Bulldog Electric Products Co., 642 (1951)

Order - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed.

BULLDOG ELECTRIC PRODUCTS COMPANY and INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. -7-RC1384. October 4,1951

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 James A. Harley, 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 threemember panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Reynolds].

Upon the entire record in this ease, the Board finds :

1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act.

2. The labor organization involved claims to represent 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) andSection2 (6) and (7) of the Act.

4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of technical employees, including, among others, various kinds of draftsmen, a laboratory technician, a model maker, copywriters, estimators, a blueprint operator, production planners, and methods engineers. The Employer contends that the unit is inappropriate because of a lack of homogeneity in its composition. It bases this contention on the fact that a' little less than one-half of the employees in the proposed unit are draftsmen, that other employees in the unit do not have drafting training or experience, and that even among themselves the draftsmen are not interchangeable. It further argues that an appropriate unit should include office and clerical employees and should exclude certain classifications of employees discussed hereinafter. Finally, the Employer asserts that the Petitioner is an inappropriate bargaining agent because it already represents the Employer's production and maintenance employees, and technical personnel are not eligible for membership in the Petitioner.

96 NLRB No. 85.

The Board has repeatedly held that a unit of technical employees is appropriate.' The Petitioner's proposed unit is no more diverse in its composition than other technical units which the Board has found appropriate? The proposed unit is not inappropriate because it does not include office and clerical employees. It is now well settled that office and clerical employees may not be joined in a single unit with technical employees where any party objects to such grouping.3 Accordingly, we find that, with the modifications indicated hereinafter, the proposed unit is appropriate.

The Employer's arguments addressed to the right of the Petitioner to represent these employees are also without merit. There is no statutory limitation on the right of a union to represent technical employees because it already represents the same employer's production and maintenance employees under a contract which excludes technical employees from its coverage.' Nor is the Petitioner disqualified to act as statutory representative of the technical employees, even assuming arguendo that the Petitioner's constitution does not admit such employees to membership, in the absence of evidence that the Petitioner will not adequately represent them.5

Although the proposed unit in broad outline is -appropriate, we shall exclude the following as nontechnical employees : 6

Follow-up man (sales service) : Handles all incoming calls and correspondence from customers and field engineers relative to products on order. Handles sales correspondence with customers and keeps abreast of...