Seattle Gas Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 9, 1954

108 N.L.R.B. 1265 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

SEATTLE GAS COMPANY 1265
SEATTLE GAS COMPANY and WILLIAM A. BERTMAN, Peti-
tioner and LOCAL 121, INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL
WORKERS UNION, AFL. Case No. 19-RD-71. June 9, 1954
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition for decertification duly filed under Section
9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held
before Albert Gese, hearing officer. The hearing officer's
rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error
and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case , the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the mean-
ing of the Act.
2. The Petitioner, an employee of the Employer, asserts
that the Union is no longer the representative , as defined in
Section 9 (a) of the Act, of the employees designated in the
petition. The Union, a labor organization, is the currently
recognized representative of the employees in question.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of employees of the Employer within the mean-
ing of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to have the Union decertified as the
bargaining representative of the Employer's chemists. The
Petitioner and the Employer contend, and the Union denies,
that the aforesaid employees are professional employees
within the meaning of Section 2 (12) of the Act, and that such
employees together constitute an appropriate unit, sepa-
rate from the unit covered by the Union's contract with the
Employe r.1
The Employer is a public utility engaged in the business of
processing and selling manufactured gas. Its production and
maintenance employees, including chemists, have been repre-
sented by the Union since 1942. Pursuant to provisions of the
contract between the Union and the Employer, all of these
employees enjoy common benefits, such as overtime pay,
sick-pay benefits, shift differential, paid holidays and vaca-
tions, retirement compensation, and group health and accident
insurance.
The Employer employs 1 chemist called a gas chemist and
4 other chemists called shift chemists, all of whom work in
the laboratory. The laboratory is in operation 7 days per week
on a 24-hour day basis. The gas chemist works only on the
day shift for 5 days each week, and the 4 shift chemists work
on a rotating shift basis, with 1 chemist on duty for each
8-hour shift. The day-shift chemists are under immediate
supervision of the chief chemist. The shift chemists on the
other 2 shifts are under the general supervision of shift fore-
1 There is no contention that the recently expired contract between the Intervenor and the
Employer constitutes a bar to this proceeding.
339676 0 - 55 - 81
108 NLRB No. 174.
1266 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
men but the shift foremen do not supervise them concerning
their laboratory work.
Four of the five chemists presently employed have ac-
credited college bachelor of science or chemical engineering
degrees with from 60 to 75 college quarter credits in chemistry
for each. The other chemist was hired as a chemist helper in
1947, after completing only 1 year of college . He has now
completed 2 more semesters of college training and has
approximately 35 credit hours in college chemistry. Under the
Employer's present policy, only applicants with college de-
grees will be considered for chemist classifications.
The chemists work primarily in the laboratory and go into
other parts of the plant only once an hour for approximately
5 minutes to read meters , gauges , gather samples , and other
data. From this information , various computations are made
by the chemist, who then records the results on the production
and distribution sheet. The chemists perform many chemical
tests and analyses in the laboratory, such as dry box survey,
pressure survey, naphthalene content of gas, light oil analyses,
surface test of seal pot water , purge tests , arsenic content of
sulphur, new type of oxide tests, evaluation of emulsion
breakers, and fractionation of light oil. They also evaluate the
results of these tests. Many of these tests are performed daily
and ordinarily follow standard procedures. Some of them, how-
ever, are in the nature of new chemical research. The Em-
ployer's chief chemist estimated that an employee without
college chemistry would never be able to perform from 10 to
20 percent of the tests required by the Employer and that he
could not reliably evaluate the results of those tests which he
learned to perform.
It is clear from the foregoing that the work of the chemists
is mainly intellectual and involves the exercise of considerable
discretion and judgment, and requires the type of knowledge
customarily acquired in scientific courses in institutions of
higher learning . We find therefore that the chemists are
professional employees within the meaning of the Act and
may constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collec-
tive bargaining, and may properly be the subject of a de-
certification petition. 2
Accordingly, we shall direct an election by secret ballot to
be held among all of the Employer's chemists, excluding
supervisors as defined in the Act and all other employees.
If the employees in the voting group do not select the Union,
the Union will be decertified as to them; if, on the other hand,
they select the Union, they will be taken to have indicated
their desire to be included with the nonprofessional employees
in the production and maintenance unit now represented by
the Union.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
2 Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company, 83 NLRB 773.