Vickers, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 28, 1959

124 N.L.R.B. 1051 (N.L.R.B. 1959)

VICKERS, INCORPORATED 1051
(B) All wrapping machine operators, ingredient scalers, icing
makers or fruit cooks, head checkers, receiving and shipping clerks,
excluding all other employees.
[Text of Direction of Elections 4 omitted from publication.]
A Locals 218 and 465 requested that, in the event that the Board directs separate elec-
tions among the employees in units (A) and ( B), Local 218 desired to go on the ballot in
the election in unit (A) and Local 465 desired to appear on the ballot in the election in
unit ( B). In view of our unit findings herein, we grant the request.
The Petitioner has not indicated whether it desires to go to an election in the units
herein found appropriate . In light of this circumstance , we shall accord it a place ion the
ballot in both elections . However, the Petitioner may withdraw its petitions in these
cases in the event it does not wish to participate in separate elections by so notifying the
Regional Director within 10 days from the date of this Direction of Elections.
Vickers, Incorporated 1 and International Union , Allied Indus-
trial Workers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case No.
17-RC-2957. September 28, 1959
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 William J. Cassidy, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and 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.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain
employees of the Employer.
3. Pursuant to a stipulation for certification upon consent election
on April 21, 1958, an election was conducted on May 28, 1958, in a unit
consisting of all the Employer's salaried employees. On June 6, 1958,
the Board certified that neither the instant Petitioner nor the Inter-
venor in that proceeding-International Union of Electrical Radio
and Machine Workers, AFL-CIO-had received a majority of the
valid votes cast and neither was the exclusive representative of the
employees concerned. The petition herein was filed on March 19,
1959 seeking, in effect, a unit of the Employer's salaried technical,
clerical, and professional employees.
The Employer contends that the proscriptions of Section 9(c) (3)
of the Act 2 require dismissal of the present petition because (1) the
Petitioner is seeking an election in a unit which is merely a segment
of the larger salaried employees unit in which an election was con-
i The Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing.
2' No election shall be directed in any bargaining unit or any subdivision within which,
in the preceding twelve-month period, a valid election shall have been held ... .
124 NLRB No. 146.
1052 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ducted less than 12 months before the filing of the petition and (2)
the petition is untimely because it was filed within a year of the cer-
tification of results of the last election, i.e., 70 days or 78 days before
the end of the 12-month period prescribed in Section 9 (c) (3) depend-
ing upon whether the date of balloting or the date of certification of
results is used.
The Board has consistently found that Section 9(c) (3) does not
preclude for a 12-month period the holding of an election in a larger
unit, such as a plantwide unit, where there has been a previous elec-
tion in a smaller unit, such as a craft, because the subsequent election
is not being conducted in a "unit or . . . subdivision" in which the
earlier election was held.' Here, the converse situation exists. The
earlier election was held in a larger unit of all salaried employees and
the present petition requests a smaller unit of some of those same
employees.
However, assuming arguendo that this provision of Section 9 (c) (3)
is applicable here, we nevertheless find that under existing Board prece-
dent an election is warranted. The Board has interpreted the time
limitations of Section 9(c) (3) to preclude only the holding of an
election within 1 year after the date of balloting of the last valid elec-
tion,4 and not to affect its discretion with respect to the timeliness of
filing of the subsequent petition. Thus, the Board's well-settled rule
has been that where the petition is filed at or near the close of the year
.after an election in which no bargaining representative was selected,
it is timely .5 Under this rule, as the instant petition was filed 70 days
before the end of the 12-month period (which began to run on the date
of the balloting of the earlier election), it was filed near the close of the
year and was timely. Accordingly, we find without merit the con-
tentions of the Employer that the petition should be dismissed.
As indicated in recent decisions revising the contract-bar rules 6 the
Board is convinced of the desirability of establishing specific periods
for the timely filing of petitions. A rule, such as the present one,
which in determining timeliness applies the rather vague and in-
definite standard of whether the petition is filed at or near the close
of the year, derogates from this salutary objective. Therefore, we
have decided that with regard to petitions filed hereafter, such peti-
tions will not be entertained if filed more than 60 days prior to the
anniversary date of an election, as prescribed in Section 9(c) (3), in
3 Thiokol Chemical Corporation , Redstone Division, 123 NLRB 888, and cases cited
therein.
4 Mallinekrodt Chemical Works, 84 NLRB 291.
51gleheart Brothers Division, General Foods Corporation, 96 NLRB 1005 ; The Heekin
Can Company , 97 NLRB 783; Coastal Drydock d Repair Corp., 107 NLRB 1023; Reming-
ton Rand, Inc., Engineering Research Associates Division, 112 NLRB 1381 ; Casey-
Metcalf Machinery Co., et at ., 114 NLRB 1520; The Stickless Corporation , 115 NLRB
979; Weston Biscuit Company, Inc., 117 NLRB 1206.
6 See , for example, Deluxe Metal Furniture Company, 121 NLRB 995.
VICKERS, INCORPORATED 1053
which no bargaining representative was selected. Petitions filed more
than 60 days before the anniversary date will be dismissed forthwith.
We find that a question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of
Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The petition describes the unit sought as follows :
All employees in the Engineering Department of Vicker's, Inc.,
Joplin Plant, Aero Division, including process engineers, tool
designers, draftsmen, blueprint clerks, engineering typists, tool
crib clerk, time and motion study analyst, methods analyst, plant
layout, products engineer and machine control clerks, but exclud-
ing supervisory employees and guards as defined in the Act.
This unit comprises, with a few exceptions, the technical employees
in the Employer's industrial engineering department. The Peti-
tioner, on the record, has indicated that it is interested principally in
representing the technical employees of the Employer. Although the
Employer contends that the technical employees in the unit requested
by the Petitioner are only a portion of all its technical employees, it
is clear from the record and the Petitioner's brief that it alternatively
seeks to represent all the Employer's technical employees, a unit which
the Board customarily finds appropriate. Therefore, it is necessary
to determine which of the classifications of employees properly belong
in a technical unit.
As to composition, it is clear that the technical unit would include
at least the process engineers (some of whom the Employer ap-
parently classifies as special assignment process engineers), tool de-
signers, draftsmen, plant layout men (some of whom the Employer
apparently classifies as special assignment plant layout men), and
time and motion study men.' The Employer concedes that the first
three of these classifications are technical, but disputes the status
of the plant layout men and of those senior time and motion study
men who do methods analysis. As to the plant layout men, the de-
scription of their duties in the record makes it quite clear that they are
technicals, and Nye so find.' Regarding the senior time and motion
study analysts who also do methods analysis, the Employer contends
that they are professional employees, relying on the Board's. decision
in General Electric Company, 89 NLRB 726. However, in Florence
Stove Company,9 where a similar classification was involved, the
Board found them to be technicals, not professionals, and specifically
overruled the General Electric case to the extent that it could be in-
7 This classification includes senior time and motion study analysts who also do methods
analysis. These latter employees are referred to in the Petitioner's unit description as
"method analysts."
8 See The Timken-Detroit Axle Company, 95 NLRB 736.
94 NLRB 1434, 1436.
1054 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
terpreted to mean that employees in this classification are necessarily
professional within the meaning of Section 2(12) of the Act. More-
over, in recent Board decisions we have found, as we do in this case,
that time and motion study men such as are involved herein are
technicals and not professionals.10
The Petitioner contends that the four employees who are classified
by the Employer as blueprint clerks should be included in the tech-
nical unit. Their duties consist of keeping files and records of all
"products of engineering drawings" and reproducing and distributing
them to appropriate places. The Employer would exclude them be-
cause it alleges that their duties require little training or skill and
their "products" go to the production control department. However,
these positions have generally been held by persons who have had
prior technical training. And, the Employer explained that they
were assigned to the industrial engineering department "... because
[their work] relates to this kind of activity." Moreover, their duties
and interests appear to be related intimately to those of the drafts-
men, whom the Employer concedes to be technicals. For, according
to the undisputed testimony of the Petitioner's representative, the
classification blueprint clerk represents the first step in the line of
progression into the drafting jobs. Furthermore, the Board has
found that blueprint clerks performing similar functions to those
involved herein properly belong in a technical unit." Accordingly,
we shall include them in the unit found appropriate herein. Of the
remaining employees sought, the record reveals that five employees in
four classifications requested by the Petitioner, i.e., engineering typist,
machine control clerk, maintenance clerk, and tool crib clerk'12 are
clericals . We shall therefore exclude them from the unit.
The Employer has two employees who are described by the Peti-
tioner as products engineers and are classified by the Employer as
resident engineers. It is clear from the description in the record of
their qualifications and duties that they are professional employees
within the meaning of the Act. Under Section 9(b) (1) of the Act,
we are precluded from including professional employees in the same
unit with nonprofessional employees unless a majority of the profes-
sional employees vote for inclusion in such a unit. Ordinarily we
would direct a self-determination election among these employees to
determine their desires in this respect. However, as it appears that
the Petitioner has no showing of interest among the products or resi-
dent engineers, we will not conduct a separate election among them,
but will exclude them from the unit found appropriate herein.13
10 See , e.g., Chapman Valve Manufacturing Company, 119 NLRB 935 ; Miehle Printing
Press f Manufacturing Company, 113 NLRB 1252.
11 Kelsey Hayes Wheel Company, 85 NLRB 666 , 670, and cases cited therein.
11 The duties of these employees , as described in the record, clearly reveal that they are
clerical employees.
13 Liggett Drug Company, Inc ., 110 NLRB 949, 950.
DIAMOND MILLS CORPORATION (HANOVER DIVISION) 1055
As we have found that the process engineers, special assignment
process engineers, tool designers, draftsmen, plant layout men, special
assignment plant layout men, blueprint clerks, and time and motion
study men are technical employees, and as the record does not indicate
there are other technical employees in the plant, we accept the Peti-
tioner's alternative position and find that these employees are entitled
to separate representation as an appropriate unit.14 The Petitioner
has an adequate showing of interest in such a unit, and we shall there-
fore direct an election in a separate unit of technical employees in
accordance with the Petitioner's alternate request.
Accordingly, we find that the following employees of the Employer
at its Joplin, Missouri, plant, constitute a unit appropriate for the
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b)
of the Act :
All technical employees, including process engineers, special assign-
ment process engineers, tool designers, draftsmen, plant layout men,
special assignment plant layout men, blueprint clerks, and time and
motion study men, excluding the engineering typist, machine control
clerk, maintenance clerk, tool crib clerks, professional employees,
guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
MEMBERS RODGERS and FANNING took no part in the consideration
of the above Decision and Direction of Election.
14 Eastern Corporation, 116 NLRB 329.
Diamond Mills Corporation (Hanover Division ) and American
Federation of Hosiery Workers, AFL-CIO. Case No. 1.1-RC-
1227. September 28, 1959
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND DIRECTION
OF ELECTION
On June 25, 1959, a panel of the Board issued its Decision and Di-
rection of Election,' as amended on July 16, 1959, in the above-entitled
proceeding in which it excluded, as supervisors, from the unit found
appropriate, among others, seamless knitting machine fixers and a
looper fixer. Thereafter, on July 13, 1959, the Petitioner filed a peti-
tion requesting the Board to reconsider its determination upon the
record as made and include the fixers referred to in the appropriate
unit, or, in the alternative, that the Board reopen the record for the
'taking of additional testimony in the matter.
1123 NLRB 1796.
124 NLRB No. 148.