Western Gear Works

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 14, 1952

98 N.L.R.B. 80 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

80 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
department employees are all on board. The SIU apparently takes no^
position on this issue.
In view of the uncertainties surrounding this type of election and
the time normally consumed in voting personnel assigned to seagoing-
vessels, we shall vest in the Regional Director for the Nineteenth
Region discretion to determine the exact time, places, and procedure-
for holding the elections, except that balloting shall be completed no
more than 120 days from the date the first ballots were cast.,'
The Marine Firemen apparently also urge that Irwin Brockway, an
employee discharged in the spring of 1951, be held eligible to vote.
As the record does not show whether or not Brockway is entitled to.
reinstatement, we shall make no determination at this time as to his
eligibility, but shall permit him to vote subject to challenge.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
5 American Expo, t Lines, Inc , 84 NLRB 134
WESTERN GEAR WORKS and INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHIN-
ISTS, DISTRICT LODGE No. 94 , LOCAL No. 311, PETITIONER. Case No.
21-RC-2149. February 14, 1952
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 Daniel J. Harrington, 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 Herzog and Members Houston and Murdock].
Upon the entire record of 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. Since 1943 when the Petitioner, after a consent election, was
certified as the representative of the Employer's production and main-
tenance employees, it has represented those employees under a series of
contracts. The Employer contends that the current contract, effective
by its terms from July 31, 1950, to September 2, 1955, constitutes a bar
to this proceeding. Admittedly, however, the plant clerical employees
iv-hom-the Petitioner now seeks to represent are not covered by -the
contract; nor does it appear that the Petitioner had expressly agreed
98 NLRB No. 20. -
WESTERN GEAR WORKS 81
-not to seek to represent them 1 In these circumstances, the contract
does not bar a present determination of representatives.2
We find, accordingly, that a question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning 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 Petitioner seeks a unit of the Employer's dispatchers, mate-
rial-move men, and employees in the stores and shipping and receiving
.departments (both subdivisions of the production control department).
The Employer contends that the proposed unit is inappropriate
because it would include employees having different duties, skills,
working conditions, and interests, and would exclude certain sched-
uling employees working under the same supervision. The Employer
further contends that the employees in the proposed unit have no
community of interests with the production and maintenance
employees, and cannot, therefore, appropriately be added to the exist-
ing production and maintenance unit.
The Employer is engaged at Lynwood, California, in the manu-
facture of gears and other aircraft parts. There are five separately
supervised departments of the plant : engineering, commercial, shop,
accounting, and production control. The employees in the proposed
unit work under the general supervision of the production control
supervisor. They include one dispatcher, seven material-move men,
four storekeepers, and four shipping and receiving department em-
ployees.' The only other employees in the production control depart-
lrlent are seven scheduling clerks.
The contract contains the following provisions
ARTICLE V
PROHIBITED UNION ACTIVITY
• • s
Section 3 Union Demands During the life of this Agreement the Union will make
no demands on the Company except for compliance with this Agreement.
a â–º s
ARTICLE XXIV
BARGAINING
Notwithstanding the provisions of Article I, Section (2), or any other provisions of
this Agreement, each party hereto expressly waives any obligation or duty presently
or hereafter imposed by law on the other party, and acknowledges and recognizes that
no obligation or duty exists under this Agreement to bargain collectively or negotiate
with the other party over or pertaining to wages, hours, pensions, insurance, sick
leaves, paid holidays, or any terms or conditions of employment or retirement or any
other matters or subjects whatsoever during the life of this Agreement. This Article
does not relieve the parties of the obligations imposed relative to the disposition of
grievances under Article XXIII.
Contrary to the contention of the Employer, we do not interpret these provisions as con-
stituting a disclaimer and waiver by the Petitioner of any right to represent the different
employees involved herein Cf. Essex County News Co, 76 NLRB 1340; Briggs Indiana
Corporation, 63 NLRB 1270.
2 Martin Parry Corps ation, 95 NLRB 1506
Y The dispatcher and material-move men are under the immediate supervision of a chief
dispatcher . the shipping and receiving employees under a supervisor of shipping and
receiving' The parties agree that the chief dispatcher and the supervisor of shipping and
receivine are snpeiviaor:^n=ithin the meaning of the Act.
82 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR ` RELATIONS BOARD
The dispatcher receives from the chief dispatcher, and keeps at a
desk in the shipping area, manufacturing orders giving complete
information as to parts to be made. After studying one of these orders,
and the blueprint of the part, he goes into the plant yard, locates,
the raw material or parts needed, writes up identification tags, and
either has a material-move man move the parts to their destination
in the plant or, in some cases, moves them himself. After noting
on the order the quantity of parts he has located and the destination
to which he has moved them, he returns the order to the chief dis-
patcher and proceeds with another order. He also processes and
keeps a record of "rework" orders, written up by the scheduling
group, locating the parts to be reworked or repaired and seeing that
they are sent to their proper destination. Approximately 35 percent
of his time is spent in physically moving the stock and 65 percent in
clerical duties and leg work.
The material-move men move parts from one operation to another in
the plant. As each operation is completed, one of these men is
notified. He then sees that the parts are inspected, counts them,
segregates rejections, notes on the record the count and the number
of rejections, moves the parts to the next operation, and returns the
order to the chief dispatcher. The material-move men also do the leg
work in hunting up lost jobs and do general expediting. In addition,
they are assigned in rotation to the dispatch booth, where they issue
orders to the shop as instructed. They spend approximately 70
percent of their time in physical labor and 30 percent on paper work,
except when assigned to the dispatch booth, where between 65 and 80
percent of their work is clerical.
The storekeepers handle three types of stores : aircraft stores, fin-
ished commercial stores, and raw stock. The storekeepers for the
aircraft and finished commercial stores maintain records of parts re-
ceived, parts on hand, and parts issued. They identify and tag the
parts as they are received in the storerooms, make out bin cards, store
the parts in the bins, draw parts needed on orders received from the
scheduling group, count and tag them, and make notations of their
issuance. They figure shortages, making up a shortage list for each
job, and check parts received against these lists to see that back orders
are completed. They also spot check the perpetual card inventory and
do some expediting. Approximately 60 percent of their time is taken
up with records and 40 percent with the handling of parts. The store-
keeper in charge of raw stock stores-mostly forged bar stock-is
responsible for identifying the material as it is stored and seeing that
samples are cut off for metallurgical analysis. He keeps a record of
every bar stock, including the heat number and samples that are being
processed in the metallurgical laboratory. He issues the stock on
WESTERN GEAR WORKS 83
manufacturing orders issued by the scheduling group, checking to be,
sure that he is issuing the proper stock. When stock is cut, he makes-
out a saw report and writes a requisition showing that the stock has.
been disbursed. About 65 percent of his time is taken up with paper
work.
The shipping and receiving department employees include two re-
ceiving clerks, two shipping clerks, and a general clerk. The receiv-
ing clerks are responsible for receiving all material coming into the
plant. They check the parts received against the purchase orders,,
note on the copies of the packing slips accompanying the parts such
information as the quantity received, the weight, and whether the parts
answer the description given on the purchase order, and maintain a.
record of all parts received daily. They also make note of improperly
packed or damaged material and report such matters to their super-
visor. In some instances, though rarely, they help unload trucks.
The shipping clerks take care of material being sent out for processing,,
type up shipping memos, notify the drivers when deliveries are ready,
wrap parts, and label boxes. They occasionally help the receiving
clerks in writing up identification tags and doing accounting work.
The shipping and receiving clerks spend 50 percent of their time han-
dling materials and the rest of their time in clerical work. The gen-
eral clerk, a woman, writes up formal receipts from the packing slips
and purchase orders, maintains all files in the shipping room, takes
calls for the truck, and dispatches it for pickups. Her duties are
entirely clerical.
From the foregoing it appears that the employees whom the Peti-
tioner seeks to represent do the usual plant clerical work in connection
with the Employer's production operations 4 It is the policy of
the Board to group such employees with the production and main-
tenance employees for collective bargaining purposes.5 We shall
therefore accord these employees the opportunity through an election
to express their desires as to whether or not they should be added to
the established production and maintenance unit .6
The only question remaining for consideration is whether the,
employees in the scheduling division of the production control
department should be included or excluded. The record shows that
there are three men and four women in this group. These employees
take the sales order at the beginning of each project, initiate the
requisitions for purchasing material, and follow up on the suppliers
of material. They plot out the schedules in relation to the other
4 Although the general clerk in the shipping and receiving department , unlike the other
employees in this group, does no physical work, we believe that , because of her close
association with the shipping and receiving clerks and the general similarity of work, her
interests are more closely allied with theirs than with those of the Employer's office clerks.
5 Waterous Company, 92 NLRB 76.
6Wilson & Co , Inc, 97 NLRB 1388; Foster Wheeler Corporation , 94 NLRB 211.,
84 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
loads in the shop, do all the necessary liaison work between the
engineering department and other departments, handle the issuing
of the manufacturing orders, and do considerable expediting in the
shop to see that the orders are completed on schedule. They have to
answer questions from the commercial department in regard to de-
livery commitments and determine whether new orders should be
taken or not, and if they are taken, what delivery can be main-
tained. Although these employees do no actual physical work, they
are under the same general supervision as the employees whom the
Petitioner seeks to represent, and their duties are closely connected
with the Employer's production operations. We find that they are
plant clericals.' We shall therefore include them in the voting group.
Accordingly, we shall direct an election in the following voting
group :
All dispatchers, material-move men, scheduling clerks 7 and
employees in the stores and shipping and receiving departments at
the Employer's plant at Lynwood, California, excluding all other
employees and all supervisors as defined in the Act.
If a majority of the employees in the above voting group vote for
the Petitioner, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to
be included in the production and maintenance unit currently repre-
sented by the Petitioner, and the Regional Director shall issue a
certificate of results of election to such effect.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
7 By Order Granting Petition and Amending Decision and Direction of Election, dated
March 6, 1952, the Board granted a petition by the parties to exclude scheduling clerks
from the voting group.
QUEENSBROOK NEWS CO., INC. and LOCAL 917, INTERNATIONAL BROTH-
ERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAT FFERS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS
OF AMERICA, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. ?-RC-3895. February
14,195&
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 George Turitz, 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 organizations involved claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer.
98 NLRB No. 21.