Jordan Marsh Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 19, 1969

174 N.L.R.B. 1265 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

JORDAN MARSH COMPANY 1265
Jordan Marsh Company and Bakery Drivers and
Helpers, Local Union 494, affiliated with the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of
America,' Petitioner . Case I-RC-10102
March 19, 1969
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
BROWN AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Frederick
C. Cohen. Thereafter, pursuant to Section 102.67 of
the National Labor Relations Board Rules and
Regulations 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,
Petitioner, and the Intervenor.'
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 panei
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 organizations involved claim to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. Petitioner seeks a unit confined to the
approximately 30 bakery production employees at
the Employer's main department store in Boston,
Massachusetts It contends that these production
workers constitute a traditional bargaining unit of
employees associated with the bakers' trade, and
that, although purportedly included in a storewide
unit which the Intervenor has represented for about
23 years, they were in fact abandoned or neglected
by the Intervenor for the several years preceding the
organizational efforts leading to this proceeding.
The Employer and the Intervenor allege that none
of the requested bakery production workers
exercises the kind or range of skills normally
associated with employees whom the Board defines
as members of the bakers' trade, that these workers
are but a segment of a larger departmental group;
that they have in fact been continuously bargained
for as part of the larger storewide unit of selling and
nonselling employees; and that there is no
justification for according to these employees a
separate right of representation under any theory.'
The Employer's main department store is located
in downtown Boston. It there conducts its business
in two buildings a main building and an annex
located across the street. The Employer also has
several branch stores in other areas in or near
Boston The total complement at the main store
exceeds 1,600 employees
The Employer applies common employment
procedures throughout its operations All employees
are subject to uniform work rules and are governed
by uniform labor policies. Accounting and payroll
functions are centralized and all employees are paid
on an hourly basis.
As indicated above, the requested unit embraces
about 30 employees. These employees are variously
assigned to jobs classified as baker, first class;
baker, second class; decorator; decorator-trainee;
bakery packer; general helper, and baker ovenman.
They are supervised by the head of the bakery
department. As a group, these employees produce
the limited number of baked goods items offered by
the Employer for sale as part of its store operations.
These items customarily include cakes, pies, and
blueberry and other fruit muffins, and, once a year
only, a special Irish bread. The blueberry muffins
constitute more than 50 percent of the day-to-day
bakery items produced. Most of these goods are
produced in the bakery production area located on
the third floor of a nine-floor store annex located
across the street from the Employer's main
department store in Boston. A few items - mainly
pot pies - are produced in a kitchen adjoining the
employee cafeteria on the ninth floor of the annex,
where they are. baked in new and experimental
ovens. These ovens are also used by the kitchen
employees who work in that area.
Most of the above-described bakery products are
sold by the Employer to store customers at a bakery
counter located on the first floor of the main store
annex. Some are also sold at similar retail bakery
counters in other branch stores in the Boston area,
and some are also sold at the customer restaurant
and employee cafeteria facilities maintained by the
Employer at its main and branch stores. The sales
employees approximately 30 in number - who
staff the main store annex bakery counter are also
part of the bakery department and, like the
requested employees, are supervised by the head of
that department.
In 1945, the Massachusetts Labor Relations
Commission (herein called the Commission)
certified the Intervenor as the representative of a
As amended at the hearing
'Retail Store Employees Union, Local 1291, Retail Clerks International
Association , AFL-CIO, was permitted to intervene on the basis of its
contractual interest
'Contrary to the Petitioner , Intervenor and the Employer also assert that
a currently effective contract for the storewide unit operates as a bar to the
petition In view of our disposition of the case on other grounds, we need
not and do not decide the merits of the contract - bar contentions
174 NLRB No. 187
1266 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
storewide unit of the selling and nonselling
employees at the Employer's main store operation,
following an election in that unit. Contrary to
Petitioner's contention, the record shows, and we
find, that the bakery department employees have
been continuously bargained for as part of that unit.
Thus, it is undisputed that the Commission's
description of those departmental groups eligible to
vote in the election explicitly included the bakery
department employees. The bakery department
employees have always been accorded the benefits
and increased rates provided for in all contracts that
have been negotiated by the Intervenor for the unit.
The most recent contract specifically includes
revised job classifications for bakery department
employees designed to more accurately reflect their
current duties There is no evidence that Intervenor
has failed or refused to handle any grievances for
these employees or that it has ever discriminated
against their interests in bargaining.4
We find little in the foregoing facts to justify
according to the requested bakery production
employees a right to be represented apart from all
other employees. Contrary to Petitioner's
contention, the work performed by these in-store
bakers does not appear to require the exercise of the
gamut of skills usually associated with the bakers'
trade.' Moreover, the requested employees are but a
segment of a commonly supervised departmental
group. Finally, even assuming that the requested
employees constitute an identifiable group with
some interests different fiom those of other
employees, we believe that the factors favoring the
continued appropriateness of the historical overall
unit for purposes of collective bargaining, outweigh
(those tending to support the possible severance of
the separate unit here requested. The historical
bargaining relationship in the overall unit has
produced stability. Its disruption may well prejudice
the interests of the remaining unit employees, as
well as the interest of the Employer, in the
maintenance of what has proved to be a sound
bargaining relationship Balancing all these
considerations against the interest sought to be
asserted by the Petitioner on behalf of the requested
employees, we find no adequate justification in this
record for resolving the unit issue here presented in
favor of the Petitioner.6
In view of all the foregoing, and the record as a
whole, we are impelled to the conclusion that a unit
confined to the bakery production employees of the
Employer is not appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining. We shall therefore dismiss the
petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
'Contrary to the Petitioner ' s suggestion, the historical status of the
bakery department employees as members of the overall unit is not, in our
view, altered by the fact that currently employed bakery department
employees are not members of the Intervenor , and, despite the existence of
union-shop provisions in the contracts , may not have tendered or paid
dues
'Cf Safeway Stores , Inc, 137 NLRB 1741 Rich's Inc, 147 NLRB 163,
on which Petitioner relies , is distinguishable The bakers there involved
produced approximately 235 separate items , were separately supervised,
and otherwise functioned like a wholesale bakery
'Fernandez Super Markets , Inc, 171 NLRB No 52 See also
Mallinckrodr Chemical Works , Uranium Division, 162 NLRB 387, and
related cases