Conchemco Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 24, 1970

182 N.L.R.B. 125 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

CONCHEMCO INCORPORATED 125
Conchemco Incorporated , Baltimore Division and Interna-
tional Union of District 50, Allied and Technical Work-
ers of the United States and Canada , Petitioner. Case
5-RC-7002
April 24, 1970
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND BROWN
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before M. Louise Felton, Hearing Officer of
the National Labor Relations Board. Following the hear-
ing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National
Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and State-
ments of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, and by
direction of the Regional Director for Region 5, the
case was transferred to the National Labor Relations
Board for decision. A brief has been timely filed by
the Employer.
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.
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 affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the purposes
of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The Petitioner is a labor organization and claims
to represent certain employees of the Employer.'
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning
the representation of the employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6)
and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks a unit of all production and
maintenance employees at the Employer's Baltimore,
Maryland, paint manufacturing plant. The Petitioner
would include research laboratory handyman Spriggs,
but would exclude the leadmen and assistant leadmen,
the printing department employees, and employees Bat-
chellor, Tucker, and Serio. The Employer, while in
general agreement that a production and maintenance
unit is appropriate, would include all the foregoing
employees except Spriggs, who it contends should be
excluded. There is no history of collective bargaining
with respect to any of the employees involved herein.
The printing department employees: Seven of the
employees working in this department print production
tickets and labels, and maintain an inventory of labels
' Although the Employer refused to stipulate that the Petitioner is
a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act,
the evidence establishes that the Petitioner admits employees for member-
ship, and that its purpose is to represent for the purposes of collective
bargaining, employees of employers, as that representation relates to
hours, wages, and conditions of employment
and advertising materials. There is a printer who operates
a printing press. The other employees in this department
are order pickers of advertising material. They frequently
deliver labels to the labeling department and pack color
cards and advertising material for shipment with paint
orders. No special training is required for this work,
and uniforms are provided for these employees on the
same basis as other employees. They are all hourly
paid and have the same fringe benefits as the employees
in the production and maintenance unit. The printing
department is located directly above the control lab
(the employees of which are included), in a building
which also contains the production office, cafeteria,
and storage facilities for the order-filling and labeling
department. The department is headed by the printing
department supervisor who is responsible to the plant
manager. No union seeks to represent the printing depart-
ment employees separately.
In these circumstances, we find that the printing
department employees are engaged in production, and
work in close proximity to the other production and
maintenance employees, with whom they share similar
fringe benefits. As production employees they share
a close community of interest with the other production
and maintenance employees, and we shall include them
in the unit.2
The alleged plant clerical employees: There are three
employees in this category: Dianne Batchellor, Susan
Tucker, and Peggy Serio.
Batchellor and Tucker work in a separate office in
the shop area between the cafeteria and the production
office, in the afore-mentioned building containing the
cafeteria, production office, control laboratory, and order
filling and labeling departments. They are supervised
by the plant manager, and are called production clericals.
Their duties consist of making out production tickets,
keeping files of requests for and copies of these tickets,
and calculating the amount of production after the batch
is completed. They handle no confidential information,
are hourly paid, and work hours and receive employment
benefits, similar to those of employees included in the
unit. Accordingly, we find them to be plant clerical
employees, whose duties and interests are most closely
allied with those of the production and maintenance
employees, and as we customarily include plant clericals
in a production and maintenance unit, we shall include
them in the unit.3
Serio, unlike Batchellor and Tucker, works adjacent
to the general office where the office clerical employees
are located, apart from the production area, and is
supervised directly by the purchasing agent. She main-
tains the inventory of all raw materials used in the
manufacturing process. She seldom goes into the plant.
Although she receives the same fringe benefits as the
production and maintenance employees, including time
and one-half for overtime, she works different hours,
performs different duties, and has little or no contact
with the production and maintenance employees. As
2 Century Electric Company, 146 NLRB 232, 240-241
1 Maryland Cap Corporation. 171 NLRB No 71
182 NLRB No. 23
126 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Serio has separate supervision from unit employees,
is geographically removed from the production area,
shares similar working conditions with and is located
near the office clerical employees, we find that she
is an office clerical employee Accordingly, we shall
exclude Serio from the unit 4
The leadmen and assistant leadmen There are 11
leadmen and 8 assistant leadmen Leadmen are class
I employees, receive 40 cents per hour more than class
2 employees, and wear a different color uniform from
regular production and maintenance employees
Assistant leadmen are in class 2 and receive a 10-
cent differential They wear the same uniform as the
production and maintenance employees They are regular
production and maintenance employees who fill in during
a leadman's absence
Both leadmen and assistant leadmen receive the same
benefits, punch the timeclock, receive time and one-
half for overtime after 40 hours,5 and use the same
locker facilities as other production and maintenance
employees Leadmen generally receive the work orders
or tickets for work to be done from their department
supervisors, and parcel out the work among employees
in their departments They work along with the others,
but also have certain clerical functions to perform at
their desks, such as sending lists of absentees to the
personnel department each day, filling in production
tickets and a vehicle time and temperature log, and
recording batches and fillings The record indicates that
they do not have the authority to hire, discharge, transfer
from one department to another, suspend, layoff, pro-
mote, reward, grant wage increases, discipline, or adjust
grievances Their recommendations on such matters are
independently investigated At night, when department
supervisors are not present, leadmen can send employees
home for drunkenness, but must refer all other discipli-
nary problems to their supervisors, who are on call
In these circumstances, we find that the leadmen and
assistant leadmen do not exercise the type of independent
judgment or responsible direction of the work of other
employees indicative of supervisory authority Nor do
they possess any other indicia of supervisory authority
Accordingly, we find that the leadmen and assistant
leadmen are not supervisors and shall include them
in the unit i
William Spriggs William Spriggs is employed in the
research and development laboratory located on the
same floor as the general offices He is supervised by
the laboratory supervisors Spriggs is basically a handy-
man in the laboratory whose duties consist of chasing
material, cleaning up in the evening, and scrubbing
and waxing Both parties agreed at the hearing that
the other employees of this laboratory were to be exclud-
ed The evidence is clear that the employees in this
laboratory are in no way concerned with the production
process We find that Spriggs shares common interests
with the excluded laboratory employees, and shall
exclude him from the unit
In view of the foregoing, we find that the following
employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate
for purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9(b) of the Act
All production and maintenance employees
employed by the Employer at its Baltimore, Mary-
land, plant, including warehousemen, shipping
clerks, shipping and receiving employees, truckdri-
vers, leadmen, assistant leadmen, control laboratory
employees, cafeteria employees, printing depart-
ment employees, and plant clerical employees, but
excluding office clerical employees, salesmen,
research and development laboratory employees,
professional employees, guards, and supervisors
as defined in the Act
[Direction of Election? omitted from publication ]
Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company 127 NLRB 64 66
The leadman in the control laboratory is the only leadman paid
on a salary basis because of his length of service with the Employer
Maryland Cup Corporation supra
In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity
to be informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right
to vote all parties to the election should have access to a list of
voters and their addresses which may be used to communicate with
them Excelsior Underwear Inc 156 NLRB 1236 N L R B v Wyman
Gordon Company 394 U S 759 Accordingly it is hereby directed
that an election eligibility list containing the names and addresses
of all eligible voters must be filed by the Employer with the Regional
Director for Region 5 within 7 days of 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