Wright Aeronautical Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 19, 1945

60 N.L.R.B. 1335 (N.L.R.B. 1945)

In the .Matter of WRIGHT AERONAUTICAL CORPORATION and DISTRICT
50, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA
Case No. 9-R465,5.-Decided March 19, 1945
Frost & Jacobs, by Messrs. Cornelius J. Petzhold and Kenneth Troy,
of Cincinnati, Ohio, for the Company.
Messrs. Ralph Courtley, John Grigsby, and Frank Hall, of Cincin-
nati, Ohio, and Mr. Joseph J. Timko, of Columbus, Ohio, for District
50.
Messrs. James Desmond and Sol Goodman, of Cincinnati, Ohio, for
the C. I. O.
Mr. Julius Kirle, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon a petition duly filed by District 50, United Mine Workers
of America, herein called District 50, alleging that a question affecting
commerce had arisen concerning the representation of employees of
Wright Aeronautical Corporation, Lockland, Ohio, herein called the
Company, the National Labor Relations Board provided for an ap-
propriate hearing upon due notice before Louis S. Penfield, Trial
Examiner. Said hearing was held at Cincinnati, Ohio, on December
19) 1944, and January 18,1945. The Company, District 50, and United
Automobile, Aircraft & Agricultural Implement Workers of America,
C. I. 0., herein called the C. I. O. appeared and participated. All
parties were afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine and
cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce evidence bearing on the
issues. The Trial Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. All parties were
afforded an opportunity to file briefs with the Board.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following :
60 N. L. R. B., No. 231.
1335
1336 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
- Wright Aeronautical Corporation, a subsidiary of the Curtiss-
Wright Corporation, a New York Corporation, operates a plant lo-
cated at Lockland, Ohio, with which we are herein concerned, where it
is engaged in the manufacture of aircraft engines. More than 50
percent of the raw material used by the Company at its Lockland
plant is obtained from points outside the State of Ohio. More than
75 percent of the finished products manufactured at the Company's
Lockland plant is shipped to points outside the State of Ohio.
The Company admits that it is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
II. -THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
District 50, United Mine Workers of America,is a labor organiza-
tion admitting to membership employees of the Company.
United Automobile, Aircraft & Agricultural Implement Workers
of America, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations,
is a labor organization admitting to membership employees of the
Company.
III. TIIE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
The Company has refused to grant recognition to District 50 as the
exclusive bargaining representative of its fire-equipment inspectors
and fire-equipment operators until District 50 has been certified by the
Board in an appropriate unit.
A statement of a Board agent, introduced into evidence at the hear-
ing, indicates that District 50 represents a substantial number of
employees in the unit hereinafter found appropriate.'
We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning
the representation of employees of the Company within the meaning,
of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
IV. TIIE APPROPRIATE UNIT; THE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
District 50 seeks a unit of all paid fire-equipment inspectors and
fire-equipment operators employed in the Company's Lockland plant.
The C. I. O. contends that the unit is inappropriate because fire-
equipment inspectors and fire-equipment operators are included in its
1 The Field Examiner reported that District 50 submitted 16 cards , that the names of
15 persons signing the cards were on the Company 's pay roll of November 24, 1944, which
contained the names of 15 employees in the claimed appropriate unit , and that the cards
were all dated in October 1944.
WRIGHT AERONAUTICAL CORPORATION 1337
existing contract with the Company covering a unit' of production
and maintenance employees. The Company contends that the unit is
inappropriate because it is against public policy to permit employees
in a war plant, charged with plant fire protection, to hold membership
in two competing unions.
We find no merit in the C. I. O.'s contention. Fire-equipment in-
spectors, under the general category of safety and plant-protection
employees, were excluded from the production and maintenance unit
certified by the Board on February 2, 1943, and voted in the clerical
and technical unit.2 Fire-equipment operators were neither expressly
excluded nor included, since the position of fire-equipment operator
was not created until approximately 8 months after the Board's certi-
fication. Although the volunteer firemen 3 were included in the unit,
they were included as production employees and not as firemen.
While it appears that the fire-equipment operators were included in a
job-evaluation plan filed jointly by the Company and the C. I. O. with
the War Labor Board, the testimony of a representative of the Com-
pany's Industrial Relations Department indicates that such inclusion
was inadvertent. In view of all the circumstances, and particularly
in view of the previous exclusion by the Board of all safety and plant-
protection employees from the production .and maintenance unit, we
are of the opinion, and find, that neither the fire-equipment operators
nor the fire-equipment inspectors were intended to be included in the
production and maintenance unit or in the bargaining contract exe-
cuted as a result of the Board's certification.
We also find no merit in the Company's contention. Inasmuch as
the fire-equipment inspectors and fire-equipment operators do not
perform monitorial duties and are neither militarized, deputized, nor
armed, the reasoning set forth by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
in the Jones d Laughlin Steel Corp. case,4 cited by the Company in
support of its contention, is inapplicable herein.5
The Company's full-time paid fire control force consists of four
fire-equipment inspectors and 12 fire-equipment operators, under the
supervision of a fire chief and assistant fire chiefs who the parties
agree are supervisory employees. The fire-equipment inspectors
inspect and service all fire prevention equipment located throughout
the plant, and while they do not actually fight fires, they bring up
equipment as needed. The fire-equipment operators service and main-
2 The election among the employees in this group did not result in the selection of a
bargaining representative. -
3 To assist the fire equipment inspectors and fire equipment operators , the Company has
a volunteer brigade of over 300 employees who receive their regular pay as production
employees for such time as they spend fighting fires and return to their regular duties
when the fire is extinguished.
* N. I. R B v . Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 146 F. (2d) 718 ( C. C. A. 6).
5 See Matter of Chicago Rawhide Manufacturing Company, 59 N. L . R. B. 1234.
1338 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tain the fire-fighting equipment and respond to all fire calls. Both
groups receive special training, devote all of their time to fire control,
are quartered at the firehouse, and do, not engage in production work.
In view of the fact that the fire-equipment inspectors and fire-equip-
ment operators are a cohesive and easily definable group under sepa-
rate supervision and possessing skills and functions differing from
those of the other production and maintenance employees, we are of
the opinion that they may properly function as a separate bargaining
unit or as part of the production and maintenance unit. Accordingly,
our determination of the appropriate unit will depend in part upon
the desires of the employees themselves to be expressed in the election
hereinafter directed.6 If at such election a majority of the employees
in this voting group select District 50, they will thereby have indicated
their desire to constitute a separate appropriate unit. If, however, a
majority of these employees select the C. I. 0., they will have thereby
indicated their desire to be included in a unit with the production and
maintenance employees, and the C. I. O. may accordingly bargain
for them as a part of such unit.
We shall direct that the question concerning representation which
has arisen be resolved by an election by secret ballot among the fire-
equipment inspectors and fire-equipment operators, excluding the fire
chief, assistant fire chiefs, and all other supervisory employees with
authority to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect
changes in the status of employees, or effectively recommend such
action who were employed by the Company during the pay-roll period
immediately preceding the date of the Direction of Election herein,
subject to the limitations and additions set forth in the Direction.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National Labor
Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act,
and pursuant to Article III, Section 9, of National Labor Relations
Board Rules and Regulations-Series-3, as amended, it is hereby
DIRECTED that, as part of the investigation to ascertain repre-
sentatives for the purposes of collective bargaining with Wright Aero-
nautical Corporation, Lockland, Ohio, an election by secret ballot shall
be conducted as early as possible, but not later than sixty (60) days
from the date of this Direction, under the direction and supervision
of the Regional Director for the Ninth Region, acting in this matter as
agent for the National Labor Relations Board, and subject to Article
III, Sections 10 and 11, of said Rules and Regulations, among the fire-
equipment inspectors and operators in the voting group defined in
Section IV, above, who were employed during the pay-roll period
See Matter of Todd-Pacific Shipyards , Inc, 60 N . L. R. B. 26.
WRIGHT AERONAUTICAL CORPORATION 1339
immediately preceding the date of this Direction, including employees
who did not work during the pay-roll period because they were ill or
on vacation or temporarily laid off, and including employees in the
armed forces of the United States who present themselves -in person
at the polls, but excluding any who have since quit or been discharged
for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated prior to the date of
the election, and excluding all supervisory employees with authority
to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes in
the status of employees, or effectively recommend such action, to deter-
mine whether they desire to be represented by District 50, United Mine
Workers of America, or by International Union, UAW-CIO, Local
647, for. the purposes of collective bargaining, or by neither .7
I District 50 and the C. I. O. Indicated that they be designated on the ballot as set
forth above.