Pan American Refining Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 27, 1945

64 N.L.R.B. 1543 (N.L.R.B. 1945)

In the Matter of PAN AMERICAN RE1rrINING Colo onAT1oN and
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS. LODGE No. 1446, DIs- .
TRICT No. 37, A. F. OF L.
rase No. 16-R-11,51-Decided December °?'i', 1911u
Mr. Tom M. Davis, of Houston, Tex. ; Mr. W. E. Cranford, of Gal-
veston, Tex. ; and Messrs. S. B. Shapiro, L. D. Trager, T. J. Ragusa, and
H. C. Reininger, of Texas City, Tex., for the Company.
Mr. C. L. Mulholland, of Dallas, Tex., and Mr. Carl Huhndorff, of
Washington, D. C., for the IAM.
Messrs. Lindsay P. Walden and A. R. Kinstley, of Fort Worth,, Tex.,
and Mr. T. M. McCormick, of Texas City,, Tex., for the OWIU.
Mr. Donald H. Frank. of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
ORDER
STATERIENT OF THE CASE
Upon a petition duly filed by International Association of
Machinists, Lodge No. 1446, District No. 37, A. F. of L., herein called
the IAM, alleging that a. question affecting commerce had arisen con-
cerning the representation of employees of Pan American Refining
Corporation, Texas City, Texas, herein called the Company, the Nat-
ional Labor Relations Board provided for an appropriate hearing
upon due notice before Elmer Davis, Trial Examiner. The healing
was held at Galveston, Texas, on July 16, 1945. The Company, the
IAM, and Oil Workers International Union, Local Union No. 449,
CIO, herein called the O«TIU, appeared and participated. All par-
ties were afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-
examine witnesses, and to introduce evidence bearing on the issues.
In its motion to intervene and thereafter, the OWIU moved the
dismissal of the petition. For the reasons stated in Section III, infra,
the motion is hereby granted. The Trial Examiner's rulings made at
the hearings are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
All parties were afforded an opportunity to file briefs with the Board.
64 N. L. R B., No. 251
1543
1544 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following :
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
Pan American Refining Corporation is a Delaware corporation
which owns and operates an oil refinery, crude storage tank farm, and
docks, at and near Texas City, Texas. At the refinery, the Company is
engaged in the processing of crude petroleum and gasoline into avia-
tion gasoline, motor gasoline, toluene, xylene, kerosene, diesel oil,
domestic burner oil, navy special fuel oil, and bunker C fuel oil.
Crude stocks are stored at the tank farm; tank vessels and barges are
loaded with the finished products at the docks. Products are also
shipped by tank car and pipeline. The crude oil processed by the
Company comes from Texas and Louisiana, the latter furnishing ap-
proximately 10 percent. The Company usecl in excess of 20,000,000
barrels of crude oil, valued at more than $30,000,000, during the first
10 months of 1944. All products of the Company, with the exception
of small amounts held for plant use or sold to ships at Texas City, are
shipped to points outside the State of Texas, except shipments directed
to Texas refineries and consumers by the Petroleum Administration
for War. During the first 10 months of 1944, the Company's finished
products were valued in excess of $35,000,000.,
The Company admits that it is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, and we so find.
11. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
International Association of Machinists, Lodge No. 1446, District
No. 37, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, is a labor
organization admitting to membership employees of the Company.
Oil Workers International Union, Local Union No. 449, affiliated
with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, is a labor organiza-
tion admitting to membership employees of the Company.
III. THE ALLEGED QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION ; THE ALLEGED
APPROPRIATE UNIT
The Company has refused to grant recognition to the IAM as the
exclusive bargaining representative of certain of the Company's
employees until the TAM has been certified by the Board in an
appropriate unit. The Company and the OWIU contend that the
only appropriate unit here is one composed of production and main-
tenance employees on a plant-wide basis.
PAN AMERICAN REFINING CORPORATION 1545
In 1939, a Federal Labor Union, AFL, signed a contract with the
Company, covering a plant-wide production and maintenance unit.'
This contract was renewed in 1940, and expired in 1941. In that
year, the Federal Local attempted to assign the contract to the
IAM and to the O`VIU jointly, the former to represent a unit of
machinists and the latter to represent all other production and
maintenance employees formerly represented by the Federal. Ma-
chinists who were members of the Federal, as well as of the LAM,
participated in the meeting of the Federal Local and in the passage
of the resolution of that meeting to assign the contract, but the AFL
challenged the authority of the Federal Local to make such an as-
signment, and the Company stated its doubts as to the validity of
the assignment, in that it did not appear that the JAM or the OWIU
had formally accepted it. Thereupon, the IAM filed a petition with
the Board. In September 1941, the Board issued its original De-
cision and Direction of Election.' in which a plant-wide production
and maintenance unit was found appropriate. The IAM thereafter
requested reconsideration of the unit problem, and the Board or-
dered the record reopened and further hearing held. In its Supple-
mental Decision in February 1942,3 the Board adhered to its original
unit determination. The O`VIU won the election which followed,
and has been under contract with the Company since that time. The
IAM filed a new petition in 1943, which was dismissed administra-
tively.4 The present petition by the IAM was filed in 1944.
The Mechanical Department, which includes all maintenance work,
is made up of divisions, one of which is the Machine and Tool Division.
The IAM seeks a unit composed of the first, second, and third class
machinists and the first, second, and third class auto mechanics, who
are in the Machine and Tool Division; the toolroom repairman, the
toolroom attendant, and the toolroom helper; and those mechanical
shift handymen who are detailed to work with the Machine and Tool
Division but who are in the Shift Maintenance Division of the Me-
chanical Department. Thus the IAM seeks to include the toolroom
helper, an unskilled laborer who is not specifically assigned to the
Machine and Tool Division; the toolroom attendant and toolroom
repairman who do not work in the Machine and Tool Division 's tool-
room but in the toolroom for the entire plant; and certain handymen.
not in that division; and to exclude from its unit crane operators, truck
'From 1934 to 1937, the employees of the Company were represented on a plant-wide
production and maintenance basis by Employees Representation Plan, which was abandoned
in 1937 and superseded by Pan American Workers Alliance This Alliance was reorganized
by the Company in that year as collective bargaining representative of its employees, and
a contract was signed which expired in 1938. In that year, the Alliance was superseded
by the Federal Labor Union.
2 Matter of Pan American Refining Corporation, 35 N. L. R. B. 725
8 Matter of Pan American Refining Corporation , 38 N. L. R. B. 985.
Case No. 16-R-807,
1546 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
drivers, tractor operators, and pipe machine operators who are in the
Machine and Tool Division and are under the same supervision as
those included.
The facts concerning the integration of this plant and the inter-
change of employees have remained unchanged since the original hear-
ing and decision concerning these employees .5 Employees in the
lower categories may bid into jobs on the same level in any division
of the plant. Employees in any of the maintenance divisions are ex-
pected to assist employees in all other maintenance divisions in the
performance of their duties, and would be reported and dismissed
for their failure to do so. There is both frequent interchange of
employees in jobs and high integration of the maintenance work and
the supervision of the maintenance employees.
Throughout the bargaining history at this refinery, machinists and
other workers whom the IAM seeks to represent have participated in
the plant-wide representation of employees. Machinists sought im-
proved conditions through the Alliance. Two machinists assisted in
drafting the contract of the Federal Union in 1939. A machinist was
an official in that organization. A machinist presently represents the
machine shop employees on the workmen's committee of the OWIU.
Twenty-two machinists have their dues checked off to the OWIU
although the check-off is not compulsory; none of the approximately
25 machinists who belong to the OWIU has ever sought to withdraw
from that union, although the OWIU's contracts have contained
escape clauses. Although the IAM has maintained substantial mem-
bership continuously since 1941, in recent times there has been a
trend toward increased membership among machinists in the OWIU,
and a slight decrease in their membership in the IAM.
The evidence shows, moreover, that both in the vicinity of Texas
City and throughout the Texas area, the petroleum refining industry
in the great majority of instances is organized on a plant-wide pro-
duction and maintenance basis."
When the bargaining history on a plant-wide production and main-
tenance basis, the participation of the machinists in the OWIU's
activities, and their failure to take advantage of the escape provisions
of the OWIU's contract are viewed in conjunction with the lack of
-cohesion in the unit sought, the high integration of the Company's
operations, and the pattern of collective bargaining in the oil refinery
industry, we are constrained, to hold, as we held before, that the unit
sought by the TAM is inappropriate. Accordingly, we find that no
question concerning representation exists, and we shall dismiss the
petition.
5 See footnote 2
6 See Matter of Cities Service Refining Co, poration, 58 N L R B. 2S
PAN AMERICAN REFINING CORPORATION
ORDER
1547
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact and the entire
record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders
that the petition for investigation and certification of representatives
of employees of Pan American Refining Corporation, Texas City,
Texas, filed by International Association of Machinists, Lodge No.
1446, District 37, A. F. of L., in Case No. 16-R-1151, be, and it hereby
is, dismissed.