports a finding that the narrower unit sought here [among
technical employees] is not appropriate” is incorrect and the case cited
to support the proposition, North American Rockwell Corp., 193 NLRB
985, 986 (1971), does not do so. In that case, the petitioner sought to
represent the professional employees in a single division of the em-
ployer, and the employer and intervenor contended that only a unit
including all five Los Angeles-area divisions was appropriate. The
employer’s production and maintenance employees were already repre-
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2017
determines whether a proposed unit is appropriate by
examining whether employees in the unit share a com-
munity of interest.
The Employer here does not contend that employees in
the petitioned-for unit do not share a community of inter-
est. Rather, the Employer contends that the smallest ap-
propriate unit includes the petitioned-for employees plus
all of its other technical employees. The Board’s recent
decision in Specialty Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center
of Mobile, 357 NLRB 934 (2011), set forth the principles
that apply in this type of case.
As explained in Specialty Healthcare, we begin our
analysis with the petitioned-for unit. Id., slip op. at 4.

[W]hen employees or a labor organization petition for
an election in a unit of employees who are readily iden-
tifiable as a group (based on job classifications, de-
partments, functions, work locations, skills, or similar
factors), and the Board finds that the employees in the
group share a community of interest after considering
the traditional criteria, the Board will find the peti-
tioned-for unit to be an appropriate unit, despite a con-
tention that employees in the unit could be placed in a
larger unit which would also be appropriate or even
more appropriate, unless the party so contending
demonstrates that employees in the larger unit share an
overwhelming community of interest with those in the
petitioned-for unit.

Id., slip op. at 12 (footnotes omitted).7 Additional employ-
ees share an overwhelming community of interest with the
petitioned-for employees only when there “is no legitimate
basis upon which to exclude [the] employees from” the
larger unit because the traditional community-of-interest
factors “overlap almost completely.” Id., slip op. at 11–13,
and fn. 28 (quoting Blue Man Vegas, LLC v. NLRB, 529
F.3d 417, 421, 422 (D.C. Cir. 2008)).8

sented in a multidivisional unit. The Board declared, “It is long estab-
lished that a multiplant . . . bargaining history respecting certain catego-
ries of employees does not control the unit disposition of other classifi-
cations as to whom there is no bargaining history where the unrepre-
sented classifications have an internal homogeneity and cohesiveness
which permits them to stand alone as an appropriate unit apart from
production and maintenance employees.” Id. at 985.
7 The dissent characterizes the standard articulated in Specialty
Healthcare as a “nearly insurmountable burden,” but that standard is
drawn from prior Board and court of appeals decisions. 357 NLRB
934, 947. Moreover, in the first case decided by the Board after Spe-
cialty, the Board found that the employer had carried its burden. See
Odwalla, Inc., 357 NLRB 1608 (2011).
8 The Regional Director’s decision issued before Specialty
Healthcare, which clarified that it is the Employer who bears the bur-
den of demonstrating the existence of an overwhelming community of
interest extending beyond an otherwise appropriate petitioned-for unit.
Id., slip op. at 12–13 fn. 28. Here, it is not clear whether the Regional
Director allocated the burden of proof to the Employer. In sustaining
As is plain from the facts set forth above, the employ-
ees in the petitioned-for unit are “readily identifiable as a
group.” They are all in the E85 RADCON Department
and they share a unique function—to provide independ-
ent oversight of radiation exposure. Moreover, they
share a community of interest under the Board’s tradi-
tional criteria. They all work in the same department
under common supervision. Their work has a shared
purpose and it is functionally integrated. RCTs monitor
employees and collect samples when appropriate; they
rely on lab techs to analyze the samples they collect; and
calibration techs keep the RCTs’ instruments in proper
working order. RCT trainees assist RCTs and operate
limited control checkpoints as they learn the job. Many
of the E85 lab techs used to be RCTs.
As stated above, the Employer does not contend that
the E85 RADCON technicians do not share a community
of interest. Rather, it contends that it demonstrated that
the technical employees outside the E85 RADCON De-
partment share an overwhelming community of interest
with the E85 RADCON technical employees. But the
facts the Employer relies on—that all of the Employer’s
technicians operate under the same salary structure and
personnel policies, share break facilities, and enjoy the
same benefits—are outweighed by the facts distinguish-
ing the E85 RADCON technicians from the other techni-
cians. Most notably, the RCTs’ job function is to ensure
workplace safety and control radioactive contamination
at the shipyard, a task distinct from the production-

the Regional Director’s conclusion that an overwhelming community of
interest did not exist, we expressly place the burden of proof on the
Employer. But even assuming that Specialty Healthcare changed the
assignment of this burden, rather than simply clarifying the existing
burden, we find that imposing the burden of proof on the Employer is
not a retroactive change that “work[s] a ‘manifest injustice.’” See SNE
Enterprises, 344 NLRB 673, 673 (2005) (citations omitted). As in SNE
Enterprises, there is no evidence that the Employer relied on any prec-
edent relieving it of the burden of proof; indeed, the Employer present-
ed extensive evidence aimed at demonstrating the extent of the com-
munity of interest between the E85 RADCON technical employees and
the Employer’s other technical employees. Id. Moreover, like SNE
Enterprises, this is a representation case where the Board’s ordinary
rule is to apply its decisions retroactively, including to all pending
cases. Id. at 673–674. In addition, imposing the burden on employers
in the limited circumstances specified in Specialty Healthcare “d[oes]
not otherwise represent a significant departure from a well-settled area
of the law.” SNE Enterprises, supra at 674. Finally, the Employer
argued primarily that the petitioned-for unit was inappropriate because
it did not include all of the Employer’s technical employees, relying on
cases specifically addressing technical units, as well as Westinghouse
Electric Corp., 137 NLRB 332 (1962) (Westinghouse I) and Westing-
house Electric Corp., 300 NLRB 834 (1990) (Westinghouse II). Be-
cause we address the Employer’s arguments below and reach the same
conclusion under those cases as under Specialty Healthcare, the Em-
ployer has not been prejudiced by our application of Specialty
Healthcare.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2018
oriented jobs of technical employees outside of E85
RADCON. RCTs are therefore not functionally integrat-
ed into the production work flow of the shipyard, but
instead have an independent oversight role. Indeed, at
times, RCTs’ role is actually in conflict with the produc-
tion and quality control goals of other technical employ-
ees, as when they order work stopped due to radioactive
contamination or other worksite irregularities.
In keeping with the RCTs’ independent oversight role,
the Employer has placed all RCTs in a separate depart-
ment, under separate supervision from its production
employees. In addition, work contacts between RCTs
and other technical employees are brief, and limited to
the same radioactive screening at safety checkpoints that
thousands of trades employees receive, with only a few
exceptions during particular projects. As shown, to do
their job, RCTs receive extensive and highly-specialized
radiological training and use 27 radiation detection in-
struments specific to their job; as a result they possess
unique skills. Based on this evidence, we are satisfied
that the technical employees in the E85 RADCON De-
partment share a community of interest sufficiently dis-
tinct from that which they share with the Employer’s
production-oriented technical employees at the shipyard
such that we cannot find that the two groups share an
overwhelming community of interest. Therefore, under
Specialty Healthcare, we agree with the Regional Direc-
tor that the E85 RADCON technical employees consti-
tute an appropriate unit.9
Nevertheless, the Employer argues that special rules
apply to technical employees and, in particular, technical
employees in nuclear facilities. In Specialty Healthcare,
the Board recognized that it “has developed various pre-
sumptions and special industry and occupation rules in
the course of adjudication” and made clear that the hold-
ing in Specialty was “not intended to disturb any rules
applicable only in specific industries” other than in the
nonacute care healthcare industry. 357 NLRB 934, 946
fn. 29. Thus, to the extent that the Board has developed
special rules applicable to technical employees, as sug-
gested by the Employer, those rules remain applicable.
The Board has held that “[w]hen technical employees
work in similar jobs and have similar working conditions
and benefits, the only appropriate unit for a group of
technicals must include all such employees similarly

9 The dissent contends that the analysis under Specialty Healthcare
has “elevated the extent of organizing as the definitive factor” and
gives the petitioner’s view “nearly dispositive weight.” But as clearly
shown above, the analysis in no way considers the extent of organizing.
It begins with the petitioned-for unit, as the Board has always done, but
then turns to a set of factors solely within the control of the employer,
including departmental structure, assignment of functions, extent of
training, skills required, instruments used, and extent of interaction.
employed.” TRW Carr Division, 266 NLRB 326, 326
(1983). See also Pratt & Whitney, 327 NLRB 1213,
1215–1216 (1999); Western Electric, 268 NLRB 351,
352 (1983); Bendix Corp., 150 NLRB 718 (1964); Aero-
jet General Corp., 131 NLRB 1094 (1961).
On the other hand, the Board has stated that, even with
respect to technical employees, “the Act does not compel
. . . representation in the most comprehensive grouping
of employees unless such grouping constitutes the only
appropriate unit.” Federal Electric Corp., 157 NLRB
1130, 1132 (1966). Thus, the Board has stated that if a
subset of an employer’s technical employees share a
community of interest that is “sufficiently distinct” from
that of other technicals, separate representation may be
appropriate. TRW Carr, supra at 326 fn. 4. Applying
that standard, the Board has found units consisting of
only a subset of an employer’s technical employees to be
appropriate. See, e.g., Federal Electric, supra; see also
McDonnell Aircraft, 207 NLRB 684, 685 (1973); Martin
Co., 162 NLRB 319, 322 (1966) (technicians with spe-
cialized function, separate supervision, and separate
work location were an “identifiable group with distinct
interests” and thus constituted an appropriate unit). In
determining whether a distinct community of interest
exists, the Board considers a variety of community-of-
interest factors, including bargaining history, functional
integration, contact with other technical employees,
skills, training, job functions, common supervision, in-
terchange, and terms and conditions of employment.
As shown by the above cited cases, the Board has ar-
guably developed a different standard for determining
whether a technical unit is appropriate, finding a request-
ed unit consisting of only a subset of an employer’s tech-
nical employees to be appropriate “only when the em-
ployees in the requested unit possess a sufficiently dis-
tinct community of interest apart from other technicals to
warrant their establishment as a separate appropriate
unit.” TRW Carr, supra at 326 fn. 4 (emphasis added).
While we question whether a general preference for
combining all technical employees into a single unit can
be justified given the enormous diversity of technical
classifications, as well as the diversity of industries em-
ploying technical employees, we need not reach the ques-
tions of whether a distinct test exists for technical em-
ployees or whether such a test constitutes a “special . . .
occupation rule” as contemplated in Specialty
Healthcare, 357 NLRB 934, 946 fn. 29, because we
reach the same result even under the technical employee
line of cases.
In the instant case, the Regional Director found, ana-
lyzing the traditional community-of-interest factors, that
an E85 RADCON departmental unit of technical em-
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2019
ployees constituted “a functionally distinct grouping with
a sufficiently distinct community of interest as to warrant
a separate unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining.” We agree with the Regional Director’s
analysis of the community-of-interest factors. For the
reasons set forth above in our Specialty Healthcare anal-
ysis, as well as those set forth by the Regional Director,
we find that the technical employees in the Employer’s
E85 RADCON Department share a community of inter-
est distinct from that which they share with the produc-
tion-oriented technical employees in the Employer’s
shipyard. Here, as we found above, the RCTs are alone
tasked with independent safety oversight. Thus, this case
is distinguishable from TRW Carr, where the Board
found that the proposed unit, which did not include all
technical employees “similarly employed,” was inappro-
priate in part because the work of the excluded technicals
was “closely related” to the functions of the included
technicals. 266 NLRB at 326. This case is also unlike
Western Electric, where the technical employees found
to have been improperly excluded from the petitioned-for
unit “exercise[d] the same skills and perform[ed] the
same functions” as employees in the proposed unit. 268
NLRB at 352.10
In support of its contention that the only appropriate
unit must include all of the Employer’s technical em-
ployees, the Employer relies on two Westinghouse Elec-
tric Corp. cases11 in which the Board found that units not
including all of the employer’s technical employees were
not appropriate. The Employer asserts that the Westing-
house cases are controlling here because the Employer’s
RCTs perform similar, if not identical, safety support
duties at its facility as did the employees at issue in West-
inghouse. We agree with the Regional Director that the
Westinghouse cases are distinguishable, and we find that
they do not compel a conclusion that an all-technical unit
is the only unit appropriate in the instant case.

10 The dissent cites North American Rockwell Corp., 193 NLRB 983
(1971), and suggests that in it the Board “rejected departmental units”
of employees of defense contractors. But our holding does not rest
solely on all the employees at issue being in a separate department from
other technical employees. In North American, the Board found that all
the technical employees had similar skills, worked in similar classifica-
tions, performed “much the same tasks,” and were “freely transferable
for short and long terms or permanently” across divisions. Id. at 984.
None of those facts are present here.
The dissent also cites PECO Energy Co., 322 NLRB 1074, 1085
(1997), but the one employee at issue in the discussion quoted in the
dissent was actually added to a unit the Board described not as a tech-
nical unit, but as a “production and maintenance” unit “with some
technical employees included.” Id. at 1081 fn. 2, 1085. Moreover, the
evidence revealed that the employee worked closely with maintenance
technicians, providing them with drawings and technical assistance in
diagnosing equipment problems.
11 Westinghouse I, supra at 332, and Westinghouse II, supra at 834.
Both Westinghouse cases involved petitioned-for units
of some, but not all, of the technical employees at the
Naval Reactors Facility (NRF) at the National Reactor
Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho. In Westinghouse I,
the union sought two units of technical employees, ex-
cluding “industrial hygiene technicians” among others.
137 NLRB at 336.12 We found that the petitioned-for
units were not “functionally distinct or homogenous
groups of employees, [or] administrative or departmental
units.” Id. at 337. In so finding, we explained that NRF
was “one big scientific laboratory for the development
and simulation of scientific problems, and the analysis
and discovery of answers to those problems.” Id. at 334.
We therefore found that “the technical functions of NRF
[were] thoroughly integrated,” that the skills of all the
technical employees were “quite similar,” that technical
employees all “receive the same training course,” and
that the petitioned-for employees were not a “depart-
mental unit.” We thus concluded that all of the NRF’s
technical employees “must be taken together as constitut-
ing an appropriate unit.” Id. at 337.
In Westinghouse II, the acting regional director found a
unit of RCTs and chemistry technicians, excluding other
technical employees, to be appropriate. On review, the
Board found that that unit was not appropriate. We re-
lied heavily on the Board’s earlier finding of functional
integration among technical employees in Westinghouse
I. Id. Thus, we found that radiological control was not a
task “discrete from the [e]mployer’s major service” of
handling and processing nuclear material and operating
reactors. Id. at 835. Moreover, this function required
RCTs to have “close contact with other technical em-
ployees” and provide them with “direct support ser-
vices.” Id. at 835.13 We further noted that the factual
record concerning the working conditions of RCTs and
other technical employees was “strikingly similar” to the
facts presented decades before. Id. at 835. Thus, we
found no grounds for departing from our earlier holding
and concluded that only a comprehensive unit of tech-
nical employees was appropriate at the NRF. Id. at 835.

12 The industrial hygiene technicians in Westinghouse I are similar to
the RCTs at issue here.
13 In Westinghouse II, we distinguished New Orleans Public Ser-
vices, 215 NLRB 834 (1974), in which the Board had excluded from a
technical unit other technicals who had little contact with the other unit
employees and provided discrete services for the employer. In the
instant case, the Regional Director relied on New Orleans in support of
his finding that a separate E85 RADCON unit was appropriate. The
Employer on review challenges the Regional Director’s reliance on
New Orleans on the ground that the Board in Westinghouse II had
found it inapposite. Our refusal to rely on New Orleans in our West-
inghouse II decision is irrelevant because we find Westinghouse II
distinguishable from this case. We thus see no reason not to rely on
New Orleans here.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2020
The Westinghouse cases are distinguishable from the
present case. Although both the Westinghouse and the
Employer’s facilities employ RCTs, who perform similar
functions, the similarity ends there. The overall technical
work force at the two employers is quite different, owing
to the substantial differences between running a nuclear
research and training lab, as in the Westinghouse cases,
and operating a shipyard that builds and refurbishes car-
riers and submarines, as here. For example, in the West-
inghouse cases, RCTs provided radiological safety for a
relatively small complement of technical employees, all
working near nuclear reactors and materials. In contrast,
a large proportion of the Employer’s sprawling shipyard
is engaged in nonnuclear construction, so hundreds of its
technical employees require no radiological oversight,
and many are not even qualified to enter nuclear work
areas.14 Further, the amount of radiological oversight
that is required varies substantially over the course of
work on any given ship, and there is a period of several
years at the beginning of new ship construction where no
oversight is necessary at all.15 In contrast, in Westing-
house, the RCTs’ “presence is an absolute necessity at all
stages of some functions of [the] facilities.” 137 NLRB
at 336 (emphasis added). Unlike the RCTs in Westing-
house, the Employer’s RCTs do not provide “direct sup-
port” to or have “close contact” with the other technical
classifications. To the contrary, the Employer’s RCTs
have little or no regular working contact with a majority
of the other technical employees. Therefore, the Em-
ployer’s RCTs’ radiological safety tasks are more appro-
priately viewed as “discrete from the [e]mployer’s major
service” of shipbuilding and refurbishing. See Westing-
house II, 300 NLRB at 835. Moreover, unlike in the
Westinghouse cases, in which there was temporary inter-
change between RCTs and other technical classifications,
the absence of such interchange here attests to the unique
role of the RCTs at the Employer’s shipyard. See West-
inghouse I, 137 NLRB at 337. Finally, here, unlike in
Westinghouse I, the Employer’s RCTs are in a separate
department from the other technical employees. In short,
the facts of the Westinghouse cases are clearly distin-

14 The dissent discounts this distinction via citation to TRW Carr Di-
vision, 266 NLRB 326, 326 fn. 3 (1983), suggesting that TRW stands
for the proposition that the fact the technical employees work “in an-
other phase” of the operation is not sufficient to justify excluding them
from a unit of technicals. But in TRW, the Board held that that was true
when “the work of the excluded classification is very similar to the
functions of the included classification.” Id. That crucial fact is not
present here.
15 The dissent’s statement that “the RCTs have daily work-related
contact with all employees—including technical employees—who enter
radiological control areas” thus says very little because many technical
employees never enter such areas and others do not do so for long
periods of time.
guishable from this case, and their holdings do not apply
here. Accordingly, we find, in agreement with the Re-
gional Director, that the technical employees in the E85
RADCON department share a community of interest
“sufficiently distinct” from that which they share with
the other technical employees at the Employer’s shipyard
such that separate representation is appropriate. TRW
Carr, 266 NLRB at 326 fn. 4.
For all these reasons, we conclude that under either the
framework established in Specialty Healthcare, or the
“sufficiently distinct community of interest” standard
applied in TRW Carr, et al., a unit of RCTs and other
E85 RADCON technical employees is an appropriate
unit for bargaining.16
ORDER
The Regional Director’s Decision and Direction of
Election is affirmed. This proceeding is remanded to the
Regional Director for further appropriate action con-
sistent with this Decision on Review and Order.

MEMBER HAYES, dissenting.
The Petitioner seeks a unit limited solely to a small
subset of technical employees working in the Radiologi-
cal Control department of the Employer’s Newport News
Shipbuilding facility. The proposed unit excludes thou-
sands of other technical employees working at the same
facility. In spite of departmental homogeneity, this
fragmented technical employee unit is clearly inappro-
priate, particularly in light of the high degree of func-
tional integration of their duties with those of other tech-
nical employees in this defense contractor Employer’s
work force. The petition for such a unit would properly
have been dismissed prior to the misguided analysis of
appropriate units set forth in Specialty Healthcare & Re-
habilitation Center of Mobile.1 My colleagues’ applica-
tion of that analysis to this case, and their unpersuasive
attempts to distinguish previously controlling precedent,
illustrate the degree to which Specialty Healthcare has
elevated the extent of organizing as the definitive factor
in determining the appropriateness of units. I respectful-
ly dissent.

16 Our colleague’s description of the petitioned-for unit of approxi-
mately 225 employees as a “micro-unit” is puzzling given that the
median bargaining unit size in Board-supervised elections during the
last decade has ranged from 23 to 26 and the unit here is approximately
twice the size of that approved in the original Westinghouse case. 137
NLRB at 334. Moreover, the very case cited at the start of the dissent,
Wheeling Island Gaming, 355 NLRB 651, 651 fn. 2 (2010), makes
clear that the issue “is not whether there are too few or too many em-
ployees in the unit.” Our colleague’s further speculation about the
impact of unit size on collective bargaining and labor relations stability
is exactly that, wholly unsupported by evidence of any kind.
1 357 NLRB 934 (2011).
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2021
As more fully set forth in the Regional Director’s deci-
sion, the Employer builds and services Navy vessels,
including nuclear ones. During the construction and refit-
ting process, government safety requirements mandate
strict controls over nuclear material and employee expo-
sure thereto. Radiological Control technicians (RCTs)
enforce those rules by controlling access to areas where
nuclear material is present both on the vessel as it is con-
structed and on shore work areas, monitoring radiation
levels, and checking employee dosimeters. The Employ-
er has 150 RCTs, 60 RCT trainees, 20 radiation lab
techs, and 3 calibration techs whom the Petitioner seeks
to represent in a unit excluding technical employees as-
signed to other departments. There are 2400 total em-
ployees in all technical classifications. No bargaining
history exists for the technical employees at this facility.
The Employer’s production and maintenance employees,
however, have been represented by the Steelworkers in a
single, plantwide unit for more than 30 years despite
their assignment to different departments.
I readily agree with my colleagues that the Act does
not require that a petitioned-for unit be the most appro-
priate unit. Until quite recently, however, the Board has
consistently held that a petitioned-for unit will be found
appropriate only if the employees in question have inter-
ests in common with one another and the “interests of the
group sought are sufficiently distinct from those of other
employees to warrant the establishment of a separate
unit.” See, e.g., Wheeling Island Gaming, Inc., 355
NLRB 651, 651 fn. 2 (2010) (internal quotation omit-
ted).2 In the case of technical employees, the Board’s
longstanding policy has been that “an appropriate unit
should include all technical employees who share a
community of interest and carry out functionally related
duties.” PECO Energy Co., 322 NLRB 1074, 1085
(1997).3 Moreover, the Board repeatedly has rejected
departmental units, such as that sought by petitioner, in
cases involving defense contractors with highly-
integrated and centralized operations like those at issue
here. North American Rockwell, 193 NLRB 983 (1971)
(petitioned-for unit of technical employees in Autonetics
Division inappropriate where technical employees in four
other divisions in same area excluded).4

2 Member Becker, contrary to Chairman Liebman and Member
Schaumber, expressed the sole dissenting view in Wheeling.
3 The majority argues that PECO is distinguishable on its facts, but
does not dispute the proposition for which it is cited here. See also
Westinghouse Electric Corp. (Westinghouse II), 300 NLRB 834 (1990)
(same); Westinghouse Electric Corp. (Westinghouse I), 137 NLRB 332
(1962) (same).
4 See also North American Rockwell, 193 NLRB 985 (1971) (peti-
tioned-for unit of professional employees limited to Los Angeles Divi-
sion inappropriate where professional employees at other area divisions
Applying these principles, the petitioned-for unit is in-
appropriate. It is a partial technical unit, and there is no
dispute that the RCTs share a community of interest with
technical employees the Petitioner seeks to exclude: all
work at the same facility, share the same salary structure
and personnel policies, enjoy the same benefits, share
break facilities, and their duties are functionally integrat-
ed with those of other, excluded technical employees.
Indeed, the RCTs have daily work-related contact with
all employees—including technical employees—who
enter radiological control areas.5 As part of their regular
duties, RCTs control access to these areas, check em-
ployees into the area and issue dosimeters, survey the
area during work shifts including checking radiation lev-
els, and collect dosimeters and monitor materials as em-
ployees leave the control areas to check for radiation
exposure and contamination. These functions are re-
quired for compliance with Federal regulations govern-
ing the handling of nuclear materials. See Westinghouse
II, supra at 834 (functional integration found where
RCTs “work with other technicians at many locations to
ensure the safety of the employees and the worksite . . .
tasks essential to enable other technicians to perform
their work and to fulfill the Employer’s mission.”); West-
inghouse I, supra at 336 (functional integration found
where “industrial hygiene technicians” check on contam-
ination levels, instruct technicians assigned to reactors in
safety techniques, and their presence is required “at all
stages of some functions of . . .” the facility).6
In Specialty Healthcare, the majority specifically stat-
ed that its holding was “not intended to disturb any rules
applicable only in specific industries” other than in the
nonacute care healthcare industry. 357 NLRB 934, 946
fn. 29. Accordingly, it would seem that the aforemen-

excluded); Airsearch, 137 NLRB 632 (1962) (petitioned-for production
and maintenance unit inappropriate where technical employees in engi-
neering and laboratory division excluded).
5 The majority contends that this fact “says very little” because some
technical employees do not enter radiological areas while others do not
do so for long periods of time. To the contrary, this undisputed fact
demonstrates the close functional integration of the RCTs and excluded
technical employees, which buttresses the inappropriateness of the
petitioned-for unit.
6 Further, the history of plantwide bargaining in the production and
maintenance unit, while not controlling, supports a finding that the
narrower unit sought here is not appropriate. North American Rock-
well, supra at 986. There, the Board held that the petitioned-for depart-
mental unit of professional employees was not appropriate primarily
because they were not a homogeneous, cohesive group with separate
interests warranting a separate unit. The Board further stated that “in
view of the [multidivisional] character of the bargaining history affect-
ing a large proportion of the Employer’s [production and maintenance]
employees, [] stability in a collective-bargaining relationship for the
professional employees can only be achieved on a multidivisional ba-
sis. . . .”
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2022
tioned precedent mandates finding that the petitioned-for
unit is inappropriate. To avoid this result, my colleagues
simply question whether this precedent is “justified,”
then distinguish apparently controlling precedent govern-
ing appropriate technical units in defense industries, in-
cluding those where nuclear materials are present, as
limited to a narrow subset of this industrial sector. Here,
the majority acknowledges that Westinghouse I and II
involved RCTs who performed functions “similar” to
those of the Employer’s RCTs,7 but they assert that the
Westinghouse cases do not apply because they involved a
nuclear research and training lab while the Employer
operates a shipyard, many of its technical employees do
not require radiological oversight, RCTs here work in a
separate department from other technical employee clas-
sifications, and there is no temporary interchange with
other technical classifications. As discussed below, these
purported distinctions are unpersuasive. Indeed, the ma-
jority fails to identify even a single case in “the technical
employee line of cases” in which a unit remotely like the
one sought here has been found appropriate.
The majority’s effort to limit the Westinghouse hold-
ings to the research and reactor industry involved there is
unavailing. The Board did not reject the petitioner’s at-
tempt to represent portions of the technical work force in
those cases because the facility at issue was “one big
scientific laboratory.” Westinghouse I, supra at 334. Nor
did the Board find or require that the Westinghouse
RCTs interact with all of the other technical employees,
or that the interaction take place at all times and places.
Instead, the Board relied on the fact that the technical
functions “are thoroughly integrated and interdepend-
ent,” Westinghouse I, supra at 337, and that the RCTs in
particular “work[ed] with other technicians at many loca-
tions to ensure the safety of the employees at the
worksite,” a function “essential to enable other techni-
cians to perform their work and to fulfill the Employer’s
mission.” Westinghouse II, supra at 834 (emphasis add-
ed). Of course, these facts are present in this case as well.
The RCTs’ work is, at a minimum, functionally integrat-
ed with that of the many technical employees who access
the radiological controlled areas and essential to enable
those employees to perform their work. My colleagues
utterly fail to justify their view that under Westinghouse I
and II more must be shown.8

7 Indeed, an RCT who had worked for both the Employer and at the
Westinghouse facility testified the RCT duties were identical.
8 The majority is simply wrong insofar as it relies on the fact that
there are periods of time when no radiological oversight of a given
vessel is required as a basis for finding this unit appropriate. “Showing
that some technical employees perform their duties in another phase of
the Employer’s operations is not enough to establish affirmatively why
the segmented group of technical employees should be represented
In essence, this case represents simply another unwar-
ranted extension of the misguided “overwhelming com-
munity of interests” standard fashioned by the majority
in Specialty Healthcare, supra, which held, in the context
of nonacute care nursing facilities, that a petitioned-for
unit will be found appropriate if the employees in it share
an internal community of interest, unless the party op-
posing it can carry the nearly insurmountable burden of
proving that excluded employees have an “overwhelm-
ing” community of interests with those in the unit. As I
stated in my dissent in Specialty Healthcare, the proper
standard was articulated in Newton-Wellesley Hospital,
reaffirmed only last year in Wheeling, supra. As the
Board explained, the appropriate unit inquiry

never addresses, solely and in isolation, the question
whether the employees in the unit sought have interests
in common with one another. Numerous groups of em-
ployees fairly can be said to possess employment con-
ditions or interests ‘in common.’ Our inquiry—though
perhaps not articulated in every case— necessarily pro-
ceeds to a further determination whether the interests of
the group sought are sufficiently distinct from those of
other employees to warrant the establishment of a sepa-
rate unit.

250 NLRB 409, 411–412 (1980).
This historic standard accords due deference to the or-
ganizing choice of the petitioner and the Act’s direction
that a unit need not be the “most appropriate” one.
Wheeling, supra, slip op. at 1 fn. 2. At the same time,
however, this standard recognizes that Congress vested
the authority to make unit determinations with the Board,
not union organizers. Congress specifically and clearly
stated that the extent of organization shall not be control-
ling in unit determinations. In making those determina-
tions, it is entirely appropriate—if not required—for the

separately.” TRW Carr Division, 266 NLRB 326 fn. 3 (1983). Contrary
to the majority, this principle was not limited in TRW to those situations
where the work of the excluded and included classifications is similar,
and there is no justification for so limiting it now.
The Board in TRW also specifically rejected the contention that a
partial technical unit like that sought here could be justified by evi-
dence that a group of technical employees have the same supervisor,
work in the same area, perform similar jobs, and do not have a high
degree of interchange with other groups of employees. Id. at fn. 4. My
colleagues thus additionally err insofar as they rely on these factors to
support their unit determination.
The majority’s reliance on the departmental placement of the RCTs
is similarly unpersuasive, as the RCTs in Westinghouse, like those in
this case, did not work in the same department as most of the other
technical employees. While there was a greater level of temporary
interchange in Westinghouse than is the case here, this factor was not
relied upon by the Board as a basis for its unit determination. As such,
there is no warrant for the majority to rely on it here. Westinghouse II,
supra, 300 NLRB at 834 fn. 6.
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2023
Board to take into account the adverse impact of a poten-
tial multiplicity of small bargaining units in fulfilling its
statutory mandate to prevent disruptions of commerce
resulting from industrial strife. This standard also fulfills
the Act’s directive that the unit found appropriate will
“assure to employees the fullest freedom in exercising
the rights guaranteed by this Act. . . .” A unit meets this
standard, and accomplishes this purpose, when it in-
cludes all of the employees who are sufficiently connect-
ed by their function, job duties, location, and terms and
conditions of employment, even if the degree of that
connection is something less than “overwhelming.”
The newly-fashioned Specialty Healthcare standard, in
contrast, gives the petitioner’s views on unit scope nearly
dispositive weight, thereby abnegating the role Congress
envisioned for the Board in determining appropriate bar-
gaining units. In many, if not most instances, this new
standard will encourage petitioning for small, single-
classification and/or single department groups of em-
ployees. Union electoral success, even if at the same rate
as in the recent past, will lead to the balkanization of an
employer’s unionized work force, creating an environ-
ment of constant negotiation and tension resulting from
competing demands of the representatives of numerous
micro-units. Such an outcome cannot be reconciled with
the statutory goal of facilitating labor relations stability.
Consider the Employer in this case. Its 8500 produc-
tion and maintenance employees, despite placement in
different departments, have been represented by the
Steelworkers in a single plantwide unit for more than 30
years. How many separate units would have existed, and
with what consequences for productive collective-
bargaining relations, had the Specialty Healthcare stand-
ard been in effect? Further, in the wake of this decision,
how many separate technical bargaining units will even-
tuate among 2400 employees?
In sum, a unit limited to RCTs, trainees, calibration
technicians, and a few laboratory technicians is not ap-
propriate, and my colleagues’ contrary view sets the
stage for a broader fragmentation of and disruption to the
Employer’s work force. Unlike them, I would dismiss
the petition.
APPENDIX

. . . .

The issue in this proceeding is whether the petitioned-for
unit of radiological control technicians (monitors I, II, III, and
IV, or “RCTs”) employed by the Employer at its Newport
News facility is appropriate for the purposes of collective bar-
gaining. The Employer contends that the unit must include all
technicians employed at the facility.1
The Employer has two unincorporated divisions, the New-
port News Division operating out of its Newport News ship-
yard, and the Gulf Coast Division operating out of its Gulf
Coast shipyards.2 Its Newport News Division is principally
engaged in the construction of nuclear-powered ships, both
aircraft carriers and submarines, for the United States Navy,
and the overhaul, maintenance and repair of existing Navy
ships at its Newport News facility.3 The Employer’s Gulf
Coast Division builds nonnuclear ships for the Navy at various
shipyards in Louisiana and Mississippi.
The Petitioner seeks to represent all full-time and regular
part-time monitors I, II, III, and IV in Department E85 located
at the Newport News facility, excluding all office clerical em-
ployees, professional employees, managerial employees,
guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.4 The Petitioner
contends that the Employer’s approximately 140 RCTs consti-
tute a craft unit, with distinct skills and specialized training,
separate supervision, unique work functions and duties, and
limited contact and little, if any, interchange with the Employ-
er’s technical employees (or “techs”). The Employer takes the
position that the RCTs are not craft employees, but rather, are
technical employees who must be included in a unit of all tech-
nicals at the facility. Relying on Westinghouse Corp., 300
NLRB 834 (1990), the Employer argues that the smallest ap-
propriate unit must include all 2400 technical employees en-
compassing 10 classifications because the Petitioner has failed
to establish that the RCTs share a community of interest suffi-
ciently distinct as to warrant finding the petitioned-for unit
appropriate, excluding other technicals.
I have carefully considered the evidence and arguments pre-
sented by the parties at the hearings and in both their briefs and
supplemental briefs. As discussed below, I conclude that a unit
of RCTs, with the addition of all other technicals (RCT train-
ees, calibration techs, and E85 lab techs) in the E85 radiologi-
cal control department, is appropriate for the purposes of col-
lective bargaining.

1 Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, hearings on the petition were held on
March 17–18, 2009, and on April 14–16, 2009, before a hearing officer
of the National Labor Relations Board, hereinafter referred to as the
Board, to determine an appropriate unit for collective bargaining.
2 The Employer is a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corporation,
which prior to December 2008, operated its Newport News facility
under the name Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company.
In December 2008, Northrop Grumman Corporation merged its Gulf
Coast operations, operating as subsidiary Northrop Grumman Ship
Systems, Inc., with the Employer.
3 The Newport News “facility” is comprised of the various buildings,
shops, docks, ships, warehouses, and other structures located at the
Newport News shipyard.
4 The Petitioner would exclude RCT trainees from the unit and in the
alternative indicated a willingness to proceed to an election in a de-
partmental unit of technical employees. Assuming all the other techni-
cals are not included in the unit found appropriate, the Employer would
include RCT trainees.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2024
I. FACTS
A. Background
The Employer employs approximately 18,500 employees at
its Newport News shipyard, which stretches over two miles of
waterfront. The construction of nuclear powered aircraft carri-
ers and submarines generally takes between 5 and 6 years, and
entails a detailed and extensive design and manufacturing pro-
cess. The need for radiological oversight begins approximately
2 months before delivery for submarines and 5 or 6 months
before delivery for aircraft carriers. Existing aircraft carriers
periodically require refueling of their nuclear core; when
brought back in, the Employer overhauls the carriers, a process
which may take 3-1/2 years and involves the updating of com-
puter systems, electronic and combat systems, and refurbishing
of the ship, during which time there is a need for radiological
control measures.
The Employer administratively divides its workforce into
five categories—professional, administrative, production and
maintenance, and technical employees. The largest group,
production and maintenance employees, includes 8500 electri-
cians, welders, machinists, janitors, and riggers, among others,
who primarily perform manual work, are represented by the
United Steelworkers Union. Except for the guards and fire-
fighters, who are separately represented by other unions, the
remaining employees are unrepresented. There are approxi-
mately 2000 professionals, mostly engineers, and 2400 tech-
nical employees, such as designers, laboratory technicians,
chemical handlers, quality inspectors, among others, working in
various divisions. There are about 1500 administrative em-
ployees performing office and clerical work, and 2500 supervi-
sory employees, including foremen, managers, superintendents,
supervisors, directors, and vice presidents.
There is no bargaining history as to the petitioned-for em-
ployees. The Petitioner asserts that from the 1930s until 1975,
the designers at the Newport News facility were represented by
the Peninsula Shipbuilders Association in a separate unit apart
from other technicals. The Petitioner currently represents two
bargaining units in the Employer’s Gulf Coast Division. One
bargaining unit, certified in 1962, consists of technical test and
inspection employees in Department 29 (Hydraulics Pre-Test),
and Department 33 (Non-Destructive Test) in Pascagoula, Mis-
sissippi. The other is a unit certified pursuant to a stipulated
election in August 2008, consisting of inspectors (quality and
assurance as well as technical) in the quality assurance depart-
ment in Pascagoula.
The Employer’s organization is headed by General Manager
Matt Mulherin, who heads six operating divisions:

1. Navy Programs Division, whose departments pro-
vide overall management and oversight over aircraft carri-
er and submarine construction and aircraft carrier over-
haul.
2. Operations and Manufacturing Division, which
handles the manufacture of ship components in the first
phase of production for assembly on the ships.
3. Quality and Process Excellence Division, which
audits and inspects production work and provides record
reviews and ensures that contract specifications are met.
Process Excellence is a performance improvement group
aimed at ascertaining better methods for performing work.
4. Waterfront Nuclear Engineering and Test Services
Division (“Nuclear Services Division”), which provides
oversight of the nuclear aspects of the Employer’s opera-
tions. This division has several operating departments, in-
cluding the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Control
department, under which the petitioned-for RCTs work,
and which administers and controls all radiological work
at the facility. Some of the other departments are Test En-
gineering, which performs tests on all ship systems except
those connected with the nuclear reactors; Nuclear Engi-
neering Test, which performs tests on the reactor plants
areas; Production Refueling and Nuclear Support, which
defuels and refuels the ships; Nuclear Overhaul Engineer-
ing, which provides engineering and technical support for
overhauling ships; Nuclear Engineering Reactor Services,
which provides engineering support for the fueling and re-
fueling in overhauling ships; Nuclear Engineering and Ra-
diological Audit, which oversees and audits all nuclear
work done at the facility, and Nuclear Construction and
Material, providing technical instructions and drawings for
new construction of nuclear systems for the ships.
5. Commercial Nuclear Programs Department, which
is involved in the construction of commercial nuclear plant
equipment and systems.
6. Department of Energy Programs Office, is involved
with various programs offered by the Department of Ener-
gy.

B. Technical Employees employed at Newport News
There are 10 classifications designated by the Employer as
“technical”—designers, test technicians, engineering techni-
cians, dimension control technicians, planners, quality inspec-
tors, chemical handlers, laboratory technicians, calibration
technicians, and RCTs. The employees in almost all of these
classifications work in various divisions and departments and
work at various locations within the shipyard. The RCTs and
calibration techs are only assigned to one department, Depart-
ment E85. Technical employees are salaried, have their own
labor and salary grades separate from all other employees and
are paid under the same biweekly payroll system. They are
covered by the same personnel policies and are eligible for the
same pension, 401(k), medical, dental, insurance, and sick
leave plans and other benefits programs, as are all unrepresent-
ed salaried employees. They all perform nonmanual work of a
technical nature, requiring the exercise of specialized training,
some on-the-job and others requiring additional extensive
coursework. Seven of the ten technical classifications have
some limited radiation worker training.5

5 Aside from the RCTs, who have extensive radiological control
training, designers, test technicians, quality inspectors, laboratory tech-
nicians, calibration technicians, and chemical handlers all are given
dosimetry training of 2 to 5 days because their duties require that they
enter radiological controlled areas.
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2025
1. Technical classifications sought to be added
by the Employer:
a. Quality inspector
Twenty-four quality inspectors are in the Operations and
Manufacturing Division, overseeing the work done in the
shops, and about 150 to 200 inspectors are in the Quality and
Process Excellence Division. They take specialized mechani-
cal, structural and electrical inspection courses. Their respon-
sibilities are to ensure the quality and accuracy of the work
performed to meet the expected standards once the product
components and/or assembly have been completed. They do
various types of visual inspections to perform their work. They
rely on designer drawings in performing their inspections, sign
off that processes that are specified in the Technical Work
Document (TWD) have been followed, and if there is a prob-
lem, the quality inspector will write a discrepancy report.
When encountering design problems, they often work directly
with designers to resolve problems. They often need to coordi-
nate inspections with test technicians. Those in the Quality and
Process Excellence Division spend 50 percent of their time on
the ship and 50 percent in the office.
b. Test technicians
In the Nuclear Services Division, the Test Engineering De-
partment has about 100 test technicians who are responsible for
testing the various components on the ship other than the reac-
tor portion, including propulsion and combat systems, using
electrical and mechanical knowledge of the systems; there are
about 80 test techs who work in Nuclear Engineering Test per-
forming the same type of testing, but on the nuclear systems,
using the same type of knowledge. They run proof-of-product
testing, e.g., on mechanical systems to make sure the system is
not leaking, or on electrical systems, including initial energiza-
tion and calibration. They use information from drawings by
the designers to write up their test procedures and deal with
designers frequently when they encounter problems with draw-
ings or diagrams. The Director of Test Engineering (nonnucle-
ar testing) James O’Brien stated that the test techs spend on
average 50 percent of their time on the ship, and 50 percent off
the ship.
c. Designers
These technicals are located in several different departments,
including the technical, aircraft carrier construction, carrier
overhaul, and submarine construction departments of the Navy
Programs Division, and the nuclear overhaul and nuclear engi-
neering reactor services of the Nuclear Services Division. Most
designers are in the Navy Programs Division, where they num-
ber at least 1,400. There are about 40 designers in Nuclear
Engineering Reactor Services and 9 designers in the Nuclear
Overhaul Engineering Department, among others, on the Nu-
clear Services side. Designers in some departments may move
between other departments, depending on need.
The designers create drawings and blueprints that are used in
the manufacture of ship components, such as valves, and the
assembly of the ship. The Employer recruits designers from
other companies and graduates of associate degree programs,
either mechanical or electrical engineering technology or nu-
clear design. They typically undergo a one-year training pro-
gram involving classroom and on-the-job training and employ-
ment as a trainee. There is also a four-year apprentice program
during which those interested in design spend their last year
doing design work.
Designers generally work about 80 to 90 percent of the time
in their offices and 10 to 20 percent in the field doing site
checks, although this may vary depending on the program and
stage of production. They often work with engineering techs
side-by-side resolving technical issues, and as stated above,
regularly work with quality inspectors and test techs.
d. Engineering technician
They are dispersed in different departments, often with de-
signers. In the Navy Programs Division, the ratio of designers
to engineering techs is 10 to 1; in Nuclear Services, there are 40
engineering techs. O’Brien, Director of Test Engineering
(nonnuclear), states that the engineering techs spend 80 percent
of their time in trailers, and 20 percent routing documentation
through checkpoints. Director of Nuclear Overhaul Engineer-
ing William Fletcher testified that the engineering techs spend
80 to 90 percent of their time at offices and 10 to 20 percent on
the waterfront. The engineering techs serve as the interface
between the engineers and designers and the trades employees
in building systems and components. They perform engineer-
ing calculations and write technical procedures. They typically
have a highly skilled technical background from prior Navy
experience and Navy schools, and the Employer requires that
they take specialized coursework to, inter alia, acquaint them
with shipyard work and how it works with the Employer’s pro-
cedures and to acquaint them with design tools.
e. Dimensional control technicians
There are about between 60 and 80 dimensional control techs
in the Operations and Manufacturing Division. Their duties are
to measure spaces and material in connection with components.
They map material using photogrammetry cameras and laser
trackers, and receive extensive apprenticeship training of 22
weeks. They spend about 75 percent of their time at their desk.
They work side-by-side with designers and engineers, and have
frequent contact with quality inspectors who sometimes back-
check their work with manual methods, and when the dimen-
sional control techs perform surveys for them. They also have
some limited work-related contact with the lab techs and even
less with test techs. Only 8 techs in the Dimensional Control
department (of 125 employees) are radiological control (“rad-
con”) qualified.
f. Laboratory technicians
Twenty laboratory techs work in the Nuclear Services Divi-
sion in the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Control de-
partment while other laboratory techs work in the Quality and
Process Excellence Division sampling and testing materials and
performing calibrations. Most laboratory techs performing
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2026
radiological control lab work have a background as an RCT.
The other nonradcon lab techs mostly have fairly extensive
backgrounds in environmental and corporate responsibility with
respect to, inter alia, the legal limits on the release of various
chemicals into the atmosphere. The vast majority of lab techs’
time, 90 percent, is spent in labs. Some of the lab techs go to
the ships to collect samples, occasionally going to receiving
areas for pick up, and sometimes the nonradcon lab techs would
go to the RSF to test samples that needed to be tested in a con-
trolled environment. Murdock testified that his lab techs have
the same instrument qualifications as the RCTs and may take
radiation and contamination surveys. Quality inspectors and
others may bring samples to the lab techs.
g. Chemical handlers
Several chemical handlers work in Nuclear Services as part
of the production refueling and nuclear support department. 6
They handle radioactive waste or other hazardous materials
which need to be moved or disposed. They perform some sur-
veys on the trailers they use to transport their materials. Other
chemical handlers in other department(s) handle nonnuclear
hazardous waste material.
h. Calibration technicians
Approximately three calibration techs work in Nuclear Engi-
neering and Radiological Control maintaining the equipment
used by RCTs. They work in the calibration lab.
i. Planners
Numerous planners are dispersed among different depart-
ments, including 20 to 25 planners in Nuclear Services in Nu-
clear Overhaul Engineering, 4 to 5 in the Test Engineering
department, 8 to 10 in Engineering Reactor Services, and about
a couple dozen located in various Navy Programs departments.
They review ship designs and drawings to determine the se-
quence of work and what material will be needed for each
phase, and when materials must be ordered and delivered.
They take specialized coursework dealing with how the materi-
al system works. They spend almost all of their time in their
offices, with the rest of the time spent going to the warehouse
or purchasing.
2. The petitioned-for radiological control technicians
The RCTs all work in Department E85-Engineering which is
under the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Control De-
partment in the Nuclear Services Division. Department E85
also employs employees in other technical classifications. Ac-
cording to the Director of Radiological Control Joe Murdock,
20 lab techs and 3 calibration (or instrument) techs work in the
department. They essentially provide support for the RCTs’
work. Additionally, there are approximately 60 RCT trainees.
There are also 15 dosimetry techs (classified as administrative

6 Robert Lee, a human resources manager, testified that there are al-
so about a dozen chemical handlers handling nonnuclear waste, and
about 18 to 20 handling nuclear waste.
employees), and approximately 18 health physics techs, who
neither party seeks to include in the unit.7
a. Supervision
Director Murdock reports to Rolf Bartschi, the vice president
of the Nuclear Services Division. Murdock has a deputy man-
ager, 7 managers, 8 section supervisors, and 26 supervisors
under him. Twenty-one of the 26 supervisors supervise RCTs.
The remaining supervisors supervise other technicals and em-
ployees in the department.
b. Specialized training
RCTs are required to have extensive specialized training.
They first undergo one month of preliminary training at the
shipyard and then must attend a 22-week training course at the
U.S. Navy’s Radiological Control Technician Qualification
School in Norfolk, Virginia, in order to comply with the U.S.
Department of Energy regulations. Their training requires an
aptitude in math and physical sciences. After they graduate,
they must have at least 5 weeks of on-the-job training at the
Employer’s facility and then pass a full-day oral examination.
In addition, they must undergo requalification training and
testing every 30 months. No other employees have this type of
intensive radiological control (“radcon”) training. Some other
technicals must be requalified periodically, such as quality
inspectors, designers, and test technicians to maintain their
particular certifications. Like most other employees, RCTs are
required to possess government security clearances at a confi-
dential level or higher.
c. Work locations
The RCTs report to various locations throughout the ship-
yard, depending on what projects they are working on. For
example, Murdock testified that at the time of the hearings, 50
RCTs were working out of a trailer near the Enterprise (where
they perform most of their work), 20 were at the Radiological
Support Facility (RSF), 30 were at the consolidated refueling
facility (CRF), and others at various trailers and buildings
spread over more than a one-mile stretch. The lab techs work
out of the RSF, at the radiological lab at Pier 6, and at the cali-
bration facility with the calibration techs. At the labs, the rad-
con lab techs test and analyze water samples and solid samples
to determine the constituency of the material being used or
produced as waste. At the RSF, the Employer stores radiologi-
cal equipment and components that have been removed from
ships and that are worked on in the RSF during repair or over-
haul. Those items are subject to radiological controls. At the
CRF, similar work is done except it is in connection with refu-

7 According to the Petitioner’s witness, Department E85 includes 11
dosimetry techs, about 28 health physics techs, and 59 monitor trainees.
Although Director of Compensation Benefits and HR Information
Systems Gary Lewis testified that the health physics techs are currently
classified as lab techs, Murdock testified that they are not the same as
lab techs. The health physics techs work in the main RADCON build-
ing working on radiation health issues (reviewing the readings from the
dosimetry tests and radiation surveys), performing mostly paperwork.
The dosimetry techs also work in the main RADCON building, where
they process the dosimetry, which measures how much radiation expo-
sure each individual receives.
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2027
eling equipment. The radiological control office at the CRF is
next to a quality inspector’s office.
d. Job duties
The RCTs’ basic job duties are to ensure that the require-
ments of the radiological control program are followed by em-
ployees working in radiological areas. This is necessary to
protect all employees who work in such areas because work on
nuclear reactors and related components can generate contami-
nated material or radiation. The RCTs usually report to their
supervisors at the beginning of their varying shifts to ascertain
what problems might be happening in the shipyard, what hap-
pened during previous shifts, and what work needs to be done,
and then proceed to their worksite onboard a ship or in a shop.
Based on Technical Work Documents (TWDs), which detail
instructions prepared by engineers, engineering techs, and test
technicians, and drawings prepared by the designers, RCTs
may prepare survey maps and may set up radiological control
areas. On most day-to-day jobs when they set up such restrict-
ed areas, they perform “control watches” monitoring the nucle-
ar reactor area. No employee in such instances may enter or
leave the area without the permission of the RCT. The RCT
will issue employees a device (dosimeter) to monitor how much
radiation they pick up and record that dose, question employees
as to what work will be done and what materials will be taken
into the area, inform them of what areas to stay away from, and
then assist them on exiting in assuring that the radiological
control requirements are met, including monitoring all materi-
als that leave the area to be sure they are free of contamination.
On other jobs, they may leave roped off areas with signs that
designate what the requirements are for entry into that area.
When performing their various surveys on a daily basis, they
may conduct contamination surveys, where they use a swipe to
wipe a surface, or radiation surveys, where they may hold a
probe and take contact readings, or air sample surveys.8 Sur-
veys take between 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the job.
Some jobs, e.g., initial entry into a compartment, may require a
survey using a team of three to five RCTs. Most of the RCTs’
time is spent in or around the reactor on the ship. At the RSF
and CRF, they may set up radiological control areas around the
storage of radioactive materials and monitor work performed
on nuclear equipment and components. They can order work
stopped if control procedures require it. These duties are essen-
tially performed solely by the RCTs; only some of their work
may be performed by others, and only on a very limited basis.
For example, environmental lab techs may occasionally per-
form environmental surveys and air monitoring, and take con-
tamination and radiation surveys of drainage ditches and out-
falls to ensure contamination is not spread to the environment,
although how often this occurs is not clear. Chemical handlers
(over a dozen) also are qualified to do radiation and contamina-
tion surveys on their vehicles, but their primary duties are to
transport materials and there is no evidence as to how much of

8 From time to time, when swipes are needed on contamination sur-
veys, the trades may take a swipe in particular areas since they are
already in the area, in the presence of the RCTs.
their time is spent surveying.9 RCT trainees, as set forth more
fully below, may also perform some routine surveys while they
are receiving on-the-job training. However, the duties of per-
forming surveys and setting and monitoring control points in
controlling contamination and radiation in the shipyard are the
primary functions of RCTs and no other technical employees.
They wear hard hats with “E85 RADCON” on them.
e. Specialized equipment and tools
In order to perform their work, the RCTs use specialized
tools which they obtain from the calibration lab.10 The lab
verifies the equipment is working properly and then has it de-
livered to the RCTs’ trailers or office areas. RCTs also wear a
special kit bag containing certain supplies, e.g., wipes, laws,
tweezers, and bags, used in their work. Other employees do not
have such bags. A few other classifications are qualified to use
some or all of the equipment utilized by the RCTs, for example,
some of the lab techs and chemical handlers who occasionally
may perform surveys, as discussed above. Calibration techs are
qualified on and operate all of the instruments; trainees have
qualifications to operate several of the instruments.11
f. Permanent and temporary interchange: RCTs do not in-
terchange on a temporary basis with other employees. As for
permanent transfers, there are several lab techs, designers, test
techs, engineering techs and others who were formerly RCTs.
There was no evidence as to the exact number of these trans-
fers, except as to the RCT lab techs, the majority of whom pre-
viously were RCTs.
g. Contact with other employees
The RCTs have daily work-related contact with employees
in other classifications, primarily with production employees
such as painters, machinists, and pipefitters, inasmuch most of
the employees entering the control point areas are trade em-
ployees or other nontechnical employees and supervisors. At
certain stages during the overhauling of ships and during the
final months of new construction on carriers and submarines,12
the RCTs have more contact with employees in some of the

9 Remote survey teams (employees not at issue here) who work out-
side of the shipyard gates are qualified to take air samples, radiation
and contamination surveys, although it is unclear how often this occurs.
It appears that this occurs when there is a casualty outside the shipyard.
10 According to the testimony of an RCT II, there are 27 radiation
detection instruments and sensors used by RCTs, including teletector,
E-140, AN/PDR-70, and E530, among other detection equipment.
11 There is record testimony that some employees who work in ra-
diological areas are qualified to “self-frisk out,” reading the instruments
used by the RCTs. There is no evidence, however, that these same
employees are qualified to use all of the specialized tools of the RCTs.
There is also testimony that there are certain limited control work per-
formed by production employees, e.g., taking swipes while RCTs are
present, or using a probe.
12 It is unclear how much of the Employer’s labor force is used for
overhauling ships and how much is used for new construction. Bartschi
testified that 3000 employees are working on one ship construction at
peak times, with 1000 of those working in radiological areas. He did
not know how many of these would be technical employees. He also
testified that the volume of submarine and carrier new construction
business is greater than the volume of business of overhauling a carrier
at the facility, but overhaul work is more “labor-intensive.”
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2028
technical classifications, mostly with quality inspectors and test
techs, with no showing of any substantial contact with such
technicals as lab techs, dimensional control techs, calibration
techs, chemical handlers, or planners.
Thus, lab techs,13 calibration techs, and planners have little
or no contact with the RCTs as they spend almost all of their
time in their own offices/labs. Occasionally, lab techs may test
samples in radiological control areas under the monitoring of
RCTs, although it does not appear that this occupies a signifi-
cant amount of time. As stated above, dimensional control
techs spend 75 percent of their time at the desk (and the rest in
radcon and nonradcon areas) and only 8 techs out of the de-
partment of 125 employees are radcon-qualified. RCT Taylor
stated that calibration techs pick up faulty instruments from
RCTs about twice a week. RCT Lawrence stated that he did
not have frequent contact with lab techs or calibration techs,
and when he did have contact, it was only in passing.
Contact with chemical handlers may vary; at the time of the
hearing, RCT Section Supervisor Doug Wolkowich testified
that there was not much contact; but at other times, it might be
as much as two or three times a day, depending on the type or
stage of work. RCT Taylor testified that his contacts with re-
spect to handling waste for transport twice a week for pickup
was usually with the trade employees rather than the chemical
handlers.
David Pickwick, manager for the Dimensional Control De-
partment, stated that RCT contact with the dimensional control
techs is not very frequent, with only one percent of their work
requiring regular interface with them during rehaul work when
they are required to do surveys of the reactor compartment
space envelope for the refueling equipment, which is in a rad-
con-controlled area. RCT Michael Taylor stated that he never
had contact with dimensional control techs. RCT Section Su-
pervisor Doug Wolkowich testified that at the beginning of
availability of the ship, the dimensional control techs are work-
ing onboard for two or three weeks, and then unless there were
an issue, they might not see them for awhile.
The amount of RCT contact with quality inspectors, test
techs, designers, and engineering techs is more regular, but the
frequency varies, depending on the stage and type of work be-
ing conducted at the time, and the particular responsibilities of
the different departments. For the most part, the nature of these
contacts involves the RCTs’ brief interaction at control point
areas in monitoring employees and permitting entrance to and
exit from those areas, rather than working together with other
techs in the actual performance of those employees’ functions.
For new construction projects, there is a long period of plan-
ning and construction (5 years or more) before nuclear compo-
nents are involved requiring control measures. In rehauling and
refueling projects, there is more extensive contact with design-
ers, engineering techs, test techs, and quality inspectors
throughout the period of availability of the ship, although the

13 Wolkowich testified that the frequency with which samples are
sent for testing by the lab techs varies; it appears samples may be taken
by trade employees, RCTs (once or twice a week), or others and may
be picked up by chemical handlers for delivery to the lab. The results
normally come back to the supervisors, not to the RCTs.
frequency of such contacts varies depending on the particular
stage of production. Monitor III Aaron Lawrence testified that
while he interfaces with the trades on a daily basis, he has no
interface with planners (or designers). He testified that he
hasn’t seen too many engineering techs, quality inspectors, test
techs—perhaps once a week or once every 2 months, depend-
ing on the job, and he interfaced only “rarely” or “from time to
time” with the quality inspectors (maybe once a month or quar-
ter). When working at the facilities, he deals mostly with the
trade employees, e.g., the insulators, painters, electricians, and
pipefitters. He stated that if there were questions regarding any
drawings, he goes to his supervisor rather than to the designer.
RCT Michael Taylor testified that he had no contact with de-
signers, engineering techs, or planners and that he viewed his
job as supporting the production trades. Edward Gunteski,
Director of Aircraft Carrier Engineering in the Navy Programs
Division, testified that there was not much RCT contact early in
the design phase, but there were going to be more once the
plant became operational and the RCTs were going to be re-
quired to do shield surveys (the shielding is required to be de-
signed around the propulsion plant.) He estimated that the
designers would be in the yard 10 percent of the time but that it
would increase to 40 percent as the production progressed, and
then lessen again. They go aboard ships to perform ship checks
when they analyze systems which they are designing and to
investigate problems with the trades, or attending production
meetings. According to Glenn Morgan, Director of Nuclear
Engineering Reactive Services, among the 40 designers in his
department, there is one designer who is out daily in the ship-
yard doing site checks. Some, not all designers, receive radia-
tion worker training because those who are assigned to do the
ship checks may be required to examine systems in and around
radiological control areas.
Quality inspectors generally do not interact with the RCT
once they enter the controlled area, although they might work
behind an RCT conducting surveys when work is done on con-
trolled materials in the storage facilities. The amount of work
contact between RCTs and quality inspectors varies according
to the phase and type of operations; there is daily contact when
the systems are returned to normal and put back on line in a
rehaul operation. There was also testimony that the RCTs mon-
itor the trade employees and also inspections by quality inspec-
tors when valves are cut out during certain phases of the ship’s
availability. Their oversight would be needed for about 10 to
15 minutes to an hour per valve (with 130 valves cut on one of
the refueling projects (the U.S.S. Enterprise)). Monitor II Mi-
chael Taylor testified that he would occasionally provide moni-
toring in valve repairs, during which time he would have con-
tact with quality inspectors twice a week, but that at other stag-
es of production, contacts were infrequent.
RCTs’ contacts with designers appear to be of a limited na-
ture, inasmuch as the designers generally spend 80 to 90 per-
cent of their time in their offices, but at times there is regular
contact. The engineering director for CVN-78 class aircraft
carrier, Craig Byrum, testified that the designers were not inter-
acting with the RCTs at the time of the hearing but that in the
future there would be daily contact for a year, as they would be
entering controlled areas. Other Employer witnesses stated that
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2029
RCTs have more frequent interface with designers when they
are developing the refueling complex for the ship at the begin-
ning of availability, when they build a complex to keep people
out of certain areas, and provide input when the designers
needed to resolve what type of curtains or shields were needed.
It is unclear how often this occurs or how much time this
takes.14
Kent Williams, Director of Nuclear Engineering Test, testi-
fied that his test techs have day-to-day contact with the RCTs
on overhauls during busy periods, up to 25 to 30 percent of the
time, but very little contact on new construction. Director of
Test Engineering James O’Brien testified that only 6 of his over
100 techs (nonnuclear) are radcon qualified and interface with
the RCTs. RCT Section Supervisor Doug Wolkowich stated
that the amount of contact between the RCTs and test techs
varies on the stage of availability (on rehauls and refueling),
e.g., on a daily basis when temporary systems are first hooked
up and at the end of availability, but less contact, perhaps two
to three times a week, at other times.
h. RCT trainees
After their hiring, the RCT trainees spend about a month or
so in a training course in the training building, brushing up on
their math skills, and spending time on the ships and at the
various buildings to become familiarized with the facilities and
how they operate. They sometimes are allowed to work on the
deck plates but their duties are limited. For example, they per-
form routine type surveys with oversight by qualified RCTs,
using some of the same equipment. Some of the RCT train-
ees have the qualification to be a limited control point,
which means they could set the point and allow certain
jobs to go on inside. Above a certain level, they have to
have an RCT present. Trainees are qualified to become
RCTs when they graduate from their coursework and pass
the oral board. If they fail to pass the board, they may be
permitted to take it again. If they fail again, they may be
able to find trade employment in production and mainte-
nance. It is not clear how many trainees fail to become
RCTs and their progression is not guaranteed by the Em-
ployer.15
II. ANALYSIS
Technical employees are defined as employees who do not
met the strict requirements of the term “professional employ-
ees” but whose work is of a technical nature, involving the use

14 Director of Aircraft Carrier Engineering Edward Gunteski stated
that at the end of production, RCTs go through drawings with engineers
and designers, but he did not specify how much time this entailed.
Gunteski stated that at the time of the hearing, there was not much
interface between designers and RCTs, but that once the plant becomes
operational, the RCTs would be doing shield surveys for the shielding
required around the propulsion plant, and if there are any shielding
questions or shield survey issues, they would pull in the engineers and
designers to go through drawing issues. There is no indication how
much time this would take.
15 There was testimony that many trainees do not succeed in becom-
ing RCTs; in the Employer’s monthly publication, an article about the
RCTs asserts that 50 percent do not pass the U.S. Navy’s 22-week RCT
training course.
of independent judgment and requiring the exercise of special-
ized training usually acquired in colleges or technical schools,
or through special courses. Folger Coffee Co., 250 NLRB 1
(1980); Augusta Chemical Co., 124 NLRB 1021 (1959). The
evidence establishes that the RCTs are technical employees,
based on their specialized training in a 22-week program of
courses and on-the-job training, the nature of their skills, and
their use of independent judgment in performing their radiolog-
ical control functions. 16 As to the remaining nine classifica-
tions alleged by the Employer to be technical employees, the
Petitioner does not dispute they are technical employees as the
Board defines that term, and there is evidence to support a find-
ing that most, if not all, are technicals. I therefore shall assume
that the nine classifications are technical employees.
The Board has held that when technical employees work in
similar jobs and have similar working conditions and benefits,
the smallest appropriate unit for a group of technicals must
include all technicals similarly employed. Western Electric,
268 NLRB 351 (1983); TRW Carr Division, 266 NLRB 326,
(1983); Aerojet General Corp., 131 NLRB 1094 (1961). While
the Board has therefore found units of some, but not all, “simi-
larly situated” technical employees to be inappropriate, it has
also found a smaller unit to be appropriate when the petitioned-
for technical classification possesses a sufficiently distinct
community of interest apart from other technicals to warrant
their establishment as a separate appropriate unit. See Pratt &
Whitney, 327 NLRB 1213 (1999). The Board therefore exam-
ines traditional community of interest factors such as bargain-
ing history, supervision, interchange, functional integration,
contact with other employees, skills, training, job functions,

16 The Petitioner claims that the RCTs are craft employees. I find
that the RCTs are not a craft unit, as they are not a homogeneous group
of skilled journeymen who, together, with helpers or apprentices, are
primarily engaged in the performance of tasks which require the use of
substantial “craft” skills. MGM Mirage, 338 NLRB 529, 532 (2002);
Reynolds Electrical & Engineering, 133 NLRB 113 (1961). Generally,
employees found by the Board to be “craft” employees are “the type
ordinarily associated with journeymen craftsmen or other manual
workers” (see Reynolds Electrical & Engineering, supra at 114), such
as sheet metal workers, tool & die workers, printing pressmen, etc.
See, e.g., Anheuser-Busch, 170 NLRB 46 (1968) (electricians found to
have craft status were required to be licensed with 3 to 4 years of elec-
trical experience); Kennecott Copper Corp.,138 NLRB 118 (1962)
(machinists found to be craft employees underwent 4-year apprentice-
ship program; painters were craft employees who had to prove jour-
neyman status). Cf. Union Fishermen’s Co-Op Packing Co., 52 NLRB
541 (1943) (watchmen who maintain and monitor the temperature of
cold storage equipment are not craft employees); Reynolds Electrical,
supra (first aid attendants found not to be craft employees); Proctor &
Gamble, 251 NLRB 492 (1980) (electrical support techs found not to
be craft employees); Timber Products Co., 164 NLRB 1060 (1967)
(maintenance electricians were essentially no more than specialized
workmen with limited skills and training adapted to the particular pro-
cesses of the Employer's operation); In re Bartlett Collins Co., 334
NLRB 484 (2001) (mold repair employees did not perform functions
traditionally associated with either the mold craft or any other “craft”).
The Petitioner cites no cases to persuade me that employees performing
the type of work using the particular skills and training of the RCTs are
akin to journeymen or manual workers who have achieved craft status.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2030
and terms and conditions of employment to determine the ap-
propriateness of such units.
The evidence establishes that the RCTs possess a distinct
community of interest from all other technicals outside of the
radiological control department. As set forth more fully below,
the RCTs, inter alia, possess unique skills, undergo intensive,
lengthy, and strikingly specialized training, have distinct job
functions, utilize special tools and equipment, do not temporari-
ly interchange with other technicals, and have separate supervi-
sion. Further, the level of functional integration and contact
with nonradiological control technicals is not so substantial as
to negate their separate and distinct community of interest. See
New Orleans Public Service, 215 NLRB 834 (1974) (less than
all-technical department unit found appropriate where functions
were sufficiently distinct); Ochsner Clinic, 192 NLRB 1059
(1971) (radiological technologists, or x-ray techs, found to
constitute a separate appropriate unit apart from other techni-
cals).
Thus, the RCTs are administratively grouped in only one de-
partment, the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Control
department, which solely administers and controls all radiolog-
ical work at the facility. By contrast, the other technical classi-
fications—the designers, engineering techs, planners, quality
inspectors, dimensional control techs, test techs, and the nonra-
diological control lab techs—are not in the same department,
but rather are dispersed among different departments perform-
ing different functions, under separate supervision, e.g., design-
ers work in many different departments, with different supervi-
sors.
Further, it is undisputed that the RCTs receive specialized
radiological control training, and have skills and job functions
using specialized tools generally not shared by other technicals
outside of the department. They must undergo extensive on-
the-job radiological control training, complete a 22-week
course of instruction from the U.S. Navy in order to comply
with U.S. Department of Energy regulations, and pass an oral
board. The other technicals (aside from most of the radiologi-
cal control lab techs) have not had such training. Most of the
other technicals receive only limited radiation worker training
of a few days, as do other nontechnical employees. The RCTs
use specialized tools and equipment, which except in certain
limited circumstances, are not used by other technicals. RCTs
are the only techs responsible for assuring that radiological
control procedures are followed, including monitoring and
securing radiological areas where radioactive materials are used
or stored, and they perform work solely in areas involving radi-
oactive materials. The duties and functions of the RCTs are
essentially unique to them, with only limited survey work per-
formed by others.
While there is some voluntary permanent interchange with
other techs, the frequency with which this occurs is not clear
(except that the majority of radiological control lab techs were
previously RCTs). It is evident that there is no temporary in-
terchange between the RCTs and other techs. See Bashas, Inc.,
337 NLRB 710, 711 fn. 7 (2002) (permanent interchange is a
less significant indicator of community of interest, and thus is
given less weight by the Board in deciding unit scope issues);
Red Lobster, 300 NLRB 908, 911 (1990).
The Employer contends that the unit must include all other
technicals because all technicals receive the same benefits, are
classified with the same salary structure, and are subject to the
same personnel policies, and because there is extensive contact
and functional integration among the technical employees.
Notwithstanding that the RCTs do share such terms and condi-
tions of employment in common with other technicals, I find
that the RCTs’ level of contact with other technicals and the
amount of functional integration, at least with respect to those
techs outside of their department, are not so substantial as to
require that they be included with all other technicals. By con-
trast, many of the excluded techs exhibit a greater functional
integration in their related job duties with other excluded,
nonRCT techs.
Thus, although the RCTs have daily work-related contact
with other employees, most of this contact is with the trade
employees, rather than other technicals. Further, certain tech-
nical classifications, e.g., planners, dimensional control techs,
lab techs, among others, spend most of their time in their offic-
es and have very little regular contact with the RCTs. Contacts
with other classifications, such as designers, engineering techs,
test techs, and quality inspectors are somewhat more regular,
but only at certain times and only involving a portion of these
techs, as many do not work on nuclear components. Specifical-
ly, such contact varies according to the stage and type of work
performed, and the department in which the employee works.
Thus, with regard to new construction on carriers and subma-
rines, the RCTs do not have significant contact with technical
employees until the final months of the five to six years’ dura-
tion of these projects, when radiological areas need monitoring.
On overhaul and refueling projects, some test techs may have
daily contact with the RCTs, but only during certain busy peri-
ods; the designers and engineering techs may occasionally have
more frequent contact with the RCTs, such as when the they are
developing the refueling complex for a ship at the beginning of
availability, but the fact remains that such technicals overall
spend 80 to 90 percent of their time in their offices. Further,
significant numbers of technicals are in nonnuclear related
departments, and therefore may have little or no contact with
the RCTs, e.g., only 6 of over 100 test techs in the Test Engi-
neering department are radcon qualified and interact with
RCTs. The vast majority of the test techs (including all types
of test techs) are not assigned to test components of the nuclear
portion of the ships. According to Director of Nuclear Engi-
neering Reactive Services Morgan, among the 40 designers in
his department, there is only one designer who is out daily in
the shipyard doing site checks; designers also work on nonnu-
clear components, and indeed, only some of the designers re-
ceive radiation worker training. Additionally, not all nuclear
areas require on-site monitoring by RCTs, depending on the
nature of work performed and the level of radiation or contami-
nation control needed. Finally, for the most part, the nature of
the contacts when other techs are required to go into radiologi-
cal control areas involves the RCTs’ brief and incidental inter-
action with employees entering and exiting a control point area,
rather than their working with other technicals in the perfor-
mance of their job functions. By comparison, for example, the
work of designers, quality inspectors, and test techs are much
NORTHROP GRUMAN SHIPBUILDING, INC. 2031
more directly related to the production processes and are corre-
spondingly more functionally integrated, e.g., test techs use
drawings of designers to write their test procedures and must
work with them when encountering problems with the draw-
ings/diagrams.
The Employer argues that the Board’s decision in Westing-
house Electric Corp., 300 NLRB 834 (1990),17 is controlling.
There, the petitioner sought a unit of radiological control tech-
nicians, and the Board found that the unit was not appropriate
because it did not include other technicals.18 The Board rea-
soned that the petitioned-for technicians provided direct support
services for and had close contact with other technicals, and
their tasks were “not discrete from the Employer’s major ser-
vice.” 300 NLRB at 835. Thus, the Board found that the tech-
nicals’ functions, including the RCTs’ functions, at the nuclear
reactor facility were “thoroughly integrated and interdepend-
ent.” Id.19 The Employer contends that the RCTs here perform
a very similar radiological safety and oversight function as the
radiological control technicians in Westinghouse, and that the
RCTs’ integration with other techs in the Newport News’ busi-
ness operations is at least as strong as that shown in the nuclear
reactor facility involved in Westinghouse.
Contrary to the Employer, I find Westinghouse to be distin-
guishable. Unlike here, the employer operated nuclear reactor
plants and a material handling facility, receiving expended
nuclear fuel from naval ships and other material to be processed
for disposal, and two prototype nuclear reactor plants for train-
ing civilian and navy personnel. As such, the “major service”
of the Employer’s operations in Westinghouse was almost ex-
clusively directed at handling and processing nuclear material
and operating the nuclear plants. By contrast, as set forth
above, the primary purpose of the Employer’s operations in-
volves new carrier and submarine construction that does not
require radiological control work until the last months of sever-
al years of production. Even during these final months, a sig-
nificant part of the Employer’s overall operations are not direct-
ly involved in working on nuclear components, and the RCTs’
tasks are discrete from these functions. In the Employer’s re-
haul and refueling operations, while there are some stages dur-
ing which there are regular, though brief, contacts with certain

17 See also Westinghouse Electric Corp., 137 NLRB 332 (1962).
18 The Board included inspectors, instrument specialists and instru-
ment technicians, irradiated components examination technicians and
irradiated components controllers, chemistry technicians, operations
technicians, technical designers, refueling equipment technicians, reac-
tor test technicians, and technical specialists in the unit found appropri-
ate.
19 The Board relied on this finding from a prior Westinghouse case,
137 NLRB 332 (1962), involving the same facilities, and presenting
facts which the Board found “strikingly similar” to the facts in the
subsequent case thirty years later. The units at issue in the prior West-
inghouse case were different than the petitioned-for unit of radiological
control techs in the 1990 case, or the unit at issue in the present case,
inasmuch as the petitioner had sought to represent, inter alia, several
technical classifications assigned to only certain groups, to the exclu-
sion of others in the same classifications assigned to other groups. The
Board found that the units petitioned for did not constitute “functionally
distinct or homogeneous groups of employees, nor administrative or
departmental units, such as the Board might recognize.”
other techs, there are significant stages during which there is
little need for other techs to interact with RCTs. In addition,
the radiological control techs in Westinghouse constituted a
much larger percentage of the technical employees at the facili-
ty (51 out of 217 technicals); by contrast, there are over 2000
technicals that the Employer seeks to include, the vast majority
of whom do not interact with the RCTs on a significant, regular
basis. Finally, assuming the facts of both Westinghouse cases
are “strikingly similar”, as found by the Board, it is significant
that, unlike here, the industrial hygiene techs/radiological con-
trol techs in the Westinghouse cases temporarily interchanged
with another technical classification (inspectors). Therefore, I
conclude that the nature of operations and the level of function-
al integration and RCT contact with other techs are distinct in
meaningful respects from the facts in Westinghouse.20
Accordingly, and in the absence of any significant bargain-
ing history,21 I find that the RCTs have a distinct community of
interest separate and apart from those technicals outside of the
radiological control department. The record further establishes
that the RCTs share a community of interest with the trainees,
calibration techs and radcon lab techs in the department suffi-
cient to require their inclusion. Thus, these techs are in the
same department, have job duties functionally related and inte-
grated in that all are responsible for radiological control at the
facility, are trained to use the same specialized equipment,
work out of radcon facilities, and are under the same depart-
mental supervision hierarchy. In addition, most of the lab techs
in the department have progressed from the RCT classification.
The radcon lab techs generally do not interact with those lab
techs outside of the department. Therefore, the radcon lab
techs possess a community of interest with the RCTs not shared
by the lab techs outside of the department. The calibration

20 Woodland Park Hospital, 205 NLRB 888 (1973), cited by the
Employer, is likewise distinguishable. There, the Board found that a
separate unit of X-ray technicians in a general hospital was not appro-
priate. The technicians at issue were required at times to work with
other classifications to accomplish the x-rays, and sometimes worked in
the same operating room with other employees in coordination with
procedures performed by others. The Board found that this type of
frequent contact and functional integration (the degree to which is not
found here) was sufficient to require the inclusion of other classifica-
tions, and noted in particular that to do otherwise would “lead to severe
fragmentation of units in the health care industry,” a consideration not
present in this case.
21 Contrary to the Petitioner’s position, the fact that the designers
may have been separately represented more than 30 years ago is not
controlling. See Macy’s San Francisco, 120 NLRB 69, 71 (1958).
Further, bargaining history of one group of organized employees in a
plant does not control the unit determination of another group. Big Y
Foods, 238 NLRB 855 (1978); Miller & Miller Motor Freight Lines,
101 NLRB 581 (1953). As to the less-than-all-technical units in the
Gulf Coast division, such bargaining history does not govern the instant
petition inasmuch as it involves a different facility, different classifica-
tions, and different type of operations, and the Board does not consider
itself in any event bound by a collective-bargaining history resulting
from a consent election conducted pursuant to a unit stipulated by the
parties rather than one determined by the Board. Laboratory Corp. of
America Holdings, 341 NLRB 1079 (2004); Mid-West Abrasive Co.,
145 NLRB 1665 (1964); Macy’s San Francisco, 120 NLRB 69, 71
(1958).
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2032
techs, while not required to possess the same training or per-
form the same duties as the RCTs, work on and operate the
instruments and equipment used by the RCTs, and are respon-
sible for ensuring that these instruments and equipment are in
working order.
As for the trainees, it is undisputed that they receive the
same training as the RCTs in order for them to become moni-
tors in the next step of their job progression; they perform some
of the same duties using some of the same equipment and tools;
and the Employer does not dispute their inclusion in a depart-
mental unit. The fact that employees may be given a classifica-
tion such as beginner, trainee, or probationary employee, and
that permanent tenure is subject to a satisfactory completion of
an initial trial period, has been held by the Board not to warrant
their exclusion from the unit. See Johnson’s Auto Springs Ser-
vice, 221 NLRB 809 (1975). The proportion of trainees who
succeed in their training requirements does not contravene their
inclusion. Id. at 810.
Accordingly, I find a departmental unit of technical employ-
ees—RCTs, RCT trainees, E85 lab techs, and calibration techs,
excluding all other technicals to constitute a functionally dis-
tinct grouping with a sufficiently distinct community of interest
as to warrant a separate unit appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining. See Bally’s Park Place, 255 NLRB 63
(1981) (slot machine department found appropriate); Herron
Testing Laboratories, Inc., 182 NLRB 508 (1970) (depart-
mental unit of drillers found appropriate, excluding inspectors
and soil sample lab testers); Rayonier, Inc., 110 NLRB 1191
(1954) (powerhouse employees found not to be craftsmen, but
constituted an appropriate departmental unit).