General Shoe Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 12, 1955

114 N.L.R.B. 381 (N.L.R.B. 1955)

GENERAL -SHO1 .CGRPMATiol - - - _ . 381'
We therefore find that a question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation of employees of the Employer within the mean-
ing of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. At the close of the hearing, the Petitioner amended its petition
to request the following units, excluding from each professional em-
ployees, clerical employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the
Act :
(a) A unit of all employees of the Employer at all its plants, in-
eluding employees both at the- plants in Colorado County and at the
plants at or near Romayor and Corrigan or, in the alternative, should
the foregoing Employerwide unit be found inappropriate; (b) a, sepa-
rate unit of all employees at the Employer's plants in Colorado
County, including employees at Alleyton, Altier, and Eagle Lake;
and (c) a combined unit of all employees at the Employer's plants
at or near Romayor and Corrigan or, should this combined unit-be
found inappropriate, (1) a separate unit of employees at the Em-
ployer's plants at Romayor and (2) another separate unit of employ-
ees at the Employer's plant near Corrigan.
The Employer took the position that the Employerwide unit pri-
marily sought by the Petitioner was inappropriate, on the ground that
employees at the Romayor and Corrigan plants should not be included
in the same unit with employees at the Colorado County plants.
In view of the integration of the Employer's operations, we find, in
accordance with Petitioner's primary unit request, that an Employer-
wide unit, including employees at all the plants, is appropriate.
Upon the entire record herein, we find that the following employees
of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act:
all employees of the Employer at all its plants, including employees
both at the plants in Colorado County, Texas, located at Alleyton, Al-
tier, and Eagle Lake, and at the plants at or near Romayor and Cor-
rigan, Texas, excluding professional employees, clerical employees,
guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
General Shoe Corporation and Boot & Shoe Workers' Union,
AFL, Petitioner. Case No. 10-RC-3125. October 12,1955
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 Edwin R. Hancock, hear-
ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
114 NLRB No. 76.
382- DECISIONS OF^:NATIONAL ;LABOR. RELATIONS -BOARD
- 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
employees 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.
The hearing officer referred to the Board a motion made by the
Employer at the hearing to dismiss the petition on the grounds that :
(1) The Petitioner is not a labor organization; (2) the Petitioner does
not have a sufficient showing of interest; (3) The Shoe Industry Or-
ganizing Committee, AFL, is a labor organization and is not in com-
pliance with Section 9 (f), (g), and (h) of the Act; (4) the unit sought
is inappropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining; and (5) the
Petitioner's showing of interest is of doubtful validity. For the same
reasons as stated in General Shoe Corporation, 113 NLRB 905, we find
no merit in (1), (2), and (3), above. For reasons stated in paragraph
numbered 4, infra, we find no merit in (4). With respect to (5), the
Petitioner's showing of interest is an administrative matter not liti-
gable by the parties at the hearing. Accordingly, the motion to dis-
miss the petition is denied.
After the close of the hearing, the Employer also filed a motion with
the Board requesting the Board to reinvestigate the Petitioner's show-
ing of interest and to dismiss the petition. The Employer contends
that : (1) There were approximately 136 employees on the Employ-
er's payroll at its Fayetteville, Tennessee, operations when the instant
petition was filed; (2) after the petition was filed, about 70 of these
employees signed the following statement : "I have not signed a card
for the Union to represent me as a General Shoe employee;" 2 and
(3) about 9 employees are in the armed services and could not have
possibly signed authorization cards, and, therefore, the Petitioner's
showing of interest is of questionable authenticity, citing Globe Iron
Foundry, 112 NLRB 1200. In that case over 70 percent of the em-
ployees in the unit sought signed an affidavit that they had not know-
ingly signed any authorizations for the union to represent them. In
view of the nature of that evidence, the Board concluded that reason-
able cause existed for believing that the Petitioner's showing of inter=
est was tainted by fraud, caused a further investigation concerning the
adequacy of the showing of interest to be conducted, and, finally, dis-
missed the petition upon being administratively satisfied that the Pe-
iAt the hearing herein, the parties stipulated to incorporate by reference the entire
records .of General Shoe Corporation, Cases Nos. 10-RC-2998 and 10-RC-3065 (not
reported in printed volumes of Board Decisions and Orders).
Eleven other employees who were not employed by the Employer when the petition was
filed also signed this statement.' -
GENERAL SHOE CORPORATION' 383
titioner's showing of interest was inadequate. In the instant case,
however, based upon the Employer's figures, 57 employees or about 42
percent of the employees who were employed at the Fayetteville oper-
ations when the petition was signed did not sign the aforesaid state-
ment. Thus the evidence submitted by the Employer does not create
a reasonable cause for believing that the Petitioner's showing of inter-
est may have been tainted by fraud. We are administratively satisfied
without further investigation that the instant Petitioner has made an
adequate showing of interest. In these circumstances, the Employer's
motion to the Board to reinvestigate the Petitioner's showing of inter-
est and to dismiss the petition is hereby denied.
4. The appropriate unit :
The Petitioner seeks a unit of all the Employer's truckdrivers,
warehousemen, and processing and miscellaneous employees employed
at the Employer's Fayetteville, Tennessee, plant. The Employer con-
tends that, because its operations are highly integrated, the appropri-
ate bargaining unit should consist of all shoe manufacturing plants,
including processing and supply terminals, of its Southern Shoe Man-
ufacturing Division, which is comprised of about 30 installations in
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. The Em-
ployer contends further that the appropriate unit should include at
least the Fayetteville operations and the shoe manufacturing plants of
the Southern Division which are serviced by it.3 As a third conten-
tion, the Employer insists that the smallest appropriate unit must con-
sist of the Fayetteville operations and the Cowan and McMinnville,
Tennessee, plants. There is no history of bargaining in the Southern
Division either on a single or multiplant basis.
The Fayetteville supply and processing terminal began its opera-
tions in September 1951. It receives, sorts, grades, and warehouses
raw materials used in the manufacturing of shoes, performs certain
preprocessing operations on some of the raw materials, and trans-
ports them by Fayetteville trucks to certain plants in the Southern
Division each week day according to schedules received from the cen-
tral offices in Nashville, Tennessee. About 90 percent of the raw ma-
terials received at Fayetteville is shipped from the Employer's main
supply and processing terminal in Nashville. All of the raw ma-
terials used by the Cowan and McMinnville plants are received from
Fayetteville. Raw materials are furnished by the Fayetteville termi-
nal to the remaining plants listed above in varying percentages. The
Fayetteville trucks return the manufactured shoes from the various
plants to Fayetteville where some of the shoes are stored for filling
of customers' orders and others are consolidated for further shipment
3 These plants are located at Atlanta, Carrollton , and Lawrenceville , Georgia ; Ripley,
Mississippi ; Huntsville , Alabama , and Cowan , McMinnville , Waynesboro , Pulaski, Lewis-
burg, and Tullahoma , Tennessee . The 63d Avenue supply and processing terminal at
Nashville;'Tennessee, also provides services for many of these plants.
384 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
to shipping terminals at Huntsville, Alabama, and Nashville, Ten-
nessee. All of the shoes manufactured by the Cowan and McMinnville
-plants are stored at Fayetteville after being spot checked for quality
and are shipped to customers from that location. Some of the shoes
manufactured by the other plants, which are partially serviced by
the Fayetteville operations, are stored at Fayetteville for the filling
of customers' orders but a majority of these shoes are consolidated for
immediate shipment to other shipping terminals by Fayetteville
trucks. The minor defects found by the spot checking of the shoes at
the Fayetteville terminal are corrected at that location, while shoes
with serious defects are returned to the manufacturing plant of their
origin for correction.
Although the record contains evidence which appears to support the
Employer's unit contentions, there are many factors supporting the
appropriateness of a unit confined solely to the employees of the
Fayetteville terminal. The manufacturing plants which are sup-
plied with raw materials and services by the Fayetteville terminal are
located at distances from about 37 miles to several hundred miles from
Fayetteville. The Fayetteville terminal is under the supervision of
a separate local plant superintendent, who has the power to hire new
employees, to recommend the discharge of employees, to lay off em-
ployees for limited periods of time, to grant up to 30 days' leave of
absence to employees, and to make individual purchases of equipment
not exceeding $100 in value. Grievances may be settled at a local
level at the Fayetteville terminal. The Fayetteville employees have
separate plantwide seniority for certain purposes. In view of these
circumstances, and the further facts that there has been no prior his-
tory of collective bargaining at the Fayetteville terminal and that no
.union is seeking a unit of larger geographical scope, we find that a
single plant unit confined to the employees of the Fayetteville terminal
is appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.4
The parties are also in disagreement concerning the composition of
the unit at the Fayetteville terminal. The Petitioner would exclude
and the Employer would include the following employees : watchmen,
,loaders, schedulers, maintenance employees, standards men, and shoe
inspectors.
Watchmen: The watchmen are not armed or deputized and have no
authority to discipline or report employees for violations of company
rules. A watchman is on duty only at night during the workweek,
but on the weekends and holidays a watchman is on duty 24 hours per
day. They spend about two-thirds of their time putting in new light
bulbs, sweeping floors, and performing general cleanup work. The
remaining one-third of their time is spent making rounds of the plant
and punching a clock in accordance with a prearranged schedule. It
* General Shoe Corporation, 113 NLRB 905, and cases cited therein at footnote 9.
GENERAL SHOE CORPORATION 385
is also a duty of the watchmen to call the proper authorities if they
discover anyone breaking into the plant. We, therefore, find that
they are guards within the meaning of Section 9 (b) (3) of the Act.
Accordingly, we shall exclude them from the unit.'
Loaders: Two employees called loaders work at the Tullahoma box
plant loading primarily the trailers from Fayetteville with boxes.
They, also load some trailers from the 63rd, Avenue terminal at'Nash-
.ville. Their payroll figures are sent.to Nashville from Tullahoma but
their pay is charged by the payroll office in Nashville .to the-Fayette-
ville terminal operations. Tullahoma is.approximately 50 miles from
Fayetteville. These two employees do not perform any work at
Fayetteville,. and are not interchanged with any of. the employees at
Fayetteville. They are under.the supervision of the superintendent
at Tullahoma who also determines the number of hours for them to
.work. In these circumstances, we find that the loaders do not have
a substantial community of interests with the employees working at
the Fayetteville terminal, and shall exclude them from the unit.
Schedulers : Three of the nine schedulers employed by the Em-
ployer schedule the casing of raw materials by indicating the, sizes
,and materials that should be cased. In the performance of their
scheduling duties, these employees consult several times each day with
the employees performing the casing work. These three schedulers
are under the supervision of the findings, consolidations, and casings
department manager.
Four other schedulers work on summarizing customers' orders
which they obtain from the employees working in the processing area,
and checking back orders. Two of these four schedulers also perform
some order-filling and consolidations work. All four of these sched-
ulers are supervised by the shipping and processing department
manager.
Another scheduler writes receiving tickets for raw materials as they
.are received from the check sheet and consult with the receiving men
on the processing floor to ascertain the correct amounts and to correct
errors. The remaining scheduler checks and summarizes requisitions
.on materials. These two schedulers are supervised by the,manager of
the findings, consolidations, and casings department.
All of the schedulers are hourly paid, punch the same time clocks as
the processing employees, and enjoy the same fringe benefits. In view
of these circumstances, and the fact that they are in daily contact with
and under the same supervision as certain processing employees whom
the Petitioner seeks to include in the unit, we find that the schedulers
are plant clerical employees, and shall also include them in the unit.
Maintenance employees,, standards man,,and shoe inspectors,: Two
maintenance employees from the 63rd Avenue supply and processing
5 Gene; at Shoe Corporatoon, supra.
386 DECISIONS,OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
'terminal,at Nashville perform the major maintenance work'at •the Fay-
etteville terminal. When the superintendent of the Fayetteville ter-
minal needs their services, he calls the superintendent of the 63rd Ave-
nue terminal who instructs the two maintenance employees to'-go to
Fayetteville to perform the work. These two employees spend at Fay-
etteville only the time needed to perform the required work and do not
spend -a total of more than a few days each month working 'at the
Fayetteville terminal. They spend the remaining portion of their
time working at the 63rd Avenue terminal. They are on the payroll
-of the 63rd Avenue terminal and are under the supervision of its
superintendent.
A standards man is attached to the 63rd Avenue terminal , is 'on its
payroll and is under the supervision of its superintendent . He works
3 days per week at the Fayetteville terminal, those 3 days being deter-
mined by the superintendent of the 63rd Avenue terminal. His duties
consist of evaluating the efficiency of the processing employees in their
work and establishing incentive quotas for those employees. His re-
maining 2 days per week are spent at the 63rd Avenue terminal per-
forming the same type of work. He does not punch a time clock at
'Fayetteville and does not interchange with any of the Fayetteville
employees. He was trained for his job by taking a special training
course at the Employer 's expense.
There is one shoe inspector from the central inspection staff at Nash-
ville who is presently working at the Fayetteville terminal. His duty
is to spot check shoes for quality. The central inspection department
maintains a staff of about 6 of these inspectors who are assigned to
work at the Employer 's various plants and terminals for a period of
from 2 to 6 months on a rotating basis. They are paid on a monthly
salary basis, receive compensation equal to or slightly in excess of the
department managers at Fayetteville, and are on the ,payroll of the
central inspection department at Nashville. They do not punch a time
clock at the Fayetteville terminal, do not interchange with any other
employees working there, and are under the supervision of the central
inspection department at Nashville.
In view of these circumstances, especially the fact that these three
categories of employees are not attached to the Fayetteville terminal,
are not on its payroll , do not punch time clocks there, are not inter-
changed with other Fayetteville employees, and are under the super-
vision of supervisors located at Nashville , we do not believe that they
have a sufficient community of interests with the Fayetteville -em-
ployees to be included 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 : -
OWENS-ILLINOIS GLASS COMPANY - 387
All of the Employer's truckdrivers, warehousemen, and processing
and miscellaneous employees employed at the Fayetteville, Tennessee,
plant, including schedulers, but excluding the watchmen, loaders, and
the maintenance employees, standards man, and shoe inspectors from
the 63rd Avenue supply and processing terminal located at Nashville,
Tennessee, office clerical employees, professional employees, guards,
and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text, of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
Owens-Illinois Glass Company, Petitioner and American Flint
Glass Workers' Union of North America , and its Local 700;
AFL and Glass Bottle Blowers ' Association of the United
States and Canada, AFL, and its Local 59. Case No. 8-RM-
114. October 12, 1955
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND DIRECTION
.
Pursuant to a Decision and Direction.of Election 1 in the above-
entitled proceeding, dated April 15, 1955, an election by secret ballot
was conducted on May 5, 1955, under the direction and supervision of
the Regional Director for the Eighth Region, among the employees in
the forming department of the Employer's Toledo, Ohio, plant. At
the conclusion of the election, the parties 2 were furnished a tally of
ballots. The tally showed that 84 ballots were cast for the Flints,
94 were cast for GBBA, and 44 were challenged. As the challenged
ballots were sufficient in number to affect the results of the election,
the Regional Director investigated the issues raised by the challenges.
On June 15, 1955, the Regional Director issued his report on chal-
lenges. On June 24, 1955, Flints filed timely exceptions to the report.
GBBA has filed no exceptions to the report.
In the report on challenges, the Regional Director divided the names
of the challenged voters into three groups.' He recommended that
the challenges to the voters in groups 1 and 2 be overruled and that
the challenges to group 3 be sustained.
1112 NLRB 172.
O The Unions in the above caption are herein referred to as Flints and GBBA,
respectively.
8 Group 1 consists of employees Burford, Grames, Grzeyorczyk , Lehman, McGee, and
Shumante.
Group 2 consists of employees Carpenter, C. McCourt, M. McCourt , and Mingione.
Group 3 consists of employees Arnold, Blowers , Clendenin , Dixon, Dyer , Ellis, Gobell,
Graces, Hardison, Hehl, Helmet, Hoxtell, Jones, Lee , Lemmon, A. Luna, B. Luna, Mack,
Marguerat, Maxuchowski, Ocker, K. Shope , M. Shope , Sine, Swiczkowski , Thomasson,
Thompson , Thurman, Thomaszewski , V111aneal , White, Wlodarski , Yates, and Aywicznzki.
114 NLRB No. 59.
387644-56-vol' 114-26