General Electric Co.

582 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY and AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TECH- NICAL ENGINEERS , AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 2-RC-6712. July 2911954 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 Max Dauber, 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 em- ployees of the Employer.' 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa- tion 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 all production and tool designers, detailers, detailer-trainees, and drafting apprentices at the Employ- er's Bridgeport, Connecticut, construction materials and appliances plant, excluding office clerical employees, production and maintenance employees, professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. The Intervenor contends that the requested unit is not appropriate in view of a prior Board decision which resulted in placing the requested employees in a combined unit with clerical em- ployees, and in view of a bargaining history on the combined basis since 1950.2 The Employer is neutral on the unit issue. Employees in the requested unit are engaged in the development and design, and in the making of layouts and drawings, of production items and tools and component parts thereof. The job classifications in the requested unit, beginning with the lowest rated job and progress- ing upward to the highest rate, are as follows: Detailer-trainee; detailer No. 3, 2, and 1; designer No. 3 and 2, and tool designer No. 2 and 1; 3 and designer No. 1. Each classification has two or more pay rates. Employees advance by promotion through successively higher classifications and through successively higher pay rates within each 1 Local 240, International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO, (IUE-CIO), intervened in this proceeding on the basis of its contract with the Employer covering the employees in the requested unit. 2 The current contract between the Employer and the Intervenor, which is for an initial term of 1 year ending June 1, 1954, and is subject to automatic renewal, is not asserted as a bar to this proceeding. I Designer No 3 and tool designer No. 2 have the same pay scale, and designer No 2 and tool designer No. 1 have the same pay scale. 109 NLRB No. 92 GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 583 classification. New employees are hired either as experienced men, or as detailer-trainees, or as drafting apprentices. Detailer-trainees are trained for the lower-rated detailing jobs. Apprentices are trained for the higher rated jobs and serve a 4-year apprenticeship. Their first year of training is served in the machine shop and the remainder in the drafting rooms of the various engineering departments; their classroom work includes mathematics and allied technical subjects such as strains of materials, physics, trigonometry, algebra, geometry, descriptive geometry, and calculus, including alternating and direct current, electrical engineering, chemistry, and slide rule. Upon graduation, an apprentice takes his place in the progressive classifica- tions at the starting rate for detailer No. 1. On all these facts, it is clear, and we find, that the employees in the requested unit are technical employees.' We find further, in accord- ance with established Board policy, that these employees, may, if they so desire, bargain as a separate appropriate unit of technical em- ployees, notwithstanding their prior inclusion in a combined unit.' On the other hand, they may also continue to be represented as part of the existing unite Accordingly, we shall direct an election among all production and tool designers, detailers, detailer-trainees, and drafting apprentices at the Employer's Bridgeport, Connecticut, plant, excluding office clerical employees, production and maintenance employees, profes- sional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. If a majority of these employees vote for the Petitioner, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate appro- priate unit, and the Regional Director conducting the election is instructed to issue a certification of representatives to the Petitioner for such unit, which the Board in such circumstances finds to be a separate unit appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining. If, on the other hand, a majority vote for the Intervenor, the Board finds the existing unit to be appropriate and the Regional Director will issue a certification of results of election to that effect. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] MEMBER PETERSON took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Direction of Election. * Heintz Manufacturing Company, 100 NLRB 1521. 6La Pointe, Machine Tool Company, 109 NLRB 514. Westinghouse Electric Corpora- tion, 1 06 NLRB 1256. 6Ibid.