Phillips Products Co.

PHILLIPS PRODUCTS CO. Phillips Products Co., Inc. and Tool and Die Makers Lodge No. 113, International Association of Ma- chinists and Aerospace Workers AFL-CIO, Peti- tioner. Case 13-RC- 14123 January 19, 1978 DECISION ON REVIEW AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND MURPHY On September 17, 1976, the Regional Director for Region 13 issued his Decision and Order in the above-entitled proceeding. The Regional Director concluded that the unit of tool repair and mainte- nance employees sought by the Petitioner at the Employer's Bartlett, Illinois, plastic products manu- facturing plant does not constitute a "functionally coherent group of homogeneous employees who have a common special interest in bargaining," and that "any separate community of interest which these skilled employees might enjoy has been largely submerged by the broader community of interest they share with other employees." He therefore ordered dismissal of the petition. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Petitioner filed a timely request for review with a supporting brief, and the Employer filed a timely statement in opposition. By telegraphic order dated October 28, 1976, the Board granted the request for review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record, includ- ing the Petitioner's brief on review and the Employ- er's statement in opposition, and concludes, contrary to the Regional Director, that the Employer's main- tenance and toolroom employees constitute an ap- propriate unit for the purposes of collective bargain- ing. The Employer has 165 production employees, 12 maintenance employees, 5 toolroom employees, and 35 warehouse employees. The maintenance and toolroom departments are located in fenced-off areas across an aisle from each other and separated from the production area by a cinder block wall. The parts crib, which contains tools and parts used primarily by tool repair and maintenance employees, is located in the maintenance department. The maintenance and toolroom employees supply most of their own small tools having a value ranging from $1,000 to $3,000. 234 NLRB No. 71 The maintenance employees are responsible for machine maintenance and repair, as well as general plant maintenance. They also install new machinery. The maintenance employees spend the majority of their time in repair and maintenance on the produc- tion floor. The toolroom employees are primarily engaged in mold repair and fabrication and spend the majority of their time in the tool repair depart- ment. Tool repair and maintenance employees have the highest skills at the plant and receive the highest wages. The more skilled maintenance employees must have a working knowledge of mechanics, electricity, and hydraulics and the more skilled toolroom employees must have a working knowledge of the construction of plastic molds and the general properties of plastics. No formal education or train- ing apprenticeship program, however, is required for maintenance or tool repair jobs. The maintenance and toolroom employees have obtained these skills from experience. Occasionally, maintenance depart- ment employees are sent to seminars to keep abreast of advanced techniques on new machine technology. The chief operators in the production department may assist maintenance employees and perform minor machine maintenance, but basically the pro- duction employees do not perform skilled mainte- nance work and the maintenance employees do not engage in production. The plant operates on three shifts. Supervision during the day shift is along departmental lines. On the evening and night shifts all employees, including the maintenance and tool repair employees, are under production supervisors, who may frequently change their assignments, but who assert only mini- mal supervision and direction over the maintenance and toolroom employees in the performance of their jobs. Job interchange is minimal. Seniority is both departmental and plantwide. Wages, fringe benefits, and conditions of employment are uniform. Monthly plantwide meetings are held for all hourly and salaried employees, and periodic meetings are held which are limited to departmental personnel only. Petitioner seeks to represent only maintenance and toolroom employees and there is no relevant bargain- ing history on a broader basis. We find, contrary to the Regional Director, that notwithstanding the presumptive appropriateness of the plantwide unit which the Employer claims as the only appropriate unit, in the instant circumstances a unit of the maintenance and toolroom employees, which is the only unit the Petitioner seeks to represent, may also constitute an appropriate bar- gaining unit. In so doing, we adhere to our policy, set forth in American Cyanamid Company, 131 NLRB 323 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 909 (1961), of finding separate maintenance depart- ment units appropriate in the absence of a more comprehensive bargaining history, where the facts of the case demonstrate that the maintenance employ- ees involved have the requisite community of inter- est.' Here the salient facts are virtually identical with those in American Cyanamid, as indicated by the following excerpt from the Board's decision in that case (131 NLRB 910): The record in this case fails to establish that the Employer's operation is so integrated, as alleged herein, that maintenance has lost its identity as a function separate from production, and that maintenance employees are not separately identi- fiable. On the contrary, the maintenance employ- ees requested by the Council are established in separate departmental sections and have their own supervision. They perform the varied mainte- nance work for the entire plant exercising the particular skills required by this function. Such work is frequently accomplished in groups, some- times in conjunction with production workers in I Verona Dyestuff Division, Mobay Chemical Corporation, 225 NLRB 1159, fn. 6 (1976). As further stated in that case, the fact that some of the the area involved. However, the function per- formed by production workers in such circum- stances is incidental to the preparation of the equipment for the repairs made by the mainte- nance employees. While minor adjustments are made by some production workers on their own machinery this is incidental to their production operation. Accordingly, we find that the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All tool room and maintenance employees at the Employer's Bartlett, Illinois, injection molded plastic flower pot manufacturing plant, excluding office clerical employees, professional employees, guards, all other employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act. [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit- ted from publication.] maintenance employees are occasionally under production supervision on certain shifts does not militate against such a unit finding. 324