Cherry Brook Worsted Mills, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 9, 1949

86 N.L.R.B. 1321 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

In the Matter Of CHERRY BROOK WORSTED MILLS, INC., EMPLOYER
and TEXTILE WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA, CIO , PETITIONER
Case No. 1-RC-1193.-Decided November 9, 1949
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Robert S.
Fuchs, hearing officer. 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-member panel. [Chairman Herzog and Members
Houston and Murdock].
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 labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The appropriate unit :
The Petitioner seeks a unit composed of all the production and main-
tenance employees at the Employer's Woonsocket, Rhode Island, plant,
excluding office employees, salaried employees, main office employees,
guards, professional employees, executives, overseers, and supervisors
as defined in the Act. The Employer agrees that this unit is appro-
priate except that it wishes to exclude firemen.
Of the four firemen employed by the Employer, one spends all his
time in the boiler room tending the furnace. The other three spend
an average of about 15 minutes out of every hour making the rounds
of the Employer's plant. On their rounds, the firemen punch clocks
in various parts of the plant. There is no evidence that they are
deputized or that they guard the Employer's property from theft.
They are not regularly armed, but a revolver is available to them. As
it appears that the firemen at the Employer's plant spend considerably
86 N. L. R. B., No. 154. 1321
1322 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
less than half their time on guard duties, we shall include them in the
unit 1 Accordingly, we find that a unit of all the production and
maintenance employees at the Employer's Woonsocket, Rhode Island,
plant, including firemen, but excluding office employees, salaried
employees, main office employees, guards, professional employees, ex-
ecutives, overseers, and supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a
unit appropriate for collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9 (b) of the Act.
5. The determination of representatives :
Until September 1948, the Employer operated its plant on a three-
shift schedule. At that time the Employer was forced by depressed
business conditions to lay off its entire third shift. The Employer
contends that it intends to reemploy these laid-off employees, and that
therefore they are entitled to vote. The Petitioner and the Intervenor
contend that, in view of the length of time they have been laid off,
employees of the third shift should be regarded as permanently
separated from their jobs and therefore not entitled to vote.
At the hearing, witnesses for the Employer stated that business
conditions had improved to the extent that there was strong likelihood
that the entire third shift would be reemployed within 30-60 days.
Moreover, since: the lay-off, the Employer has recalled individual
employees of the third shift to fill vacancies on other shifts and to
substitute for employees who were ill or on vacation. Under these
circumstances, we find that the employees of the third shift have a
reasonable expectation of reemployment by the Employer, and are
therefore entitled to participate in the election directed below.2
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by
secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than
30 days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and super-
vision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this case was
heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees in the
unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were
employed during the pay-roll period immediately preceding the date
of this Direction of Election, including employees who did not work
during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation or
i Matter of Radio Corporation of America (R. C. A. Victor Division ), 76 N. L. R. B. 826.
2 Matter of G lenn L. Martin Company, 74 N . L. R. B. 546; Matter of Ozark Dam Con-
structors, 77 N. L. R. B. 1136.
CHERRY BROOK WORSTED MILLS, INC. 1323
temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have since quit
or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated
prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees on strike
who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether or not they
desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bargaining, by
Textile Workers Union of America, CIO.