Broadway Department Stores, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 16, 1949

82 N.L.R.B. 176 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter of BROADWAY DEPARTMENT STORES, INC., EMPLOYER and
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL No. 63,
A. F. OF L., PETITIONER
Case No. 91-RC-588.-Decided March 16, 1949
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before a hearing officer
of the National Labor Relations Board. 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 National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-man panel consisting of the undersigned Board
Members.*
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
National Labor Relations Act.
2. The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent
employees of the Employer.
3. The alleged appropriate unit :
The Petitioner seeks a unit, composed of chief operating engineers,
operating engineers, maintenance engineers, and junior or apprentice
engineers, employed at the Employer's four department stores, located
at Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pasadena, and Crenshaw, California, re-
spectively.) The Employer contends that the unit sought is in-
appropriate.
Under the Employer's form of organization, there is a maintenance
division which includes the engine room department, the electrical
department, the carpenter department, the painting department, the
elevator operating department, and the housekeeping department.
Reynolds, Murdock, and Gray.
1 At the hearing, the Petitioner amended its petition to exclude chief engineers and plant
superintendents.
82 N. L. R. B., No. 15.
176
BROADWAY DEPARTMENT STORES , INC. 177
Employees who are members of these departments work at all 4 of
the Employer's stores. The engine room department, which includes
the employees sought herein, has a total of 20 employees, of whom
10 work in the Los Angeles store, 3 in the Hollywood store , 2 in the
Pasadena store, and 5 in the Crenshaw store.2
Each of the stores involved herein has boiler and engine rooms
containing steam boilers and the usual motor driven pumps and other
equipment. Only in the Los Angeles store are there high pressure
boilers which require the constant attendance of a licensed steam
engineer . The engine room department is the only mechanical de-
partment in the Employer's organization. The employees in this
department, in addition to operating and maintaining boilers and
engine room equipment, maintain and repair, among other things,
elevators, escalators, cash registers, the vacuum tube system, the air
conditioning system, merchandise handling equipment, plumbing,
electrical equipment, and store building equipment.
The record discloses that only 2 of the 15 employees claimed by
the Petitioner spend the greater part of their time in operating and
maintaining engine and boiler room equipment; that 9 of such em-
ployees spend varying portions of their time, ranging from 5 percent
to 40 percent thereof, on engine and boiler room equipment; 3 and
that the remaining 4 of such employees spend no time on engine and
boiler room equipment, but are employed in various types of craft
maintenance work 4 The Employer has no history of collective
bargaining.
The record is not clear as to whether the Petitioner is seeking a
unit of powerhouse employees on a craft or functional basis, or
whether it is requesting a unit of mechanical maintenance employees
,coextensive with the engine room department. Although the Board
has frequently found appropriate a unit of boiler room and power-
house employees,5 it has required as a condition for finding such unit
appropriate that the employees therein devote the major part of their
working time to powerhouse duties.6 As noted above, only 2 of the
15 employees claimed herein devote the major portion of their work-
2 Inasmuch as the parties stipulated that the chief engineer and the plant superin-
tendent of each store are supervisors within the meaning of the Act, there remains a total
of 15 non-supervisory employees in the engine room department.
' Of the employees whose work is in varying degrees connected with operating and
maintaining engine and boiler room equipment , only eight are licensed as steam engineers.
4 No member of the engine room department , other than those who operate the high
pressure boilers at the Los Angeles store, are required to serve any apprenticeship or to
participate in a training program.
s Matter of Curtiss -Wright Corporation, 77 N. L. R. B 803 ; Matter of Kimberly-Clark
Corporation, 77 N. L. R. B 124; Matter of Smith Paper, Incorporated , 76 N. L. R. B.
1222; Matter of American Sugar Refining Company, 76 N. L. R. B. 1009.
6 Matter of Worthy Paper Company Association , 80 N. L. R. B. 19.
178 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
time to powerhouse duties. The remaining claimed employees are
engaged , for the greater part of their working time, in activities of
a heterogeneous craft nature . Under the circumstances , we find that
the unit sought is neither pure craft in character ,7 nor such a func-
tionally coherent group as would be required for an appropriate unit
of powerhouse employees.
The further question remains as to whether the unit sought may
be found appropriate on a departmental basis. Considered on such
basis, the unit requested constitutes but one part of the Employer's
maintenance division . While the Board has found appropriate units
comprising all the maintenance employees of an Employer ," it has
refused to establish as a departmental unit a portion of a group of
maintenance employees .9 Accordingly , we do not believe that the
group sought satisfies the conditions necessary for a departmental
unit.
In view of the foregoing, we find that the unit claimed is inappro-
priate for the purposes of collective bargaining , and we shall dismiss
the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition for investigation and certifi-
cation of representatives of employees of the four stores of Broadway
Department Stores, Inc., located at Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pasa-
dena, and Crenshaw, California, respectively, filed herein by Inter-
national Union of Operating Engineers, Local No. 63, A. F. of L., be,
and it hereby is, dismissed.
7 The Board has held that a grouping of employees in several crafts does not constitute
a craft unit . Matter of Inland Empire Paper Company, 80 N. L it. B. 749, and cases
cited therein . See also , Matter of L. It. Clark and Wslliam Ellis d/b/a Columbia Packing
Company, 80 N. L. R B. 211.
8 Matter of Armstrong Cork Company, 80 N. L . it. B. 859; Matter of Weston Biscuit
Company, 81 N. L. it. B. 407.
9 Matter of George S. Mepham Corporation, 78 N. L . it. B. 1081.