Consolidated Fibres, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 14, 1973

205 N.L.R.B. 557 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

CONSOLIDATED FIBRES
Consolidated Fibres, Inc. and International
Longshoremen 's and Warehousemen's Union, Local
6, Petitioner . Case 20-RC-1 1208
August 14, 1973
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY MEMBERS JENKINS , KENNEDY, AND PENELLO
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before Hearing Officer Enid W. Weber. Fol-
lowing the hearing, and pursuant to Section 102.67 of
the National Labor Relations Board's Rules and Re-
gulations, Series 8, as amended, the Regional Director
for Region 20 transferred this case to the National
Labor Relations Board for decision. Thereafter, the
International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's
Union, Local 6, herein called Petitioner, and Industri-
al Iron and Metal Processing Workers, Local Union
1088, affiliated with the Laborers' International
Union of North America, AFL-CIO, herein called
Intervenor, filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul-
ings made at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial
error was committed. 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 labor organizations involved claim to repre-
sent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation of employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and
(7) of the Act.
This proceeding resulted from the planned consoli-
dation of the Employer's plants at Oakland, Berkeley,
and San Francisco, California, into the Employer's
new facility at Richmond, California. The Petitioner
contends that the Richmond facility will constitute an
entirely new operation and that therefore any existing
collective-bargaining agreements between the Em-
ployer and the labor organizations involved herein do
not operate as a bar to an election under the General
Extrusion principle.' The Intervenor, however, con-
tends that the instant petition should be dismissed on
the grounds that the Richmond facility at the present
time is merely a relocation of the Oakland plant and
1 121 NLRB 1165
557
that its current contract with the Employer covering
the Oakland employees constitutes a bar to an elec-
tion herein. Alternatively, the Intervenor contends
that the Teamsters contracts covering the Employer's
Berkeley truckdrivers operates as a bar to an election.'
The Employer takes no position.
The facts disclose that the Employer is engaged in
the packaging, grading, and destruction of paper.
Since 1969 the Employer has planned, and in part
effectuated, the consolidation of its three Bay Area
plants into a larger facility at Richmond. With the
exception of the destruction of paper process at Oak-
land and the newsprint handling operation at San
Francisco, all three plants have basically engaged in
the same type of work. Paper of varying grades is
picked up and delivered to one of the plants where it
is sorted and packaged for immediate sale or stored
for eventual sale. The employees at the respective
plants, however, have historically been represented by
different labor organizations. At Oakland, the six la-
borers, including forklift operators and warehouse-
men, and the five truckdrivers have been represented
by the Intervenor; at Berkeley, the four to six laborers
have been represented by the Petitioner and the seven
truckdrivers by Teamsters locals; and, at San Francis-
co, the four laborers have been represented by the
Petitioner. There are no truckdrivers at San Francis-
co. Each of the above labor organizations has a collec-
tive-bargaining agreement currently in effect with the
Employer.
As of the time of the hearing, the Employer had
begun to implement the consolidation. Thus, the Em-
ployer had transferred to Richmond most of its Oak-
land operations, including all of its employees
previously assigned there. Several days a week, how-
ever, the Employer sends two or three Richmond em-
ployees to Oakland to maintain the destruction of
paper process. Ultimately, when the Richmond facili-
ty is capable of absorbing that process, the Oakland
plant will be completely closed down. With regard to
the Berkeley plant, the Employer had sharply cur-
tailed the processing of paper and only a few employ-
ees engaged in cleanup work remain at the plant. It is
clear that the Employer intends to transfer all of its
Berkeley employees to Richmond pending our deci-
sion herein. Although the Employer had intended to
completely close its San Francisco facility, a recent
increase in the demand for newsprint has caused it to
reconsider such action. Thus, while it has closed down
all its other operations at San Francisco, it still main-
tains full production with respect to the newsprint
handling operation. However, only a few of its em-
ployees are required to handle the newsprint, and, as
in the case of the Berkeley plant, the remaining em-
2 Despite adequate notice of the hearing Local 70 and Local 85, the Team-
sters Locals involved herein, declined to intervene
205 NLRB No. 86
558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ployees will be transferred to Richmond pending our
decision herein. Most of the equipment previously
used at the three plants has been either transferred to
Richmond or has been scheduled to be stored there in
the near future. It is thus clear that the entire comple-
ment of the Employer's employees and all its opera-
tions in the Bay Area, with the possible exception of
the San Francisco plant newsprint operation, will
eventually be transferred to the Richmond facility.
For the reasons set forth below, we find that the
Employer's consolidation of these plants into the
Richmond facility will constitute an entirely new inte-
grated operation and that, therefore, none of the
above-mentioned contracts serves as a bar to an elec-
tion herein.
The combined capacity of the Oakland, Berkeley,
and San Francisco plants during 1971-72 approxi-
mated 1,640 tons per month. In contrast, the monthly
capacity of the Richmond facility will approach 3,000
tons. This increase will be possible due to the
Employer's acquisition of new highly automated
equipment which will replace the technologically ob-
solete machinery previously used at its other plants.
Thus, the Employer has purchased an hydraulic baler
and a new packaging device which, in contrast to its
outmoded equipment, will require somewhat different
skills and, because of the new packaging technique,
will permit the Employer to seek new markets for
overseas trade which it could not previously accom-
modate. Furthermore, the Richmond operation will in
the future absorb the Oakland destruction process
with which the employees to be transferred from the
Berkeley and San Francisco plants are largely unfa-
miliar. In these circumstances, it is clear that the Rich-
mond facility is not merely a relocation of existing
plants but rather an entirely new integrated opera-
tion.'
4. The only remaining issue concerns the place-
ment of the Employer's truckdrivers. Although the
Petitioner originally sought a unit of all the
Employer's employees, at the hearing it amended its
petition by deleting the truckdrivers from the request-
ed unit. The Petitioner however has taken the posi-
tion, both at the hearing and in its brief, that it does
not oppose the inclusion of the truckdrivers in the unit
if the Board deems it appropriate. The Intervenor
contends that certain or all of the truckdrivers should
properly be included in the unit.
The record discloses that the Employer uses two
classifications of truckdrivers, the over-the-road and
the "bobtail" drivers. The over-the-road drivers, using
tractor-trailers, primarily are engaged in the hauling
of large quantities of paper on established routes. The
J Cf Hudson Berlind Corporation, 203 NLRB No 63 cf General Electric
Company, 170 NLRB 1272, 1273, The Kroger Company, 155 NLRB 546,
548-549
"bobtail" drivers, using small vans, haul smaller loads
and seldom are assigned regular runs. The five Oak-
land drivers, now stationed at Richmond, are all in
the latter classification. When at Oakland these driv-
ers would, if not engaged in the pickup or delivery of
paper, help load and unload trucks with forklifts or
otherwise assist the other employees in their functions
and, in fact, most of them had been promoted to
truckdriver positions from previous positions as la-
borers or warehousemen. They further enjoyed com-
mon supervision and common fringe benefits with the
other employees. The drivers stationed at Berkeley,
consisting of five over-the-road and two "bobtail"
drivers, however, shared no community of interest
with other employees except for common supervision.
The Employer's plans for the utilization of its truck-
drivers to be stationed at Richmond are presently
unclear. However, the Employer's vice president testi-
fied that its decision to consolidate its Bay Area plants
into one facility was in part motivated by the advan-
tages it considered would result from having a central-
ized work force under common supervision and under
a single seniority list. In these circumstances, and par-
ticularly in view of the facts that no party herein seeks
a separate unit of truckdrivers and Petitioner does not
oppose their inclusion in the unit, we shall include all
truckdrivers in the unit. We therefore find that the
following employees of the Employer constitute a unit
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All employees employed at the Employer's oper-
ations at Richmond, California, including labor-
ers, forklift operators, warehousemen, and
truckdrivers, but excluding all office clerical em-
ployees, guards and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
Accordingly, in view of our finding above that no
contract bar to an election exists, we shall direct an
election herein. As the Employer has not completed
all of its intended transfers of employees and opera-
tions to its Richmond facility, we shall instruct the
Regional Director to direct said election at such time
as he deems appropriate. The Intervenor did not re-
quest that its name be placed on the ballot. We shall
order that it appear thereon, however, in view of its
intervention in this proceeding and in view of the
substantial number of unit employees which it cur-
rently represents.4
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]
° If the Intervenor does not desire to participate in an election at this time
in the unit found appropriate , we shall amend our Direction of Election by
deleting its name from the ballot upon its notification to the Regional Direc-
tor of such desire within 10 days of the date of issuance of this Decision