Robintech Inc.

TUBING DIVISION, ROBINTECH INC. 571 Tubing Division, Robintech Incorporated , Employer- Petitioner and District Lodge # 172, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO. Case 38-UC-48 January 23, 1976 DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING AND PENELLO On August 29, 1975, the Regional Director for Re- gion 13 issued his Decision and Order in the above- entitled proceeding in which he found that the Employer's Plastic Siding Division constituted an ac- cretion to the Employer's Copper Tubing Division at the Employer's Danville, Illinois, plant. Accordingly, the Regional Director dismissed the Employer's unit clarification petition which sought to exclude "all employees of the plastic siding division of Robintech Incorporated" from the unit of employees of the Tubing Division currently represented by District Lodge #172, International Association of Machin- ists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, herein called the Union. Thereafter, in accordance with the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula- tions, Series 8, as amended, the Employer filed a timely request for review of the Regional Director's Decision and Order on the grounds, inter alia, that, in dismissing the petition, he departed from well-es- tablished precedent. By telegraphic order dated October 16, 1975, the Employer's request for review was granted. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this case and makes the following findings: In August 1966, the Employer and the Union en- tered into a collective-bargaining agreement in which the Employer recognized the Union as the exclusive bargaining representative of "all employees of the Company excluding watchmen, guards, office-cleri- cal employees, salesmen, foremen, engineering em- ployees, professional employees and all supervisory employees as defined in the National Labor Rela- tions Act, as amended." Since that time, the parties 1 In April 1973, Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers Local No 26, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Helpers & Warehousemen of America, was certified as collective-bargaining represen- tative of all over-the-road truckdrivers at the Employer's Danville plant 2 There are 20 plants in the Employer's organization with 19 of them being plastic pipe operations have entered into successive collective-bargaining agreements, the most recent of which expired on July 14, 1975. All the agreements contained the same rec- ognitional clause and provided for the establishment of new job classifications:' At the time of the execution of the first collective- bargaining agreement in August 1966, the Employer manufactured copper tubing used in air conditioning and heating equipment at its plant in Danville, Illi- nois. The Danville facility consists of two 35,000- square-foot areas (known as "A Bay" and "B Bay") which share a common opening. The opening allows free access through the bays, making them essentially one building. The copper arrived at the Danville plant already formed into tubes. After it was cleaned, the copper was drawn (or stretched and reduced in diameter) to a set size. The copper tubing was then straightened, tested for defects, cut, cleaned, heated, cleaned again, put through a hairpin bender, inspected, weighed, and shipped to the Employer's customers. B Bay housed what was known as the bullblock ma- chinery. The only difference between the bullblock operation in B,Bay and the operation in A Bay was that the copper tubing produced by the former meth- od emerged in coils, whereas the copper tubing pro- duced by the latter method was formed in hairpin bends. Skills necessary for the production of copper tubing involved the operation of various bending, drawing, sawing, and lifting machinery. The employ- ees were also involved in furnace tending, packing, and shipping operations. In early 1974, the bullblock operation in B Bay was phased out because it was unprofitable. In,Sep- tember of that year, the Employer began a series of layoffs of unit employees due to a decline in demand for its product. At that time, unit employment, which had reached a high of approximately 154 production and maintenance employees in 1970, was down to 115. Meanwhile, after a successful pilot, project at the Employer's Vestal, New York, plant,' a corporate de- cision was made to manufacture plastic house siding which could be used both for the construction of new homes and the renovation of old housing. The Em- ployer decided to locate its plastic siding operation in the Danville plant because the copper tubing busi- ness was declining and the plant could be adapted, with modifications, to the siding operation. Helmut Linsgeseder, who had worked on the pilot project at the New York plant, was transferred to the Danville facility and appointed plant manager of the newly established Plastic Siding Division. Plant Manager Linsgeseder and the plant manager 222 NLRB No. 92 572 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD of the Copper Tubing Division 3 report to the general manager who has the overall responsibility for the Employer's Danville operations. At the higher man- agement levels, responsibility for the copper tubing and plastic siding operations is separate. Thus, re- garding the Plastic Siding Division, the Danville gen- eral manager reports to the regional vice president for the midwestern division who, in turn, reports to the corporate vice president of operations. Neither of these two individuals has any supervisory authority over the Copper Tubing Division. In January 1975, the copper tubing equipment was removed from B Bay and the installation of the plas- tic siding equipment began. This work was per- formed by the Employer's maintenance employees represented by the Union. Approximately $1,400,000 to $1,500,000 was spent by the Plastic Siding Divi- sion to convert B Bay to the house siding operation. Modifications of B Bay included installation of rail siding, a sprinkler system, two loading docks, a mix- ing room, and a 30-by-280-foot addition to the build- ing. None of the copper production equipment could be used in the manufacture of plastic siding due to the differences in the production processes. In manu- facturing plastic siding, raw materials are automati- cally mixed and fed into an extruder which produces plastic sheets by the use of heat and pressure. These sheets go through a series of shaping templates, have holes punched in them, are sawed to various lengths, and then are wrapped and packed in cardboard car- tons for shipping. The Employer has established the following classifications of employees engaged in the manufacturing of plastic siding: machine tender, ex- truder operator, compound operator, compound helper, utility man, and warehouseman. On April 17, 1975,4 the Employer commenced pro- duction of plastic siding. At that time, the Employer was still engaged in the production of copper tubing. There was no interchange of production employees between the Copper Tubing and Plastic Siding Divi- sions when at that time they were both in operation. Shortly after plastic siding production commenced, the 12 maintenance employees of the Copper Tubing Division were told that they could either be transfer- red to the Plastic Siding Division on a temporary basis or be laid off. Ten of them chose to accept the 3 The record reveals that the plant manager of the Copper Tubing Divi- sion does-not have any production responsibilities or supervisory authority in regard to the Plastic Siding Division. Although the Copper Tubing Divi- sion plant manager, Proietti, did interview and hire some production em- ployees for the plastic siding operation, he did so only on a few occasions when that process was still in its developing stages and Plant Manager Linsgeseder was out of town working on the pilot line at the Vestal, New York, plant 4 All subsequent dates herein are in 1975 unless otherwise indicated transfer and began working in the Plastic Siding Di- vision on May 5 as temporary employees. The main- tenance employees hired by the Plastic Siding Divi- sion were required to submit employment applica- tions as new employees and did not retain their former wage rates.' However, they retained their se- niority for' vacation purposes and their insurance coverage. The maintenance employees continued to use the same tools and work under the same mainte- nance supervision as when they were employed by the Copper Tubing Division. On June 12, approximately 2 months after com- mencing production of the plastic siding, the Em- ployer closed down its copper tubing operation. At the time of the hearing in July, only 6 of the 22 pro- duction employees of the Plastic Siding Division were former employees of the Copper Tubing Divi- sion. Like the maintenance employees who transfer- red to the Plastic Siding Division, the former produc- tion employees were also required to file employment applications but were hired as permanent new em- ployees. The job classifications of the production em- ployees hired were changed and new wage rates were established on the basis of those prevailing in the plastic siding industry and in the Danville area. Fringe benefits were also changed to conform to those existing in other plastic plants of the Employer. The former production employees who were hired have not retained their seniority except for vacation purposes. These employees had to receive several days of training in order to operate the plastic siding equipment. Similarly, the foremen in the Plastic Sid- ing Division, who were formerly supervisors in the Copper Tubing Division, also had to be trained and, in fact, spent 2 weeks working on the pilot line at the Vestal, New York, plant to gain the necessary experi- ence in the plastic siding operation. Although at the time of the hearing the Employer had a complement of 22 production employees and the 10 temporary maintenance employees working in the Plastic Siding Division, the Employer's immedi- ate plans for expansion involve the operation of 5 extruder lines and the employment of 50 to 55 pro- duction employees. It is also anticipated that some of the temporary maintenance employees will be re- tained as permanent employees. In view of the foregoing and the record as a whole, we conclude, contrary to the Regional Director, that the establishment of the Plastic Siding Division at the Danville plant resulted in the creation of a new in- dustry and the employees hired to perform the tasks in the new division cannot be accreted to the Copper 5 For example, employee Walblay testified that as an employee of the Copper Tubing Division he was classified as a maintenance machinist and was paid $5 26 per hour As an employee of the Plastic Siding Division, he is classified as a maintenance man and paid $5 per hour TUBING DIVISION, ROBINTECH INC. 573 Tubing Division unit represented by the Union.6 Thus, it is clear that, after a successful pilot program, the Plastic Siding Division was established as a new division to manufacture a new product requiring considerable new capital investment and plant modi- fications. The machinery and production process in- volved in the manufacture of plastic siding are sub- stantially different from that used in the prior copper tubing operation. From its inception, the Plastic Sid- ing Division operated under a new plant manager and with separate supervision at higher management levels. While it is true that 6 of the initial 22 produc- tion employees were transferred from the Copper Tubing Division and 10 maintenance men were transferred as temporary employees, according to the record the employee complement was soon to be in- creased. Under these circumstances, we do not believe that the location of the Plastic Siding Division on the same premises as the Copper Tubing Division and the continuity in firstline supervision relied upon by the Regional Director require a contrary result. Ac- cordingly, we find that the Plastic Siding Division is not an accretion to the Copper Tubing Division unit and we shall so clarify the unit to exclude the em- ployees of the Plastic Siding Division from-that unit. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the collective-bargaining unit of all employees of Robintech Tubing Plant, lo- cated in Danville, Illinois, excluding watchmen, guards, office-clerical employees, salesmen, foremen, engineering employees, professional employees, and all supervisory employees as defined in the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, be, and it hereby is, clarified by excluding from said unit all employees of the Plastic Siding Division of Robintech Incorpo- rated. MEMBER FANNING, dissenting: Contrary to my colleagues, I do not find the Re- gional Director to be clearly erroneous in finding that the Employer's Plastic Siding Division consti- tutes an accretion to its Copper Tubing Division at the Danville plant. The Employer had recognized and bargained with the Union, since 1966, for a unit of Danville employ- ees described as "all employees of the Company." Since recognition, the parties have entered into three successive collective-bargaining agreements,? each of which ,contains the above-quoted unit description and provides for the establishment of new job classi- fications when a different product line is introduced. Due to the decline in the demand for copper tub- ing, the Employer, in 1975, began producing plastic house siding at its Danville plant. Six of the twenty- two production employees and all of the mainte- nance employees hired in the new Plastic Siding Di- vision were formerly employed in Copper Tubing. The total plastic siding operation is accomplished by various machinery. One former Copper Tubing em- ployee testified, without contradiction, that he re- ceived no training for his job in the plastic operation. Another such employee stated that it took him only 2 days to fully train for his new job. The maintenance employees in Plastic used the same tools and skills and, as did the production em- ployees, worked under the same supervision as they did when employed in Copper Tubing. In view of the foregoing, I find that the Employer cannot divest the unit employees of their right to continued representation by unilaterally replacing or substituting one production process for another when it has had a long bargaining history in which the Union is recognized as the representative of all the Employer's employees and the,parties' bargain- ing agreements provide for the establishment, of new job classifications; and when it reemploys 50 percent of the unit employees to work in the new process under the same supervision and with no appreciable difference in skills required. Accordingly, I would af- firm the Regional Director's finding of accretion and dismiss the Employer's petition. 6 See British Industries Company, Lyra Systems, Divisions of Avnet, Inc, 218 NLRB No. 172 (1975). ' The parties most recent bargaining agreement had a 3-year duration and expired on July 14, 1975