Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co.

In the Matter Otf MINNEAPOLIS-HONEYWELL REGULATOR COMPANY, EMPLOYER and UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO & MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL 1145, C. I. 0., PETITIONER Case No. 18-R-1565.-Decided January 13, 19!7 Messrs. S. M. Site and H. S. Olson, of Minneapolis, Minn., for the Employer. Heistein and Hall, by Mr. Kenneth J. Enkel, of Minneapolis, Minn., for the Petitioner. Mrs. Augusta Spaulding, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed, hearing in this case was held at Min- neapolis, Minnesota, on July 30 and 31 and August 1 and 5, 1946, before Gerald P. Leicht, 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'the case, the National Labor Relations Board snakes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company, a Delaware Corpora- tion, operates a plant 1 at Minneapolis, Minnesota, where it is engaged in the manufacture of automatic control devices, such as thermostat controls for heating and cooling apparatus. During the year ending December 31, 1945, the Employer purchased raw materials valued in excess of $3,000,000, consisting chiefly of metals and plastics, of which more than 75 percent was shipped to the plant from points outside Minnesota. During the same period, the Employer sold finished prod- I At the time of the hearing in this proceeding, the Emploti er was in active operation at two locations in Minneapolis, one called the "main" plant at Fourth Avenue and Twenty- eighth Street and the other referred to in the record as the "second" or assembly plant at Fifth Avenue and Fifth Street. Both plants are used for manufacturing operations and furnish employment to approximately 7,000 employees , of whom 900 are clerical and office workers 72 N. L R. B.,No.6. 21 22 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD ucts valued in excess of $10,000,000, of which more than 75 percent was shipped from the plant to points outside Minnesota. The Employer admits and we find that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. 11. TFIR ORGANIZATION INVOLVEI) The Petitioner is a labor organization affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, claiming to represent employees of the Employer. III. TIIE ALLEGED APPROPRIATE UNIT The Petitioner contends that employees in the multigraph depart- ment of the sales office at the Employer's main plant at Minneapolis constitute an appropriate bargaining group, either to be included in the unit for photo laboratory employees previously established by the Board, or to function apart from any other employees at the plant as a separate unit for bargaining purposes. The Employer contends that employees in the multigraph department of the sales office should neither be included in the bargaining unit already established for photo laboratory employees nor set up as a separate unit for bargain- ing purposes apart from other office clerical workers. Employees chiefly concerned in this proceeding, numbering seven in all, constitute the working force of the multigraph department, a subdivision of the sales office located in the main plant, under the supervision of the sales office manager, Other subdivisions of the sales office under the same manager include the sales stenographic pool, the sales clerical office, and the photo laboratory.1 The multigraph department is on the tenth floor, the main sales office and other sales clerical employees are on the sixth floor, and the photo laboratory em- ployees work on the fourth floor of the Employer's-main plant. The multigraph department is a typing and copy service pool. Em- ployees in the department are typists, rather than stenographers, and are listed on the office pay roll with typists in other departments as junior and senior clerks. - Some of them come to worn: at the plant di- rectly from business schools without previous office experience. They spend a considerable portion of their working time copying letters and documents and making stencils on ordinary typewriters, of which there are six in the department. Other machines in the multigraph department 3 include a varitype machine, an electromatic machine, an automatic typewriter, a mimeograph machine, a graphotype machine The garage attendant stationed in the Employer's garage across the street from the plant, acoonuts to the manager of the sales office for the mouses lie handles for the sale of oil. gas accessoiies, and services in the garage ' Prior to 1939. a multigraph machine was in use in the department and from this machine the department acquired its name The name persisted after the multigraph was removed and replaced by other duplicating machines. MINNEAPOLIS-HONEYWELL REGULATOR COMPANY 23 for use of cutting name plates, and an addressograph machine for printing names on envelopes and circulars. Only two of the seven girls in the department at the time of the hearing could operate the varitype machine, a special motor-driven typewriter capable of ad- •justnient for the use of different modes and sizes of type and a variety of spacuig.4 This machine is not in constant use. It is chiefly em- ployed to cut stencils when varied type and spacing is desired for work of some special and uncommon character. The electroniatic machine and automatic typewriter are standard machines in use in other offices in the plant. Motor-driven, they are used principally for cutting stencils, yielding a product clearer and more evenly shaded than that produced by a hand-operated typewriter, with considerably less fatigue to the operator.' Stencils are, however, commonly cut on ordinary typewriters by clerks in the multigraph department and by clerks in the other office departments. Proofread by the typist, with the assistance of another clerk of her department, all cut stencils are i un off on the mimeograph machine in the multigraph department.,' One clerk in that department usually operates the mimeograph nizt- chine and files the used stencils for rerun purposes. Clerks in the several departments for which the mimeograph work is intended bring copy or stencils, approved for work in the department by the sales office manager, to the multigraph department, give assistance in assembling the pages in any extensive mimeograph job, and take the finished work from the department. Employees in the multigraph department maintain a series of mail- ing lists for the dispatch of bulletins and form letters sent out by or for office plant departments to the outside concerns interested in the Employer's products. They compose and type or stencil these form letters. One of two girls in the department usually operates the graphotype machine for making address plates. Some 60,000 address plates are filed in the department for use in the distribution of bulletins and other materials prepared in the plant department offices. These plates are run off by a clerk in the department on the addressograph machine when circulation is made to any large number of concerns. Otherwise, addresses are typed or handwritten in the mimeograph department or in other departments of the plant on individual enve- lopes. This is the method used in sending bulletins or form letters to individual inquirers. Graphotype and addressograph machines are used in other plant department offices. * These clerks were given 3 days' training in the use of this machine Though it has a standaid keyboard, some special instruction in the use of the varitvpe machine is necessary for a typist if the machine is to produce the wide range of work of which it is capable s Typists accustomed to using ordinary typewuters must adjust themselves to the lighter touch appiopiiate for motor-driven machines "There aie duplicating machines placed and operated in other plant department offices. The mimeograph machine yields a larger number of copies than the duplicating machine. 24 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The multigraph department is located on the west side of the tenth floor of the main building, and immediately adjoins, on the north, east, and south , space assigned to the file and pay-roll departments. The northwest section is used entirely for storage purposes . A portion in the northeastern section is assigned to plumbers , who perform part' of their work on this floor and who otherwise work wherever their services are required in the building. An elevator on the east side, near the north end of the room, is convenient to the general storage area and the space set aside for the plumbers . An elevator on the south end of the floor, near the west side, is used by clerical workers in the file, pay-roll, and multigraph departments located on this floor. Applicants for clerical work at the Employer 's plant are tested for ability, and otherwise screened , by the personnel department before they are sent out for interview by the heads of departments requesting help. Applicants for work in the sales office division are interviewed and approved by the sales office manager before they are assigned by him to one of the subdivisions of the sales office under his direction. While such assignment is considered permanent , and free transfer of employees from one subdepartment to another is not a practice , clerks from one subdepartment of the sales office assist in other subdepart- ments of the sales office as they may on occasion be needed. Thus, a clerk from the multigraph or sales clerical department may occa- sionally assist with drying prints in the photo laboratory, and a clerk from the sales clerical department , or, for that matter, a clerk from any plant department office whose material is being processed in the multigraph department, may assist in the assembling or stapling of mimeographed material in that department. The Petitioner urges that clerical employees in the multigraph de- partment may properly be included in the bargaining unit already established by the Board for photo laboratory employees or, in the alternative; that they constitute a separate appropriate bargaining unit apart from other employees at the plant.? On March 18 , 1946, the Board found that the Employer's photo laboratory employees , then a group of four workers ," constituted a The Petitioner does not urge that employees in the multigraph department be included in the unit already established by the Board for production and maintenance woikers Since 1942 the Employer has recognized the Petitioner as bargaining representative of production and maintenance workers at the Minneapolis plant . The production unit originally found appropriate by the Board on July 29, 1942, in an earlier representation proceeding ( 42 N L R . B. 1046 ), was subsequently clarified and enlarged The parties agreed that cafeteria employees, factory timekeepers working within the factory areas, and employees in two designing departments working in factory areas should be included in the production unit On April 26, 1946 , the Board, having found that desk girls and schedule clerks, excluded from the production unit found appropriate in 1942 , desired representation by the Petitioner , included these employees in the already established and enlarged plant unit . The Supplemental Decision respecting the final unit placement is unpublished 8 At the time of the hearing on the instant petition there were only three employees in the photo laboratory. MINNEAPOLIS-HONEYWELL REGULATOR COMPANY 25 separate appropriate bargaining unit a and, on April 11, 1946, certified the Petitioner as their exclusive bargaining representative. The photo laboratory and the mimeograph departments are at the present time two of the subdepartments under the supervision of the office sales manager. Prior to 1939, however, the photo laboratory was part of a printing section, consisting of three subdepartments, printing, laboratory, and blueprint, all under the sales office manager. In 1939 the printing section was transferred to the production depart- ment. In 1942 the Employer abolished the printing section, trans- ferred the blueprint work to the engineering department and the photo laboratory to the sales office manager, and discontinued the printing work in the plant.10 The photo laboratory employees perform a highly specialized type of work, largely unsupervised 11 They are not clerical employees. They are hourly paid workers with peculiar skills, listed on the factory pay roll with the vacations and other privileges of factory employees. Employees in the multigraph department are clerical em- ployees. They have substantialy no regular work contacts with em- ployees in the photo laboratory. They or other sales clericals may occasionally assist in drying prints in the laboratory. Very little work processed in the multigraph department ever reaches the photo laboratory for further processing and only special work from the ° 06 N L R B 922. Photo laboratory employees are not the only group of specially skilled employees to bargain with the Employer as a separate group. On March 6, 1946, the Board found that engineers and technical employees in the Engineering Division and the Methods Department of the Employer's Minneapolis plant constituted an appropriate unit (66 N L R B. 314) and on April 12, 1946,-certified the Minneapolis Federation of Honeywell Engineers , an independent organization, as their exclusive bargaining representative. On June 20 , 1 946, the Board held a consent election in Case No. 18 -R-1315 to deter- mine whether employees in the manufacturing planning cribs and move order clerks at the Employer's Minneapolis plant desired to be represented by the Petitioner. When the election 8isclosed that a majority of the employees in this agreed unit desired to be represented by the Petitioner, the Employer recognized the Petitioner as their bargaining representative. "At the time of the hearing in the instant case printing work was let out to outside concerns by the sales office manager. " As we noted in our decision respecting photo laboratory employees, cited in footnote 8. The employees of the department, consisting of a photographer, a finisher, a copy- flex operator and a photostat operator, are engaged in the photography and finishing of pictures,'in copying diagrams and drawings, and in the making of photostats upon the request of the various departments of the plant. They work in a laboratory located on the fourth floor of the plant and consisting of two rooms, one of which, the dark room, is separated from the other only by a "light well." The door of the laboratory is kept locked, other employees having to ring for admittance The em- ployees are under the nominal supervision of the sales manager who maintains his office on the sixth floor. However, it appears that the sales manager visits the department infrequently and that the work of the several employees is largely un- supervised. The functions of this department mare analogous to those of punting departments and blueprint departments, which the Board has included in separate units Because of the specialized type of work performed in the laboratory, the physical separation of the laboratory fiom the other departments of the plant, and the homogeneity of their interests , these employees of the photo-lab department con- stitute an appropriate unit. 1 26 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATTONS BOARD varitype machine is ever sent to the photo laboratory .- No work from the photo laboratory is sent to the multigraph department for further processing . The two departments are nominally under com- mon supervision . We do not believe that there is any close community of interest between employees in the mimeograph and photo labora- tory departments to warrant their inclusion in a single bargaining unit. - Employees in the multigraph department are not highly specialized workers, nor do their interests differ essentially from other office cleri- cal workers at the plant . Their working space is on the tenth floor while their department supervisor is located in the sales office on the sixth floor. While the supervisor does not constantly visit the multi- graph department, he regulates the flow of all work in the department and is in constant touch with the department processes through em- ployees who come to his office for daily assignments of work and through conferences with the group leader, a skilled and experienced operator in the department. Of the 900 clerical employees at the Minneapolis plant , there are approximately 700 office clerical employees variously assigned to of- fice clerical departments and subdepartments in the main plant. They work in small groups throughout the building , some , like those of the multigraph department, occupying space on production floors where production and maintenance workers are also assigned working sections . Clerks in subdepartments under one office manager com- monly work on different floors and under somewhat different floor conditions . Thus, while the manager of the sales office supervises clerical employees on the sixth and tenth floors and the photo labora- tory employees on the fourth floor; the assistant secretary of the Em- ployer supervises groups of office clericals on the sixth, eighth, and tenth floors of the main plant. Employees in the multigraph department are listed on the pay roll as junior and senior clerks 13 and office clerical employees in these same categories work in other offices in the building . All such em- ployees are listed on one office pay roll and paid -within the same rate ranges with the same vacations and other work privileges . All ma- chines used in the multigraph department are office machines , and all, except the varitype , a machine of limited use, are found in other offices in the plant and are operated by other clerical employees." 12 The manager of the sales office, across whose desk all work of both subdepartments passes, estimated that less than 1 percent of the work done in the multigraph department or on the varitype machine passed to the laboratory foi further processing. 11 At the time of the hearing there was one senior clerk and six junior clerks in the department 14 Operators of these machines all wear office or street clothes rather than smocks or other covering worn by factory and laboratory employees to protect their clothing All the ma- chines are greased and serviced by maintenance workers, and not by the machine operators. MINNEAPOLIS-HONF}YWELL REGULATOR COMPANY 27 We do not believe that employees in the multlgraph department possess peculiar skills or are subject to special working conditions at the Employer's plant which justify their inclusion in a separate unit for bargaining purposes apart from other clerical workers in the sales offices department or other department offices." We therefore conclude and find that employees in the multigraph department of the sales office at the Employer's plant do not consti- tute an appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 of the Act. ORDER Upon the basis of the above findings of fact, and the entire record in the case , the Board hereby orders that the petition for investiga- tion and certification of representatives of employees of Minneapolis- Honeywell Regulator Company, Minneapolis , Minnesota, filed by United Electrical , Radio & Machine Workers of America, Local 1145, C. 1. 0., be, and it hereby is, dismissed. 11 There has been no past bargaining history among office clerical employees at the Alinne- apolis plant. So far as the record discloses , only clerical employees in the multigraph division have signified any desire for collective bargaining at this time . The Petitioner urges that the proposed clerical unit is appropriate on an extent -of-ogranization theory. While we have, on a somewhat tentative basis, pending wider organization among em- ployees, in special instances, set up small department units based upon the extent of organization at a plant , we are not persuaded that, in the instant case, a unit finding lim- ited to 7 of approximately 700 office clerical employees is justified on this basis alone, in view of the Petitioner 's already very substantial representation among production, mainte- nance, and technical employees at the plant