Blue Ribbon Creamery

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 2, 1951

94 N.L.R.B. 201 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

BLUE RIBBON CREAMERY 201
manager who has unlimited authority in regard to the hire and dis-
charge of employees at the Jacksonville plant. While general labor
policies are initiated and formulated at the Crawfordsville plant, the
local manager of the Jacksonville plant has authority to adjust these
policies to local conditions, determine wages of individual employees,
and fix the hours of employment of the various shifts at the Jackson-
ville plant. All the nonsupervisory and nonoffice employees are paid
at the Jacksonville plant and their payroll records are maintained
there. In addition to these factors, there is no history of collective
bargaining on a two-plant basis 4 and no labor organization is seeking
certification on that basis.'
In view of all these circumstances we find that the unit sought by
the Petitioner confined to the Jacksonville, Florida, plant is-appro-
priate.
We find, therefore, that a unit composed of all production and main-
tenance employees at the Employer's Jacksonville, Florida, plant in-
cluding the stock clerk, 'over-the-road truck driver, and two watchmen,°
but excluding the foremen, assistant foremen, executive, professional
and clerical employees, guards, and supervisors as defined by the Act
is an appropriate unit for collective bargaining purposes within the
meaning of Section 9,(b) of the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
4 There is evidence that prior to the establishment of the Jacksonville, Florida, plant,
the employees of the Crawfordsville, Indiana, plant were represented by the United
Steelworkers, CIO, but at the time of the establishment of the Jacksonville plant the
latter union had ceased representing the employees of the Crawfordsville plant.
c Although the extent of the Petitioner's organization becomes thus partly involved the
Board is not precluded from taking this factor into consideration where, as here, it Is
not given controlling weight Stow and Davis Furniture Co., cited supra.
6 The manager of the Jacksonville plant testified that the two watchmen devote approxi-
mately 50 percent of their time to monitorial duties and the remaining 50 percent to
production activities. These watchmen are not uniformed, deputized, or armed Since
they do not devote more than 50 percent of their time to monitorial duties, we shall include
them in the unit. Wiley Mfg., Inc, 92 NLRB 40.
BLUE RIBBON CREAMERY and UNITED GAS, COKE & CHEMICAL WORKERS
OF AMERICA, CIO, PETITIONER. Case No. 15-RC-477. May 2, 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 Robert B. Stark, hear-
ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are
free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
94 NLRB No. 44.
202 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Reynolds].
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 certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. The Employer and Local 891, International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, AFL,
herein called the Intervenor, assert that their current contract is a bar
to this proceeding. The Petitioner denies this assertion, on the
ground, among others, that the contract contains an illegal union-
security clause.
The contract clause reads as follows :
The Company shall have the sole and, exclusive right to em-
ploy its workers from whatever source it deems advisable.
New regular employees and present employees, who are not pres-
ently members of the Union, but come within the jurisdiction
of the Union after the effective date of this Agreement must
make immediate application for membership in the Union, and
become a member within thirty (30) days. It is a continuing
condition of employment with the Company that employees cov-
ered by this Agreement, both present employees and new em-
ployees, shall be and remain members in good standing of the
Union. Persons losing their membership in the Union shall not
be retained in the employ of the Company.
Clearly, the contract makes membership in the Intervenor a con-
dition of employment. In disregard of the proviso of Section 8 (a)
(3) of the Act, however, the contract does not accord to all the em-
ployees subject to its coverage the statutory 30-day period allowed
for becoming union members after the effective date of the contract.
As the clause, by its terms, allows this grace period to new employees
and to old employees who were not union members when the contract
was executed, it implicitly denies it to those other employees who
had joined the union earlier.' Because this union-security clause
falls short of the requirements of Section 8 .(a) (3), we must reject
the contract bar contention.2
' We note that the preceding contract between the Employer and the Intervenor also
made membership in that union a condition of employment.
2In view of this finding, we deem it unnecessary to pass upon the other contentions
attacking the validity of the contract as a bar. _
BLUE RIBBON CREAMERY 203
Accordingly, we find that a question affecting commerce exists
concerning the employees of the Employer within the-meaning of
Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The parties are generally in agreement upon a unit of all pro-
duction and maintenance employees at the Employer 's main plant
at Jackson , Mississippi . They disagree as to route salesmen and
helpers stationed at three substations , certain employees at two weigh-
ing and cooling stations , and office clerical employees . Principally
because all these employees have been excluded from prior collec-
tive bargaining agreements, the Petitioner, over the other parties' ob-
jection, would exclude them now.
The Employer is engaged in processing and distributing milk and
milk products. At its main plant in Jackson, Mississippi, it both
processes and sells the products; here, it employs production and
maintenance employees and retail store employees, shipping clerks,
truck drivers, and route salesmen . In addition, the Employer main-
tains small installations in five other communities. At these loca-
tions it has route salesmen, helpers, and weighers. Three of these
substations are used only for distributing and selling the milk; the
other two are bulk storage stations where raw milk is weighed and
cooled and prepared for shipment to the Jackson plant.
The route salesmen, stationed at the substations , and their helpers,
do the same work as employees in the same categories working in or
out of the main plant . They are supervised by the Jackson plant
and enjoy the same wages , vacations , and general conditions and bene-
fits as the main plant employees . Similarly , the weighers at the sub-
stations are subject to the sane supervision and working conditions
as employees at Jackson , and have identical tasks as the weighers
located there . On these facts it is clear that the substation employees
have essentially the same interests and working conditions as those
at the main plant and that the two groups properly belong in the same
bargaining unit.
r, -or a number of years, the main plant employees have been repre-
sented in collective bargaining in the successive contracts between the
Employer and the Intervenor . As set forth above, the Petitioner
asserts that the substation employees have been excluded from these
contracts and therefore may not be included in the unit at present.
The Intervenor argues that these employees have been included in
past bargaining; in its brief, however, it admits that they have not
been covered by the contract. We find it -unnecessary to resolve this
dispute among the parties. If, in fact, the employees here in dispute
had been excluded from past bargaining, they would at best be entitled
to a self-determination election before being added to the established
204 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
unit.3 However, as a question concerning representation now exists
among the main plant employees, Board policy requires inclusion of
the substation employees in the same voting group with the employees
of the existing unit.4 Accordingly, we shall include the substation
employees in the unit hereinafter found appropriate.
At the main plant there are seven office clerical employees. Five
of them work on the second floor of the plant, apart from the produc-
tion workers. The others, who work on the main floor, are separated
from the production employees by a partition. These office clericals
perform stenographic and bookkeeping tasks, and act as cashiers and
billing clerks. Again, the Intervenor requests the inclusion of these
employees on the ground that they have been represented as part of
the production and maintenance unit in the past. But the record does
not support this assertion. It does appear that the office clericals
authorized dues deductions in favor of the Intervenor, but it was not
shown that they were included in past contracts, or that the Inter-
venor bargained on their behalf. In any event, without regard to
any bargaining history among the office employees, it is clear that
as office clericals their interests and working conditions are distinctly
different from those of the production and maintenance workers.
In accordance with established Board policy, we shall therefore ex-
clude them from the unit.5
We find that all production and maintenance employees, retail store
employees, shipping clerks, truck drivers and helpers, weighers, and
route salesmen and helpers, employed in and about the Employer's
Jackson, Mississippi, plant and at its Newton, Wesson, Natchez, Green-
ville, and Vicksburg, Mississippi, substations, but excluding guards,
watchmen, professional employees, office clerical employees, and all
supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for
the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section
9 (b) of the Act.
5. Each summer, during the height of the "ice cream season," the
Employer hires from two to four temporary employees, generally
laborers, who work on an average of about 60 days per year. Al-
though these employees were referred to at the hearing as "seasonal,"
the record shows that the Employer considers them to be temporary
employees. No claim was made, and nothing in the record suggests,
that these employees can reasonably expect to be rehired from year
to year. We construe the request of the Employer and the Intervenor
that these employees be excluded from the units as raising an eligi-
$ Great Lakes Pipe Line Company, 92 NLRB 583.
Waterous Company, 92 NLRB 76.
6 Assoccated Wholesale Grocers, Inc ., 92 NLRB 542 ; Columbia Products Company,
92 NLRB No 54.
F. B. ROGERS SILVER COMPANY 205
bility issue. As they are temporary employees, we find, in accordance
with Board practice, that they do not have a sufficient interest in the
selection of a bargaining representative, and that they are, therefore,
ineligible to cast ballots in the election directed herein .6
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
Vetter Manufacturing Company, 92 NLRB No . 21; of. Comico Products Corporation,
90 NLRB No. 159.
F. B. ROGERS SILVER COMPANY and PLAYTHINGS, JEWELRY AND NOVELTY
WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, CIO, PETITIONER. Case No.
1-RC-1445. May I, 1951
Supplemental Decision , Order, and Second Direction of Election
On May 26, 1950, pursuant to a Decision and Direction of Election
issued by the Board on May 2, 1950,1 an election by secret ballot was
conducted under the direction and supervision of the Regional Di-
rector for the First Region, among the employees of the Employer in
the unit found appropriate in said Decision. Upon completion of
the election, a tally of ballots was furnished to the parties. The tally
showed that of the approximately 146 eligible voters, 141 cast ballots,
of which 55 were for the Petitioner, 72 were against the Petitioner,
13 were challenged, and 1 was void.
On June 2, 1950, the Petitioner filed objections to the conduct of the
election and to conduct affecting the results of the election. There-
after, on August 17, 1950, following an investigation, the Regional Di-
rector issued his report on objections, in which he reported that sub-
stantial and material factual issues had been raised in the course of
his investigation, both with respect to the objections of the Petitioner
and with respect to certain other matters developed in the course of
the investigation. The Regional Director recommended that a hear-
ing be held to resolve such issues. On September 1, 1950, the Em-
ployer filed exceptions to the Regional Director's report, and requested
that the objections of the Petitioner be overruled.
On October 10, 1950, the Board, upon consideration of the Regional
Director's report and the exceptions thereto, issued an Order in which
it : (1) Remanded the proceeding to the Regional Director for the
purpose of holding a hearing on the issues raised by the Petitioner's
objections; (2) directed that the hearing officer prepare and serve upon
the parties a report containing findings of fact, conclusions, and recom-
' Unpublished.
94 NLRB No. 49.