General Teamsters Union, Local 406, Etc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 19, 1962

137 N.L.R.B. 1473 (N.L.R.B. 1962)

GENERAL TEAMSTERS UNION, LOCAL 406, ETC. 1473
from forcing or requiring Capital Electrotype Company, Inc., by
means proscribed by Section 8(b) (4) (D), to assign the work in dis-
pute to electrotypers rather than to printing pressmen.
MEMBER BROWN took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Determination of Dispute.
General Teamsters Union, Local 406, International Brotherhood
of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of
America and Snowhite Baking Company . Case No. 7-CD-59.
July 19, 1962
DECISION AND DETERMINATION OF DISPUTE
This is a proceeding under Section 10(k) of the Act following a
charge filed by Snowhite Baking Company, herein called the Com-
pany, alleging that General Teamsters Union, Local 406, Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and
Helpers of America, herein called the Respondent or the Teamsters,
coerced the Company for the purpose of compelling a change in work
assignment from one class of employees to another. A duly scheduled
hearing was held before Joseph I. Nachman, hearing officer, on Oc-
tober 24,1961. All parties appeared at the hearing and were afforded
full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses,
and to adduce evidence bearing upon the issues. The hearing officer's
rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are
hereby affirmed. None of the parties filed briefs with the Board.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following
findings :
1. Snowhite Baking Company is engaged at Muskegon, Michigan,
in the operation of a bakery, and in the course of its business, an-
nually purchases flour and related material valued at in excess of
$50,000 from points outside the State of Michigan; its annual gross
sales are in excess of $500,000. We find that the Company is engaged
in commerce within the meaning of the Act and that it will effectuate
the purposes of the Act to exercise jurisdiction herein.
2. General Teamsters Union, Local 406, International Brotherhood
of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America.,
and Local 475, Retail, Wholesale'and Department Store Union, AFL-
CIO, herein called Local 475, are labor organizations within the
meaning of the Act.
3. The dispute.
137 NLRB No. 163.
6 49856-63-vol. 187-94
1474 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL .LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
A. The work at issue
The Company, a bakery, produces foodstuffs, largely bread, and
sells its products to a number of retail stores in various territories.
Its employees total about 48 and are divided into 2 groups : inside
workers and outside route salesmen. In the normal operations, after
inside employees fill their trucks at the plant with merchandise, the
salesmen deliver it to the retail stores. In addition, in those situations
where a salesman cannot carry the full requirements of his route in
his truck or where he runs short, inside employees, driving what are
called "transport trucks," carry additional products to "drop points"
in the territory of the particular salesman, where the latter picks up
the merchandise and continues his selling. In two instances-
involving two retail stores of the Plumb Super Markets grocery chain,
more fully discussed below-the Company found ,occasion to have
the transport trucks make bread deliveries directly to the loading
platform of the stores. The dispute here involved centers upon, and
is limited to, the work performed by the inside workers in driving
trucks and making deliveries directly from the plant to these two
retail stores. There is no quarrel otherwise over any right of inside
workers to deliver merchandise to the drop points or of the driver-
salesmen to make the full deliveries from plant to store of the mer-
chandise which they sell.
The two groups of employees are represented by the competing
unions and under separate contracts. Local 475 (RWPDSU) repre-
sents the inside employees in a unit described as all employees of the
Company except "General Managers, Sales Managers, Regular and
extra Route Salesmen, Office Employees and those employees who
work in a supervisory capacity." Its contract in existence at the time
of the hearing extended to May 1962.
The Teamsters contract covers "drivers-salesmen and extra sales-
men." The last such agreement by its terms expired on March 31,
1961, and was continued in effect by mutual oral agreement pending
negotiation for its renewal. All the terms for a new contract have
been agreed upon, but formal renewal awaits resolution of the disagree-
ment which gave rise to this proceeding.
The driver-salesmen operate on regularly assigned routes and their
principal duties are both to deliver and promote the sale of the mer-
chandise to retailers and consumers. Their function is not limited to
the mere delivery of the baked goods, but to a substantial degree they
must, if they are to be successful, take steps calculated to promote the
sale of Snowhite products over those of competitors. The driver-
salesmen must see that advertising material furnished him is promi-
nently displayed in the stores; he must constantly seek the most
favorable space on the display racks for his goods; and he must
prominently and attractively display his goods so as to promote their
GENERAL TEAMSTERS UNION, LOCAL 406, ETC. 1475
purchase by the customer. Additionally, in the case of many of the
smaller stores where the Company is unwilling to extend credit, he
must determine whether to request cash for each delivery or to extend
credit himself.
Plumb Super Markets, a retail grocery chain here referred to as
Plumb, has been a customer of the Company since 1955. For this one
chain the Company produces bread bearing the Plumb name for sale
in those stores; Plumb also displays and sells the Snowhite brand or
label. In July 1957, Plumb opened a new store in Luddington, Mich-
igan, an area covered by an existing driver-salesman route. Because
the resultant volume of deliveries to this Plumb store regularly ex-
ceeded the capacity of the salesman's truck, a new drop point was
established on his route. In practice, however, at the driver-salesman's
request, the transport truck coming from the plant drove straight to
the Plumb store and dropped its entire load on the store receiving
dock. Early in 1959, Plumb opened still another retail store, this one
in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area, a territory not covered by a
driver-salesman route. Here the Company proceeded to establish
a new route and the new driver-salesman, because of the limited volume
of sales in his territory, was able to carry all the merchandise from
the plant himself.
The driver-salesmen work on a straight 10 percent commission basis.
From 1957 to early 1959, they continued to receive the established
commission on all sales to the Plumb stores, regardless of whether
deliveries were made by them or by inside plant employees in trans-
port trucks directly to the stores. In 1959, at the Company's request,
and with approval of Teamsters Local 406, the Company reduced the
commission to three-fourths of a cent per loaf on the Plumb brand
bread.
The transport drivers both have worked in the plant for many years
as maintenance men and spend about half their working day on such
duties. The other half is spent loading and driving the transport
trucks. About 2 years before the hearing in this case the Teamsters
attempted to convince the two transport drivers to leave Local 475 and
join it. The effort was unsuccessful apparently because of the inabil-
ity of the transport drivers to transfer their seniority in the Company
if they joined the Teamsters.
Because the Grand Rapids and Luddington routes had become un-
profitable, sales other than to Plumb having greatly declined, the
Company decided to terminate them; one was discontinued in July
and the other after Labor Day, 1960. The driver-salesmen left the
Company's employ. The Company continued, however, to produce
and deliver Plumb's brand labeled bread; for such deliveries to
Plumb's Grand Rapids and Luddington stores only, transport trucks
from the plant were used, their drivers merely placing the cartons on
the receiving docks and accepting a receipt.
1476 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Teamsters was advised of these changes prior to their occur-
rence and voiced no objection. Five months later, in January 1961,
when discussion started for renewal of the Teamsters' contract due
to expire in March, the Teamsters demanded that the Company as-
sign the limited driving work of delivering Plumb brand bread to
these two stores to members of Teamsters instead of to the inside em-
ployees. It did not ask that the former driver-salesmen be reemployed,
or that the sales routes be reestablished. It even suggested that the
work be performed by its members on an hourly wage basis, rather
than any commission arrangement. The Company repeatedly rejected
this demand, the contract renewal remained long in abeyance in conse-
quence, and finally, on September 11, 1961, the Teamsters wrote to
the Company a final reiteration of its demand, closing with the follow-
ing statement :
Since you have taken this final position, it will be necessary for us
to establish a picket line at your premises to force you to agree to
assign this work to our members.
B. Applicability of the statute
The charge alleges that the Teamsters engaged in coercive conduct
against the Company to force a change in its work assignment and that
such action constitutes a violation of Section 8 (b) (4) (D). The record
shows clearly, and the Respondent Teamsters does not deny, that its
contention to rig has been, and the September 11 letter was intended to
affirm the contention, that the Company must hire truckdrivers who
are members of Local 406 for the truck delivery work to be done and
not members of Local 475. The direct threat to establish a picket
line at the Company's plant must be viewed as coercion in this case,
especially since the driver-salesmen, whose work requires them to pick
up merchandise every day at the plant, are members of that Union. It
must be assumed they would honor the picket line and that, therefore,
the threat to picket was essentially also a threat to strike.'
There is no contention that the Teamsters' purpose was to restore to
their jobs the driver-salesmen who left the Company when the two,
routes involved were discontinued, or to obtain for them individually
this part-time straight truckdriving delivery work. The broad basis
of the Respondent's claim for work rests squarely on the assertion that
the disputed work can only be performed by members of that union,.
that drivers in that class-distinguished by that special union status-
alone are qualified to perform or are entitled to the work.
We find that there is reasonable cause to believe that a violation of
Section 8 (b) (4) (D) has occurred. Accordingly, we find that the work
' Sheet Metal Workers International Association , Local Union No. 299, et al. (S. M.
Eisner, d/b/a S. At. Eisner and Sons), 131 NLRB 1196.
GENERAL TEAMSTERS UNION, LOCAL 406, ETC. 1477
dispute is properly before the Board for determination under Sec-
tion 10 (k) of the Act.
C. The merits of the dispute
There is no Board certification of representatives applicable to
either of the two groups competing for the disputed work. Each
union relies upon its contract, at least in part, to support its work
claim. Ina literal sense, the inside workers' agreement seems to cover
this type of part-time transport truckdriving, for it does cover "all"
Company employees and expressly excludes "route salesmen." The
part-time transport drivers do no selling work and have no duties
ancillary thereto. Against this seeming contract coverage of the dis-
puted work, however, the Teamsters' agreement refers to "driver-
salesmen," and therefore also at least indicates an intent to cover some
driving work, precisely the work duties claimed by the Teamsters. We
do not believe, therefore, that either contract can serve in itself as
sufficient basis for a direct work assignment by this Board.
There is conflicting and equally undeterminative testimony with
respect to the practice and custom in the assignment of this precise
type of work by other employers in the Michigan area where the Com-
pany operates. The Teamsters offered copies of its collective-bargain-
ing agreements with other bakeries showing that its members make
deliveries of such merchandise to other retail outlets. Under these
agreements, however, the Teamsters is recognized as bargaining rep-
resentative of all those employers' workmen, joining both inside and
outside workers, including route salesmen, in a single bargaining unit.
On the other hand, testimony by Company witnesses indicates that
some bakeries in the same area employ drivers who are not members of
any union, and that at least one large bakery employs drivers who are
members of a union other than the Teamsters.
On a broader basis the Teamsters argues that truckdriving is tradi-
tionally the work performed by its members, that the work in dispute
here consists of nothing more, and that therefore if for no other rea-
son its members are entitled to perform it. In a manner not very
clearly articulated on the record (neither Union filed a brief), the
Teamsters also seems to contend that the work was in fact performed
for this Company in the past by the driver-salesmen, and that there-
fore in assigning it now to inside employees the Company is with-
drawing it from employees properly entitled to it. And finally, the
Teamsters expressed the fear that if the Company can with impunity
remove this much from the quantum of work belonging to driver-
salesmen, it can in time transfer it all to the inside employees and dis-
charge all the driver-salesmen, as well as eliminate the Teamsters as a
representative voice for any employees of the Company.
1478 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Although the traditional jurisdictional claim of labor organization
may be one of the pertinent factors to be considered in making affirma-
tive work awards under Section 10(k) of the statute, where, as here,
there are other material considerations bearing on the merits of the
particular dispute, all the relevant factors must be evaluated on the
record as a whole.
In 1953, when the first Teamsters' contract was executed, the driver-
salesmen made all the deliveries. By January 1956, with volume in-
creasing, the "drop point" system was started, and inside employees
began to deliver bread to the driver-salesmen at their route locations.
These truck deliveries have continued throughout the years and are
even now being made with no claim by the Teamsters that the driver-
salesmen should do that work. In 1957, the transport truck run to
Luddington was extended from the "drop point" to the Plumb store
at the request of the driver-salesman who apparently suggested that
it would be just as easy for the transport driver to drop the Plumb
bread off at the store as to transfer it to his truck. The driver-salesman
thereby relieved himself of any work in handling the Plumb account;
however, he continued to receive a commission on the bread which was
sold. In the case of the Grand Rapids route, it was terminated be-
cause of a lack of business; however, Snowhite still supplied bread to
the Plumb store there, utilizing a transport truck to make this one
delivery.
In the light of the Teamsters' acquiescence over the years in this
arrangement to have the inside employees do all this part-time, trans-
port truckdriving delivery work, it is only fair to infer that all parties
viewed the two contracts as permitting such assignments. Certainly
the Teamsters' failure throughout this period to question the Com-
pany's right to assign the work leads at least to a conclusion that it
did not view the assignment as doing violence to any work claims that
might rest upon its agreement.
The earnings of the driver -salesmen were never reduced in conse-
quence of all this delivery being done by inside workmen; the com-
missions were paid for all sales in their territories whether they
brought the bread from the plant or not. Even when transport trucks
went directly to the Plumb store in Luddington, so that the driver-
salesman was relieved entirely of any work in that connection, the
full commission continued. It was not until 5 months after certain
salesmen ceased work entirely and deliveries continued to these stores
but with no commissions being paid to any salesmen , there being none
assigned to those two sales territories , that the Teamsters' local made a
claim for this work.
In his oral argument at the close of the hearing, counsel for the Re-
spondent requested that no significance be attached to the fact that
inside transport drivers , represented by Local 475, have for so long a
GENERAL TEAMSTERS UNION, LOCAL 406, ETC. 1479
period performed the work. He urged the theory that by continuing
to pay the route salesmen full commissions on all sales in their ter-
ritories as though they had never ceased doing that part of the work,
the Company recognized the continuing jurisdictional claim of the
salesmen and impliedly conceded their right to perform the work. In
the total circumstances revealed in this record, we cannot agree with so
broad a contention.
A firmly established and recognized past practice in the assignment
of work in dispute is definitely a factor to be considered in reaching a
determination under Section 10 (k) of the Act. This was no passing or
temporary solution to conflicting jurisdictional claims; nor is there
any indication that full commissions to the salesmen over a 5-year
period were paid in order to keep the record straight on their right to
drive trucks. More reasonably it appears rather as recognition of the
usual exclusive territorial rights of route salesmen to commissions on
all sales made in their restricted areas. Moreover, on this aspect of an
inquiry under Section 10(k), our true concern is with past assignment
of work, or with ascertaining which of the competing groups of eln-
ployees in fact performed it. As between one group, which has long
done the work and been paid for it, and another, which did not do it
but nevertheless received some payment therefor, we cannot ignore
the former and look only to the latter-at least not where the arrange-
ment spanned so many years.
Our dissenting colleagues assert that the work here in dispute is
more clearly allied with that of the driver-salesmen than with that of
the plant employees. But this is not a correct framing of the issue
presented in this case, for the employees to whom the Company
assigned the Plumb deliveries are not just "plant employees." They
are plant employees who for 6 years have done part-time truckdriving
to "drop points." As between these rival claimants, contrary to our
colleagues, we find that the Plumb delivery work here in issue is more
like-indeed it is virtually the same as-the transport driving which
has concededly been a part-time function of certain plant employees,
than it is like the driver-selling work.
Basically, the dissenting Members by adopting the simple axiom
that all truckdriving must be awarded to employees represented by
the Teamsters assume the final answer the Board must give by its
award. While this offers a very direct and tempting means of reach-
ing a decision, it is no more satisfactory than it would be in case the
assignment of the driver-salesmen's functions were contested, to say
that since some of these functions are selling, the Board must award
this selling work to retail workers 2
2 To say that "all driving must be given to Teamsters" and "all selling must be given to
retail employees' is reminiscent of the old claim once attributed to the carpenters that
"once it's made of wood , the work belongs to the Carpenters, no matter what the material."
1480 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Our decision must rather rest upon a consideration of all the factors,
including the acquiescence of the Teamsters in the assignment of the
transport driving, which our colleagues would ignore or override.
Certainly a custom and practice which varies from the simple axiom
can grow up as a result of the consent or acquiescence of parties, and
the Board will in our view properly give some weight to it.'
To permit parties to avoid the consequences of such acquiescence,
after a substantial period of time, and assert job rights to the contrary
of the developed practice would hardly be fair to the other employees
whose job rights and security have been developed on the basis of the
employer's new assignment, or to employers who may have built up
advantageous business procedures and plans, in reliance upon the
apparent agreement of all whose interests may be considered to be
affected.
Accordingly, in view of the long-established practice of assigning
the disputed work to inside employees who are also part-time trans-
port drivers, the apparent conformity of that arrangement with the
provisions of both applicable contracts, the Respondent's acquiescence
in the arrangement, the absence of any persuasive area or industry
practice among other employers pointing in either direction, and the
record in its entirety, we shall determine the dispute in favor of the
transport drivers presently doing the work and represented by Local
475. In making this determination, we are assigning the disputed
work to the employees represented by Local 475 but not to Local 475
or to its members.
As to the Respondent's concern that our determination in this case
may constitute a license for the Company to transfer other work duties
to inside workmen which may properly belong to its driver-salesmen
members, and thereby abolish the Teamsters' bargining unit or deprive
those employees of their jobs, our decision here is confined solely to
the work in dispute-direct transport truck deliveries from the plant
to the two stores of the Plumb chain located in Luddington and Grand
Rapids. It affects in no way any other work in any other area.
In view of the foregoing, we also find that the Respondent Team-
sters was not and is not entitled by means proscribed by Section
8(b) (4) (D) of the Act to force or require the Company to assign
this delivery work to its members rather than to the Company's em-
ployees who are represented by Local 475.
DETERMINATION OF DISPUTE
On the basis of the foregoing findings, and the entire record in the
case, the Board makes the following Determination of Dispute pur-
suant to Section 10(k) of the Act:
3Local 46, Wood, Wire and Metal Lathers International Union et at. (Precrete , Inc.),
136 NLRB 1072.
GENERAL TEAMSTERS UNION, LOCAL 406, ETC. 1481
1. Employees engaged in driving transport trucks and having no
sales functions, presently represented by Local 475, Retail, Wholesale
and Department Store Union, AFL-CIO, are entitled to continue to
drive such trucks from the Company plant to Plumb stores in Lud-
dington and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
2. General Teamsters Union, Local 406, International Brotherhood
of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, is
not and has not been lawfully entitled to force or require Snowhite
Baking Company to assign to Local 406 members the work of driving
these transport trucks.
3. Within 10 days from the date of this Decision and Determination
of Dispute, General Teamsters Union, Local 406, International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers
of America, shall notify the Regional Director for the Seventh Re-
gion, in writing, whether or not it will refrain from forcing or requir-
ing Snowhite Baking Company, by means proscribed by Section
8(b) (4) (D), to assign the work in dispute to its members rather
than to employees of Snowhite Baking Company represented by
Local 475, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, AFL-CIO.
MEMBERS FANNING and BROWN, dissenting:
There is no quarrel here as to the kind of work that is in dispute;
it consists purely of driving trucks loaded with bread. There is no
disagreement as to the kind of employees who constitute the two claim-
ing groups of workmen between whom we must choose in making the
affirmative work assignment; one group consists of "driver- salesmen,"
whose ordinary duties are virtually nothing more than driving trucks
loaded with bread to the customer locations; the other group consists
of plant employees whose job it is to produce the bread in the plant.
Even considering, as in every proceeding of this kind we must, those
related factors which lend some support to the Company's desire to
assign the work to the plant employees, we do not agree that upon the
entire record this truckdriving work should be denied to drivers who,
as a class, traditionally drive trucks over the highways of this country,
and who, with this very Employer, even now deliver the bulk of its
products by truck.
From the inception of its operations years ago, the Company has
been using drivers-called "driver-salesmen" in its Teamster con-
tract-for all bread deliveries to its customer stores. Although these
men also unload the bread on store shelves and place advertising mate-
rial in position, in a very real sense their work is primarily and almost
entirely a matter of driving the trucks to move the bread from the
plant to the selling locations. It cannot be, and it is not seriously
argued, that the daily delivery of bread in bulk to food retailers re-
quires or involves any "selling activities," as such, worthy of the name.
1482 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
And these are not local runs on the trucks; some of the deliveries re-
quire the drivers to go as far as 45 and 60 miles away from the plant.
For all this record shows, some may even drive greater distances. We
are not dealing, therefore, with neighborhood activities, but with what
appears to be straight over-the-road trucking.
Since 1953, these driver-salesmen have been represented under con-
tract by a local of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. A
witness testified that there is another bakery whose employees, in-
cluding those who drive trucks to customer locations, are represented
by a union other than the Teamsters. It can hardly be said that this
single situation revealed in this record can effectively alter the basic
fact, urged by Respondent and never questioned by this Board, that
truckdriving of the type now in question is the kind of work which
members of this, as well as of other Teamster locals, have by long tradi-
tion claimed and performed.
As between the two competing groups of employees in this case,
it seems clear that the driving work in question is more clearly allied
with the overall activities of the driver-salesmen than with those of
the plant employees. For a number of years the former did all the
truckdriving, of whatever nature and extent, and such work is still
their essential responsibility. In contrast, what transport truck
deliveries the plant employees have for several years made to drop-
points, where the driver-salesmen continue to pick up the bread and
complete the deliveries, was but an incidental aspect of their main
occupation and was done in order to enable the driver-salesmen to
make the delivery to the store. The Company concedes that the plant
employees who now do this are taken from their plant duties on a
part-time basis only as conditions from time to time require. And the
contracts in effect between the Company and the two competing unions
recognize that the Teamsters is the representative of truckdrivers.
Thus only the Teamster contract speaks of "driver-salesmen," while
the Local 475 (RWDSU) agreement expressly excludes "route sales-
men," which is merely another designation for driver-salesmen.
The real basis of the claim now advanced by Local 475 on behalf of
the plant employees for the work of delivering bread directly to the
Company's customers, is that for some time they delivered bread to
drop points located in certain route areas. We view this position, as
the majority apparently also does, as an argument that because the
driver-salesmen took no steps to interfere with the Company's as-
sistance to them in the past, the group as a whole slept on its jurisdic-
tional rights, as it were, and is now foreclosed from claiming their
traditional work, a claim which, had it been made in 1956, even the
majority members would have honored. There is much in the record,
however, showing that the drivers' "acquiescence" was not the sur-
render of any traditional work claim, with its inseparable right to earn
GENERAL TEAMSTERS UNION, LOCAL 406, ETC. 1483
a living. When the drop point system was established the purpose was
not to alter the basic division of assignment of work between outside
drivers and plant employees, but only to accommodate the occasional
need to supplement the carrying capacity of the driver-salesmen. And
this is equally true of the extension of one drop point in the Ludding-
ton route, when the plant transport trucks started to go as far as the
Plumb store itself. The entire supplementary delivery system was
introduced because of the advantage to the Company in the reduced
wear and tear on the drivers' smaller trucks by eliminating the need
for two runs a day from the plant to the route or delivery locations.
That this was the sole purpose is revealed both by the fact that the
wording of neither contract was changed in the succeeding years and
that the earnings of the driver-salesmen were not reduced because a
portion of the delivery duties were performed by plant employees.
It is only fair to assume that had the Company at any time before
this dispute arose also given part of the driver-salesmen's earnings to
the plant employees for these runs, in order to compensate for the
dimunition of work assigned to the outside drivers, they, as well as
their Teamster union representative, would have protested exactly
as they did when, for the first time, the Company's changed method
of operations resulted in a loss of wages to the driver-salesmen group.
In fact, if the Company can now, as the majority in effect are ruling,
remove from the coverage of the driver-salesmen's work and earnings
the two straight run deliveries to the Luddington and Grand Rapids
Plumb stores, it can, with equal impunity, continue to take work and
wages away from them as more and more customer accounts grow
to a point permitting full truckloads of bread to go from the plant to
a single store.
In these circumstances, we cannot now impute to the driver-salesmen
a past intent to relinquish their claim to part of the work and wage
earnings which as a class they have traditionally enjoyed. They saw
no reason for resisting the Company's willingness to incur an extra
cost in one area while reducing it in another. As we understand the
majority opinion, the Teamsters should have protested the drop point
system when it was first set up, and perhaps have struck the entire op-
eration then in order to prevail in its jurisdictional work claim before
this Board. Indeed, the Board's decision in this case may be a caveat
to any skilled craftsman to refuse assistance from a new helper on the
job in order to avoid a later ruling by this Board that by failing to
object at the proper moment he surrendered a part of his traditional
work claim. He would have to do this even if in the process he hampers
the more efficient completion of an employer's project for which his
employer is willing to pay. The effect of imposing such burden hardly
serves the long-term interests of interested unions or employers.
1484 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Accordingly, we would assign the work of driving the two trucks in
question from the plant of Snowhite Baking Company to the distant
stores of Plumb Super Markets to the driver-salesmen group, rep-
resented under contract by the Respondent Teamsters.
Floridan Hotel of Tampa, Inc. and Hotel & Restaurant Em-
ployees and Bartenders Union , Local No. 104, affiliated with
Hotel & Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International
Union , AFL-CIO. Case No. 10-CA-1414. July 19, 1962
SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION AND ORDER
On March 2, 1961, the National Labor Relations Board issued its.
Decision and Order in this case,' finding that the Respondent had
violated Section 8(a) (1) of the National Labor Relations Act. On
March 9, 1962, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Cir-
cuit entered its decision 2 denying the Board's petition for enforcement
pending further consideration of certain issues by the Board.
In its original decision, the Board found that the Respondent, which
operates a hotel, posted and distributed to its employees the following
notice :
BULLETIN
A number of guests have called to the attention of the Manage-
ment that many of the employees are wearing union badges during
working hours and on uniforms.
We do not feel that it lends to the dignity of our Hotel for em-
ployees to openly display badges of any sort, whether it be a
union badge, lodge, or what have you.
Therefore, there is hereby established a rule that no badges of
any kind will be worn by any employee so that they may be seen
by any customer or guest.
The Board found that this rule was actually enforced by the Respond-
ent, with threats of discharge and other disciplinary action, against
employees who did not meet the public as well as against those who
did. The Board therefore concluded that the rule was broader than
the Respondent's claimed or stated purpose in that it prohibited all
employees from wearing union buttons or insignia, whether or not
they met customers or guests of the hotel. Accordingly, the Board,
after asserting that it was unnecessary to consider whether a different
rule, covering only employees in continuous and daily contact with
the public, would also be violative of Section 8(a) (1), ordered the
1130 NLRB 1105.
s 300 F. 2d 204.
137 NLRB No. 161.