Ny-Lint Tool and Manufacturing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 18, 1949

85 N.L.R.B. 748 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter of BERNARD FLINT, GRACE FLINT, DAVID J. NYBERG, AND
EMMA NYBERG, CO-PARTNERS, D/B/A NY-LINT TOOL AND MANU-
FACTURING COMPANY, EMPLOYER and DISTRICT LODGE NO. 101, INTER-
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, PETITIONER
Case No. 13-RC-677.-Decided August 18, 1949
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon an amended petition duly filed, a hearing in this case was held
at Rockford, Illinois, on June 23, 1949, before Martin Schneid, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. At the hearing, the
Employer moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the re-
quested unit is inappropriate. For the reasons set forth in Section 3,
below, the motion is granted.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Houston and Gray].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
National Labor Relations Act.
2. The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. The alleged appropriate unit :
The Petitioner seeks a unit composed of tool and die makers, spe-
cialists, and apprentices, at the Employer's plant at Rockford, Illinois,
where the Employer manufactures metal toys' and Stampings .2 The
Employer contends that such a unit is inappropriate.
1 The Employer 's toy production constitutes approximately 90 percent of the items it
produces. The toys are all mechanical , and are precision -made by high quality workman-
ship . Some of them include gear shift levers, and require extra strong springs which are
imported from Sweden.
2 To offset the sea ,onal nature of the toy business , and to keep its employees occupied,
the Employer undertakes contract orders for other concerns . This work includes the
machining of metal castings , and the making of tools. It represents approximately 10
percent of the dollar volume of the Employer 's business.
85 N. L. R. B., No. 133.
748
NY-LINT TOOL AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY 749
In 1941, the Employer recognized the Petitioner as the collective
bargaining representative of all its production and maintenance em-
ployees, including those in the unit which the Petitioner here seeks.
Thereafter, the Employer and the Petitioner executed a series of bar-
gaining contracts covering these employees, the latest of which ex-
pired in September 1947. Since the latter date, no union has repre-
sented any of the production and maintenance employees for bar
gaining purposes.3
The Employer's business is seasonal. At the time of the hearing, 30
production and maintenance employees, or approximately half the
Employer's maximum complement, were working at the plant. This
group consisted of 5 tool makers, 2 tool maker apprentices, 1 specialist,
7 press operators, 12 toy and bench assemblers, 1 maintenance man, 1
set-up man, and 1 engineer.
The tool makers and their apprentices make, test,4 and maintain
both sample tools and dies, and those used in the Employer's produc-
tion processes. In the performance of their work, the tool makers
use machinery and implements typical of their craft, such as lathes,
grinders, mills, presses, and checking equipment. The two tool maker
apprentices are nearing the completion of a 4-year ' apprentice, pro-
gram-a-program which is unique in the Employer's plant, having
no counterpart elsewhere among the production and maintenance em-
ployees. The tool makers and apprentices are paid a straight hourly
rate; the tool makers receive from $1.70 to $1.90 per hour, and the
apprentices $1.65 an hour.
Employees, other than the tool makers, engaged in production work
perform operations of a repetitive nature .5 In so doing, however,
they utilize many of the skills possessed by the tool makers, and use
similar machinery and equipment. In fact, both groups generally
3In September 1947 , the Petitioner submitted a proposed new contract to the Employer,
covering the production and maintenance employees . The Employer , doubting the alleged
majority status of the Petitioner , thereupon filed a representation petition in Case No.
13-RM-3. At the hearing in that case in December 1947 , the Petitioner disavowed its
claim to represent the production and maintenance employees , but asserted a claim to
represent the Employer ' s tool makers. A Board majority held that no question concern-
ing representation existed, and dismissed the Employer 's petition . Matter of Ny-Lint Tool
& Manufacturing Co., 77 N. L. R. B. 642.
4 The tool makers themselves test their completed tools and dies by using them to turn
out production pieces utilized in the Employer 's finished products . Although only a small
portion of their time is so allocated , this testing process is a repetitive operation similar
to that performed by production workers.
5 Although classified as a production employee , the engineer , whose pay is in the tool
makers' range , spends the greater amount of his time developing new ideas for toy pro-
duction . The maintenance man is a combination janitor and porter.
750 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
share the use of the identical machines, and draw their tools, supplies,
and equipment from a single tool crib."
Thus, it appears that the specialist, whom the Petitioner would in-
clude in the unit, normally operates a lathe and occasionally runs a
grinder. The work of the specialist is divided about equally between
turning out individual pieces for use by the tool makers, and the
repetitive machining of parts used in the Employer's assemblies. The
specialist is paid $1.35 an hour.
The toy and bench assemblers, who assemble toys in the process of
being manufactured and who also perform machine work on the Em-
ployer's contract orders, as well as the press operators, are required
to set dies and to operate drill presses, radial drills, milling machines,
grinders, and honing and checking equipment. These employees do
not confine their work to a single type of machine, but frequently use
several different machines and perform several different operations
in the course of a day's work. Like the tool makers, they are skilled
in the reading of blueprints, and many of them are called upon to
sharpen, or correct, tools and dies fabricated by the tool makers, which
are then in use in production operations. Many of the toy and bench
assemblers and many of the press operators are required to work to
considerably closer tolerances than are required of the tool makers :
thus, a thousandth of an inch is the normal tolerance for the tool
makers, and two or three-tenths of a thousandth of an inch sometimes
is required of the others. The toy and bench assemblers and the
press operators are paid a base rate of $1 per hour for men, and $.82
or $.87 per hour for women. In addition, they are paid an incentive,
or piece rate, which enables many of them to have tool earnings as
high as those of the tool makers. The Employer hires only indi-
viduals with previous machine tool experience for the press operator
and the toy and bench assembler positions.'
The set-up man sets up most of the machines for production work,
acts as an overseer, and also operates machine tools.
G There is no completely segregated room in the Employer ' s plant designated as a tool
room. The plant is housed in one building, and the tool makers have their benches in one
corner . No equipment is assigned to the exclusive use of either the tool makers or other
employees engaged in production work , and all employees utilize the same machines
wherever located in the plant.
The most recent of the contracts between the Employer and the Petitioner , which ex-
pired in September 1947 , differentiates between tool and die makers, journeymen machinists,
specialists , and production workers . It defines a journeyman machinist as "a man who
has served an apprenticeship of 4 years at the Machinists ' trade ; or who has worked for
4 years at the Machinists ' trade in any of its branches or subdivisions , and who can, with
the aid of tools, with or without drawings, make, repair, erect, assemble or dismantle
machinery , or parts thereof." We regard the reference in the contract to journeymen
machinists as particularly significant , because it independently shows the utilization in
the Employer 's plant of employees , other than tool makers , who are highly trained and
skilled in the many phases of the machinist trade.
NY-LINT TOOL AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY 751
There are several other factors pointing to the community of inter-
ests between the tool makers, the toy and bench assemblers, and the
press operators. The shop is headed by a superintendent, who is as-
sisted by four supervisors. The four supervisors are, respectively, in
charge of work performed by the tool makers, the toy and bench assem-
blers, the press operators , and the work turned out by lathe operations.
The lines of demarcation between the supervisors are indefinite, how-
ever , with the jurisdiction of each overlapping that of the others.
While there is no active interchange of employees. among the various
classifications in the shop, there have been two past instances of em-
ployees performing repetitive production work who have been trans-
ferred to work as tool makers. There exists a vacation plan for all
employees, which is based on seniority, and not upon job classification.
The record demonstrates that the tool and die makers are highly
skilled craftsmen. The establishment, therefore, of these employees,
together with their apprentices, in a separate unit would ordinarily
be appropriate were it not for the fact that the record also shows, as
described above, that there are also present in the Employer's plant
employees who, among other things, possess comparable skills, perform
similar work, and utilize the same machinery and equipment.' It is a
well-recognized principle that the Board will not establish a separate
unit for only a segment of a skilled craft group whose component
employee members together have a community of interest.9 To splinter
off such a segment here would be even more incongruous in view of the
bargaining history in the Employer's plant, in which the Petitioner's
role has been decidedly different from the one which it has now under-
taken.
For such reasons, we find that the requested unit is inappropriate,
and, therefore, that no question affecting commerce exists concerning
the representation of employees of the Employer in an appropriate
unit, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and
(7) of the Act. Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
8 The inappropriateness of the unit the Petitioner seeks is accentuated by the Petitioner's
desire to include the specialist , who possesses certain of the skills of the machinist trade
and who performs both repetitive and nonrepetitive work , and at the same time exclude
other employees who possess comparable skills but confine their work to repetitive
operations.
6 See , for example , Matter of Ethyl Corporation ( Sodium and Tetraethyl Areas), 80
N. L. R. B . 9; Matter of Teletype Corporation , 79 N. L. R. B . 1044 ; Matter of Shell Oil
(amvany, Incorporated , 79 N. L . R. B. 018 ; Matter of International Harvester Company,
77 N. L . R. B. 520.