Seattle Bldg. & Construction Trades Council

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 11, 1967

167 N.L.R.B. 35 (N.L.R.B. 1967)

SEATTLE BLDG. & CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL
Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council
and Voorhees Rig Co . and District Council of
Carpenters and Pile Drivers Local Union 2396.
Case 19-CD-124.
August 11, 1967
DECISION AND DETERMINATION OF
DISPUTE
BY MEMBERS BROWN, JENKINS, AND ZAGORIA
This is a proceeding under Section 10(k) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, follow-
ing a charge filed by Voorhees Rig Co., herein
called the Company or Voorhees, alleging that
Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council,
herein called Council, violated Section 8(b)(4)(D)
of the Act. A duly scheduled hearing was held be-
fore Hearing Officer Gordon M. Byroldt on May
4 and 5, 1967. All parties appearing were afforded
full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-
examine witnesses, and to adduce evidence bearing
upon the issues. The rulings of the hearing officer
made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error
and are hereby affirmed. Thereafter, the Company
and the Council filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board
makes the following findings:
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
The Company is a Washington corporation with
its principal place of business in Seattle, Washing-
ton. It is engaged in the erection of oil drilling rigs
in Seattle, Washington, and the State of Alaska. An-
nually it performs services for employers incor-
porated outside the State of Washington, who are
engaged in commerce, in an amount valued in ex-
cess of $50,000. The parties stipulated, and we find,
that the Company is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act and
it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert ju-
risdiction herein.
II. THE LABOR ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
The parties stipulated and we find that the Seattle
Building Trades Council, and the District Council
of Carpenters and Pile Drivers Local Union 2396,
are labor organizations within the meaning of Sec-
tion 2(5) of the Act.
III. THE DISPUTE
The dispute involves the work of assembling and
erecting oil drilling rigs.
167 NLRB No. 4
35
A. Background
The Company is engaged in the business of as-
sembling, maintaining, and dismantling standard oil
drill rigs. A standard oil drill rig is a prefabricated
drilling tool designed, manufactured, and delivered
in its component parts to be assembled by the
purchaser for the drilling of oil wells. When it is
determined where an oil well is to be drilled,
customarily the component parts of the drilling rig
are delivered and assembled on the site. After the
wells are drilled, the drill rig and its parts are moved
to another site, where it is assembled, to be used
again as a drilling tool.
Pursuant to contract with oil exploration compa-
nies operating in the State of Alaska, the Company
is engaged in the initial assembly, in Seattle, of oil
drilling rigs and, upon completion of the work in
Seattle, is charged with the final assembly and in-
stallation of these rigs on the exploration company's
offshore drilling platforms in Alaska.
The initial work performed in Seattle consists of
the assembly of the rig base which includes the
setting of certain machinery and some pipe installa-
tion on the base and the mounting of a wide screen
around that portion of the structure. Upon comple-
tion of the base, it is shipped intact to Alaska where
it is hoisted by crane onto the drilling platform, in-
stalled in place, and the upper portion of the rig is
erected on the base, to an average height of approxi-
mately 130 feet above the base. All of this work is
performed by the Company which utilizes em-
ployees classed as rig builders.
This case is a jurisdictional dispute in which the
Ironworkers in particular, and the Seattle Building
Trades, of which the Ironworkers is a member.
claim the work of assembling the rig base of these
standard oil drilling rigs. The Company has as-
signed such work to its employees who are
classified as rig builders.
On March 1, 1967, pursuant to an election, the
District Council of Carpenters and Pile Drivers
Local Union 2396 was certified as the bargaining
agent for the Company's employees. The Company
has entered into a collective-bargaining agreement
with the Carpenters which became effective on
March 1, 1967.
On April 2, 1967, Ironworkers Business Agent
Sales threatened Voorhees that unless he
negotiated with the Ironworkers about the rig base
work, Sales would "get the whole Building Trades
Council in Seattle involved in this situation and we
will really stir up a hornets' nest."
On April 3, 1967, the Company, under contract
with Western Offshore Drilling Company, and
using rig builder employees represented by the Car-
penters Union, began completion of a contract to
assemble the two standard oil drilling rigs of
Western Offshore at pier 9 in Seattle. These were
310-5410-70-4
36 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the rigs the Company and its rig builders were
working on from August 15 to 30, 1966.
On April 7, 1967, at approximately 12 noon the
Seattle Building Trades Council placed a picket at
the gate of pier 9. The picket wore a placard bearing
the following legend:
VOORHEES RIG CO. WORK ASSIGNMENT
UNFAIR TO
SEATTLE BUILDING TRADES COUNCIL
MA 3-8515
At the time picketing started, Pratt, business
agent for Ironworkers Local 86, stated to Voor-
hees, "I want you to get rid of all the men you have
on the job."
Also, St. Laurent, secretary-treasurer and agent
of the Seattle Building Trades Council, together
with about seven other union officials, on April 6,
1967, called on Gilbert Meyer, drilling superintend-
ent for Western Offshore Drilling Company, and
St. Laurent advised Meyer that the work for as-
sembly of the standard drilling rig, which had been
contracted to Voorhees, was their work, that they
intended to get it, and that they were either going to
get it or shut Western Offshore down.
The object of the picketing was to force assign-
ment by Voorhees of his work of assembling the
standard oil drilling rigs to the Seattle Building
Trades Council members and to Ironworkers Local
86 in particular, rather than to the rig builders, em-
ployees of the Company, who were represented by
Carpenters and with whom the Company has a bar-
gaining agreement.
As a consequence of the picketing, individuals
employed by various employers, including Mobile
Crane Co., Seattle Transfer and Storage Co., Gil-
more Steel Corporation, and Pacific Northwest Bell
Telephone Company refused to transport materials
or perform services for their respective employers
at the premises of Voorhees. The picketing con-
tinued until April 12, 1967.
B. The Contentions of the Parties
The Employer contends that it has a labor con-
tract for this work with the Carpenters, that it has
assigned the work to its own employees, and that its
own employees are best suited to perform this work
by virtue of their special training and experience.
The Ironworkers contends that the type of work
in dispute has traditionally been performed by its
members.
C. The Applicability of the Statute
Section 10(k) of the Act empowers the Board to
hear and determine a dispute out of which an
8(b)(4)(D) charge has arisen. Before making a
determination of the dispute, the Board is required
to find there is reasonable cause to believe that Sec-
tion 8(b)(4)(D) has been violated.
The facts show that the Employer assigned the
work to its own employees represented by the Car-
penters. The Seattle Building and Construction
Trades Council claimed the work for the Ironwork-
ers, and threatened to shut the job down and put
up a picket line for the avowed purpose of getting
the work assigned to the Ironworkers. Accordingly,
we find reasonable cause to believe that Section
8(b)(4)(D) of the Act has been violated, and that the
dispute is properly before the Board for determina-
tion under Section 10(k) of the Act.
IV. THE MERITS OF THE DISPUTE
As we stated in J.A. Jones Construction
Company, we will determine the appropriate as-
signment of disputed work in each case presented
for resolution under Section 10(k) of the Act only
after taking into account and balancing all relevant
factors.
A. Collective-Bargaining Agreements
The Company has a collective-bargaining agree-
ment with the Carpenters covering the employees
who were performing the disputed work. The agree-
ment contains the following paragraph:
ARTICLE I I -SCOPE OF AGREEMENT
The Employer, pursuant to the decision of
the NLRB in Case No. 20-RC-1327 and
limited thereto, recognizes the District Council
of Carpenters and the Pile Drivers Union
Local 2396 as the sole and exclusive bargain-
ing agent for all employees in the classification
of rig building which shall include erection and
maintenance, except and excluding executives,
civil engineers, and their helpers, superintend-
ents, assistant superintendents, master
mechanics, timekeepers, messenger boys, of-
fice workers, or any of the employees above
the rank of craft foreman.
The Company does not have a collective-bargaining
contract with the Ironworkers.
The language of the assignment with the Carpen-
ters refers to the employee classification of rig
building which is further defined as the erection and
maintenance thereof [of rigs]. As this language
clearly applies to the work in dispute, the collective-
bargaining contract is a factor favoring the assign-
ment of work to the rig builders represented by the
Carpenters.
International Association of Machinists , Lodge No 1743 (JA Jones
Construction Co ), 135 NLRB 1402
SEATTLE BLDG. & CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL
B. Company, Area, and Industry Practice
The Company operated out of Wyoming from its
inception in 1962 through late 1966. Throughout
these years the Company had contracted to assem-
ble and dismantle standard oil rigs for the following
oil and drilling companies in the following States:
Mountain States Drill
Company
Community Gas & Oil Co.
Brinkerhoff Drilling
Company
Schaft Drillers, Inc.
Texaco, Inc.
Pan American Petroleum
Marathon Oil Company
R. L. Manning Drilling
Company
Wyoming
Montana
Colorado
Nevada
Colorado
Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming, Colorado,
Alaska, Utah, North
Dakota, South Dakota,
Montana
0
Pure Oil Company Wyoming, Utah
Colorado Oil & Gas Co. Colorado
In all of this work the Company used experienced
rig builders recruited from various parts of the
country.
The assembly of oil drilling rigs in Seattle has a
relatively brief history. Prior to May 1966, no oil
rigs were assembled in Seattle. Six rigs have been
built by Don Sparling Company using ironworkers
for two drilling contractors, Rowan, and Reading &
Bates. Voorhees performed a rig assembly for Cal-
Drill employing rig builders. Voorhees also did
preassembly work on two rigs for the Santa Fe
Drilling Company using both ironworkers and rig
builders because he was told that there would be a
work stoppage unless he engaged one ironworker
for each rig builder utilized. In the fall of 1966,
Voorhees and his crew of rig builders went to
Alaska where they completed the assembly of the
Cal-Drill rig (which Voorhees had preassembled in
Seattle), the two Santa Fe rigs (which were preas-
sembled in Seattle by Voorhees' rig builders and
ironworkers as a result of a work stoppage threat),
and the Rowan and Reading & Bates rigs which had
been preassembled by a contractor using ironwork-
ers. Of the rigs assembled in Seattle in 1966, the
facts show that both rig builders and ironworkers
have performed this work. Accordingly, we con-
clude that evidence of past area practice does not
establish a clear pattern of assignment of the
disputed work to either the rig builders or the Iron-
workers. As to Company practice, it is clear that
the Company normally utilized rig builders for such
work. There was no evidence adduced as to prac-
tice in the industry.
C. Efficiency of Operation , Skills Involved
37
The record shows that in performing the disputed
work, the Company, using rig builders, can
economically assemble the base rig as well as
complete the final installation. The record of per-
formance by the Company's employees over a
period of years indicates that they are capable of
performing the disupted work. As far as high work
is concerned, the methods used by rig builders are
unacceptable to ironworkers and considered un-
safe, although Voorhees has a perfect safety record.
Indeed, there is no claim by the Ironworkers that its
members are more capable of performing the work
in dispute. Consequently, while both groups ap-
peared equally skilled in the assembly of base rigs,
the Ironworkers does not claim and apparently does
not want to do the final installation work which is
normally done at the installation site. Conversely,
the rig builders do and are capable of doing both the
assembly work and the final installation work on the
site.
Conclusion
On the basis of the foregoing considerations, it is
clear that none of the relevant factors favor an as-
signment of work as claimed by the Ironworkers.
Although the Ironworkers sometimes performs
similar work of assembling the drilling rig for con-
tractors in the area, the Ironworkers does not have
a contract for such work with the Company as does
the Carpenters. Such factors as the Company's past
practice, the collective-bargaining agreement, and
the demonstrated skills of the Company's own em-
ployees favor the present assignment . In addition,
as we have found the area practice is relatively new
and the work is apparently divided between the
Ironworkers and the rig builders, we find it is not a
significant factor. Accordingly, we shall determine
the dispute by confirming the Company' s present
assignment to its own employees represented by the
Carpenters, but not to that Union or to its members.
Our present determination is limited to the particu-
lar controversy which gave rise to this proceeding.
DETERMINATION OF DISPUTE
Pursuant to Section 10(k) of the Act, and upon
the basis of the foregoing findings and the entire
record in this proceeding, the National Labor Rela-
tions Board makes the following Determination of
Dispute:
1. Employees of Voorhees Rig Co., currently
represented by District Council of Carpenters and
Pile Drivers Local Union 2396, are entitled to per-
form the job of assembling oil drilling rigs for Voor-
hees Rig Co.
2. Seattle Building and Construction Trades
Council is not entitled, by means proscribed by Sec-
38 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tion 8 (b)(4)(D) of the Act, to force or require the
Company to assign the above work to the Iron-
workers.
3. Within 10 days from the date of this Decision
and Determination of Dispute , Seattle Building and
Construction Trades Council shall notify the Re-
gional Director for Region 19, in writing, whether
it will refrain from forcing or requiring the Com-
pany, by means proscribed by Section 8(b)(4)(D),
to assign the work in dispute to Ironworkers rather
than to the Company's employees represented by
the Carpenters.