Dr. Pepper Bottling Co. of Fort Worth, Texas

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 30, 1977

228 N.L.R.B. 1119 (N.L.R.B. 1977)

DR PEPPER BOTTLING COMPANY 1119
Dr Pepper Bottling Company of Fort Worth, Texas
and Brewery Workers, Soft Drink Employees and
Related Industries Affiliated with the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters , Chauffeurs, Ware-
housemen and Helpers of America (Teamsters No.
997, affiliated with the International Brotherhood
of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and
Helpers), Petitioner.' Case 16-RC-7294
March 30, 1977
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY MEMBERS FANNING, PENELLO, AND
WALTHER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer T. P.
Sheridan of the National Labor Relations Board on
September 14, 1976. Thereafter, the Regional Direc-
tor for Region 16 transferred the case to the Board
for decision.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board having duly considered the Hearing
Officer's rulings made at the hearing, finds that they
are free prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:
1. Dr Pepper Bottling Company of Fort Worth,
Texas (hereinafter called the Employer), according to
the stipulation of the parties, is a Texas corporation
engaged in bottling soft drinks and beverages and,
during the past year, has purchased goods directly
from outside the State of Texas valued in excess of
$50,000. Accordingly, we find 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 parties have stipulated and we find that
Petitioner is a labor organization within the meaning
of the Act.
3. A question concerning representation exists
regarding the representation of certain employees of
the Employer within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1)
and 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
' Petitioner stated at the hearing that it preferred to be designated on the
ballot as Teamsters No. 997, affiliated with International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers , rather than by its
formal name of Brewery Workers, Soft Drink Employees and Related
Industries affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffeurs , Warehousemen and Helpers of America It is our practice in
such circumstances to permit the preferred shortened name to appear in
parentheses in addition to the formal full name of the union . Since the
parties have presented no evidence persuading us to deviate from such
228 NLRB No. 137
Petitioner seeks a unit of all drivers including route
salesmen , presalesmen and dispatchers employed by
the Employer at its facility at 201 E. Felix, Fort
Worth, Texas, excluding all other employees includ-
ing office clerical employees, production and mainte-
nance employees, guards, watchmen and supervisors
as defined in the Act.2 The Employer contends that
the appropriate unit is all eligible employees of the
Employer.
The Employer manufactures, bottles, and distri-
butes a variety of soft drinks. The plant is divided
into the following departments: production, vending
sales , and accounting. In the production department,
water, concentrate, and sugar are combined to form
the finished product which is bottled, packed, and
stored in a warehouse.3 The transport drivers, in the
shipping and receiving section, which is part of
production, are responsible for the transportation of
the product to the distributors and largest stores. The
night loading employees, who also work in the
shipping and receiving section, are responsible for
loading the route salesmen's trucks from the previous
day as well as the largest transport trucks. Employees
in the vending department, located across the street
from the main plant, are responsible for marketing,
maintaining, and servicing the vending machines.4
Various clerical employees (e.g., comptroller, ac-
counts receivable clerks, settlement checkers, etc.)
are classified in the accounting department.
All of the employees sought by Petitioner work in
the sales department. Prior to May 1976, the entire
sales function was performed by conventional sales
drivers who are assigned a geographical sales
territory with established customers and whose
duties include entering into sales contracts, deliver-
ing merchandise, and stocking the shelves for the
customers. Subsequent to the above date, the
Employer altered the performance of its sales
functions to accommodate the larger retail accounts,
by dividing the functions of some of the conventional
driver-salesmen and assigning their duties in part to
the presalesmen and in part to the presales drivers.
The presalesmen determine the requirements of the
larger customers, secure sales space, take orders, and
"develop rapport" with the customers. After the
presalesmen relay the information to the Employer,
the presales drivers, usually the next day, "deliver the
product, put it on the shelf, make sure it is properly
practice, we shall place on the ballot the name which appears in the caption
above.
2 At the hearing , Petitioner amended its petition to include the
dispatcher.
3 Loading, production, shipping, and receiving all take place in the plant
area. The production area itself takes up approximately 60 percent of the
building; the loading operation occupies about 15 percent of the building.
4 The vending department employees are not engaged in the selling of
the soft drunk product.
1120 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
merchandised and the shelf is attractive when they
leave."
Petitioner seeks, essentially, a driver-salesmen unit
excluding production and maintenance employees.
We find such a unit to be appropriate herein. As the
Board stated in Plaza Provision Company, 134 NLRB
910, 911-912 (1961), "...where the employees in
question are shown to be engaged in selling their
employer's products and they drive vehicles and
make deliveries of such products as an incident of
such sales activity, they are essentially salesmen and
have interests more closely allied to salesmen in
general than to truckdrivers or to production and
maintenance or warehouse employees."5 Although
there is some evidence that the Employer maintains a
plantwide bidding procedure, this procedure has not
resulted in significant interchange; nor is the limited
contract between the employees in the driver-sales-
men unit and the other employees sufficient to
negate the separate community of interest possessed
by the driver-salesmen . Unlike the production and
maintenance employees or the transport drivers, the
driver-salesmen are primarily engaged in the promo-
tion and sales of the Employer's product.
We also find, however, that the driver-salesmen
share working conditions, duties, and interests with
the following employees: dispatcher, merchandisers,
and the on-premise salesman. The dispatcher, who
works in the salesroom area, records information
supplied by a customer requiring services and relays
the information by phone to the route salesmen. The
on-premise salesman spends the "vast majority" of
his time away from the plant "building rapport" with
various accounts and developing the Employer's
exposure in the stores. The merchandisers spend
most of their time in the field engaging in "space
management ," protecting and insuring that the
5 See also Gunzenhauser Bakery, Inc, 137 NLRB 1613 (1962); Southern
Bakeries Company, 139 NLRB 62 (1962)
6 For example , an account has been skipped by a salesman or the
customer wishes to purchase an extra product
Employer has the proper availability of space within
the major food stores in the nearby area. According-
ly, we shall include the foregoing in the unit sought
since the above employees deal directly with custom-
ers and must satisfy them in order to retain their
patronage. Their value to the Employer is based on
qualities not required of other plant employees and,
consequently, they constitute a separate appropriate
unit.?
Petitioner would exclude the presalesmen contend-
ing they possess supervisory authority. We do not
agree . The presalesmen do not evaluate the drivers,
take disciplinary action, make recommendations as
to promotions, grant time off, schedule vacations,
hire, or fire. Although the route managers, who are
stipulated to be supervisors, discipline and make
effective recommendations with regard to promo-
tions and hiring of the conventional drivers, only the
manager of the presales operation performs that
function in the presales department. We shall
therefore include the presalesmen.
Accordingly, we find that the following employees
constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining within the meaning of Section
9(b) of the Act:
All driver-salesmen, including presalesmen, pre-
sales drivers, dispatchers, conventional route
salesmen, merchandisers, and on-premise sales-
men employed at Employer's facility at 201 E.
Felix, Fort Worth, Texas, but excluding all other
employees including office clerical employees,
production and maintenance employees, guards,
watchmen and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]
7 See Gunzenhauser, supra