Devoe & Raynolds Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 8, 1956

116 N.L.R.B. 1556 (N.L.R.B. 1956)

1556 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
(1) All production and maintenance employees, including truck-
drivers but excluding all office clerical employees," salesmen, profes-
sional employees, guards, and all supervisors as defined in the Act.
(2) All plant clerical employees, including plant clerks, quality
control inspectors, ticket callers, dock checkers," but excluding super-
visors and all other employees.
If a majority of the employees in voting group (2) vote against
representation, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be,
and they will be, excluded from the production and maintenance unit.
If a majority vote for representation, their ballots will be pooled with
those in voting group (1) and the two groups together will constitute
a single appropriate unit. The Regional Director is instructed to
issue certification of representatives or certification of results as
dictated by the outcome of the elections herein.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication.]
'2 The Employer and Intervenor would exclude and the Petitioner include the livestock
buying office clerks. There are 4 or 5 clerks who work in the stockyard office, which is sepa-
rate from the main plant. These clerks are under the supervision of the auditor who also
supervises the general office clerical employees. Their duties are to handle all the cleri-
cal work for the buyers such as preparing vouchers in payment of cattle purchased and
keeping all records of buying operations . We find that as these employees are engaged
primarily in clerical work for the buying staff, they are office clericals and are excluded
from the production unit. Plaukznton Packing Company, 116 NLRB 1225.
'-' The record shows that the head dock checker directs a number of employees in their
work and that he can and has made effective recommendations concerning the status of
these employees. He has also been hitherto excluded from the unit. The Petitioner's
position as to the head dock checker is not clear. As the uncontradicted record indicates
that he has made effective recommendations concerning employees, we shall exclude him as
a supervisor.
Jones-Dabney Company, Division of Devoe & Raynolds Co. and
International Union, Allied Industrial Workers of America,
AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 9 RC=2865. November 8,1956
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Alvin Schwartz,
hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are
free from prejudicial error and 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.
2. The labor organization involved claims 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.
116 NLRB No. 221.
JONES-DABNEY COMPANY '1557
4. The parties stipulated that the appropriate unit consists of all
production and maintenance employees at the Employer's Louisville,
Kentucky, plant, including the production department's janitors and
porters, but excluding office clerical employees, the closed kettle de-
partment stenographer, the shipping office stenographer, the personnel
department stenographer, the plant manager's stenographer, the traf-
fic rate clerk, the interplant billing clerk, inventory control clerks,
raw materials control chemists, product control chemists, porters and
janitors in the office building, manufacturing office building and prod-
uct development laboratory, professional employees, guards, and
supervisors as defined in the Act. They disagreed, however, as to the
unit placement of the scheduling clerks and the receiving clerks.
The Employer is engaged in the manufacture of paints, varnishes,
and lacquers. At the Employer's Louisville, Kentucky, plant, the
only one involved herein, there are 42 buildings which house the vari-
ous departments and offices, including the following 3 production
departments : resin department-which is subdivided into open kettle
and closed kettle departments, enamel department, and lacquer
department.
Scheduling clerks : The Employer would exclude the two schedul-
ing clerks on the ground that they are managerial employees, while
the Petitioner would include them as plant clerical employees.
The scheduling clerks work in the office of the closed kettle depart-
ment, adjacent to the production area, and are supervised by the
three general foremen of that department. Their duties are to see
that the appropriate materials go to all the plant departments, to set
up schedules of paint production, to handle orders, and to write up,
pursuant to instructions received from the sales department, pro-
duction cards indicating what is to be made at the particular time in
the various kettles. They also keep records of all materials on hand,
and to be produced, as well as inventory of the finished products
for their department.
Receiving clerks: The Petitioner would include the two receiving
clerks as plant clerical employees. The Employer has given no reason
for its contention that they should be excluded. The receiving clerks
work in the shipping and receiving and stores department under the
supervision of the head of that department. Their duties are to check
incoming materials to see that the correct amounts have been de-
livered, to write up the receiving ticket, and to route, or deliver per-
sonally, to the departments concerned the incoming materials. About
75 percent of their time is spent in the receiving department and the
remainder in delivering.
In view of the foregoing, and upon the record as a whole, we find
that the scheduling clerks and receiving clerks are plant clerical em-
ployees, such as the Board includes in a production and maintenance
1558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
unit unless the parties have agreed to exclude plant clerical employees
as a class .' As it is clear that there is no such agreement here, we
shall include the scheduling clerks and receiving clerks in the unit.
The record reflects that the Employer also employs a traffic rate
clerk and a stenographer in the shipping and receiving department,
and a stenographer in the closed kettle department, whom the parties
have agreed to exclude as office clerical employees. The traffic rate
clerk is located in the shipping and receiving department and is super-
vised by the head of that department. His duties are to see that the
-freight rate paid is correct on both incoming and outgoing ship-
ments. The stenographers, who perform the usual duties of this
classification , work in their departmental areas under the supervision
of the heads of their respective departments. In view of their duties,
'location, and supervision, we find that these employees are plant cleri-
cal employees who have a community of interest with other employees
in the production and maintenance unit. - Accordingly, as it is Board
policy that for purposes of unit placement, employees possessing simi-
lar interests in terms and conditions of employment are to be afforded
the same treatment in the determination of their representation
rights,' we shall, despite the parties' stipulation to exclude them as
office clerical employees, include in the unit as plant clerical employees
the traffic rate clerk and the aforementioned stenographers.
The parties also stipulated that the janitors 9 in the production de-
partments should be included in the unit but agreed to exclude the
janitors in the main office building, manufacturing office building,
and product development laboratory. We find that the nature of the
work performed by the janitors allies them with the production and
maintenance employees and we shall include all the janitors at the
plant in the unit.4
The parties agreed that the employees in the 3 production depart-
ments laboratories 8 should be included in the unit, but stipulated
that the 4 raw material control chemists who work in the raw material
'testing laboratory and an individual who works in the product con-
trol laboratory, all of whom are classified as paint testing chemists
"A," should be excluded from the unit.
The control chemists duties are to run standard tests on raw mate-
rials to see that they measure up to specifications and they are super-
vised by the head of the testing laboratory. The individual in the
product control laboratory makes standard physical performance
tests on finished products made by the plant to see that they conform
1 Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 115 NLRB 1036.
2 Ibid. -
s Sometimes called porters.
Central Operating Company, 115 NLRB 1754
5 The production laboratories perform standard tests to see that the Employer 's products
meet the appropriate specifications.
GENERAL DRIVERS, SALESMEN, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELPERS 1559
to customers' specifications as well as testing products sent back by
.buyers. No special training is needed for either job and the 5 em-
ployees are hourly paid. We find that the paint testing chemists
"A" are neither technical nor professional employees.' As the parties
have agreed to include other employees with similar skills and duties,
.we shall also include the chemists in the unit.
We find that the following employees constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9 (b) of the Act :
All production and maintenance employees at the Employer's
Louisville, Kentucky, plant, including scheduling clerks, receiving
clerks, the traffic rate clerk, janitors, stenographers in the shipping
and receiving and closed kettle departments, and the paint testing
chemists "A," but excluding office clerical employees, inventory con-
trol clerks, stenographers in the personnel department and plant man-
ager's office, interplant billing clerk, professional employees, guards,
,and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
°Yassachusetts Mohair Plush Company, 115 NLRB 1516
General Drivers , Salesmen , Warehousemen & Helpers, Local
Union 984, affiliated with International Brotherhood of Team-
sters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, AFL-
CIO and The Caradine Company , Inc. Case No. 32-CC-12. No-
vember 114, 1.956
DECISION AND ORDER
On June 27, 1956, Trial Examiner Robert E. Mullin issued his
Intermediate Report in the above-entitled case, finding that the Re-
spondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor
practices and recommending that it cease and desist therefrom and
take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy of the Interme-
diate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Respondent filed ex-
ceptions to the Intermediate Report and a supporting brief.
The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made at
the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. The
rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Interme-
, diate Report, the Respondent's exceptions and brief, and the entire
record in the case, and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and
recommendations of the Trial Examiner, with the additions and modi-
fications indicated herein.
As more fully set forth in the Intermediate Report, Caradine is a
wholesale grocer with a warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee, from which
116 NLRB No 227.