Dura-Containers, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 2, 1967

164 N.L.R.B. 293 (N.L.R.B. 1967)

DURA-CONTAINERS, INC. 293
Dura-Containers , Inc.,' and General
Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen &
Helpers, Processing and Distribution Local
347, affiliated with International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs,
Warehousemen and Helpers of America,
Petitioner . Case 14-RC-5554
May 2,1967
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
On November 28, 1966 , the Acting Regional
Director for Region 14 issued a Decision and
Direction of Election in the above-entitled
proceeding , finding , in accord with the Petitioner's
request , that the Employer 's truckdrivers at its
Herrin , Illinois, facility could appropriately be
severed , if they so desired , from the established
production and maintenance unit represented by the
Intervenor , International Association of Machinists
and Aerospace Workers, District 111 , AFL-CIO.
Thereafter , in accordance with Section 102.67 of
the National Labor Relations Board ' s Rules and
Regulations , Series 8, as amended , the Employer
filed a timely request for review of such Decision,
alleging that the truckdrivers requested by the
Petitioner may not be severed under existing
precedent . The Employer also filed a brief in support
of its request . By telegraphic Order dated
December 21, 1966 , the Board granted the request
for review and stayed the election pending decision
on review . Thereafter , the Petitioner filed a brief on
review.
The Board has considered the entire record in this
case, including the briefs of the parties, with respect
to the issue under review , and makes the following
findings:
The Employer , a manufacturer of corrugated
shipping containers , maintains a facility at Herrin,
Illinois, where it services customers located within a
50-mile radius. It there employs 50 production and
maintenance employees , including 5 truckdrivers.
All such employees have been continuously
represented in a single unit since about 1954 by the
Intervenor.
The truckdrivers are engaged principally in
delivering the Employer 's finished products to the
customers serviced by the Herrin plant and in
hauling scrap from the plant to the Employer's
nearby dump . They report to the shipping
department foreman from whom they receive their
day-to-day working assignments . The fully loaded
trucks or trailers are ready for them when they
arrive at work in the morning. The trucks and
trailers are normally loaded by the forklift operators
and loaders in the shipping department under the
supervision of the department's foreman. On
completing delivery of the first load, the truckdrivers
return to the plant and report to the plant and report
back to the shipping foreman. Should additional
deliveries be needed, the drivers assist the other
shipping employees in reloading the vehicles, and
then make the deliveries. If the delivery work is
completed before the end of the normal workday,
and there is no hauling of scrap to be done, the
drivers are assigned to do other work in the plant.
Such assignments usually involve work on the
shipping docks as forklift operators or loaders, but
sometimes these assignments involve production
work. The drivers regularly perform the above-
described nondriving functions for approximately 25
to 35 percent of their time.
All production and maintenance employees
including the drivers are paid an hourly rate, receive
the same fringe benefits, and have the same
opportunity to bid for other jobs and to share in
available overtime work. Indeed, the individuals
currently employed as truckdrivers moved into their
drivers jobs from production jobs, under the existing
plantwide posting and seniority system. Drivers are
required only to possess a valid drivers' license and
to comply with the health and safety standards
established by the ICC and State regulations. While
the truckdrivers are the only ones who regularly
perform the Employer's driving function, plant
employees are sometimes assigned as substitutes
when the drivers are ill or on vacation.
Applying the considerations set forth in
Kalamazoo Paper Box Corporation, 136 NLRB 134,
we are unable to conclude that the truckdrivers
herein constitute a functionally distinct group with
special interests sufficiently distinguishable from
those of the Employer's other employees to warrant
severing them from the existing unit. Thus,
truckdrivers spend a substantial part of their regular
worktime performing work identical to that of other
employees, including forklift operators and loaders,
whom the Petitioner does not seek to represent; they
work the 'same number of hours and are
compensated by the same method as other unit
employees; and they otherwise enjoy the same fringe
and other employment benefits as the production
workers. The truckdrivers also report to and have
the same immediate supervisor as other shipping
department employees whom the Petitioner has not
included in the requested unit. All these factors
point to the lack of separate interests of the
truckdrivers and to the very substantial community
of interests they share with other employees, as a
result of their inclusion for a number of years in the
I The name of the Employer appears as amended at the
hearing
164 NLRB No. 45
294 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
overall unit. In these circumstances, we reject the ORDER
Petitioner's claim that the truckdrivers are entitled
to separate representation. Accordingly, we shall It is hereby ordered that the petition herein be,
dismiss the petition. and it hereby is, dismissed.