Maryland Cup Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 13, 1968

171 N.L.R.B. 367 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

MARYLAND CUP CORPORATION 367
Maryland Cup Corporation and International Union
of District 50, United Mine Workers of America,
Petitioner . Case 5-RC-6101
May 13, 1968
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND BROWN
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before August A. Denhard, Jr.,
Hearing Officer. Following the hearing and pur-
suant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations and State-
ments of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, and by
direction of the Regional Director for Region 5,
this case was transferred to the National Labor
Relations Board for decision. Both the Employer
and the Petitioner filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional 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 no prejudicial
error. The rulings 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. A question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of certain employees of
the Employer within the meaning of Sections
9(c)(1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The appropriate unit.
The Employer manufactures various types and
sizes of disposable cups and lids, ice cream cones,
cone jackets, drinking straws, matches, and the
machinery for producing these items. It has a sub-
stantial number of wholly owned corporate sub-
sidiaries located in various States throughout the
United States as well as a number of affiliated cor-
porations. Among the former, operating as divisions
at the facilities considered herein, are Maryland
Baking Company, Maryland Paper Products Com-
pany, and Universal Machine Co., Inc.' The Em-
ployer's corporate headquarters and principal of-
fices, as well as its main plant, are located in the
suburban Reisterstown Road area of Baltimore,
Maryland, known as Owings Mills. The Employer
utilizes a centralized system of accounting, payroll,
purchasing, traffic control, sales, product promo-
tion, production planning, inventory control, and
general administrative and personnel functions, all
of which are located at Owings Mills.
All of the Maryland operating facilities are
located in and around Baltimore. The Owings Mills
plant employs approximately 1,000 production and
maintenance workers. The other facilities located
in Baltimore, between 12 and 15 miles from Owings
Mills, are the Hilgartner warehouse, which has an
unspecified number of warehouse employees; the
Eutaw Street plant, about 2 blocks from the
warehouse, which has approximately 700 produc-
tion and maintenance employees; and the High
Street plant 2 miles from the Eutaw Street plant,
which has an employee complement of approxi-
mately 300. A general manager of Maryland opera-
tions is located at Owings Mills, and so are
managers of the specific functions such as manufac-
turing, industrial relations, traffic, production
planning, and sales.
The Petitioner seeks a unit of the production and
maintenance employees at the Employer's High
Street plant with certain exclusions hereinafter
noted. The Employer, asserting centralized control,
integration of production process, and interchange
of employees among all Maryland facilities, con-
tends that only a single unit encompassing all
operations in the Baltimore metropolitan area is ap-
propriate. In support of its unit request, the Peti-
tioner relies on the absence of a bargaining history,'
the separate location and substantial autonomy of
the High Street plant, the absence of integration of
operations especially in the manufacture of the
High Street product, and the lack of any significant
rank-and-file employee interchange.
At the High Street plant, the Employer manufac-
tures only cups. The lids for these cups are manu-
factured at Owings Mills. Much of the packaging is
done at High Street, but some is done at Owings
Mills. Packaged products are stored at the Hil-
gartner warehouse or the Owings Mills plant, at
which customers' orders are coordinated and from
which all products made in Maryland are shipped.
Although one plant manager divides his services
between the Eutaw Street and High Street plants, at
' The parties agree that for purposes of this proceeding all such entities facilities does not establish a bargaining history, those elections did result
as are involved constitute a single employer herein called Maryland Cup in collective bargaining Nor does the scope of the units established in bar-
s Contrary to the contention of the Employer, the fact that elections have gaining for the Employer's plants in Illinois and California determine the
been conducted in stipulated multiplant units involving some of these scope of the unit required for the Maryland plants
171 NLRB No. 71
368 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
each plant there are shift foremen, subforemen, and
"leaders"3 whose authority and working knowledge
of the plant functions are complete, assuring the
uninterrupted functioning of each plant without the
manager's presence and direct supervision. A per-
sonnel officer is located at the High Street plant
where applicants for employment may apply and be
accepted. As the manufacture of cups, as well as
the printing work and machinery used in these
operations, is common to all three Baltimore plants,
the classifications of employees at High Street are
identical or substantially similar to those of many
employees at the other two plants who perform
comparable job functions. Seniority for all purposes
is companywide, and wages and fringe benefits are
identical within job classifications for the plants
located in Maryland. Crews of machinery
mechanics and electrical repairmen service all
plants in the Baltimore area. With respect to in-
terchange of individuals among the plants, the
record discloses that the bulk of such exchanges oc-
curs on the executive and supervisory level. Calcu-
lated over the period of the last 4 years, there was
an average of only 13 temporary transfers a year
among over 2,000 rank-and-file employees in the
three plants. The record further discloses that, of
the total of temporary transfers, 29 occurred after
the petition herein was filed, with 20 of these made
during the course of the hearing, apparently as a
result of an emergency occasioned by a fire at the
High Street plant.
The Board has held that a single-plant unit is pre-
sumptively appropriate where there is no bargain-
ing history in a more comprehensive unit and no
functional integration with the operations of other
facilities in a degree sufficient to obliterate separate
plant identity.' In all the circumstances in this case,
we find that, although the work functions of the
High Street plant are parallel to some of those at
Eutaw Street and Owings Mills, nevertheless on a
day-to-day basis the High Street plant functions
with a substantial degree of autonomy under
separate immediate supervision. On this record we
cannot conclude that the production process of the
Maryland plants is so functionally integrated as to
destroy the separate identity of the High Street
plant operation.' We have also taken into account
other factors present in this case, such as the
degree of centralized managerial control, the
The parties agree that all except the leaders, discussed infra, are super-
visors
' See Worthington Corp , 155 NLRB 59, 61, and cases cited therein, and
Morey La Rue Supply, et al , 165 NLRB 148 Also see the extensive analysis
in Haag Drug Company, Inc, 169 NLRB 877
The fact that Owings Mills orders and supplies High Street with raw
materials, and makes a product (lids) which complements the High Street
product, does not, in our opinion, detract from this finding
amount of employee interchange, and the use of
traveling machinery mechanics and electrical
repairmen crews. But we do not find them suffi-
cient to alter the separate identity and community
of interest that exist among High Street employees
or to rebut the presumptive appropriateness of a
unit of the High Street employees. For the forego-
ing reasons, and particularly in view of the absence
of a bargaining history, the separate location of the
plant sought, the autonomous daily operations at
the High Street plant, the lack of substantial em-
ployee interchange, and the homogeneous
character and separate identity of the High Street
employee group, we find that production and main-
tenance employees at the Employer's High Street,
Baltimore, Maryland, plant constitute a separate
appropriate unit,' and we shall direct an election
therein.
With respect to this unit, the Employer would in-
clude, and the Petitioner would exclude, the follow-
ing classifications of employees.
The production record clerks spend 99 percent of
their time in the production area compiling produc-
tion records and machine efficiency records. The
inventory clerks spend virtually all of their time in
the shipping and production areas, compiling
records of raw materials and completed products
Both work the same hours as the production em-
ployees, have the same pay range, receive the same
benefits, and report to a production supervisor. We
find that the production record clerks and invento-
ry clerks are plant clericals whose duties and in-
terests are most closely allied with those of the
production and maintenance employees, and shall
include them in the unit found appropriate.
Record testimony indicates that the duties and
functions of working leaders and maintenance
mechanic leaders are virtually identical. They work
the same hours, enjoy the same plant privileges,
dress the same, and share the same facilities as all
other production and maintenance employees.
They are generally the most highly skilled or highly
experienced men, and receive from 10 to 20 cents
per hour more than the next highest paid men in
their respective groups. They are engaged 90 per-
cent of their time in actual work performance, as
distinguished from leadership duties. Although they
act as a conduit for orders from the shift foremen,
they have no authority to hire, fire, transfer,
'' As the Board has repeatedly stated, the fact that a different, or even a
larger, unit may also he appropriate is not controlling if the smaller unit
sought also constitutes an appropriate one As we have found that High
Street is an appropriate unit, we also find no merit in the Employer 's argu-
ment that, as the Union was engaged in active organizational efforts at its
Owings Mills plant at the same time it was organizing the High Street plant,
we are precluded for that reason from finding High Street an appropriate
unit
MARYLAND CUP CORPORATION 369
discipline, or grant time off, or to make any recom-
mendation regarding those matters . The record also
shows that in the course of their work they do not
exercise the type of independent judgment or
responsible direction of the work of other em-
ployees that would indicate supervisory authority.
We find, contrary to the Petitioner 's contentions,
that the working leaders and maintenance
mechanic leaders are not supervisors , and shall in-
clude them in the unit found appropriate.'
The Petitioner objects to the inclusion of drafts-
men, contending they are technical employees.
The record reveals that , while the Employer does
not require specific or special degrees of formal
training , it does generally require a working
knowledge of mechanical drafting techniques. The
draftsmen work under the immediate supervision of
a professional engineer and the overall supervision
of the manager of manufacturing . They are located
in a separate area , designated as the drafting area,
and spend their time in detailing parts and machin-
ery for blueprints or drawings . Although the Em-
ployer's personnel director testified that in his
opinion the draftsmen's work was routine, he also
testified that they are expected to take rough drafts
from the professional engineers and supply the
detailed draftsmen's specifications required. We
find that the draftsmen here, particularly in view of
their specialized training and functions, and their
separate location and separate supervision, do not
share a sufficiently close community of interest
with the production and maintenance employees to
dictate their inclusion in the unit found ap-
propriate."
Accordingly, we find that the following em-
ployees constitute a unit appropriate for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9(b) of the Act:
All production and maintenance employees, in-
cluding production record clerks, inventory clerks,
working leaders, and maintenance mechanic
leaders, and all truckdrivers, checkers, and helpers
employed by the Employer at its 301 N. High
Street, Baltimore, Maryland, location, excluding all
other employees, draftsmen, office clerical em-
ployees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
[Direction of Election9 omitted from publica-
tion.]
' The classification of maintenance ,nechantc seniors no longer exists in
any of the Employer's plants, and no evidence was taken as to the duties
this classification may have entailed at any former time Accordingly, we
make no unit placement determination
H The Sheffield Corporation, 134 NLRB 1101, 1103-04
' An election eligibility list , containing the names and addresses of all the
eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director
for Region 5 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and Direction of
Election The Regional Director shall make the list available to all parties
to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be granted by the
Regional Director except in extraordinary circumstances Failure to
comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election
whenever proper objections are filed Excelsior Undern ear Inc , 156 NLRB
1236