Brady Aviation Corp.

220 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD amination at a hearing, its contention will ultimately be es- tablished. We find that the Employer has failed to raise any substantial and material issue concerning Glasgow's classifica- tion as a janitor sufficient to warrant the holding of a hearing.' Accordingly, we shall adopt the Regional Director's recom- mendations. The challenge to the ballot of this employee is therefore overruled. We find that he was eligible to vote in the election. DIRECTION IT IS HEREBY DIRECTED that, as part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the purpose of collective bar- gaining with the Employer, the Regional Director for the Ninteenth Region shall, pursuant to National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, within ten (10) days from the date of this Direction, open and count the ballots of Royce Glasgow, Olive D. Jones, Laura Caldwell, and Paul Jewell, and thereafter prepare and cause to be served upon the parties a supplemental tally of ballots, including therein the count of the challenged ballots described above. 7See footnote 5, supra. BRADY AVIATION CORPORATION and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AND AGRI- CULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW- CIO), Petitioner. Case No. 16-RC-1227. April 20, 1953 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before H. Carnie Russell, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings 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 to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Styles and Peterson]. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act.' 1 The Employer at the hearing moved to dismiss the petition contending that it was not en- gaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act . The Employer is engaged in the assembling of detail parts into major subassemblies for the use by the United States Air Force and United States Navy. During 1952, the Employer's gross receipts were in excess of $50,000. Under the circumstances , we find that the Employer falls within that category of enterprises "substantially affecting national defense," and that it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. Westport Moving and Storage Company, 91 NLRB 902. 104 NLRB No. 36. BRADY AVIATION CORPORATION 221 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The appropriate unit: The Petitioner is seeking to represent a unit consisting of office, professional, and technical employees. The Employer objects to the inclusion of professional employees in the unit, and contends that the tool planners, tool designers, laboratory technicians, and engineers, because of their different working conditions and diverse interests, should constitute a separate voting group. The parties disagree as to (1) whether the tool planners, tool designers, laboratory technicians, and engineers are technical employees or professional employees, and (2) whether certain office clerical employees are confidential employees. The Tool P1-inners, Tool Designers, Engineers, andChemists 2 Tool planners: The tool planners work under the super- vision of the superintendent of tooling. Their duties consist of anticipating tooling and production costs, and determining what department will perform each production operation. The tool planners also order the special equipment necessary to complete the production assembly. Tool designers: The tool designers receive the tool orders from the tool planners, and design the fixtures and equipment necessary to produce the final product. In the performance of these duties they must be able to read engineering drawings and specifications. The degree of experience for all of the aforementioned duties for both the tool planners and tool designers varies widely. No formal education is required, the tool planners and tool designers often being taken from the production line and trained on the job. As it does not appear that the work done by the tool planners and tool designers meets the requirements of Section 2 (12) (a) and (b) of the amended Act, we conclude that they are highly skilled technical employees and not professional employees., Engineers: The engineers work under the supervision of the vice president. They are required to have a formal engineering education and prior engineering experience. In the performance of their duties they are required to review material as to stress calculations in repair and replacement in order to insure the safety and airworthiness of all parts and equipment. Because of the nature of their duties, the engineers work in a separate area adjacent to the assembly line. They are monthly paid, and have employment benefits different from the tool planners and tool designers. 2The parties agreed at the hearing that the chemists were professional employees . The Em- ployer would also exclude laboratory technicians as professional employees . However, inas- much as the Employer has never employed, nor employs at the present time, any laboratory technicians , we make no unit finding as to this classification. 3 F. W. Sickles Company, 81 NLRB 390, 393; General Electric Company, 89 NLRB 726. 734. 222 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD In view of these facts, we find that the engineers are pro- fessional employees within the meaning of the Act. The Board has held that office clerical employees may not appropriately be grouped with technical employees where any party objects to such inclusion.5 As this is the case here, we shall not include office clerical employees in the unit of the aforementioned employees. Accordingly, we find that the following employees may con- stitute a unit appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: All engineers, chemists, tool planners, and tool designers employed at the Employer's Brady, Texas, plant, excluding office clerical em- ployees, all other employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act. As a result of our findings with respect to the above classifi- cations, it appears that the unit as set out above is composed predominantly of nonprofessional employees. However, the Board is prohibited by Section 9 (b) (1) of the Act from includ- ing professional employees in a unit with employees who are not professional unless a majority of the professional employees vote for inclusion in such a unit. Accordingly, we must ascer- tain the desires of the professional employees as to inclusion in a unit with nonprofessional employees. We shall therefore direct separate elections in the following voting groups: (a) All tool planners and tool designers employed by the Employer at Brady, Texas, excluding professional employees and super- visors as defined in the Act; and (b) all professional employees (chemists and engineers ) employed by the Employer at Brady, Texas, excluding all other employees and supervisors as defined in the Act. The employees in the nonprofessional voting group (a) will be polled as to whether or not they desire to be repre- sented, for the purposes of collective bargaining, by the Peti- tioner. The employees in the professional voting group (b) will be asked two questions on their ballot: (1) Do you desire the professional employees to be included with the technical em- ployees in a unit composed of all engineers, chemists, tool planners, and tool designers at the Employer's Brady, Texas, plant, for the purposes of collective bargaining? (2) Do you desire to be represented for the purposes of collective bar- gaining by the Petitioner or no union? If a majority of the professional employees in voting group (b) vote "Yes" to the first question, indicating their wish to be included in a unit with the nonprofessional employees, they will be so included. Their votes on the second question will then be counted together with the votes of the nonprofessional voting group (a) to decide the representation for the whole unit. If, on the other hand, a majority of the professional employees in voting group (b) vote against inclusion, they will not be included with the nonprofes- sional employees. Their votes on the second question will then 4Solar Manufacturing Corp.. 80 NLRB 1358. 6 American Locomotive Company , 92 NLRB 115. BRADY AVIATION CORPORATION 223 be separately counted to decide whether or not they desire to be represented in a separate professional unit by the Peti- tioner . There is no indication in the record that the Petitioner would be unwilling to represent the professional employees separately , if those employees vote for separate representation. However, if the Petitioner does not desire to represent the professional employees in a separate unit even if those employ- ees vote for such representation, the Petitioner may notify the Regional Director to that effect within ten (10) days of the date of this Decision and Direction of Elections. Our unit determination is based , in part then, upon the results of the election among the professional employees . However, we now make the following findings in regard to the appropriate unit: 1. If a majority of the professional employees vote for in- clusion in the unit with nonprofessional employees , we find that the following employees will constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: All tool planners, tool designers , chemists, and engineers employed at the Employer's Brady, Texas, plant, excluding all other employees and supervisors as defined in the Act. 2. If a majority of the professional employees do not vote for inclusion in the unit with nonprofessional employees, we find that the following two groups of employees will constitute separate units appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: (a) All tool planners and tool designers employed at the Em- ployer's Brady, Texas , plant, excluding professional employees, all other employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act. (b) All engineers and chemists employed at the Employer's Brady, Texas , plant, excluding all tool planners and tool designers , all other employees , and supervisors as defined in the Act. The Office Employees The parties agree as to the composition of the unit of office employees except that the Petitioner would include the PBX operator , the TWX operator, the secretaries to the vice - presi- dent, treasurer , plant superintendent , shop superintendent, con- sulting engineer, accounting department head, and the accounting department and personnel department employees , and the Em- ployer would . exclude them on the ground that they are confi- dential employees. PBX and TWX operators: The PBX operator monitors all telephone calls for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not there has been a misuse of company telephones or an infrac- tion of rules relating to their use by the plant employees. The PBX operator , however, does not monitor the telephone calls of any management representative who initiates or formulates company labor relations policy. The TWX employee operates the TWX machine and handles and distributes all incoming messages. Both the PBX and TWX operators work under the 224 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD supervision of the plant superintendent, are trained on the job, and are located in the main office building. The Employer asserts that these employees should be excluded from the unit because in the performance of their duties they may overhear conversations or read material pertaining to confidential labor relations information. However, inasmuch as neither operator acts in a confidential capacity to persons exercising managerial functions in the labor relations field, we shall, in accordance with established Board policy, include the PBX operator and TWX operator in the unit.6 Secretaries: The Employer would also exclude from the unit as confidential employees the secretaries to the vice president, treasurer, plant superintendent, shop superintendent, consulting engineer, and accounting department head. The record shows that all of these named management representatives assist in the formulation and determination of general plant labor rela- tions policy. Their secretaries are required in the performance of usual secretarial duties to act in a confidential capacity to these individuals. Accordingly, we find that the secretaries to the vice president, treasurer, plant superintendent, shop superintendent, consulting engineer, and accounting department head are confidential employees within the meaning of the Act.i Accounting department and personnel department employees: The employees in the accounting department handle matters pertaining to employees ' wages, rates , overtime, and employ- ment benefits. They also keep the Employer's payroll record and profit and loss records. The employees in the personnel department keep the data pertaining to grievances and other in- vestigatory procedures. They also have access to the individual employment files of the employees.8 Although employees inthe accounting department and personnel department have access to records and reports which the Employer considers confidential, it does not appear that the work of the employees in either de- partment meets the requirements of a confidential employee contained in the amended Act.9 None of the employees in either department assists or acts in a confidential capacity to persons exercising managerial functions in the field of labor relations. We find that they are not confidential employees. We shall, therefore, include the employees in the accounting department and personnel department in the unit of office clerical em- ployees. Accordingly, we find that the following employees constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: All office clerical employees, including the TWX operator and PBX operator and the accounting and personnel department 6 Amplex Manufacturing Company, 85 NLRB 523; Phillips Chemical Company, 91 NLRB 568, 571. 7 Minnesota and Ontario Paper Company, 92 NLRB 711. 712; Phillips Chemical Company, supra. 8Inasmuch as the record shows that the personnel interviewer does the actual hiring, and is in direct charge of the personnel department, we shall exclude her from the unit of clerical employees. Bonwit Teller , Inc., 84 NLRB 414, 422. 9 Automatic Electric Company, 78 NLRB 1057; Bonwit Teller, Inc., supra , at pp. 422, 423. ALBION MALLEABLE IRON COMPANY 225 employees, employed at the Employer's Brady, Texas, plant, but excluding secretaries to the vice president, treasurer, plant superintendent, shop superintendent, consulting engineer, and accounting department head, all other employees, guards, nurses, and supervisors within the meaning of the Act. [Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this volume, ] ALBION MALLEABLE IRON COMPANY and INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICUL- TURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW-CIO), Petitioner and INTERNATIONAL MOLDERS AND FOUNDRY WORKERS UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, LOCAL 413, AFL. Case No . 7-RC-1991. April 20, 1953 DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES Following the filing of a petition alleging that a question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of em- ployees of the Employer, and requesting an investigation and certification of representatives pursuant to Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the parties, on January 9, 1953, entered into a "Stipulation for Certification upon Consent Election." In accordance with said stipulation and the Rules and Regulations of the Board, an election was con- ducted on January 16, 1953, among all production and main- tenance employees at the Employer's Albion, Michigan, plant, excluding clerical employees, engineering employees, techni- cians, watchmen, guards, and foremen and other supervisors as defined in the Act. Thetally of ballots shows that, of approx- imately 506 eligible voters, 247 cast ballots for the Petitioner, 227 cast ballots for the Intervenor, 5 cast ballots against par- ticipating labor organizations, 5 ballots were void, and 11 balots were challenged. The challenged ballots are insufficient to affect the outcome of the election. On January 23, 1953, the Intervenor filed objections to the conduct of the election, and, on February 3, 1953, amended ob- jections thereto. On March 12, 1953, following an investigation conducted pur- suant to the Rules and Regulations of the Board, the Regional Director issued and duly served on the parties his report on objections, in which he found without merit all the Intervenor's original and amended objections and recommended that the same be overruled and that the Board certify the Petitioner as the exclusive bargaining representative of the Employer's em- ployees in the appropriate unit. On March 21, 1953, the Intervenor filed timely exceptions to the Regional Director's report on objections, requesting that the Board, on the basis of its objections, set aside the election and order a new election. 104 NLRB No. 31.