Sheet Metal Workers Local 465

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 8, 1972

198 N.L.R.B. 1245 (N.L.R.B. 1972)

SHEET METAL WORKERS LOCAL 465
Sheet Metal Workers Local Union No. 465 and
Thorpe Insulation Company and Asbestos Workers
Local Union No . 113. Cases 23-CD-286
September 8, 1972
DECISION AND ORDER QUASHING
NOTICE OF HEARING
By CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS JENKINS
AND KENNEDY
This is a proceeding under Section 10(k) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, follow-
ing charges filed by Thorpe Insulation Company,
herein called the Employer or Thorpe, alleging that
Sheet Metal Workers Local Union No. 465, herein
called Respondent or Sheet Metal Workers, has
violated Section 8(b)(4)(D) of the Act. A hearing was
held before Hearing Officer Willard I. Boss on May
4, 1972. The Employer, Respondent, and Asbestos
Workers Local Union No. 113, herein called Asbes-
tos Workers, appeared at the hearing and were
afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine
and cross-examine witnesses, and to adduce evidence
bearing on the issues.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The rulings of the Hearing Officer made at the
hearing are free from prejudicial error and are
hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the
Board makes the following findings:
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
Thorpe Insulation Company is a Texas corporation
with offices and place of business in Corpus Christi,
Texas, where it is engaged in the insulation contract-
ing business. During the past 12 months, Thorpe
Insulation Company purchased goods and materials
directly from points outside the State of Texas of a
value in excess of $50,000. We find that Thorpe
Insulation Company is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and that it will effectuate the
policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
H. THE LABOR ORGANIZATION INVOLVED
The parties stipulated, and we find, that the
Respondent and Asbestos Workers are labor organi-
zations within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act.
I Aluminum lagging is a metal jacket placed around insulation materials
used on piping and vessels in the power plant.
III. THE DISPUTE
1245
A. Background and Facts of the Dispute
Thorpe Insulation Company is the insulation
subcontractor on the Nueces Bay Power Station
project for Central Power & Light Company in
Corpus Christi, Texas. Thorpe has a collective-
bargaining agreement with Asbestos Workers Local
113 and all of its employees engaged in insulation
work are members of that union.
Prior to March 15, 1972, Thorpe's vice president
and manager, W. D. Leonard, had several conversa-
tions with the business agent of Sheet Metal Workers
regarding the installation of .020 aluminum lagging 1
by members of Sheet Metal Workers. Leonard told
him that the work was assigned to his own employees
and refused to change the work assignments.
Leonard also refused to sign a contract which the
business agent submitted to him. On March 15, 1972,
pickets appeared at the entrances to the project
carrying signs bearing the single word "INFORMA-
TIONAL." A picket also appeared at the offices of
Thorpe with a sign stating, in substance, "Thorpe
Insulation Company has no contract with Sheet
Metal Workers Local 465." On that same day Thorpe
filed an unfair labor practice charges alleging that
the Sheet Metal Workers were violating Section
8(b)(4)(i) and (ii)(D). On March 16, the following
day, the pickets were removed.
On February 21, 1972, Sheet Metal Workers had
submitted the dispute to the National Joint Board for
the Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes. On March
30, the board determined that the installation of
aluminum lagging of .016 inches thickness and ligher
should be assigned to Asbestos Workers and the
installation of aluminum lagging heavier than .016
inches should be assigned to Sheet Metal Workers.
Thorpe has never been contractually bound to
submission of the dispute to the National Joint
Board.
On April 4, Sheet Metal Workers filed an injunc-
tion proceeding against Asbestos Workers in the
District Court of Nueces County. This suit was
subsequently removed to the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Texas, Corpus
Christi Division. On April 17, United States District
Judge Owen Cox entered an order enjoining Asbes-
tos Workers from violating the National Joint Board
Award, conditioned on the posting of a $25,000
surety bond by Sheet Metal Workers. To the date of
the hearing the required bond had not been posted.
On April 26, 1972, Joseph P. Zinser, International
organizer of Asbestos Workers, telegraphed James
198 NLRB No. 184
1246 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
King, business agent of Asbestos Workers Local
Union No. 113, instructing him "to immediately
remove our people from applying metal lagging
heavier than .016 . . ." on the project. King
informed Leonard regarding the instructions he had
received and told him that he was going to abide by
his instructions. Because of the position taken by,
King, Leonard requested Central Power and Light
Company to change the specification for aluminum
lagging from .020 to .016. Central Power agreed to
the change and Asbestos Workers are now installing
.016 aluminum lagging. There is no evidence that
Thorpe's employees were ever requested to continue
the installation of .020 aluminum lagging.
B. Work in Dispute
The work in dispute is the application and
installation of aluminum lagging, .020 in thickness,
as a jacket covering over calcium silicate insulation
installed on piping and vessels.
C. Contentions of the Parties
Thorpe contends that members of Asbestos Work-
ers should be assigned the work in dispute on the
basis of the skills involved, the Company's practice,
and economy and efficiency of operation. The
Respondent contends that the dispute herein is a
contractual and not a jurisdictional dispute, that
there is no existing jurisdictional dispute because the
Employer has changed its operations and is no
longer doing the disputed work, and that the work is
in the traditional trade jurisdiction of sheetmetal
workers it represents.
D. Applicability of the Statute
Section 10(k) of the Act , which directs the Board to
hear and determine disputes out of which 8(b)(4)(D)
charges have arisen , limits the Board 's authority in
this respect to situations in which an employer's
assignment of work is in dispute . Under the Board's
Safeway doctrine ,2 a jurisdictional dispute no longer
exists where one of the competing unions or parties
effectively renounces its claim to the work.3
In this case the business agent for Asbestos
Workers informed Thorpe that he had been instruct-
ed by his International Union not to do the work of
installing .020 aluminum lagging , the work in
dispute, and that he intended to abide by these
instructions . Thorpe apparently made no effort to
persuade his employees to install the .020 aluminum
lagging but instead obtained a change in the
specifications which permitted him to substitute .016
aluminum lagging for the .020 aluminum lagging
originally required by the specifications . The Res-
pondent Union , Sheet Metal Workers, has made no
claim to the installation of .016 aluminum lagging,
and Asbestos Workers have installed this lagging
without interference. Under these circumstances we
find that there no longer exists a competing claim to
the disputed work within the meaning of the Act, and
we shall therefore quash the notice of hearing issued
herein.4
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the notice of hearing
issued in this case be, and it hereby is, quashed.
MEMBER JENKINS, concurring:
I concur in the result.
2 Highway Truckdrivers and Helpers, Local 107 (Safeway Stores, Incorpo- Floor Co), 143 NLRB 251
rated), 134 NLRB 1320 4 Local 1905, Carpet Layers, supra at 255-256. Cf. Seafarers' International
3 N L R B v Plasterers' Local Union No 79 [Texas State Tile], 404 U S Union of North America (Delia Steamship Lines, Inc), 172 NLRB No. 70.
116, I34-135, Local 1905, Carpet, Linoleum & Soft Tile Layers (Southwestern