General Foods Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 4, 1967

166 N.L.R.B. 1032 (N.L.R.B. 1967)

1032 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
General Foods Corporation , Maxwell House Division
and International Union of Operating Engineers,
Local No. 39, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case
20-RC-7518
August 4, 1967
DECISION AND ORDER
By CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND ZAGORIA
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before William F. Roche, Hearing
Officer. The Hearing Officer's rulings made at the
hearing are free from prejudicial error and are
hereby affirmed. Following the hearing, this case
was transferred to the National Labor Relations
Board in Washington, D.C., pursuant to Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board
Rules and Regulations and Statements of
Procedure, Series 8, as amended. Thereafter, the
Employer, the Petitioner, anti the Intervenor,
General Warehouse, Cannery and Food Process
Workers, Local 655, International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Help-
ers of America (Teamsters), filed briefs which
have been duly considered.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
ional Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
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
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning 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 for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks an election in a unit of all
maintenance employees at the Employer's San Le-
andro, California, plant. It would sever 36 main-
tenance employees' from an historic production
and maintenance unit of 291 employees that has
been represented by the Teamsters and its
predecessor in interest since 195 1, and join them in
a unit with the 5 boilerhouse employees whom the
Petitioner has represented on a separate basis since
1954.2 Alternatively, the Petitioner has requested
a separate unit of the 36 maintenance employees
without the 5 boilerhouse employees, or any other
unit the Board finds appropriate.
The Employer and the Teamsters oppose
severance and contend tnat only the existing
production and maintenance unit is appropriate.
They rely on the 16-year bargaining history in the
overall unit and the resultant stability in labor rela-
tions this has produced; a similar pattern of collec-
tive bargaining by other employers in the same or
related industries; the highly integrated nature of
the Employer's continuous flow operations; and
their contention that severance would be disruptive
because there is substantial overlap both in func-
tions and supervision among the maintenance and
production employees. Finally, they assert that
Petitioner is not a traditional representative of the
type of maintenance employees requested herein.
Petitioner asserts that the unit sought is a func-
tionally distinct maintenance department consisting
of highly skilled mechanics doing nonrepetiti""e
work and having functions, skills, and supervision
separate and different from those of the production
process employees. Petitioner claims that it has the
requisite traditional experience in the representa-
tion of skilled mechanics, and points to its training
and apprentice programs for such mechanics, and
the fact that considerable mechanical experience,
preferably in the food processing industry, is a
prerequisite for employment as a maintenance
mechanic whereas no experience or training of any
kind is required for production process employees.
It notes that maintenance mechanics are required
to furnish their own tools, costing some hundreds of
dollars, and that they receive higher pay and dif-
ferent vacations than production employees.
Finally, Petitioner alleges that the maintenance em-
ployees have been inadequately represented in the
past in the existing overall unit. All parties to this
proceeding rely upon our decision in Mallinckrodt
Chemical Works, Uranium Division, 162 NLRB
387, to support their respective positions.
The Employer is engaged in food processing at its
San Leandro, California, plant, herein involved, and
in plants in New Jersey, Florida, and Texas. In San
Leandro, five products are processed, namely regu-
lar coffee, soluble coffee, Jell-O, Log Cabin Syrup,
and Tang. The production process for each product
involves a highly intergrated, continuous-flow
system which is mechanized to the point that any
breakdown of a mechanical nature would cause a
complete stoppage of production of the particular
product affected. The high degree of mechanization
is reflected by the fact that 185 production em-
ployees have the primary function of tending
' 18 general mechanics, 3 machinists, 2 sheet metal mechanics, 4 elec-
trician machinists, 2 maintenance group leaders I instrument mechanic,
I storekeeper, I gardener, I building serviceman and 3 utility main-
tenance men
2 Both the production and maintenance and boderhouse units are Board
certified The Teamsters and the Petitioner have had continuous contracts
with the Employer covering their respective units, the last for each expir-
ing on June 12, 1967
166 NLRB No. 126
GENERAL FOODS CORPORATION 1033
machines, as compared with only 70 who perform
manual labor. In the manufacture of both regular
and soluble coffee, there is an initial batching, mix-
ing, and roasting process and thereafter a continu-
ous, mechanical process by which the coffee is
treated and conveyed until it is packaged and ready
for storage. The production of Jell-O, syrup, and
Tang also involves automatic conveyance and
treatment devices that handle the products from the
receipt of raw materials to completion and storage.
While Petitioner contends the maintenance em-
ployees are generally a skilled group, it concedes
that 3 of the 36 are nonskilled (building serviceman,
gardener, and storekeeper), and 3 others (utility
maintenance men) are semiskilled. The remaining
30 include 18 general mechanics who fabricate
parts, work on packaging machinery, service lift
trucks, do millwright work and serve generally as
"all-around mechanics"; 2 sheetmetal mechanics
who fabricate and repair sheetmetal components;
3 machinists who do machine work in the fabrica-
tion or repair of machine parts; 4 electrician
mechanics who maintain the electrical system of the
plants; I instrument mechanic who repairs and
maintains electronic and pneumatic control instru-
ments; and 2 maintenance group leaders serving the
second and third shifts.
Contrary to Petitioner's assertions, the record
does not establish that the maintenance employees
constitute either a distinct, homogeneous group of
skilled craftsmen or a functionally distinct depart-
ment. Instead, it appears that the maintenance em-
ployees possess varying degrees of assorted skills,
and that they have considerable contact and over-
lapping functions with the production employees.
Thus, the maintenance employees spend 60-70 per-
cent of their time performing their assignments in
production areas and are occasionally supervised
by production supervisors. Production employees
also perform some work of a maintenance character
such as dismantling, repairing, and reassembling
malfunctioning machinery. Certain operations, such
as changeovers, are at times performed by produc-
tion employees and at times by maintenance em-
ployees. Moreover, production employees are oc-
casionally assigned to assist maintenance em-
ployees in the performance of maintenance duties
in the production areas. The evidence is clear that
the continuity of the Employer's production
processes requires the performance by the main-
tenance employees of their assigned tasks in
production areas. In addition to working with, and
in close proximity to, the production employees
during a majority of their time and performing some
of the same functions as the production employees,
the maintenance employees receive the same fringe
benefits as the production employees and use the
same employee facilities.
Nor is there any substantial evidence that the
bargaining interests of the maintenance employees
have been neglected or prejudiced by virtue of their
representation in the overall unit. Their wage rates
are considerably higher than those of the produc-
tion employees, reflecting recognition of their skills,
and are only slightly less than those of the boiler-
house employees who are apparently more highly
skilled. They are specifically represented by a main-
tenance employee in bargaining negotiations and
have their own steward for purposes of contract ad-
minstration, including grievances. Finally, it ap-
pears that they are favored in layoff situations, in
recognition of the value of their skills.
Upon reviewing the facts of this case, we con-
clude that it will not effectuate the purposes of the
Act to allow disruption of the production and main-
tenance unit by permitting the severance of the
maintenance employees covered by the petition.3
Notwithstanding that the maintenance employees
have certain skills not necessarily possessed by
production employees, they spend 60-70 percent of
their time in production areas, where they may be
working with and/or doing the same work as the
production employees and may be supervised by
the same individuals who also supervise production
employees. The work of the maintenance em-
ployees is obviously an intergral part of the continu-
ous flow of the Employer's various production
processes. In addition, while the boilerhouse em-
ployees also do some plant maintenance work, the
Board has previously found, in agreement with Peti-
tioner, that their activity alone is functionally
distinct and that they constitute a separate and
homogeneous group.4
In light of the maintenance employees' close
functional integration in the plant's operations, their
community of interest with the production em-
ployees, their long inclusion in the production and
maintenance unit, the history and pattern of bar-
gaining in the Employer's plants in other locations
and in the food processing industry generally in the
geographical area here involved, the separate
identity and interests of the boilerhouse employees,
and the absence of any compelling countervailing
considerations, we conclude that the maintenance
employees should neither be severed from the
overall production unit nor joined with the boiler-
house employees, and that the units sought by the
Petitioner are inappropriate under the standards set
forth in Mallinckrodt, supra. Accordingly, we shall
dismiss the petition.5
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed
herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
3 It is also noted that bargaining at the Employer's other plants, and in
the food processing industry in the Greater Bay Area, is for the most part
conducted on a production and maintenance basis.
4 See General Foods, 110 NLRB 265.
5 In view of our disposition of this case, it is unnecessary to decide
whether the petition should also be dismissed on the further ground that
the Petitioner is not a traditional representative of the type of employees
covered by the petition herein.
Because the Board has historically refused to sever multicraft main-
tenance units such as that sought here, Member Fanning concurs in the
decision to dismiss the petition in this case. See, for example, Union
Steam Pump Company, 118 NLRB 689,693