Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

In the Matter of LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, PETITIONER Case No. 21-R-3725.-Decided April 23,1947 Mr. Robert H. Conan, of Burbank, Calif., for the Employer. Mr. E. R. White, of Los Angeles, Calif., for the Petitioner. Miss Irene R. Shriber, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES Upon a petition duly filed, the National Labor Relations Board, on March 3, 1947, conducted a prehearing election among the employees in the alleged appropriate unit to determine whether or not they de- sired to be represented by the Petitioner for the purposes of collective bargaining. At the close of the election, a Tally of Ballots was furnished the parties. The Tally reveals that of approximately 85 eligible voters, 68 cast valid ballots, of which 57 were for the Petitioner, and 11 against the Petitioner. Thereafter, a hearing was held at Los Angeles, California, on March 3, 1947, before Maurice J. Nicoson, hearing oflice:r. The hearing offi- cer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. At the hearing, the Employer moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the employees here involved are not employees within the meaning of the Act. The hearing officer referred this notion to the Board. For reasons stated hereinafter, the motion is hereby denied. Upon the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT I. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, a California corporation whose principal office is in Burbank, California, is engaged in the manufac- ture and sale of aircraft and aircraft parts. The Employer operates six plants in the general vicinity of Burbank, all of which are in- 73 N. L. R. B., No. 105. 517 518 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD volved in this proceeding. During the year 1946, the Employer purchased for its California plants more than $30,000,000 worth of raw material, of which more than 50 percent was obtained from points outside the State of California. During the same period, sales of finished products of the Employer's California plants totaled more thai? $50,000,000, of which more than 50 percent was shipped to out- of-State purchasers. We find that the Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. II. TILE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED The Petitioner is an unaffiliated labor organization claiming to represent certain employees of the Employer. III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION The Employer refuses to recognize the Petitioner as the exclusive bargaining representative of employees of the Employer until the Petitioner has been certified by the Board in an appropriate unit. We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning the representation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning i)f Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. IV. TILE APPROPRIATE UNIT The Petitioner claims that a unit of all the Employer's plant guards, excluding supervisory employees, is appropriate. The Employer, in opposing the establishment of such a unit, contends that these persons are part of management and, therefore, not employees within the meaning of the Act; it also contends that the Petitioner may not in any event represent the plant guards inasmuch as it currently repre- sents a majority of the Employer's rank-and-file employees. The record shows that there are 85 plant guards working in the Employer's 6 plants, 21 of whom are commissioned by the city of Burbank. They are neither militarized nor armed but wear uniforms. In the performance of their general duties of maintaining order and protecting the Employer's property from damage and theft, these guards patrol the plant property, check incoming and outgoing per- sonnel and materials, direct traffic, and report safety hazards and infractions of safety and conduct rules. They also escort airplanes in transit from one plant to another over the public thoroughfares and, in the event of emergencies, they may control, the movements of employees and visitors on the premises. Their usual procedure upon the discovery of employee violations of company rules is to report the infraction to the supervisor of the guards who, in turn, reports the matter to the supervisor of the employee involved. . LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION 519 We have already determined that persons performing duties similar to those outlined above are employees under the Act.' We have also held that employees engaged in such occupation are not to be denied their statutory right to designate as their bargaining representative a labor organization which also represents other categories of employees.2 We find that all the Employer's plant guards, excluding all super- visory employees with authority to hire, promote, discharge, disci- pline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of employees, or effectively recommend such action, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section- 9 (b) of the Act. V. TILE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES The results of the election held before the hearing show that the Petitioner has secured a majority of the valid votes cast. We shall, therefore, certify the Petitioner as the collective bargaining repre- sentative of the employees in the appropriate unit. CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES IT IS HEREBY CERTIFIED that International Association of Machinists: has been designated and selected by a majority of the employees in the unit described in Section IV, above, as their representative for- the purposes of collective bargaining, and that, pursuant to Section 9 (a) of the Act, the aforesaid organization is the exclusive representa- tive of all such employees for the purposes of collective bargaining with respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and other conditions of employment. MR. JAMES J. REYNOLDS, JR., dissenting : For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in the Monsanto Chemical Company case 3 which I find equally applicable here, I would dismiss the present petition. 'Matter of Seeger-Sunbeam Corporation, Evansville Division , 69 N. L -R B 985 See also the cases sited in footnote 2, below Cf Packarde Motor Car Company v N. L R. B., 67 S Ct. 789 ; 19 L. L R. 2379, decided March 10, 1947. 2 Matter of Monsanto Chemical Company , 71 N L. R B . 11 ; Matter of Cudahy Packing Co , 65 N L R B. 10, 12; Matter of Craeq Shipbunldinq Company, 65 N. L. R. B 97; Matter of Solar Manufacturing Corp , 65 N. L R. B 1366, 1368. 871 N. L. R. B. 11.