United Shoe Machinery Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 27, 1970

185 N.L.R.B. 200 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

200 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
United Shoe Machinery Corporation Beverly Manu-
facturing Division and Local 271 , United Electri-
cal, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE).
Case 1-CA-6352
August 27,-1970
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND ORDER
BY MEMBERS FANNING, MCCULLOCH, AND JENKINS
On November 15, 1968, the National Labor Rela-
tions Board issued its Decision and Order in the
above-entitled proceeding' finding that Respondent
had violated Section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act by
refusing to recognize and bargain with the Charging
Union as collective-bargaining representative of
employees at Respondent's Beverly 'Manufacturing
Division, Beverly, Massachussetts. Thereafter, the
Board filed -a petition with the United States Court
of Appeals for the First Circuit for enforcement of
its Order. The court in a per curiam opinion' remanded
to the Board stating:
Respondent is within its rights in asserting that
the Regional Director neither affirmatively evi-
denced an awareness of the community of interest
questions -in the terms to which it should have
been considered consistent, with previous Board
'decisions, 'nor articulately applied it. While we
might think that, sub silentio, he may have 'gone
through both of these .processes, we cannot be
certain. The fact finder has a positive duty, both
towards the respondent, and towards us as the
reviewing court, to make plain what he-is doing.
The case must be remanded for. further,proceed-
ings. At the same time we observe that a conten-
tion that as a matter of law the Director should
be required to find that a - single unit composed
of all of respondent's technical and clerical
employees is the only appropriate unit cannot
be supported.
Pursuant to the provisions of 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 reexamined the entire record includ-
ing the underlying representation case, the court's
opinion, and the briefs of the parties, and hereby
reaffirms its Decision and Order for the reasons indi-
cated below:
173 NLRB No 122
NL R B. v United Shoe Machinery Corporation, Beverly Manufactur-
ing Division , 445 F 2d 633 (C A 1)
In his Decision and Direction of Election, the
Acting Regional Director found that all of the techni-
cal employees at Respondent 's plant constituted an
appropriate unit . Respondent does not argue that
the employees in the unit found appropriate are not
technical employees , nor does it contend that the
unit does not include all its technical employees.
It maintains the position that only an all -inclusive
unit of technicals , plant clericals, and office clericals
can be found appropriate . The court noted that
'Respondent 's contention , as a matter of law, could
not be supported.
The Board has long held that a unit of all technical
employees is appropriate.'
Since the earliest days the Board has recognized
the different interests of technical employees from
other employees because of their 'distinctive training
and experience and functions ,' even to the point of
excluding them from any other unit when one party
objected to their inclusion .' This automatic exclusion
ended with The Sheffield Corporation,' where we stated
that
We are not persuaded that the practice thereunder
of automatically excluding all technical employees
from production and maintenance units whenever
their unit placement is in issue is a salutary
way of achieving the purposes of the Act. To
do so is to give primacy in unit placement to
the parties' disagreement rather than to the over-
riding consideration of the community of interests
of such employees with ;the production and main-
tenance employees. In order, therefore, to give
effective weight to such community of interest,
we shall no longer utilize an automatic placement
formula, but shall instead, make a pragmatic
judgment in each case, based upon. an analysis
of the following factors, among others: desires
of the parties, history of bargaining, similarity
of working conditions, type of industry, organiza-
tion of plant, whether the technical employees
work in separately situated and separately con-
trolled areas, and whether any union seeks to
represent technical employees separately . . . .
[emphasis supplied. Fns. omitted]'
In light of that Board precedent as --stated, above,
the requested unit of all the technical employees
was one that the Board customarily finds appropriate.
' Bulldog Electric Products Company, 96 NLRB 642, 643, Vickers,
Incorporated; 124 NLRB 1051, 1053
4 Chrysler Corporation, I NLRB 164;Concolidated Aircraft Corporation,
2 NLRB 772
See Litton Industries of Maryland, Incorporated, 125 NLRB 722
134 NLRB 1101
' Id at 1103, 1104
185 NLRB No. 36
UNITED SHOE CORPORATION
In view of the language of the court's opinion
we have reexamined the record in this case to deter-
mine whether the clericals in this particular plant
have a sufficient community of interest to require
their inclusion with the technical employees.
The Employer urges that the clericals have a suffi-
cient community of interest with the technical employ-
ees to warrant their inclusion in the unit because
they are all salaried, receive fringe benefits of uniform
application, are located in the same building, and
share the same restaurant, cafeteria, and restrooms;
and because improvements in salaries and fringe bene-
fits are normally given to all in the salaried group
at the same time.
The record reveals that the Employer employs vari-
ous clericals in each of its nine departments. Generally
clerical employees have a high school education and
can be employed immediately upon graduation. Typ-
ists and stenographers come directly out of school
and start in the mailing department. No formal train-
ing is required of the cataloguer, although he is
among the highest paid of all clerical employees.
The work performed by clerical employees is sub-
stantially less complex than that performed by the
technicals.The department clerk keeps records of
incoming and outgoing jobs. The tool obsolescence
clerk keeps track of tools to determine if they are
still in use. The reproduction department clericals
reproduce records for the various departments. The
catalogue department clericals prepare catalogs listing
the parts of a particular machine and are responsible
for preparing machine name plates. The stenographic
and clerical employees type operation sheets and
notices for distribution to various departments. The
photographic laboratory assistant does the clerical
work for the photographic department. The inventory
clerks keep a record of the movement of stock. The
expediter locates parts that are needed by other depart-
ments. The tool order clerk writes orders and main-
tains the tool inventory.
On the other hand, the more highly skilled technical
employees are required to have substantial technical
20 1
training. Many are required to have an Associate
Degree or its equivalent. Seventy-seven of the Employ-
er's eighty-eight technicals work in the engineering
department where they are responsible for designing
the tools and developing the methods by which specific
machines can be manufactured. They include tool
designers, draftsmen, operations writers and checkers,
methods writers and checkers, manufacturing engi-
neers, specialty and investigatory engineers, design
engineers, the photographer, and assistant photogra-
phers. The result of their effort is a detailed plan
for the production of specific machine parts.
In addition there are technical employees in other
departments. They include: the toolroom engineer,
whose job requires a broad practical knowledge of
tool and guage application and whose duties include
the carrying out of tests on cutting tool performance;
the inspection planner, who formulates plant proce-
dure; and the program analyst, programmers, and
associate programmers in the systems and procedure
department, who are responsible for programming
the Company's computers.
The technical employees receive substantially higher
salaries than the clericals.
On the basis of the entire record before us, we
conclude that the technicals of the Employer differ
from the clericals in that they receive substantially
higher pay, are generally required to have additional
education above the high school diploma required
for clericals, and have a technical background resulting
from specialized training or plant experience. None
of the technical employees interchanges with the cleri-
cals. Most technical employees have little contact
with plant clericals and only routine contact with
the office clericals. Thus we find that the technical
employees share an identifiable community of interest
in employment conditions with one another, distinct
from the interests of the plant and office clericals.'
Accordingly, we reaffirm the findings, conclusions,
and remedy provided in our original Decision and
Order.
The Armstrong Rubber Co, Pacific Coast Division, 144 NLRB 1115