Rockwell Spring & Axle Co.

BOSSERT NEW CASTLE DIVISION 331 Insurance Company, American Can Co., Tytell Typewriter Co., Typewriter Main- tenance & Sales Co., and employees of other employers, to engage in concerted re- fusals to perform services for their employers, with an object of forcing or requir- ing the named employers to cease doing business with Royal Typewriter Company, Inc., Local 459 has engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8 (b) (4) (A) of the Act. 3. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting com- merce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Respondent has not induced and encouraged the employees of Ideal Business Machines within the meaning of Section 8 (b) (4) (A) of the Act, or in- duced and encouraged employees of customers of Royal other than as found herein. [Recommendations omitted from publication.] BOSSERT NEW CASTLE DIVISION, ROCKWELL SPRING & AXLE Co. and INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF BOILERMAKERS , IRON SHIP BUILD- ERS, BLACKSMITHS, FORGERS AND HELPERS, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 6-RC-1483. January 27,1955 Decision and Order Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National La- bor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Elmer E. Hope, 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 employees of the Employer.2 3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen- tation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the following reasons: The Petitioner seeks to sever a unit of forge department employees at the Employer's New Castle, Pennsylvania, plant, from an existing production and maintenance unit currently represented by the Steel- workers. The Employer and the Steelworkers oppose severance on the ground of inappropriateness of the unit. The Employer began operations at this plant in January 1949. Thereafter, on May 22, 1950, the Steelworkers was certified by the Board as the exclusive bargaining representative of the Employer's 1 The hearing officer referred to the Board the motions of the Employer and the United Steelworkers of America, CIO, herein called the Steelworkers , to dismiss the instant peti- tion. For reasons stated hereinafter , these motions are hereby granted. 2 The Steelworkers and International Conference of Die Sinkers , New Castle Die Sinker's Lodge f#360, herein called the Die Sinkers , were each allowed to intervene in this pro- ceeding on the basis of a contract interest. Following a stipulation by the interested parties that the employees represented by the Die Sinkers are specifically excluded from the present proceeding , the Die Sinkers withdrew from the hearing. 111 NLRB No. 49. 332 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD production and maintenance employees.3 The most recent contract between the Steelworkers and the Employer was executed on October 1, 1952, and expired on September 1, 1954. It covered all the produc- tion and maintenance employees except the employees who work on dies or parts of dies in department 05' The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of axle housings and related products. The plant is subdivided into 12 production depart- ments and 6 maintenance or service departments.' The forge depart- ment, herein called department 50, is one of the production depart- ments and has a complement of approximately 155 employees out of a total complement of approximately 965 production and maintenance employees. Department 50 occupies part of building #60 and a portion of building #22. Departments 05, 54, 56, 57, and 59 are also located in building #60. There is no partition or wall separating department 50 from any of these departments. The daily schedule for department 50 is keyed to the production requirements of the plant. Department 50 forges component parts of axles, such as steering knuckles, steering arms, axle centers, and trailer beams. Steel is received and stored in the yard. It is picked up according to schedule and comes into department 50 in billets 4 to 20 feet in length, which are then cut to predetermined lengths.' The billets are then placed in castor boxes until scheduled for use, at which time they are placed in a furnace by a heater and heated to a predetermined temperature. The heater then removes the billet from the furnace with a pair of tongs, and either places it on a conveyor that services some of the presses, or 3 The Petitioner in that case was the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers and Helpers, which merged in 1951 with the International Brotherhood of Boiler- makers to form the Petitioner in this case 4 The Board directed a severance election among the employees in Department 05 on September 15, 1952 Following its certification by the Board, the Die Sinkers executed a contract with the Employer on February 4, 1953. 5 The 12 production departments are : Dept. 50-Forging Dept. 56-Arms machining Dept. 51-Housing welding & forming Dept . 57-Axle centers machining Dept. 52-Spider machining Dept. 58-Knuckle machining Dept. 53-Housing machining Dept. 59-Assembly line Dept. 54-Heat treatment Dept 60-Case machining Dept. 55-Sleeve machining Dept. 61-Machining and Assembly The maintenance and service departments are : Dept. 05-Die shop Dept. 12-Shipping and Receiving Dept. 10-Material handling Dept 24-Plant maintenance Dept. 11-Tractor and Chain Division Dept. 26-Inspection and Tool Crib 8 The machines in department 50 include the Pell and Mesta Shears, which cut the steel billets into the desired lengths ; various sized Max! presses and Ajax presses, which per- form hot forging or forming operations producing forgings ; bulldozeis , which perform forming or forging operations on cold forgings which are preheated ; various sized upsetter machines , which form and shape a definite piece of material as designed by the die de- signer or according to blueprint ; the trim presses, which trim excess material left on the forging that is not shown on the blueprint , and snag grinders , which are used for the purpose of removing excess flash or excess material on the forgings that is objectionable either to the following operation or to the customer. BOSSERT NEW CASTLE DIVISION 333 carries it himself to the operator of a press or an upsetter. After the forging operation, the material usually goes to the trim press, where sometimes a hot trimming and sometimes a cold trimming operation is performed; it may, however, be loaded in a steel container box and allowed to cool, and then sent either to the snag grinder or to the piercing machine. The material that is worked on by the trim press may also go to the snag grinder. Axle centers go from the trim press to the bulldozer where they are formed according to blueprint specifications. The forgings are inspected by hot and cold inspectors from de- partment 26 when they are formed and also when they leave depart- ment 50. When the forgings leave department 50, they go to depart- ment 54, the heat treat department. When that operation is com- pleted, the forgings go to various machine shops in other departments for precision machining. The component parts are then shipped to department 10, the stockroom, where stock pickers transport them to department 59 for assembling into axles. The finished products then go to department 24, the shipping department, for shipment to customers. Approximately 30 percent of the forgings are shipped to other plants of the Employer following heat treatment in department 54. Less than half of 1 percent of the total output of the plant is sold di- rectly to customers following heat treatment. The remaining forgings, representing all component parts of axles, receive complete machining and are assembled into finished axles before being shipped from the plant to customers. The maintenance and nonproductive departments service all the productive departments, including department 50. There are no maintenance personnel in department 50. With the exception of the die shop personnel, all production and maintenance employees in the plant have the same general provisions with regard to hours of work, shift differentials, call-in, vacation, holiday and overtime pay, safety and health provisions, and military service provisions. All are sub- ject to the same insurance program, seniority provisions, and grievance procedure. A central employment office is used for the entire plant, and records of all employees are centrally located. The employees in department 50 may be classified as operators, heat- ers, and helpers. Heaters and helpers perform the same, work, although heaters are more highly paid. At the time of the hearing, the Employer had no employees classified as helpers. Of these em- ployees, the operators of the Maxi and Ajax presses, the bulldozers, and the upsetters are the most skilled' There are 24 such operators 9 These operators are hereinafter referred to as either forming press operators or forging press operators. 334 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD at present, 12 of whom served as heaters or as snag grinders for pe- riods ranging from 8 to 44 months before becoming operators. There are also 24 other employees in department 50 who have at some time operated these presses. The forming press operators lead their crews, and an experienced forming operator may direct his crew in setting up a job without other supervision. These setups may remain unchanged for as much as a month depending upon the quantity of the order to be filled, and often where adjustments are needed, they may take no more than 2 hours to make. As many as 10 different orders may be made on the same die by changing only the stamp in the forging. Further, close adjustment work on the dies is performed by personnel from the die shop. There is neither an apprenticeship nor an established training pro- gram for any of these positions. Thus a witness called by the Peti- tioner testified that an inexperienced worker could become a conveyor tender or learn to operate a snag grinder in 3 days; that anyone could operate a trim press; and that heaters have entered upon their jobs without any experience but that it took about a year to become an ex- perienced heater.' It thus appears that the only job classification in department 50 for which previous experience is generally required is that of operator of one of the forming or forging presses. Departmental and plantwide seniority is enjoyed by all employees with the exception of those in the die shop. Consequently, plant seniority has been exercised by employees in other departments to "bump" into department 50 regardless of job classification in the pre- vious department. The average length of service in department 50 is between 18 and 24 months. In this connection, the record shows that during the month prior to the hearing, approximately 25 new em- ployees came into the department and that 53 employees-or approxi- mately 34 percent of the department's employee complement- "bumped" or bid into department 50 between January 1, 1954, and the date of the hearing, of which only 4 had ever worked in the depart- ment previously. Furthermore, as to the initial skills of those cur- rently employed in the department, it appears that a majority of the employees in department 50 were not hired for the jobs they presently hold. In addition, there are employees in other departments who operate machines similar to the forming machines in department 50. For ex- ample, in department 51, there are 12 employees who operate Erie presses. These machines involve a hot forming operation which pro- duces housing forgings, and is similar to the knuckle or arm forming 8 On cross -examination, this witness admitted that men had qualified as heaters in it week or a little more. Other witnesses for the Petitioner placed the time required to become a qualified heater at approximately 6 months. BOSSERT NEW CASTLE DIVISION 335 operations in department 50.1 Department 56 also has a forming oper- ation similar to the operations in department 50. This operation is performed on low production arms, and consists of the forming of a particular item from hot metal according to blueprint.lo Under the rule as enunuciated in Americairc Potash, the unit sought to be severed must be a true craft group or a functionally distinct and separate department containing employees which the petitioning union has traditionally represented. Further, a petitioner seeking to sever such a unit must assume the burden of establishing the facts which justify severing a smaller unit from the plantwide unit in existence in the plant." In our opinion, no basis exists for severance of these employees either on a craft or a departmental basis. Thus, except for the form- ing press operators, the employees being sought are engaged in essen- tially routine jobs and lack the versatility normally associated with craft classifications. None of them has been required to undergo an apprenticeship or comparable training. Indeed, little or no training is needed for many of these jobs. Although forming press operators do have some skills and some of them have had various periods of training of ' an informal character, their skills are duplicated by em- ployees in other departments. In sum, the employees sought herein do not, on this record, qualify as a true craft grouping. With respect to the departmental basis for severance, it appears that department 50, a production department, is closely integrated with the other depart- ments, not only through the flow of work, but through the "bumping" or bidding into it of employees in other classifications irrespective of training or experience. It is thus clear from these circumstances and from the entire record that department 50 is not a functionally distinct department containing employees identified with traditional trades or occupations distinct from that of other employees. Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petition.12 [The Board dismissed the petition.] 2 There was testimony that these employee operators have at times been transferred to the forming or forging presses in department 50. 10 There is also some testimony as to a similar operation being performed in department 57 However, as the record is not clear in this respect , no weight has been given this testimony li American Potash & Chemical Corporation, 107 NLRB 1418. 12 The Petitioner cites several cases decided before the American Potash decision in support of its position ; i. e., Bsllings and Spencer Company, 104 NLRB 928; International Harvester Company, Louisville Works, 100 NLRB 1349; Green Bay Drop Forge Company, 95 NLRB 1122 , The Plomb Tool Company, 87 NLRB 134 . However, these cases are clearly distinguishable on their facts . In none of the cited cases was the func- tionally distinct character of the department beclouded as it is here by the extensive "bumping" into the unit regardless of job classification in the previous department, by the prevalence of forging operations elsewhere in the plant , and by the fact that there are employees with similar skills to the forgers in other departments of the plant.