Cornell University

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 28, 1979

245 N.L.R.B. 987 (N.L.R.B. 1979)

CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Cornell University and United Food and Commercial
Workers International Union, AFL-CIO,' District
Union Local No. 1, Petitioner. Case 3-RC-7466
September 28, 1979
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS
AND MURPHY
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before Hearing Officer Doren G. Goldstone
of the National Labor Relations Board.
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, by direction of the Regional Director
for Region 3, this case was transferred to the Board
for decision. Briefs were filed by the Employer and
the Petitioner. 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, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
On the entire record in this case, the Board finds
that:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the pur-
poses of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.'
2. The Petitioner involved in this proceeding
claims to represent certain employees of the Em-
ployer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing 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 Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all
full-time meatcutters employed at The Meat Shop op-
erated by Cornell University at its Ithaca, New York,
campus, excluding all managers, students, office and
clerical workers, professional workers, guards, and su-
pervisors as defined in the Act. The Employer con-
tends that the requested unit is inappropriate and
would lead to the undue fragmentation of its work
force.
The requested unit includes two to three full-time
employees engaged in the slaughter of livestock and
I Effective June 7, 1979, the Petitioner's parent body, Amalgamated Meat-
cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, merged with the Retail
Clerks International Union, forming the above-cited Union.
2Cornell University, 183 NLRB 329 (1970); Sec. 103.1 of the Board's Rules
and Regulations. Senes 8, as amended.
the preparation of its meat for retail sale through The
Meat Shop. This store is administered within the
meat section of the department of animal science, an
administrative subdivision of the College of Agricul-
ture and Life Sciences, I of 10 colleges comprising
Cornell University. Professor James Stouffer is in
charge of the meat section and reports directly to Pro-
fessor Robert Young, chairman of the department of
animal science. Professor Stouffer and his colleague
in the meat section, Associate Professor Don Beer-
man, teach courses, and both have been stipulated by
the parties to be professionals and excluded from the
unit. Working under Professor Stouffer and in charge
of the operation of The Meat Shop is Robert White,
classified as the meat plant manager. White schedules
the work of the employees in The Meat Shop and has
been stipulated by the parties to be a supervisor. The
Petitioner seeks to represent Harry Dickson and Bill
Winters, who work in The Meat Shop under White,
and are journeyman meatcutters. The Petitioner also
seeks to include in the unit of meatcutters James Hil-
derbrandt, who spends about 10-15 percent of his
time performing meatcutting duties. The Employer
contends that he should not be included in the unit
because he is employed as a research technician pri-
marily engaged in teaching and research activities.
Finally, the Petitioner does not seek to represent the
office clerical assigned to the meat section, and the
parties have stipulated to the exclusion of students
who are employed on a part-time basis in this section.
The Meat Shop is located in Morrison Hall, one of
several buildings on the main campus occupied by
the department of animal science. Morrison Hall con-
tains classrooms, laboratories, and offices for faculty,
graduate students, and technical staff, as well as un-
specified medical support facilities. The meat section,
including The Meat Shop, is located in a separate
single-story wing attached to the main building.
Within the meat section are a group of rooms used
primarily for the preparation of meat, including the
slaughter room, retail sales cutting room, cooler and
freezer room, curing room, sausage room, and retail
sales room. These facilities comply with regulations
established by the United States Department of Agri-
culture. Also included in this wing are several other
rooms, including student lecture rooms, a student cut-
ting room, a meat laboratory, and offices for White,
two graduate students, and a retired professor.
Manager White testified that Dickson and Winters
spend 70-75 percent of their time engaged in slaugh-
tering and meatcutting, with the remainder spent per-
forming maintenance, cleaning, curing of meats, and
being involved with students. As currently scheduled.
Dickson's and Winters' duties vary according to the
day of the week; they slaughter livestock on Monday.
cut the meat for freezer storage or retail sale on Tues-
245 NLRB No. 128
987
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
day and Wednesday, and on the last 2 days of the
week open The Meat Shop to the public and wait on
customers. In relation to these activities, they also
grade the meat, weigh it, take weekly price surveys of
meat prices at four local grocery stores, cure meat,
and occasionally prepare sausage. The shop conducts
$130,000 to $140,000 worth of retail sales a year, and
on the average slaughters and processes two cows,
two calves, five hogs, and three to four lambs per
week. This supply is supplemented by commercial de-
liveries of particular cuts of meat in order to insure
that a full range of retail meats is available for sale.
The proceeds from The Meat Shop go into the de-
partment's general fund.
Aside from their retail meatcutting activity, Dick-
son and Winters also provide services related to re-
search and teaching. At the time of the hearing,
Abdule Nour, a graduate student, was conducting a
growth experiment on a population of research cows.
In the 16 months prior to the hearing, 59 research
cows had been slaughtered in the meat section as part
of this growth experiment. Dickson's and Winters' ac-
tivities in conjunction with this experiment were lim-
ited to collecting blood from the animals during their
slaughter, and cutting of 10-15 pounds of meat from
one side of each animal to be used for chemical
analysis. The remainder of the meat from the animal
was then prepared for retail sale. In conjunction with
the section's teaching activities, once or twice a se-
mester they cut meat to be exhibited in classes, then
returned and sold in the shop. Some meat is also cut
and used in classes for cooking demonstrations. In
addition, the meatcutters also assist in a 3-hour lab-
conducted slaughter once each semester for each of
three classes of students. Aside from testimony that
this lab was conducted on the slaughter floor the rec-
ord does not specify what their duties were during
this lab.4 Finally, they are occasionally requested to
provide internal organs such as hearts, lungs, and liv-
ers for high school and college biology courses. Dick-
son testified that these organs were readily identifi-
able by anyone familiar with slaughtering activities.
The record indicates that there is no prior history
of bargaining with respect to these employees, and no
other labor organization seeks their inclusion in a
broader unit.' The meatcutters have little regular con-
3 The utilization of meat for these purposes accounts in part for the need
for commercial deliveries to The Meat Shop, as described above.
' Dickson also testified that during the fall prior to the hearing he assisted
students in a series of meatcutting labs for a total of 18 hours. This assign-
ment was a departure from the Employer's practice instituted in 1973 when
the Employer brought in a specialist to assist in this lab. Dickson also testi-
fied that in the spring he did not have to assist in the meatcutting labs, and
that he was not told whether he or Winters would be used in these labs the
following semester.
The record does indicate that the Employer has negotiated a bargaining
agreement with a unit of building trades employees in a multicraft group, but
tact with other university employees. Such contact is
limited to meeting one of two drivers who once each
week delivers animals from university farms for
slaughter. Employee interchange has been limited to
a single employee transfer in 1973 when Winters'
predecessor, Raymond Snyder, was promoted and
transferred to become an administrative aide.
Although Dickson is classified as a laboratory tech-
nician II and Winters is classified as a meat techni-
cian they both receive the same pay and perform the
same duties. It was admitted at the hearing that Dick-
son should be classified as a meat technician. They
are both journeymen meatcutters who have com-
pleted 2-year apprenticeships. Their work clothes and
tools used in slaughtering and meatcutting are identi-
cal to those used at other commercial facilities. While
other employees of the university are responsible for
the destruction of animals, none of the employees in
the various classifications responsible for such work is
engaged in meatcutting for retail sale. Although addi-
tional employees operate other retail stores for the
retail sale of fruit, dairy products, and eggs, there has
been no showing that the skills required are similar to
those possessed by the meatcutters.
The Employer's labor relations is managed by a
single personnel department. This department is re-
sponsible for the classification of employees, and all
of the Employer's nonprofessional employees work
under a uniform plan for fringe benefits and employ-
ment policies. An exception to this arrangement,
however, applies to the unit of approximately 115
building trades craftsmen, whose representatives have
negotiated a collective-bargaining agreement estab-
lishing their terms of employment.6
The Board, in Cornell University, 183 NLRB 329
(1970), stated that it would utilize the same general
guidelines in educational settings that it does in in-
dustrial settings to determine whether a requested
unit is an appropriate unit for bargaining. As stated
therein, these factors include "prior bargaining his-
tory, centralization of management, particularly in re-
gard to labor relations, extent of employee inter-
change, degree of interdependence or autonomy of
the plants, differences or similarities in skills and
functions of the employees, and geographical location
of the facilities in relation to each other." (183 NLRB
at 336).
Upon an analysis of these factors we find that the
requested unit of meatcutters constitutes an identifi-
able group of employees with a separate community
of interest. The work of the meatcutters is that of a
that the scope of the unit does not include all such employees in those crafts
on a universitywide basis. Specifically, this unit does not include such crafts-
men employed at the university's teaching and research center in Hartford.
New York, 15 miles from its Ithaca campus.
6 See fn. 5, above.
988
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
traditionally recognized craft and is not performed by
any other persons employed by the university. There
is no history of collective bargaining with respect to
these employees, and no labor organization requests
their inclusion in a broader unit. Furthermore, we
note that the Employer is currently engaged in collec-
tive bargaining with another unit of craft employees.
Although the personnel relations of the Employer is
centralized in a single department, the meat section
and The Meat Shop are separately supervised and
form a distinct administrative entity within the De-
partment of Animal Science. It is located in a sepa-
rate wing of Morrison Hall, and apart from the occa-
sional auxiliary services provided by the meatcutters
to the teaching and research activities within the meat
section there is no functional integration with other
university activities. While the meatcutters assist in
meatcutting and slaughtering demonstrations for the
benefit of students and provide meat and blood sam-
ples as requested for chemical analysis, they do not
use laboratory equipment or perform duties not di-
rectly related to their basic meatcutting assignments.
There is no significant degree of employee inter-
change, and the meatcutters' contact with other uni-
versity employees outside the meat section is mini-
mal. In light of these factors we are not persuaded by
the Employer's argument that finding such a unit ap-
propriate would unduly fragment the Employer's
work force. On the contrary, the inclusion of these
skilled craft employees in a larger unit of employees
who perform unrelated tasks would entail a serious
risk that their interests would be submerged in the
broader unit, and they would be denied effective rep-
resentation. In Leland Stanford, Jr., University, 194
NLRB 1210 (1972), the Board relied on factors essen-
tially identical to those occurring herein in finding
appropriate a unit of firemen in a university setting.
As stated above, the Employer contends that James
Hilderbrandt should not be included in the requested
unit, contrary to the Petitioner's request for his inclu-
sion. Hilderbrandt spends most of his time under the
supervision of Professor Stouffer. writing laboratory
exercises, participating in student labs, and assisting
with and putting on demonstrations. He also works
with Professor Stouffer on projects and assists in cor-
rection and recording of student grades. Hilderbrandt
a!so spends 10- 15 percent of his time under the super-
vision of Manager White in The Meat Shop, filling in
for other employees. Although he is not as skilled as
Dickson and Winters, he knows the basics of meat-
cutting. He has earned a bachelor of science in ani-
mal science, a requirement for his position. and is
classified as a research technician IV. Unlike Dickson
and Winters he utilizes various pieces of technical
laboratory equipment, is paid a higher scale, and has
more contact with other university employees. In
view of these additional responsibilities and the inter-
mittent nature of his assignments as a meatcutter it
does not appear that Hilderbrandt has a substantial
interest in the working conditions of a unit composed
exclusively of meatcutters. Accordingly, we shall ex-
clude him from the unit.
We find that the following employees constitute an
appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bar-
gaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the
Act:
All full-time meatcutters employed at The Meat
Shop, Cornell University, Judd Falls Road,
Ithaca, New York; excluding all managers, stu-
dents, office and clerical workers, professional
workers, guards and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]
989