Capital Bakers, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 14, 1967

168 N.L.R.B. 908 (N.L.R.B. 1967)

908 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Capital Bakers, Inc. and Food Driver Salesmen,
Dairy & Ice Cream Workers Union , Local No. 463,
affiliated with the International Brotherhood of
Teamsters , Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Hel-
pers of America , Petitioner. Case 4-RC-7273
December 14,1967
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
By CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Gordon L.
Fine. Following the hearing and pursuant to Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board
Rules and Regulations and Statements of
Procedure, Series 8, as amended, and by direction
of the Regional Director for Region 4, this case was
transferred to the National Labor Relations Board
for decision. The Employer has filed a brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af-
firmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board
finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaninp'df the Act and it will effectuate the pol-
icies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent 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 Employer operates five bakery plants in
Pennsylvania. Bakery products are distributed by
truck at both the wholesale and retail level from
four of these plants. In addition, the Employer
operates four sales stations in Pennsylvania, one in
Delaware, and one in Maryland. All of the plants
and sales outlets are located within 85 miles of Har-
risburgh, Pennsylvania, where the Employer main-
tains its general offices.
The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit limited to
certain sales and sales related employees at the Em-
ployer's Coatesville, Pennsylvania, plant, including
all wholesale salesmen and home service salesmen,
garage employees, including garage janitor, ship-
' The record in both Case 4-RC-6729 as well as the record in the
present case are essentially stipulations, each of which incorporates
therein, as its principal evidence , a thud record, namely that involved in
168 NLRB No. 120
pers, solicitors, and route supervisors, but exclud-
ing surplus store salesman, sales clerical em-
ployees, office clerical employees, professional em-
ployees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the
Act. The Employer maintains that the single-plant
sales unit is inappropriate and should include the
name employees plus the surplus store salesman
and the sales clericals at all of the plants.
As a result of a stipulation, the official records of
Capital Bakers, Inc., Cases 4-RC-5267 and
4-RC-6729,1 including the transcript and exhibits,
were received into evidence for consideration
herein. Pursuant to the stipulation, the present case
is to be decided on the basis of the two earlier
records, plus the slight factual modifications dis-
closed in the very short transcript of stipulations of
which the record in the present case is composed.
The records in both of the earlier cases defined the
operation of the Employer's Williamsport plant
which is identical with that of the Coatesville plant
involved in the present case, except for the noted
modifications. The essential difference between the
two operations lies in the fact that the Williamsport
plant is both a production and sales operation while
the Coatesville plant no longer produces bakery
products, its effort is now confined solely to the
wholesale and retail sale of baked goods produced
at other plants. The absence of a production unit at
the location does not, in our poinion, destroy the ap-
propriateness of the sales employees unit. The
record demonstrates that the local sales manager -
at this location as well as other locations - enjoys
substantial autonomy in the direction and supervi-
sion of its day-to-day operations. This sales location
is geographically separated from the Employer's
other plants, and there is an absence of significant
employee interchange between this and other loca-
tions . There is no history of bargaining at any of the
Employer's facilities, and no labor organization is
seeking to represent employees on a broader basis.
Accordingly, we find, consistent with our prior
decision2 in the second of these two earlier cases
(Case 4-RC-6729) and for the reasons stated
therein, that the single-plant unit of sales and sales-
related employees at the Employer's Coatsville
plant is appropriate.
The composition of the unit in the present case,
however, of necessity must vary slightly from that
in the two earlier cases. Shippers, for example, were
excluded from the unit in the earlier cases prin-
cipally because it was found that their duties were
more directly related to those of the production
workers than to those of the sales-related em-
ployees. At the Coatesville plant, where there are
no longer any production facilities in existence, the
relationship between the shippers and the sales-re-
lated employees became perforce more closely con-
Case 4-RC-5267.
2 Capital Bakers, Inc., 168 NLRB No. 119
CAPITAL BAKERS, INC. 909
nected when the production department ceased
operations. Accordingly, we find that the shippers
share a sufficient community of interest with the
other sales-related employees to warrant their in-
clusion in the unit.
We do not find any other differences between the
operations of the two plants sufficient to warrant
varying the unit composition in the present case
from that defined in the earlier case. Thus, although
the surplus storeman in the present case is not a
part-time sales driver as is his equivalent at the Wil-
liamsport plant, he is nevertheless engaged prin-
cipally in sales work at the surplus store, and we
therefore include him in the unit. Finally, we find
the sales clericals, the cashier, and the order clerk
to be office clerical employees and exclude them
from the unit as we did in the earlier case.
5. Accordingly, it is found that the following em-
ployees of the Employer constitute a unit ap-
propriate for the purpose of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All wholesale salesmen and home service
salesmen, surplus store salesman, garage em-
ployees, including garage janitor, shippers, so-
licitors, and route supervisors, at this
Coatesville, Pennsylvania, plant, but excluding
sales clerical employees, office clerical em-
ployees, professional employees, guards, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election3 omitted from publication.]
8 An election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all
the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional
Director for Region 4 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and
Direction of Election. The Regional Director shall make the list available
to all parties to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be
granted by the Regional Director 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.