H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 21, 1970

187 N.L.R.B. 404 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

404 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. and Milk Wagon Drivers &
Creamery Workers Union Local 380, Affiliated
With International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of
America , I Petitioner. Case I-RC-10353
December 21, 1970
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before John R. Coleman, Hearing Officer,
on December 24, 1968, and January 16, 1969.
Pursuant to a notice issued by the Regional Director
for Region 1, a further hearing was held on May 26,
19702 Thereafter, pursuant to Section 102.67 of the
National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula-
tions and Statements of Procedure , Series 8, as
amended, and by direction of the Regional Director
for Region 1, this case was transferred to the National
Labor Relations Board for decision . Briefs have been
timely filed by the Employer and Petitioner.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.
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
policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation of employees within the
meaning of Section 9(c)(l) and Section 2(6) and (7) of
the Act, for the following reasons.
Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of employees
employed by the Employer at a single location in
Region 1, a distribution center at Lowell,
i As amended at the hearing
2 The further hearing was held after one of the locations sought by
the Petitioner was closed
3 The petition , filed in September 1968, requested a unit of employees at
two locations , Lowell and Lawrence , Massachusetts Petitioner , conceding
that thereafter the Employer closed its Lawrence facility , now requests a
unit limited to Lowell , where many Lawrence employees were transferred
4 In 1955 ( 114 NLRB 978) the Board dismissed a petition which sought
a unit of wholesale drivers limited to the Employer's processing plant at a
single location in Region I (Charlestown , Massachusetts ), in view of the
fact that the Employer's distribution operations throughout Region I were
functionally integrated , and the requested Charlestown wholesale drivers
had the same interests and working conditions as such drivers at other
Region I locations
187 NLRB No. 59
Massachusetts.3 The Employer contends that any
appropriate unit should include all Region I loca-
tions. The Employer contends further that the
inappropriateness of the unit sought is clearly
demonstrated by two prior Board decisions which the
Petitioner has agreed not to contest in the instant
proceeding.4
Petitioner responds that in more recently published
Decisions the Board has been following a policy of
finding single-location units appropriate in cases
involving a number of different industries,5 and that
pursuant to such policy the Board should find
appropriate the requested single-location unit at
Lowell. Petitioner contends that in the Employer's
operations6 the Lowell employees constitute a homo-
geneous, identifiable, and distinct group that is
physically separated from the Employer's personnel
at its other Region 1 locations. It further contends
that, although such employees perform work func-
tions like those performed at the other Region I
locations, the Lowell employees nevertheless perform
them under separate immediate supervision and at a
distinct location. Petitioner asserts that it is clear from
such considerations that the employees at Lowell have
problems and grievances which are peculiarly their
own and not necessarily shared by employees at other
Region I locations. For such reasons Petitioner
contends that a single-location unit comprised of
Lowell employees now constitutes an appropriate unit
for the purposes of collective bargaining. In this
regard Petitioner notes that prior to March 1969,
when the Employer's Dairy Foods Division Consoli-
dation Program was placed in effect at the Lowell
facility, that facility was a part of Region 3.
Petitioner contends, therefore, that our 1955 and
1965 decisions pertaining to Region 1 employees do
not now require or support dismissal of the present
petition.
We cannot agree with Petitioner's contentions
herein and shall dismiss the petition seeking a unit
limited to Lowell, for the reasons set forth below.
In the Haag Drug Company case,7 upon which
Petitioner places considerable reliance in seeking a
unit limited to the Employer's Lowell employees, we
found a single-location restaurant in a retail chain
In the other case (an unpublished decision issued December 30, 1965,
Case I-RC-8251) the Board dismissed a petition for a unit confined to the
wholesale drivers in Region I (or at Charlestown ), finding neither unit to
be an appropriate one for collective bargaining in view of the functional
integration of the Employer 's operations throughout Region 1 , and the
community of interest which it found existed among the employees of
Region I
5 Sav-On Drugs, Inc , 138 NLRB 1032, Dixie Belle Mills, 139 NLRB
629, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 156 NLRB 1408, Haag Drug
Co, 169 NLRB No I I I
6 The nature and scope of such operations are generally set forth in our
prior decisions cited in fn 4 herein
7 Haag Drug Company, Incorporated, supra
H. P. HOOD & SONS, INC.
operation to be an appropriate unit for collective
bargaining, on the ground that the factual situation
showed that the employer's operations were not so
functionally integrated with respect to the employees'
day-to-day work as to preclude the establishment of
such a unit. That case, however, expressly recognized
that functional integration of an employer's business
operations can reach a degree sufficient to obliterate
any meaningful identity of a single location as a self-
contained economic unit.s
In this case we think it clear that Petitioner has not
proved in the present brief record that the Employer's
operations at its numerous facilities in Region 1 no
longer possess a high degree of functional integration,
or that the Lowell employees now have a sufficient
8 Op cit, p 6 See also N L R B v Purity Food Stores, Inc, 376 F.2d 497
(C A 1), cert denied, 389 U S 959, compare Primrose Supermarket of
Salem, Inc, 148 NLRB 610, enf without opinion (C.A I), cert denied, 382
U.S. 830, Banco Credito v N L R B, 390 F 2d 110, (C A I) cert denied,
405
community of interest separate and apart from that of
other employees to justify a conclusion that, inde-
pendently, the Lowell employees may comprise a unit
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.9
Since we do not find in the evidence adduced at the
hearings in this proceeding a sufficient record upon
which to predicate a finding that the requested single-
location unit, limited to employees of the Employer at
Lowell, is an appropriate one for collective bargain-
ing, we shall dismiss the petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein be,
and it hereby is, dismissed.
393 U.S.832.
s As previously noted herein , Petitioner has agreed not to cont¢st the
correctness of the Board 's earlier decisions that a single location within
Region I was not an appropriate unit.