I. Magnin & Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 29, 1957

119 N.L.R.B. 642 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

642 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
attempted to do so. In attempting to arrive at such rationale, it has
created a "roving situs" for the "locus of final authority" and taken
the locus out of the "very room which each employee must have re-
garded as the locus of final authority in the plant," substituting a
person for the place of final authority. Whatever validity there
might have been in the original doctrine is lost in the extension which
on its face contradicts the basis of the doctrine."
For the above reasons, I would not set the election aside.
311 make this contention for the sake of argument only. I would not accept a per se
rule even if limited to speeches made in offices.
Bullock 's, Incorporated , d/b/a I . Magnin & Company, a Division
of Bullock's, Incorporated and Retail Shoe & Textile Sales-
men's Union , Local 410, RCIA-AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No.
20-RC-3362. November 29, 1957
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Milen C. Dempster, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated- its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Members Rodgers, Jenkins, and
Bean].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer 1 is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No 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, for the following
reasons:
Petitioner seeks a unit of salespeople in the Employer's shoe depart-
ment. The Employer contends that such a unit is inappropriate and
that the petition should be dismissed.
At its San Francisco, California, store involved herein, the Em-
ployer operates a retail clothing store. Depending upon the season,
it employs between 900 and 1,100 employees, of whom between 265
1 The name of the Employer appears in the caption as amended at the hearing.
119 NLRB No. 86.
I. MAGNIN & COMPANY 643
and 36.5 are salespeople. The store has about 105 departments, 4
of which are devoted to the selling of shoes. Each shoe department
is located on a different floor and a total of 23 salespeople are em-
ployed in the 4 departments. All employees are hired through the
personnel department and, whilea different method of compensation
obtains in the shoe departments, all salespeople work the same number
of hours and enjoy the same benefits. Also, the skills employed by all
the salespeople are of the same general type. The Employer does not
xequire prior experience of all shoe department personnel and em-
ployees from other departments have been assigned to work as shoe
salesmen. Shoe salesmen are not restricted to selling shoes but are
encouraged to make sales of items throughout the store.
About 15 years ago, shoe department employees in the store now op-
erated by the Employer were represented by the Petitioner for a period
of approximately 3 years.2 Since then, none of the employees in the
store has been represented for bargaining purposes. Shoe department
employees in other retail establishments in the San Francisco area
have been represented by the Petitioner on an associationwide basis
for about 20 years. Petitioner's jurisdiction in department stores is
restricted by its parent organization to shoe department employees.
The Board has long regarded a storewide unit of all selling and non-
selling employees as a basically appropriate unit in the retail industry.'
Smaller units of retail clothing store employees are appropriate
when comprised of craft or professional employees or where depart-
ments composed of employees having a mutuality of interests not
shared by other store employees are involved 4 As appears from the
above, however, the record herein fails to establish any craft or pro-
fessional skills or status among the shoe salesmen and it does not
show that the skills, duties, interests, and conditions of employment of
those employees are sufficiently different from those of other employees
to warrant their establishment in a separate unit on any other basis.'
In these circumstances, the bargaining history described above cannot
justify a Board determination that the Employer's shoe department
employees constitute an appropriate unit. We shall, therefore, dismiss
the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
2 For purposes of this decision, we are assuming that the shoe department personnel
were employees of the Employer during this period of time.
3 T. P. Taylor & Company, Inc., et at ., 118 NLRB 376; May Department Stores Com-
pany, Kaufmann Division, 97 NLRB 1007.
4 May Department Stores Company, Kaufmann Division, supra; Foreman & Clark, Inc.,
95 NLRB 1504.
5 Cf. Pomeroy's, Inc., 76 NLRB 633, and May Department Stores, Kaufmann Division,
supra. To the extent that our decision herein is inconsistent with the Board's prior
holding in The May Department Stores Co., 39 NLRB 471, 477, that shoe salesmen may
constitute a separate bargaining unit, that case is hereby overruled.