Sperry Gyroscope Co.

SPERRY GYROSCOPE COMPANY 721 his group . They do not have authority to hire, discharge, transfer , lay off, discipline , or change the status of any em- ployees in their groups . Nor do they have authority effectively to recommend such action . The foremen make independent investigations of all reports made by group leaders . The group leaders are hourly rated employees and are represented by the employee grievance committee, which represents all hourly rated employees in the Employer ' s plants. There are 3 group leaders who work on the night shift without super- vision by foremen the major portion of the time. These leaders follow a program which the foremen have outlined . They do not have any more authority over the employees in their groups than do the group leaders on the d4y shift. We find that the group leaders do not have power responsibly to direct the employees under them or to make effective recommenda- tions regarding personnel matters. We find that they are not supervisors and shall include them in the unit. We find that all hourly rated production , maintenance, inspection, service, and engineering employees at the Em- ployer ' s Paterson, West Paterson , and Clifton , New Jersey, plants," including group leaders and watchmen-porters, 12 but excluding office clerical employees , technical employees, professional employees , confidential employees , watchmen, guards, and supervisors , constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] "The parties agree that all salaried employees should be excluded from the unit. The five plants are: Plant 1, 1150 McBride Avenue, West Paterson; plant 2, 191-195 E. Railway Ave- nue, Paterson; division 290, 561 McBride Avenue, West Paterson; plant 4, 460 Totowa Avenue, Paterson; and plant 5, 1378 Main Avenue, Clifton, New Jersey. 12 Watchmen- porters spend a major part of their time on porter duties and not on duties with respect to guarding the Employer's property. We find that they are not guards and should, therefore, be included in the unit. SPERRY GYROSCOPE COMPANY and ENGINEERS ASSOCI- ATION, ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS OF AMERICA, Peti- tioner . Cases Nos . 2-RC-5524, 2-RC-5525, and 2-RC-5526. August 12, 1953 DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before Leonard J. Lurie, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rul- ings 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 106 NLRB No. 122. 722 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD to a three-member panel [Members Houston, Styles, and Peterson]. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the mean- ing of the Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent cer- tain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of employees of the Employer within the mean- ing of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. Three petitions were filed by the Petitioner seeking sep- arate units of engineering aides, engineering clerks, and parts catalog writers. At the hearing the Petitioner indicated its willingness to represent the employees either in a combined unit of the three classifications, any combination the Board found appropriate, or as a "residual" group in the existing unit of engineers , chemists, draftsmen, senior draftsmen trainees, technical illustrators, industrial artists, technical writers, and development and engineering technicians which it currently represents .I The Employer contends that the employees sought by the Petitioner are clerical employees and that the appropriate unit is one which would include all its unorganized clerical employees and not only the classi- fications sought by the Petitioner. Engineering aides: The primary duty of the engineering aide is to assist the engineer by relieving him of time-con- suming mathematical work. This at times may take the form of originating formulae for testing the apparatus under de- velopment, but most often involves mathematical calculations with data and formulae supplied to himz by the engineer. Once assigned to work with an engineer , the engineering aide receives his directions directly from that engineer and fre- quently confers and collaborates with him in the course of the work. Although the job description of engineering aide calls for the ability to handle mathematical problems through calculus, most of the aides have not been able to perform to this level and are given work of lesser difficulty. Moreover, at times the workload and the absence of other personnel render it advantageous to have engineering aides handle the paging system, file blueprints and other papers not related to proj- ects to which they are assigned, and typewrite if they are able. The aides are hired for their maturity, responsibility, and ability to work with engineers . An inspection of their educa- 'This grouping is not the result of a Board certification but has been arrived at by the mutual agreement of the Petitioner and the Employer. 2Of 63 engineering aides employed by the Employer at the time of the hearing, 51 were female and 12 male. It is not the policy of the Employer to hire female engineers, nor is it likely that any engineering aides will be promoted to the position of engineer as an en- gineering degree from an accredited school is generally one of the prerequisites for that position. SPERRY GYROSCOPE COMPANY 723 tional background reveals that 37 have bachelor degrees in mathematics or physics, 17 have bachelor degrees in other fields, 2 also have master degrees, and 10 have from 18 months of mathematics to 4 years of mathematics and physics. The classification is found only in the engineering division and except for engineers, draftsmen, and engineering clerks, only engineering aides sign blueprints on which they work. Parts catalog writers: Parts catalog writers spend about 60 percent of their time preparing tabular lists of parts and about 40 percent assisting in the preparation of illustrated parts catalogs. Unlike the engineering aides and engineering clerks they are all located in one room which is adjacent to the working rooms of the technical writers and technical il- lustrators with whom they work. Lists of parts are drawn up accompanied by information sought by the purchaser. The parts catalog writer obtains this information from various written sources but occasionally must confer with an engineer. After preparing the lists of descriptions, they send them to be typewritten specifying the type to be used and designing the format in which the list and the illustrated parts catalog will be presented. The parts catalog writer instructs draftsmen as to the drawing required and works out the final product with the technical writers and illustrators. They possess skills which are different from those of the clerical employees with whom the Employer would group them. Engineering clerks: The engineering clerk, like the en- gineering aide, occasionally signs blueprints and is assigned only to the engineering division. Some engineering clerks work almost exclusively at specialized jobs such as handling research test data or on the spare parts provisioning pro- gram. Others perform various tasks such as completing change order forms, maintaining records of laboratory tests, and preparing card indices and lists of parts for engineers. All this work is duplicated by employees in other classifica- tions who work in the same area. It appears that the Em- ployer does not strictly adhere to job classifications in the assignment of work, as some secretaries spend as much as 40 percent of their time working on change orders and 2 nonengineering clerks work on the spare parts provisioning program performing the same operations as the engineering clerks assigned to that work.3 Other employees fill out change orders and do work comparable, if not identical, to that done by the engineering clerks. Moreover, work contacts of en- gineers and engineering clerks are no closer than that of engineers with other clerks and secretaries. In addition, the 9In connection with this job only the engineering clerk, who is a man, travels to out-of-town conferences, but this is in line with the Employer's policy of not having women travel for it on business. 322615 0 - 54 - 47 724 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD engineering clerks substitute regularly and frequently for other clerical employees in their departments. On the basis of the entire record, it is clear that there is a close working relationship between the engineering aides and the engineers, and between the parts catalog writers and the technical writers and technical illustrators. It is also ap- parent that the interests of the engineering aides and the parts catalog writers are more closely allied with those of the engineers and the technical writers and illustrators than with the various classifications of clerical employees in the plant who perform, for the most part, tasks which are typically clerical in nature. The engineering clerks, on the other hand, are more closely identified with other clerical classifications than with the employees now represented by the Petitioner. In these circumstances, neither the engineering aides, nor the engineering clerks, nor the parts catalog writers, nor any grouping of these categories of employees may function sep- arately for collective-bargaining purposes. However, as the engineering aides4 and the parts catalog writers5 have, by reason of the technical nature of their work and close working relationship with employees in the established bargaining unit, a strong identity of interests with those employees, they may, if they so desire, be represented as part of the existing bargaining unit.6 Accordingly, the voting group shall consist of engineering aides and parts catalog writers employed by the Employer at its Great Neck, Long Island, New York, plant and its local testing installations, excluding all other employees and super- visors as defined in the Act. The Regional Director conducting the election is directed to issue a certification of results of election in accord with the foregoing. [The Board dismissed the petition in Case No. 2-RC-5526 for a unit of engineering clerks.] [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] 4Potomac Electric Power Company, 99 NLRB 219. 5 See Bethlehem Steel Company, Shipbuilding Division, 97 NLRB 1072. 6 Gulf Oil Corporation, 92 NLRB 700.