Union Carbide Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 5, 1957

118 N.L.R.B. 954 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

954 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
(2) All office and plant clerical employees at the Employer's Mer-
chantville, New Jersey, carton plant, including schedule clerks , plate.
purchasers , payroll clerks, clerk typists, and clerks, but excluding
secretaries to the plant manager, plant superintendent and vice presi-
dent, and all supervisors as defined in the Act.
Case No. 4-RC-3316
(1) All office clerical employees at the Employer's Delair, New
Jersey, plant office, including clerk-typists, stenographer-clerks,
schedule clerks, clerks, laboratory helpers, sample makers, laboratory
technicians, payroll clerks, and messenger, but excluding confidential
employees,' the head payroll clerk, and all other supervisors as defined,
in the Act.
(2) All plant clerical employees at the Employer's Delair, New
Jersey, plant, including stockroom clerks, clerk-typists, stenographer
clerks, schedule clerks, clerks, and truck dispatchers, but excluding
office clerical employees, and all other employees currently represented
in the plant production and maintenance unit, guards, watchmen, and
all supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication.]
9 These confidential employees comprise the secretaries to the director of labor relations,
the personnel manager, and office manager.
Union Carbide Chemicals Company, Division of Union Carbide
Corporation (Torrance Plant ) 1 and Metal Trades Council of
Southern California , and its affiliated Local and International
Unions, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. !?1-RC-4714. August
5,196'
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Max Steinfeld, hear-
ing officer. 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 Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman Leedom and Members Murdock and Jenkins].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
I The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing.
118 NLRB No. 124.
UNION CARBIDE CHEMICALS COMPANY 955
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain
employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce 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.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of the Employer's main-
tenance employees. The Employer contends that its operations are
so integrated as to make such a unit inappropriate. There is no
history of collective bargaining.
The maintenance employees are primarily skilled craftsmen. They
are headquartered in a separate building and are under the super-
vision of a general foreman and 10 foremen, each in charge of a par-
ticular subgroup. A small percentage of the maintenance employees
work on a rotating shift basis and these employees are responsible to,
and take orders from, the operating shift supervisors.
There is a little or no interchange between production and mainte-
nance employees and the maintenance employees go through a separate
training program. The maintenance group has the accounting symbol
of 327. The truckdrivers and heavy equipment operators who
are classified as maintenance employees have the accounting symbol
of 355. Testimony indicates that the ,into mechanic may be assigned
the latter symbol, too.
There is 1 laborer and approximately 18 general helpers classified
as maintenance employees and assigned the maintenance code. They
are shifted every 30 days between maintenance and production opera-
tions and, generally, at any given time, approximately one-half of the
helpers are doing maintenance work. They perform the unskilled.
tasks around the plant.
Company policy prohibits maintenance employees from doing pro-
duction work and, conversely, production employees from doing main-
tenance work. However, production employees do some minor
maintenance and repairs and maintenance employees are sometimes
assisted by production employees in maintaining and repairing
equipment.
On the record as a whole, we find that the maintenance employees are
a clearly identifiable, functionally distinct, and homogeneous group
whose work and interests differ from those of the other employees in
the plant. The Board has consistently found that such a group may
constitute a separate unit in the absence of bargaining history.2
Moreover, it is clear that the "traditional union" test of American
Potash and Chemical Corporation s which the Employer urges as a
basis for denying separate representation to the maintenance em-
9 E. 1. du Pont de Nemours and Company , 117 NLRB 1048.
3 107 NLRB 1418.
956 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ployees, is not applicable where, as here, the Petitioner is not seeking
to sever a group from an existing unit 4
Accordingly, we find that the following employees of the Employer
may constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act:
All maintenance employees at the Employer's Torrance, California,
plant, including the laborer and general helpers,5 but excluding all
other employees including office clerical employees, professional em-
ployees, watchmen, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
4 East Texas Pulp & Paper Company, 113 NLRB 539, 543.
5 Contrary to the Employer 's contention , we do not consider it necessary for all main-
tenance employees to be skilled employees of craft status. Shoreland Freezers, Inc., 108
NLRB 723. As the laborer and general helpers are assigned to the maintenance group and
as no other labor organization is seeking to represent them, we shall include them in the
unit.
Charles T. Brandt , Inc. and Independent Sheet Metal Fabricators
and Allied Trades of America , Local No. 1, Petitioner. Case
No. 5-RC-2120. .Augur t 5,1957
DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
Pursuant to a stipulation for certification upon consent election
dated February 1, 1957, entered into by the Employer, the Petitioner,
the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, Local
146, hereinafter referred to as the UE, and District 12, International
Association of Machinists, AFL-CIO, an election by secret ballot
was conducted on April 2, 1957, under the direction and supervision
of the Regional Director for the Fifth Region among the employees
in the stipulated unit. No objections to the election were filed. The
results of this election were indeterminative, and a runoff election
between the two highest choices on the ballot was therefore necessary.
Accordingly, a runoff election was conducted on April 12, 1957, with
the Petitioner and the UE on the ballot. Following the election, the
parties were furnished with a tally of ballots, which showed that out
of approximately 205 eligible voters, 159 cast ballots, of which 85 were
cast for the Petitioner, 73 for the UE, and 1 ballot was void. There
were no challenges.
On April 19, 1957, the UE timely filed objections to the conduct
affecting the results of the election, copies of which were duly served
on the parties. In accordance with the Rules and Regulations of the
Board, the Regional Director conducted an investigation of the ob-
jections, and on June 20, 1957, issued and served on the parties his
report on objections, recommending that the objections be overruled
and that the Petitioner be certified as the bargaining agent for the
118 NLRB No. 123.