Shell Oil Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 14, 1948

79 N.L.R.B. 618 (N.L.R.B. 1948)

In the-Matter Of SHELL OIL COMPANY, INCORPORATED, EMPLOYER and
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, PETITIONER and OIL
WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, CIO, INTERVENOR
Case No. 21-RC-172.-Decided September 14, 1948
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 labor organizations named herein claim to represent em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No question of representation exists concerning the representa-
tion 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 composed of all machinists and ma-
chinists' helpers, excluding supervisors, at the Employer's Dominguez,
Wilmington, and Martinez, California, refineries.' The Intervenor,
which has bargained for all hourly paid employees of the Employer,
State-wide, excluding electricians and boilermakers, since certification
by the Board in 1939,2 contends that the proposed unit is inappropriate
'Houston, Reynolds , and Gray.
' The Petitioner originally sought all machinists and machinists ' helpers employed by
the Employer on a State -wide basis . At the hearing , however , the Petitioner restricted the
proposed unit to include only those employees above set forth.
2 Matter of Shell Oil Company, 9 N . L. R. B. 908.
79 N. L. R. B., -No. 83.
618
,SHELL, OIL COMPANY, INCORPORATED,
upon, the grounds that the description is vague and indefinite in:terms,;
that the, employees herein, do not form a true craft group, and that the,
past bargaining history on the broader basis is determinative of -the
appropriate unit. The Employer takes a neutral, position ins the,
matter. .
The Employer's operations • - •
The Employer is engaged in producing, refining, and, distributing
oil and oil products in California. It operates refineries at Domin-
guez, Wilmington, and Martinez, where it produces oil and oil prod
ucts from petroleum. The Employer's other operations are, divided
into a field division, which is engaged'in drilling wells and producing
petroleum; a pipe-line division, which is engaged in transporting
petroleum by pipe line from the fields to the plants; and a ,natural gas
division, which handles hydrocarbon and natural gas production.
The refineries. The refineries operate at all times. Each refinery
has a maintenance department. Each maintenance department em-
ploys electricians, welders, pipe fitters, machinists, carpenters, black-
smiths, boilermakers, and other skilled craftsmen, with the single pur-
pose of insuring that the refinery operation will be continuous. All
maintenance employees, irrespective of their craft skills, are classified
by the Employer as "mechanics." All helpers are assigned to a pool
and are detailed to various groups as needed. Helpers are not per-
manently assigned to assist particular craftsmen.
Each refinery maintenance department has a machine shop. The
mechanics assigned to the machine shops are skilled machinists.3
They are the only employees, with rare exceptions, who operate the
iii'achiiies'in the machine shop.' Although the Employer maintains no
apprentice program, a majority.of its machinists have served an ap-
prenticeship. The principal duty of the machinists is to keep the
refinery machines in operating condition. They dismantle, repair,
overhaul, and reassemble the operating machinery. They make or
machine parts only if it is necessary for the accomplishment of the
foregoing. Most of the work done by the machinists in the refineries
involves mechanical repairs rather than the application and exercise
of their particular craft skills.
The field, pipe-line, and natural gas divisions. Each of these divi-
sions has a maintenance department. As in the refineries, operations
are continuous; all maintenance employees are classified as mechanics;
and all helpers are assigned to a pool. None of the divisions maintains
a machine shop comparable to those of the refineries, but the field and
8 Some of the machinists work in the machine shop entirely ; some , work outside of the
shop entirely, and some work in and out of the machine shop.
(620 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR -RELATIONS BOARD
natural gas•divisi'ons maintain small shops with grinders, drill presses,
and hand tools. The mechanics in these- divisions that repair the
operating machinery must know how to operate such tools as are
-available in their machine shops .4 The pipe-line division employs
traveling mechanics who must be skilled in the use of machine tools.
-It is the function of the mechanics in all of the divisions to dismantle,
repair,. and reassemble operating machinery similar to that in the
refineries. They also perform minor machine tool work.
The Petitioner, in its proposed unit, seeks only those machinists
-employed in the refinery machine shops. However, it is clear that
there are employees in the field, pipe-line, and natural gas divisions
'who possess skills and perform work similar to that of the employees
in the unit which the Petitioner seeks. Inasmuch as the unit proposed
for severance by the Petitioner comprises only -a segment of an em-
ployee classification possessing similar craft skills and performing
comparable work, and is not coextensive with the already established
State-wide unit of hourly paid employees previously found in the
earlier proceeding, noted above, we find the requested unit to be in-
appropriate for collective bargaining purposes.
ORDER
Upon the basis of the entire record in this case, the National Labor.
Relations Board hereby orders that the petition filed in the instant.
matter be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
* The field division formerly maintained a large machine shop, with employees classified
by the Employer as machinists This shop was discontinued in 1947 and the machinists
were assigned other work . Half of them were assigned to do repair work on the field
equipment . Two of them were assigned to the machine shop in the Dominguez refinery.
5 Matter of Robert (lair Company, Inc., 77 N. L R. B. 649.