AMFAC, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 15, 1968

173 N.L.R.B. 850 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

850 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
AMFAC, Inc.' and International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, Local Union 1260 , AFL-CIO,
Petitioner .2 Case 37-RC-1447
November 15, 1968
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND ZAGORIA
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held
before Bert M. Tomasu, Hearing Officer.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
The Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing
are free from prejudicial error and are hereby af-
firmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, including the
briefs filed by both parties, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, and
it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert
jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to repre-
sent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of certain employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent all warehouse
employees of the Employer in the Machinery, Electri-
cal and Appliance Department, including the Drug
Department, at its Atkinson Park Warehouse,3 694
Auahi Street, Honolulu, Hawaii, excluding office
clerical employees, confidential employees, profes-
sional employees, guards and/or watchmen, and
supervisors as defined in the Act, and all other
employees.4 The Employer contends that the unit is
too limited in scope; that an appropriate unit must
include all employees employed in its wholesale
operations in Honolulu, Hawaii, excluding employees
in the Iweld and Appliance operations, office clerical
employees, confidential employees, professional em-
ployees, guards and/or watchmen, and supervisors as
defined in the Act.
The Employer, a diversified corporation having its
principal office and place of business in Honolulu,
Hawaii, is engaged in the production, sale and
factoring of sugar; various wholesale and retail opera-
tions; real estate development and management;
agricultural consulting and management; and finance
and mortgage activities. The employees engaged in the
wholesale operations are located at three principal
sites: the AP Warehouse, and warehouses located at
Mapunapuna and Sand Island. The warehouse at
Mapunapuna is 6 miles, and the warehouse at Sand
Island is 5 miles, from the AP Warehouse.
In American Factors, Ltd, 109 NLRB 834, the
union sought a unit of all employees employed by the
Employer at its AP Warehouse and the employees at
the dry goods warehouse, or in the alternative, two
units, one for the AP Warehouse, the other for the
dry goods warehouse. The Board found that employ-
ees at all four of the Employer's warehouses com-
prised a unit appropriate for the purposes of collec-
tive bargaining and directed an election for all
employees at the Employer's AP Warehouse, dry
goods and paper products warehouse, lumber yard or
warehouse, and the glass warehouse. Since that time,
the dry goods,warehouse has been abolished. The
glass warehouse has been organized into a subsidiary
company of the Employer and the employees have
been separately organized. The appliance warehouse
and service unit, which is part of the Mechanical,
Electrical and Appliance Departments and located
across the street from the AP Warehouse, is now
under contract with the Petitioner. Otherwise, there is
no history of collective bargaining for the Employer's
employees.
As the result of an administrative reorganization in
1967, the Wholesale Division, which formerly existed
under one vice president, is no longer a part of the
Employer's organizational structure. Hence, whereas
prior to 1967 warehouse operations at all three
warehouses were under the same vice president, the
Mapunapuna and AP Warehouses are now under one
vice president, and the Sand Island Warehouse is
under a different vice president. The record indicates,
however, that, otherwise, the warehouse operation
has not substantially changed.
The AP Warehouse, whose employees the Peti-
tioner seeks to represent, is the headquarters for the
M, E & A Department. It houses a variety of
machinery and electrical equipment and also includes
the inventory of the Drug Department which, because
of its higher rate of inventory turnover, accounts for a
greater part of the volume handled by the M, E & A
Department at the AP Warehouse. The warehouse at
Mapunapuna contains the industrial products section
of the M, E & A Department, which includes the
"DeRocher"6 inventory as well as trucks, forklifts,
and other heavy machinery. The Sand Island facility,
t The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing. 5 Herein referred to as M, E & A Department.
2 The name of the Petitioner appears as amended at the hearing . 6 This inventory includes heavy mobile industrial equipment, high
3 Herein referred to as AP Warehouse . pressure hose, brass fittings and fire extinguishers.
4 The unit sought appears as amended at the hearing.
173 NLRB No. 126
AMFAC, INC. 851
which is not a part of the M, E & A Department,
serves as the headquarters for the Construction
Materials Department and consists of a lumber yard
and warehousing accommodations for hardware and
construction materials.
Employees in the AP Warehouse perform tasks
essential to the movement of goods in and out of the
warehouse. The warehousemen fill orders, package
goods, and merchandise, and store them on shelves;
the shipping and receiving clerks, and checkers, verify
incoming merchandise against purchase orders and
check outgoing merchandise against customer orders;
the truckdrivers deliver merchandise to customers and
at times may work inside the warehouse as ware-
housemen; and section leaders are work leaders for
small groups of warehousemen. Warehouse employees
at the Sand Island facility are similarly categorized
and perform essentially the same duties. However,
warehousemen at Mapunapuna are not organized into
specialized functions as they are at the AP and Sand
Island Warehouses; they have no specific job classifi-
cations. Most of the employees at Mapunapuna are in
the Equipment Service Department. One half of the
14 employees in this department, though called
"warehousemen", are mechanics, while the other half
are mechanics helpers and painters. Only two ware-
housemen at Mapunapuna perform warehousing
duties exclusively, and they are employed in the
DeRocher department.
As indicated above, the M, E & A Department,
which encompasses most of the functions and facili-
ties of the Mapunapuna and the AP Warehouses, is
under one departmental manager. However, super-
vision of warehouse employees at each installation is
separate; and warehouse employees in the Drug
Department, a branch of the M, E & A Department at
the AP Warehouse, are supervised separately. Despite
their separate supervision, employees in the Drug
Department work on the same floor as the other AP
Warehouse employees and perform precisely the same
warehousing tasks, except that they perform these
tasks on drug supplies.
As for personnel administration, all of the whole-
sale warehouse employees have the same benefit plan,
vacation time, holidays, sick leave, pensions, sever-
ance pay, profit sharing, discount privileges, and a
group life policy; and overtime pay is uniform for all
warehouse employees. Hiring, payroll and accounting,
and inventory are centrally administered. A seniority
list of warehouse employees throughout the operation
is referred to as vacancies occur at any of the three
warehouses.
Except for one mechanic who works at the AP
Warehouse but is permanently assigned to the
Mapunapuna Warehouse, transfer of employees on
either a permanent or temporary basis is described by
the Employer's Director of Industrial Relations as
"very limited"; in fact, he was unable to give specific
examples of such at the hearing. Most of the contact
between employees is made by truckdrivers who
transport merchandise between warehouses, and who
take their vehicles when out of repair to another
warehouse for parts and service.
In cases involving retail chain store operations, the
Board has revised somewhat its prior policy of finding
that an appropriate unit must necessarily embrace all
the employees within an employer's administrative or
geographic area. In Sav-On Drugs, Inc., 138 NLRB
1032, 1033, we said that our "policy had over-
emphasized the administrative grouping of merchan-
dising outlets at the expense of factors such as
geographic separation of the several outlets and the
local managerial autonomy of the separate outlets;
and it has ignored completely as a factor the extent to
which the claiming labor organization had sought to
organize the employees of the retail chain ....
Therefore, whether a proposed unit which is con-
fined to one or two or more retail establishments
making up an employer's retail chain is appropriate
will be determined in the light of all the circum-
stances of the case." (Footnotes omitted.)
We believe that the foregoing approach is also valid
for warehouse operations. In cases subsequent to
Sav-On Drugs, we found single store locations appro-
priate unless countervailing factors were present.7 In
the circumstances of this case, we find no counter-
vailing factors and conclude that the policy we have
adopted for retail chain store operations is applicable
to the wholesale warehouse operation herein.
The record in the instant case reveals that employ-
ees at each warehouse are under separate immediate
supervision. Transfer and interchange of employees
between warehouses is very limited. All warehouse
employees at the AP Warehouse, including employees
in the Drug Department, have the same warehousing
functions. On the other hand, M, E & A employees at
Mapunapuna do not perform ordinary warehouse
duties. In addition to being located 6 miles from the
AP Warehouse, a substantial number of the warehouse
employees at Mapunapuna are skilled at mechanics
and do not perform warehousing duties exclusively.
Further, we note that warehouse employees in the
glass warehouse and the Appliance Service Center are
separately represented. On the basis of these factors
and the entire record, we conclude that the unit
requested by the Petitioner, limited to employees at
the AP Warehouse, is appropriate. We shall include
the Drug Department employees in this unit, since
Haag Drug Company, Incorporated , 169 NLRB No. 111 , Sun Drug
Co., Inc., 147 NLRB 669, Primrose Super Market of Salem . Inc., 148
NLRB 610.
852 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
they are located in the AP Warehouse, and perform
precisely the same warehousing functions as other
employees at this location.
Accordingly, we find that all warehouse employees
of the Employer in the Machinery, Electrical and
Appliance Department, including the Drug Depart-
ment, at its Atkinson Park Warehouse at 694 Auahi
Street, Honolulu, Hawaii, excluding cashiers and
other office clerical employees, selling personnel,
professional employees, guards and/or watchmen, and
supervisors as defined in the Act, and employees
presently covered in separate units by collective-
bargaining agreements, constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the
meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act.8
[Direction of Election9 omitted from publication.]
8 The parties are in substantial agreement as to the composition of
the unit . Included are the following classifications of employees:
warehousemen one, warehousemen two, shipping and receiving clerks,
section leaders, checkers , and truckdrivers . The parties stipulated that
Richardson , Luke, and H . Willing should be excluded as supervisors.
9 An election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all
the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the officer-
m-Charge for Subregion 37 within 7 days after the date of issuance of
this Direction of Election. The Officer-in-Charge shall make the list
available to all parties to the election . No extension of time to file this
list shall be granted by the Officer-in-Charge except in extraordinary
circumstances . Failure to comply with this requirement shall be grounds
for setting aside the election whenever proper objections are filed.
Excelsior Underwear Inc., 156 NLRB 1236.