The Zia Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 3, 1969

174 N.L.R.B. 972 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

972 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Zia Company and Bradley S. Barrows,
Petitioner . Case 28-RC-1827
March 3, 1969
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
BROWN AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed by Bradley S. Barrows,
Petitioner herein, under Section 9(c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was
held before Hearing Officer Shirley N. Bingham.
Following the hearing and pursuant to Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Rules and
Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8,
as amended, and by direction of the Regional
Director for Region 28, this case was transferred to
the National Labor Relations Board for decision.
Briefs have been timely filed by the Employer, the
Petitioner, and the Intervenor.'
Pursuant to Section 3(b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor
Relations Board has delegated its powers in
connection with this case to a three-member panel
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby
affirmed
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board
finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The Petitioner is an individual claiming to
represent certain employees of the Employer
3. In view of our findings below, no question
affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of the employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Section 9(e)(1) and Section
2(6) and (7) of the Act.
A. The Contentions of the Parties
The Employer is a New Mexico corporation
primarily engaged in maintenance and support
functions for the United States Atomic Energy
Commission and other defense-related organizations
at locations in New Mexico and elsewhere. Its
operation at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
in New Mexico, under contract with the Atomic
Energy Commission, is the sole location involved in
this proceeding. Of the Employer's 950 employees at
Los Alamos, 750 are represented along craft lines in
12 separate units by 11 different labor organizations,
' international Union of Operating Engineers , Local Union No 953,
AFL-CIO , herein referred to as Intervenor , was permitted to intervene at
the hearing or the basis of its current contract covering approximately 110
of the Employer 's 950 employees, including the employees sought under
the instant petition
while the remainder, mostly professional, technical,
and clerical personnel, are unrepresented Petitioner,
a machinist employed in the Machine Shop, seeks to
sever a purported craft unit of approximately 13
"general machinists" (i.e., himself and his 12 fellow
Machine Shop employees) from the existing
Intervenor's unit of 110 employees. The Intervenor's
predecessor was certified in 1948 in a unit including,
inter alia , ". .. all mechanics and repairmen, lathe
and shop work, fork lifts, partsmen, firemen, oilers,
greasers, mechanic and welder helpers . . " The
Intervenor (or its predecessor) and the Employer
have . negotiated seven collective-bargaining
agreements since that time, most recently in
mid-1968, all of which covered employees doing
machine shop work.'
The Employer, while conceding the craft status of
the Machine Shop employees, opposes severance on
several grounds: the creation of another craft group
will increase the possibility of disruption in the
production process, a particularly undesirable
happening in view of Zia's involvement in defense
work; the Machine Shop has never established and
does not possess a separate identity within the
Intervenor's unit, the employees sought have been
adequately represented by the Intervenor for 20
years, the Employer will lose operating flexibility if
it cannot transfer employees between the Machine
Shop and other sections of the Intervenor's unit
when necessary; and, finally, Petitioner is
unqualified to represent a craft, or for that matter,
any unit The Intervenor adopts a position basically
similar to that of the Employer, except that the
Intervenor does not concede the machinists' craft
status, claiming instead that they merely possess
special skills which are not unique within the unit.
For the reasons set forth below, we find merit in the
contentions of the Employer and the Intervenor.
B. Background
The Machine Shop occupies one-half of a large
room, with the Sheet Metal Fabrication Shop as the
other tenant The room is apparently not
partitioned, but there are separate doors on either
side. Ninety percent of the machinists' time is spent
in fabricating to blueprint specifications metal parts
requiring tolerances of less than 1/64th of an inch,
in connection with the AEC's weapons testing
program ;' the rest of their time is devoted to unit
'Under the contract which expired on June 30 , 1968, and presumably
under the previous agreements as well , the employees working in the
Machine Shop were classified as "Mechanics and Welders ," along with 39
other unit employees serving as automotive mechanics , heavy equipment
mechanics, and the like , some of whom perform machinist work part-time
In the new agreement, which had not been executed at the time of the
August 1968 hearing in this case , the category of "Operator Machinist"
appears for the first time Only Machine Shop employees currently qualify
for the classification by virtue of spending more than half their time
performing machinists' work
'Between 1947 and 1953 , the Machine Shop was considered "an
174 NLRB No. 145
THE ZIA CO. 973
repair work . Machine tools exist in other unit shops.
In the Heavy Equipment Shop, where the
fabricating work does not relate to the weapons
testing program , these tools are used occasionally
for work involving tolerances in the thousandths of
an inch.
The Machine Shop enjoys a significant degree of
integration with the other departments within the
Operating Engineers' unit Although the Employer
does not maintain any formal bidding plan, it
encourages other unit employees with experience
and promise to bid for machine shop positions; in
fact, about half the present Machine Shop employee
complement transferred there from elsewhere in the
unit.' If the weapons testing program slackened and
a layoff were imminent in the Machine Shop, the
Employer would transfer to other jobs within the
parent unit any machinist (there are several) who
possessed relevant unit skills, i.e., heavy equipment
operator, diesel mechanic, etc Moreover, machinists
with special skills have been assigned to
nonmachinist work elsewhere in the Operating
Engineers' unit when the need for their services has
arisen.' On occasion, unit mechanic-welders from
other unit departments come into the Machine
Shop, either on a repair call or to use one of the
several pieces of machining equipment which have
no counterpart elsewhere in the unit; other unit
members also deliver oversize items to the Machine
Shop for machining.
As noted above, the Employer makes the
concession in its brief that the proposed unit "does
involve skilled journeyman craftsmen performing
many functions of their craft on a nonrepetitive
basis " The record evidence as to the existence of a
craft skill is less conclusive than the Employer's
admission would seem to suggest Thus, journeyman
status is not a condition of employment and there is
no apprenticeship or formal on-the-job training
program for machinists. Moreover, for years the
Machine Shop foreman was not a machinist,
indicating that the Employer recognized no need for
incidental support operation " of the Employer ' s Transportation Division,
concerned with making parts for equipment ( mostly automotive ), at times
from blueprint specifications In 1953 , the Machine Shop was joined with
the Stationary Equipment Shop as part of the Technical Area Division
The Machine Shop operation was minimal until 1960, when the Employer
became involved in support and operations work for the AEC's
underground weapons testing program , since that time, the volume of work
funneled into the Machine Shop has increased on a "logarithmic" curve
In mid-1967 , the Employer established the Machine Shop as an
independent department within the Technical Area Division , and moved it
to its present quarters
'One transferee who did not perform competently was returned to his
original position at the end of 3 weeks
'Twice during the year preceding the hearing, the Employer , which does
not employ millwrights as such , assigned machinists who had millwright
experience to help assemble scientific equipment requiring precise leveling
and alignment On these occasions the machinists worked with other unit
employees The Employer has also utilized the equipment operator skills of
some machinists to assist in snow removal
skilled supervision of the work being done. On the
other hand, the Employer apparently expects the
machinists to acquire, at some point in their tenure,
about $1,000 worth of machinists' tools and
equipment.
The record does not disclose any attempts on the
part of the machinists to secure independent
recognition prior to 1968 In early April, Petitioner
was chosen to present to the Intervenor for inclusion
in the latter's bargaining platform for the 1968
contract negotiations a number of proposals of
specific benefit to machinists These included, inter
alia, a revised classification (from mechanic-welder
to machinist general), a machinists' apprenticeship
program, a wage increase, premium pay, supervision
by qualified machinists on both shifts,
hospitalization coverage, and sick leave benefits,
now enjoyed by only some of the departments in the
Intervenor's unit.6 The Intervenor rejected almost all
of the Machine Shop's proposals, but did bargain
for, and obtain, at least one of the machinists'
stated objectives - a revised classification
specifically intended for application to machinists.
Petitioner, it should be noted, sat on the
Intervenor's negotiating committee during the 1968
negotiations ' While negotiations were still in
progress, on July 12, Petitioner, acting at the behest
of fellow machine shop employees, filed the instant
petition.8
We find, upon consideration of the evidence
before us, that the unit sought is inappropriate for
severance purposes under the standards established
by the Mallinckrodt' case, even assuming that many
of the machinists are performing craft functions.
While it is true that much of the work of the
Machine Shop employees involves the fabrication of
parts for the weapons program, in contrast to the
repair and support operations performed by the
other members of the Intervenor's unit who perform
machine shop work, the skills employed by the
machinists are essentially similar to those utilized by
the other employees in the unit who operate
machine tools, the chief differences being the
machinists' greater experience in handling work
requiring close tolerances and their full-time, rather
than part-time, involvement in machine shop work
Furthermore, as pointed out above, the Machine
Shop is integrated into the operations of the rest of
the Intervenor's unit. The Machine Shop performs
'In the 1963 negotiations , it was agreed that each individual shop within
the Intervenor ' s unit could obtain sick leave benefits (with a collateral
wage reduction ) if a majority of the shop 's employees so voted The
then-combined Machine and Stationary Equipment Shop rejected sick
leave During the 1968 negotiations , a sick leave program was offered only
to the unit as a whole , which voted against it Those shops which had
previously opted for the program, however , continued to enjoy it
'The record does not disclose whether Machine Shop employees
participated in previous contract negotiations as bargaining committee
members , or if they have been involved in the Intervenor ' s internal
operations
'During the spring, Petitioner and other machinists also informed
management officials of their dissatisfaction with the Intervenor's
representation of their interests and with the prevailing wage rates
'162 NLRB No 48
974 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
unit repair work. It serves as an avenue of
promotion for unit employees, while on a reciprocal
basis the Intervenor's unit stands ready to absorb
machinists with unit skills in time of layoff in the
Machine Shop Some unit members also work in the
Machine Shop from time to time, both repairing
and operating the machine tools and equipment.
This flexible arrangement is clearly of benefit to the
machinists and the Employer, affording the former
an opportunity to bump into the parent unit, and so
avoid layoff, and the latter considerable latitude in
work assignments. Moreover it demonstrates that a
meaningful community of interest exists between the
machinists and many of their fellow operating
engineers.
Another important consideration is that, so far as
the record shows, the employees sought by the
Petitioner have been adequately represented since
1947 by the Intervenor as part of the Operating
Engineers' unit. Not until late 1967 or 1968 did they
attempt to gain recognition as an independent
entity There is no evidence to indicate that the
Intervenor has acted in disregard of the machinists'
interests or has failed to give their demands full and
fair consideration. Certainly, the simple fact of
refusal to adopt all the demands is not proof of
neglect Indeed, the Intervenor gave tangible
evidence of its concern by appointing Petitioner to
sit on the Intervenor's negotiating committee, a
position which Petitioner accepted, and by
incorporating in its bargaining platform (and
obtaining) the machinists' demand for titular
recognition in the bargaining contract
As a final consideration, we note the material,
although not in itself determinative, fact that
Petitioner, a machinist, has failed to demonstrate
any special qualil ications for serving as a
collective-bargaining representative for the machinist
employees involved herein.
In view of the foregoing evaluation, we conclude
that severance is not warranted. Accordingly, we
shall dismiss the petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.