Shell Oil Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 11, 1946

66 N.L.R.B. 510 (N.L.R.B. 1946)

In the Matter of SHELL OIL COMPANY, INCORPORATED and INTER-
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS, CHEMISTS AND
TECHNICIANS, CHAPTER 36, C. I. O.
Case No. 20-R-1595.-Decided March 11, 1946
Mr. A. F. Smith, of San Francisco, Calif., and Messrs. I. M.
Hemphill, E. A. Romer, and R. C. Barton, of Martinez, Calif., for
the Company.
Messrs. Harry, Gonick, Donald M. Shea, and Bernard Young, of
Oakland, Calif., and Messrs. 0. H. Parkinen, R. S. Urner, and F. A.
Stevensen, of Martinez, Calif., for the Union.
Mr. Herbert C. Kane, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
ORDER
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon a petition duly filed by International Federation of Archi-
tects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians, Chapter 36, C. I. 0.,
herein called the Union, alleging that a question affecting commerce
had arisen concerning the representation of employees of Shell Oil
Company, Incorporated, Martinez, California, herein called the
Company, the National Labor Relations Board provided for an
appropriate hearing upon due notice before Wallace E. Royster,
Trial Examiner. The hearing was held at San Francisco, California,
on September 13, 1945. The Company and the Union appeared
and participated? All parties were afforded full opportunity to
be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce
evidence bearing on the issues. The Trial Examiner's rulings made
i At the hearing the Trial Examiner denied the motion to intervene of a committee
which sought to assert the interests of a group of employees but which did not
purport to be, or to function as, a collective bargaining representative. Inasmuch
as this committee was not a necessary party to the proceeding , the ruling of the
Trial Examiner denying the motion is hereby affirmed See Oughton v . N. L R B,
118 F. (2d) 486 (C. C. A. 3).
66 N. L. R. B., No. 66.
510
SHELL OIL COMPANY, INCORPORATED 511
at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
All parties were afforded opportunity to file briefs with the Board.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following :
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
Shell Oil Company, Incorporated, a Virginia corporation, operates
production fields, refineries, pipelines, and sales services in the State
of California and in a number of other States in the United States.
We are here concerned only with the Cbmpany's refinery at Martinez.
California. The principal materials used or produced by the Com-
pany are crude oil, natural gasoline, fuel oil, kerosene, asphalt, road
oil, and colas. During the calendar year 1944, the total value of
products sold by the Pacific Coast territory of the Company, in-
cluding the production of the Martinez refinery, was in excess of
$50,000,000, more than 26 percent of which represented shipments
to points outside the State of California.
We find that the Company is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
II. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED
International Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and
Technicians, Chapter 36, is a labor organization affiliated with the
Congress of Industrial Organizations, admitting to membership
employees of the Company.
III. THE ALLEGED APPROPRIATE UNIT
The Union seeks a unit of professional employees in the Technical
Department of the Company's Martinez refinery, excluding super-
visory employees. The Company contends that such a unit would
be inappropriate unless professional employees in the Engineering
Department were also included.
Some of the employees in the Technical Department are stationed
in buildings devoted to their specfic use, while others are housed in
the Company's main office building along with the Engineering De-
partment employees. Both departments, for the most part, employ
professional employees; those in the Technical Department have
degrees in either engineering or in chemistry, while the majority
of those in the Engineering Department have degrees in engineering.
Included in the latter department is 1 employee who has a degree
S12 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
in chemistry and 10 employees who, although classified as pro-
fessional, have no degrees. Although the employees in each
department are under different supervision, the Technical Department
being under the Chief Technol9gist, and the Engineering Depart-
ment under the Chief Engineer, the employees in similar classifica-
tions in both departments are paid at the same wage rate and enjoy
the same working conditions. Both departments do related and
integrated work. The Technical Department is primarily concerned
with the control aspect of the Company's operations and carries on
fundamental research in the development and testing of the Coin-
pany's products.. The Engineering Department estimates the cost
of approved projects relating to experimentation, production, over-
sees maintenance and construction operations in the operating field
within the refinery. The record shows in this connection that both
departments work together on problems relating to power plants
and distilling systems. Thus, once the Engineering Department
has obtained approval for the project, it submits the plan to the Tech-
nical Department where it is designed and "sized." Thereafter the
Engineering Department completes the design in detail with the
assistance of specially assigned Technical Department employees.
It is the function of the latter to advise the Engineering Department
regarding the technical details of the specific problems. In addition,
the Technical Department employees who are assigned to trouble
shooting in the operating field within the refinery apparently have
contact with, and work in cooperation with, Engineering Department
employees engaged in overseeing maintenance operations in the field.
Further, it is clear from the record that there have been transfers
between these departments on a permanent basis, an additional indi-
cation that the skills and creative abilities of employees in one de-
partment are, to a certain extent, comparable to those required of
employees in the other department.
The Union seeks to justify its unit contention on the ground that
it has organized the professional employees in the Technical De-
partment but has been unsuccessful in organizing those in the
Engineering Department, and that the employees in the former
constitute a distinct group appropriate for collective bargaining.
Although the Board has granted petitions for departmental units
on the theory that organization has not extended beyond such de-
partment, it has never done so where the grouping is artificial and
arbitrary. The Board has always held that the appropriate unit
must be a readily delineable, functionally coherent, and distinct
group. The instant record indicates that the integration and inter-
relation of the operations of these departments preclude the estab-
]isnekt of a unit restricted to professional employees in the Ta b-.-
SHELL OIL COMPANY, INCORPORATED 513
nical Department. That a union has limited its organizational
activities to an arbitrary grouping of employees does not justify
the creation of a separate bargaining unit for such employees where,
as here, they are but an integral part of a larger appropriate unit.
,Accordingly, we find that the unit proposed by the Union is in-
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining, and we shall
dismiss the petition filed herein.
IV. THE ALLEGED QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
Because the bargaining unit sought to be established by the petition
is inappropriate, as stated in Section III, above, we find that no
question has arisen concerning the representation of employees of
the Company, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act.
ORDER
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and the entire
record in this proceeding, the National Labor Relations Board hereby
orders that the petition for certification of representatives of em-
ployees of Shell Oil Company, Incorporated, Martinez, California,
filed by the International Federation of Architects, Engineers,
Chemists, and Technicians, Chapter 36, C. I. 0., be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
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