Phelps Dodge Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 4, 1949

81 N.L.R.B. 1173 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter Of PHELPS DODGE CORPORATION, COPPER QUEEN BRANCH,,
WADE HAMPTON PIT OPERATION, EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL
UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL No. 428, A. F. L.,
PETITIONER
Case No. 21-RC-614.-Decided March 4, 1949
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before a hearing
officer of the National Labor Relations Board. The hearing officer's
rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are
hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-man panel consisting of the undersigned Board
Members.*
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 and an intervening union, International Union
of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, C. I. 0., herein called the Inter-
venor, are labor organizations claiming to represent certain employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks a unit, for purposes of collective bargaining
composed of all of the employees at the Employer's Wade Hampton
Pit Operation, Copper Queen Branch, in the vicinity of Don Luis,
Arizona, with the exception of an employee known as truck driver A.
The Intervenor contends both that the unit sought is inappropriate,
and that the employees included therein are already inferentially
=Houston, Reynolds , and Gray.
81 N. L. R. B., No. 178.
1173
1174 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
covered in an existing contract between the Employer and itself. The
Employer's position is that if the unit sought can be found appropri-
ate at all , it can only be so if it includes truck driver A too. The Peti-
tioner and the Employer also do not agree on the terminology of
certain job classifications.
The Employer conducts, inter alia, an underground ore-mining
operation at its Copper Queen Branch located at Bisbee, Arizona. In
connection therewith, it opened up its Wade Hampton Pit at nearby
Don Luis on July 22, 1948, with the sole purpose of supplying bolsa
quartzite for fluxing purposes to the Douglas Reduction Works." To
commence and continue the Pit operation, the Employer used certain
,of its underground employees from its mine at Bisbee who could com-
petently fill the new job classifications established there.2 No new em-
ployees were engaged. At the outset, during the preparative, as dis-
tinguished from the present productive, stage, the employees selected
for work at the Pit devoted their full work-time to it. Now, they
work about half the time at the Pit, and the other half underground
at Bisbee.s These are the employees who are sought here, in their
Pit classifications, by the Petitioner, and are covered, though only in
their underground classifications, in a currently operative labor agree-
ment between the Employer and the Intervenor. This agreement was
executed before the Pit operation began and nominally refers only
to the employees' underground operations at Bisbee.
Under all the circumstances, particularly the fact that the same
employees are engaged in the same general type of work at both opera-
tions, though at different skills at the respective locations, we find that
a unit, as proposed, confined only to work classifications at the Pit
operation is inappropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.4
Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby
is, dismissed.
1 It has been stipulated that at the present rate of operation , the maximum life of the
Pit would be 2 years , and that, were a richer source of siliceous flux developed , operations
at the Pit would cease even earlier.
2 Although the Employer has been fairly constant in its choice of employees for assign-
ment to the Pit, on occasion it varies this selection . Even though attached to the Pit,
the employees selected for this work remain , at all times, primarily assigned to their
regular , permanent jobs underground at Bisbee.
a The mode in which these employees divide their work-time between the Pit and the
underground is not by hours but by days-of which they usually get a 1-day advance notice
from the Employer . Thus, on Monday, Tuesday , and Wednesday they may work at the Pit,
and on Thursday , Friday, and Saturday , at the underground mine.
4 In view of our disposition of the case , it is unnecessary to determine whether the
contract, alleged to constitute a bar, covers the employees at the Pit operation.