Charles Smith Nash Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 12, 1949

83 N.L.R.B. 511 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter of CHARLES SMITH NASH COMPANY, A COPARTNERSHIP
COMPOSED OF CHARLES SMITH AND FRANK CLARH,1 EMPLOYER and
GENERAL DRIVERS, CHAUFFEURS AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL NO.
886, AFFILIATED WITH THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAM-
STERS , CIIAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA,
AFL,2 PETITIONER
Case No. 16-RC-325.-Decided May 12,1919
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing in this matter was held before
Charles Y. Latimer, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made
at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
The Employer moved to dismiss the petition upon jurisdictional and
other grounds, which motion will be considered hereinafter.
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-lnember panel [Members Reynolds, Murdock, and
Gray].
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 .3
2. The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. The alleged appropriate unit :
The Petitioner seeks a unit composed of mechanics, porters, front
end men, and upholsterers, employed at the Employer's plant, located
at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Employer urges that the petition
be dismissed upon the ground that the unit sought is inappropriate, in
that it does not include all the employees in the Employer' s service
department.,'
' The Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing.
' The Petitioner' s name appears as amended at the hearing.
The Employer' s motion to dismiss upon jurisdictional grounds is hereby denied. See
Matter of Adams Motors, Inc., 80 N . L. R. B. 1518 , and cases cited therein.
4 Although the Employer filed an answer requesting dismissal of the petition upon various
other grounds , in view of our findings herein we deem it unnecessary to pass upon the
sufficiency of such other grounds.
83 N. L. R. B., No. 82.
511
,512 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Employer is engaged in the business of selling and servicing
new and used automobiles. As part of its business, it maintains a
service department, in which work is performed incidental to the re-
pair, restoration and servicing of automobiles. This department is
composed of the following subdepartments: (1) general service; (2)
used car reconditioning; (3) lubrication; (4) body shop; and (5) parts
shop. The employees who work in the subdepartments listed above
are classified as mechanics, mechanics helpers, front end mechanics,
lubrication man, upholsterer, body shop men, parts men, and service
salesmen.5 The service department is located in three buildings. One
building constitutes the main plant and sales room, at which all types
of repair work is performed. Another building, located directly be-
hind the main plant, is called the used car shop, at which used cars
are reconditioned. The third building, located a block away from the
main plant, houses the body shop, where body work is done. All
employees in the service department are under the general supervision
of a service manager. The operations of the service department are
interwoven; and the work performed by the employees therein is inter-
related. For example, the parts department men spend about 75
percent of their time working with other service department employees,
and the mechanics at the used car shop sometimes perform body work.
The employees in the service department have common conditions of
employment, and similar bargaining interests. There is no history
of'collective bargaining.
At the hearing, the Petitioner declined to amend its petition so as to
include all the service department employees at the Employer's plant,
claiming that the body shop and parts department employees are
under different management, different supervision, and are engaged in
a separate operation.6 It refused to include the service salesmen, con-
tending that they are actually salesmen rather than mechanics, and
that they are also supervisors .7 The Petitioner gave as its reason for
not wishing to include the lubricating department the fact that there is
only one employee in this department, and that he is probably a super-
visor." _ The record does not disclose the Petitioner's reason for exclud-
ing mechanics helpers. Nos contention is made that the employees, in
the unit sought constitute a craft group.
The Board has held that the arbitrary grouping of employees by a
labor organization because it has limited its organizational activities to.
5 The record discloses that service salesmen are in fact mechanics , who examine a cus-
tomer 's car and prescribe the work required to recondition it.
e The record does not substantiate this contention.
The record does not bear out this conclusion . See footnote 5, supra.
It does not appear from the record that this employee exercises supervisory authority
within the meaning of the Act.
CHARLES SMITH NASH COMPANY 513
such grouping does not justify a finding of an appropriate unit on
that basis.9 This is particularly true where, as in this case, the em-
ployees involved are an integral part of a larger unit engaged in
maintaining, servicing, and repairing automobiles such as the Board
has found appropriate in the past,"' and a functional coherence
and interdependence among all the employees is present. In the
instant case, it is clear that the Petitioner desires to include some, but
not all, of a group of employees performing similar work and having
similar interests, inasmuch as it has requested a unit composed of only
a part of the Employer's service department. While the Board has
found appropriate a unit comprising all the service department em-
ployees of an Employer,11 it has refused to establish as a departmental
unit a portion of such employees.12
In view of the foregoing, we find that the unit claimed is inappropri-
ate for the purposes of collective bargaining. We also find that no
question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of
employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1)
and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. We shall, therefore, dismiss
the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition for investigation and certifica-
tion of representatives of employees of Charles Smith Nash Company,
located at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, filed herein by General Drivers,
Chauffeurs and Helpers of America, Local No. 886, affiliated with The
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen
and Helpers of America, AFL, be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
9 Matter of Hull -Rodell Motors, Inc, 79 N. L. R B. 1408; Matter of Nash Motors Division
of Nash-Kelvinator Sales Corporation , 68 N. L . R. B. 651.
10 Matter of Lewiston Buick Company, 77 N. L. R. B. 375.
11 Matter of Lewiston Buick Company, footnote 10, supra.
12 Matter of Hull-Rodell Motors, Inc., footnote 9, supra.