Maas Brothers, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 22, 1957

119 N.L.R.B. 568 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

568 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
that the overall unit sought by the Advertising Workers is appropriate
and that the unit sought by Bookbinders and in the Employer's peti-
tion is inappropriate.' We shall therefore dismiss the petitions filed
by the Bookbinders and the Employer.
There remains for consideration the Employer's contention that
the secretaries to the advertising director and to the classified adver-
tising subdepartment manager should be excluded as confidential
employees. As it does not appear that the advertising director or
the classified advertising subdepartment manager formulate, deter-
mine, and effectuate management policy in the field of labor rela-
tions, we find that these secretaries are not confidential employees, and
we shall therefore include them in the unit.,'
We find the following employees at the Employer's Dayton, Ohio,
plant constitute a unit appropriate for purposes of collective bargain-
ing within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act :
All regular and regular part-time office, clerical, sales, billing clerks
and other employees of the billing department, and the retail, national,
classified, service, and art subdepartments including the secretaries to
the advertising director and classified advertising subdepartment man-
ager, but excluding all other employees, professional employees,
guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[The Board dismissed the petitions in Cases Nos. 9-RC-3118 ancl
9-RM-150. ]
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
4 Cf. The Peoria Journal Star, Inc., 117 NLRB 708.
6 The B. F. Goodrich Company, 115 NLRB 722, 724-725.
Maas Brothers, Inc. and Local Union No. 79, International
Brotherhood of Teamsters , Chauffeurs, Warehousemen &
Helpers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner.' Case No. 12-RC-
1014. November 22, 1957
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Norman A. Cole,
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 Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman Leedom and Members Murdock and Jenkins].
1 As amended at the hearing.
119 NLRB No. 69.
MIAAS BROTHERS, INC. 569
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em=
ployees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of
Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a companywide unit of all
truckdrivers and helpers and garage mechanics and helpers employed
in connection with the Employer's retail operations in Tampa, Lake-
land, Sarasota, and St. Petersburg, Florida, or any unit of truck-
drivers found by the Board to be appropriate. As alternatives, the
Petitioner is willing to accept a companywide unit composed of all
truckdrivers and helpers, determined as a whole or on the basis of a
globe election, conducted at Tampa, St.-Petersburg, Lakeland, and
Sarasota or a unit of all truckdrivers and helpers employed by the
'Company at its Tampa operation, excluding all others, or a unit of
all truckdrivers and helpers employed at the Gandy Store for Homes
in the Tampa area. The Employer contends that the companywide
unit sought by the Union is inappropriate, both in scope and in com-
position and that any other unit is also inappropriate. The Employer
urges that the petition be dismissed because the alternatives are so
varied as to make the unit requested vague.
(a) Scope of the unit: The Employer is a Florida corporation
which operates 6 retail stores and associated service facilities within a
55-mile radius of Tampa. In its brief to the Board, the Employer
urges that the scope of any unit found appropriate be confined to the
Tampa area, asserting that the determinative factors of administrative
or personnel integration or interest, centralization of labor relations,
or other similar factors justifying a multistore unit are lacking.
All heavy delivery equipment for the delivery of furniture, major
appliances, and TV's is based in Tampa and operates out of the Gandy
Store for Homes, a combined selling, storage, and service facility.
Except for special deliveries, the drivers and helpers working out of
that store make deliveries for all the other stores. There is an almost
daily shuttle of merchandise among the Tampa and other area stores.
Display materials which are commonly used by all facilities are also
transported from one location to another. There is, however, a sharply
drawn line of supervisory authority among locations and a Tampa
area driver, given instructions to pick up or deliver at an outside
Tampa area location, cannot accept orders or directions from super-
visors at other locations.
Personnel administration of the three stores in the Tampa area is
directly under the general personnel director who has offices in the
main store. His authority with respect to the stores outside Tampa
570 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
is limited to the executive training program. All six stores are under
the administrative supervision of a managing director and the Em-
ployer's policies are formulated by an overall management committee.
The store managers at Lakeland, Sarasota, and St. Petersburg do their
own hiring, and there is little transfer among the stores other than
by executive trainees. Wage rates and fringe benefits in the outlying
area stores are based upon the prevailing rates and practices in the
local community and may differ from those in the Tampa area which
are uniform throughout that area . However, the Employer concedes
that the local managers participate in frequent periodic overall man-
agement conferences and operate. and establish local policies, e. g.,
wage differentials only within the general scope, limitations, and re-
quirements established by the overall management committee of which
they are members.
In Robert Hall Clothes, Inc., 118 NLRB 1096, the Board held that
"in cases involving chains of retail stores, . . . absent unusual cir-
cumstances, the appropriate bargaining unit should embrace em-
ployees of all stores located within an employer's administrative
division or geographical area." The Petitioner seeks to combine
employees performing similar functions and coming into frequent
contact with each other.' There is no evidence of any history of col-
lective bargaining which, precludes giving effect to the fact that
through the overall management committee the Employer has effec-
tively centralized its policy formulations with respect to labor rela-
tions.' There are no unusual circumstances in this case. We therefore
find no reason for departing from Robert Hall Clothes, Inc.,
and conclude that the appropriate bargaining unit should be
companywide.4
(b) Composition of the unit: The Petitioner seeks a unit of all
truckdrivers and their helpers who regularly and primarily drive
or assist the drivers in the operation of trucks which are primarily
engaged in the delivery of merchandise to customers or the transpor-
tation of such merchandise between the Employer's stores or between
its warehouses and stores or other points.
The drivers and helpers working in and out of the Tampa area
facilities include furniture delivery, major appliance delivery, tele-
2 In excluding from the unit other similarly situated employees , the Board has frequently
emphasized the fact that no union seeks their inclusion . See, e. g., Foremost Dairies, Inc.,
118 NLRB 1424; Harvey Lumber & Supply Co., 118 NLRB 737:
3 The Employer 's reliance on Continental Baking Company, 99 NLRB 777, 784-785, and
American Stores Company, 82 NLRB 882, 883 is misplaced . Both determinations gave
effect to long histories of collective bargaining on a local area basis contrary to admini-
strative areas within the Employer 's organization.
4 The statement in Maas Brothers, Inc., 116 NLRB 1886 at 1887 that the stores in Lake-
land, Sarasota , and St. Petersburg "are not in the same administrative line" as the Tampa
area stores is not dispositive here. In that case , the Board made no finding concerning
the scope of an optimum bargaining unit.
MAAS BROTHERS, INC. 571
vision delivery, package delivery, package shuttle, freight shuttle,
merchandise shuttle, and mail shuttle drivers. The drivers working
out of or at the Employer's facilities at Lakeland, Sarasota., and St.
Petersburg consist solely of package delivery and shuttle drivers.
Of these, the furniture delivery, major appliance delivery, and tele-
vision delivery drivers have regularly assigned helpers. The Peti-
tioner would also include a bakery driver and either exclude or include
two garage mechanics and their helpers who service and maintain
the Tampa area trucks. It would exclude other employees who drive
company vehicles on the ground that their driving is merely incidental
to their primary functions which are unrelated to transportation.
Thus, it would exclude porters who transport company fixtures, such
as display props, and the trash driver on the ground that their func-
tions are primarily custodial ; the servicemen-drapery installers, carpet
installers, installation service mechanics, and furniture repairmen on
the ground that their driving is incidental to the performance of
their primary function of service or installation; the credit depart-
ment collectors, who take repossession of such items as television
sets, on the ground that they are primarily collectors.
The furniture delivery drivers, major appliance drivers, and tele-
vision drivers and their helpers complete the delivery of their items
to the customer. They assemble beds, affix mirrors to dressers, affix
voltage pigtails to kitchen ranges, and hook up TV aerials as the
situation and the customer demand. The package shuttle, freight
shuttle drivers, and the bakery driver have no customer contacts.
Package delivery drivers work directly from the stores or from a
warehouse. Even at Gandy Store For Homes warehouse, various
drivers report to different supervisors.
The Employer acknowledges that the unit is, if the garage me-
chanics and helpers are excluded, based on the Board's recent deci-
sion involving a Miami, Florida, Sears Roebuck and Co. store (118
NLRB 277). In that case, the Board found appropriate a unit of
truckdrivers and helpers, from which it excluded those employees
who drove trucks incidental to their normal work. The Employer
would distinguish that case from this on the grounds that the driv-
ers involved herein (1) lack common supervision; (2) do not con-
stitute a distinct departmental group; and (3) perform disparate
functions depending upon whether they have direct contact with
customers, and are required to perform other tasks.
It further urges that weight be given to the Board's previous
holdings that its operations are too integrated and interrelated to
permit the establishment of separate units of employee groups unless
572 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
they constitute a craft group, professional employees, or departments
having a craft nucleus or composed of employees performing distinc-
tive functions.' The Employer further argues that the Petitioner's
request for alternative units render any unit request uncertain and
demonstrates the correctness of its position that the only basis for
any request is extent of organization.6
We find no merit to these contentions. Here, as in Sears Roebuck
and Co., the truckdrivers and helpers constitute an identifiable
group; there is no history of collective bargaining to the contrary;'
and no union is seeking a storewide unit. The fact that the truck-
drivers and helpers lack common supervision-the sole ground on
which the Sears Roebuck and Co. case can on its facts be distin-
guished-is not determinative. It is a common factor to most multi-
plant determinations, and clearly irrelevant to a finding based on
homogeneity through common functions.8 We find that those serv-
icemen and other employees who drive trucks incidental to their
normal work are not appropriately part of the truckdrivers' unit.9
Because the garage mechanics and their helpers have the primary
duty of maintaining and servicing the trucks of the Employer, their
functions are different from those of the drivers and we shall exclude
them from the unit.10
We find that the following employees of the Employer constitute
a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within
the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act:
All truckdrivers and their helpers employed by the Employer,
including the bakery driver, at its Tampa area, Lakeland, Sarasota,
and St. Petersburg, Florida, facilities, excluding servicemen, all
other employees, office clerical employees, professional employees,
guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
5 The Board's prior determination that a broader unit was appropriate ( Maas Brothers,
Inc., 88 NLRB 129) is not controlling . Unlike units covering employees engaged in various
unrelated functions (New York Shipping Association, Inc., 116 NLRB 1183, 1186) or some
portion thereof , truckdrivers engaged in transportation functions do constitute a homo-
geneous group of the sort that the Board has traditionally held to constitute an ap-
propriate unit . See cases cited at footnote 3 of Sears Roebuck and Co., 118 NLRB 277.
8 For the reason given in footnote 5, we need not at this time consider , as the Employer
urges us to do, whether the Initial determinations that truckdriver units were appropriate
were based solely on extent of organization . Barker Bros . Corporation , 48 NLRB 259,
261, does not control this decision.
7 There is some history supporting an exclusion of a unit of truckdrivers from a unit of
all selling and nonselling employees. See Maas Brothers, Inc., 88 NLRB 129, at foot-
note 3.
8 See Robert Hall Clothes, Inc., supra; Helms Motor Express , Inc., 107 NLRB 132, 134.
9 Including the porters , trash driver , and credit department collectors.
io helms Motor Express , Inc., supra, at 134.