Hudson Hosiery Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 20, 1947

74 N.L.R.B. 250 (N.L.R.B. 1947)

In the Matter of HUDSON HOSIERY COMPANY, EMPLOYER and
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF HOSIERY WORKERS, CIO, PETITIONER
Case No. 5-R-20700.Decided June 00, 1947
Guthrie, Pierce and Blakeney , by Whiteford S. Blakeney, of
Charlotte , N. C., for the Employer.
Mr. H. G . B. King, of Chattanooga , Tenn., Mr. John J. McCoy,
of Greensboro , N. C., Mr. Robert D. Beame and Miss Adeline Stemp,
both of Charlotte , N. C., for the Petitioner.
Mr. Herbert C. Kane, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, hearing in this case was held at Charlotte,
North Carolina, on January 23, 1947, before Charles B. Slaughter,
hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are
free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations
Board makes the following :
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER
Hudson Hosiery Company, a North Carolina corporation, having
its principal place of business at Charlotte, North Carolina, and main-
taining a sales office in New York City, is engaged at Charlotte, North
Carolina, in the manufacture and sale of women's full-fashioned
hosiery. During 1946, the Employer purchased raw materials consist-
ing chiefly of cotton and nylon yarn valued in excess of $500,000, of
which approximately 90 percent was shipped from points outside the
State of North Carolina. During the same period the Employer
manufactured finished products valued in excess of '$1,000,000, of
which more than 90 percent was shipped to points outside the State.
We find that the Employer is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
74 N. L. R. B., No. 47.
250
HUDSON HOSIERY COMPANY 251
II. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED
The Petitioner is a labor organization affiliated with the Congress
of Industrial Organizations, claiming to represent employees of the
Employer.
III. THE ALLEGED APPROPRIATE UNIT
The Petitioner seeks a unit of all employees in the full-fashioned
knitting operations of both the Brevard Street and Monroe Road
plants of the Employer, including all knitters, knitter's helpers, knitter
leg bar toppers and knitting machine cleaners, but excluding machine
fixers or mechanics, and clerical and supervisory employees. The Em-
ployer contends that the only appropriate unit would be one encom-
passing all its production and maintenance employees.
The Employer, in connection with the manufacture of full-fashioned.
hosiery, owns and operates two plants located approximately 4 miles
apart in Charlotte, North Carolina. Raw materials are received by
the Employer at the Brevard Street plant and are then shipped to the
Monroe Road plant, where the preliminary process of throwing is
carried on. The yarn is then put through the knitting operations, con-
sisting of knitting and topping. Then operations can be carried on
by knitters at both plants, and may be conducted at either. Upon the
completion of the knitting operations, the yarn is transferred to that
portion of the Monroe Road plant where looping, seaming, inspecting
and gray mending operations take place. When nylon is used, the
next operation is preboarding. Upon the completion of the pre-
boarding, all the hose is again returned to the Brevard Street plant
for dyeing, final boarding, inspecting, pairing, final mending, mark-
ing, folding, boxing, and shipping.
Although there is no inherent inappropriateness in the specific
composition of the unit sought, its scope presents a more serious prob-
lem. As noted above, the Monroe Road and Brevard Street plants are
4 miles apart. Although there is the same general over-all supervision
of the employees in the knitting operations at both plants, the imme-
diate supervision of these employees is confined to the respective plants.
So far as the record shows, there is no interchange between the em-
ployees in the knitting operations in the two plants; each operates more
or less independently of the other. In earlier cases, referred to below,
the Petitioner itself stressed, and the Board recognized, the functional
separateness of the operations at the Monroe Road and Brevard
Street plants.
There is no prior history of collective bargaining. The Petitioner
has attempted to organize the employees of the Employer for a number
of years. In 1944, the Board issued its first Decision and Direction
252 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
involving this Employer,' in which it found appropriate a unit confined
to all production and maintenance employees employed at the Monroe
Road plant, the employees at the Brevard Street plant having demon-
strated a marked lack of interest in the Petitioner's organizational
campaign. The Petitioner did not then seek to set the knitters apart.
The Petitioner failed to poll a majority in the election conducted pur-
suant to the 1944 Decision. In December 1945, the Board, upon a sec-
ond petition, found substantially the same Monroe Road unit to be ap-
propriate; 2 the Petitioner again failed to poll a majority.
In the Garden State Hosiery decision, the Board has reexamined,
and a majority has reaffirmed, the wisdom of giving emphasis to the
extent of employee organization, provided certain other relevant fac-
tors and safeguards are also present.3 Extent of organization can be
most important, but it can never be controlling in the full sense of
that term. It must also appear that the unit sought is composed of a
well-delineated and functionally coherent group of employees, and
that it has some objective support over and above the petitioning
union's momentary preference. Where the unit sought has not met
such prerequisites, petitions have been dismissed, despite the limited
extent of organization.4
The unit requested herein, in my opinion, is not now sufficiently
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining to warrant ac-
ceding to the Petitioner's request, which is strikingly inconsistent
with that presented in the 1944 and 1945 proceedings. There the Peti-
tioner asked for all employees in one plant; today it seeks some em-
ployees in both. On this record, the inconsistency is so great as to
open the Petitioner to the charge of "gerrymandering" which the
Board majority thought inapplicable to the Garden State situation.
Moreover, the substantial independence of the knitting operations
in the Monroe Road and Brevard Street plants, as evidenced by their
geographic separation, the division of immediate supervision over the
knitting operations, the absence of interchange between the knitting
employees in the two plants, and the transfer of goods back and forth
from one plant to the other, clearly reveals such a lack of integration
and cohesiveness as should preclude our finding appropriate a unit in-
clusive of, but limited to, the knitting operations at both plants. To
find otherwise would require carrying of the extent-of-organization
principle to a point at which, in my opinion, the policies of the Act
1 56 N. L . It. B. 1250.
2 64 N. L. It. B. 1520.
3 Matter of Garden State Hosiery Co . ( 2-R-6859 ), 74 N. L. It. B. 318.
4 Matter of Paulus Bros . Packing Co , 62 N. L . R B. 1171, Matter of Saks and Company,
68 N. L . It. B. 413; Matter of Voss Brothers Manufacturing Company, 62 N. L. It. B. 915;
Matter of Greyhound Terminal of Detroit, 66 N. L. It. B. 1285.
HUDSON HOSIERY COMPANY 253
would not be effectuated.' The question is one of fact in every case.
It follows that while I disagree with Mr. Reynolds' position that the
extent of self-organization is not a factor to be given great weight
in such situations, I am also unable to agree with Mr. Houston's view
that on the facts in this case that weight is sufficient to tip the scales in
the Petitioner's favor. Accordingly, I find that the unit petitioned
for is inappropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining, and
would dismiss the petition herein.
ORDER
Upon the basis of the above findings of facts and the entire record
herein, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders that the
petition for investigation and certification of representatives of the
employees of Hudson Hosiery Company, Charlotte, North Carolina,
filed by the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, CIO, shall be,
and the same hereby is, dismissed.
MR. JAMES J. REYNOLDS, JR., concurring specially :
For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Matter of Garden
State Hosiery Co.,, I agree that the petition herein should be dis-
missed.
MR. JOHN M. HOUSTON, dissenting :
In a number of decisions 7 issued today we have reaffirmed the princi-
ple that the extent of self-organization among employees in a well-de-
fined group, having distinctive functional attributes, is a large factor
in determining whether a unit of such employees may be appropriate.
In those cases, we found elements of distinction which warranted the
utilization of the extent of organization concept, and established units
for collective bargaining in groups of knitters and in a finishing de-
partment of a hosiery mill. In the present case, the Petitioner has
extended its organizational effort to a group of knitting department
employees. These knitters are of the same type as the employees in-
volved in the cases which I have mentioned. They are engaged in typi-
cal knitting department operations, possess the skills associated with
employees engaged in this type of work, have a common over-all super-
vision, and consequently, comprise a well-defined, readily identifiable
group. In such circumstances, I should have thought that we would
have reached the same decision in this case as in the cases to which I
5Cf Matter of Chadbourne Hosiery Mills, Inc. (5-R-2701), 74 N L R B 333; Matter
of Nebel Knitting Company ( 5-R-2699 ), 74 N L. R. B. 310; Matter of Forest City
Knitting Company, 69 N. L. R. B 89
6 74 N L R. B 318.
7 See footnote 5, above.
254 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
have adverted. However, Chairman Herzog has found an obstacle to
1 he application of the extent of organization concept in the geographi-
cal fortuity that the plants in which the knitters work are located 4
miles apart. I do not appreciate the significance of a distinction
necessitating a different decision based upon an element which has little
or nothing to do with any known factor heretofore applied in cases of
this type. I, therefore, must dissent from the conclusion reached by
the Chairman in this case. I would direct an election in the unit sought
by the Petitioner.