Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 18, 1948

78 N.L.R.B. 1070 (N.L.R.B. 1948)

In the Matter of MONTGOMERY WARD & COMPANY , INCORPORATED, EDI-
PLOYER ' and GAS AND OIL, BULK PLANT, AUTOMOTIVE SERVICE AND
PARTS, SERVICE STATION . ATTENDANTS , PARKING LOT AND RAMP
DRIVERS, HELPERS AND INSIDE EMPLOYEES LOCAL No. 975, A. F. OF L.
(I. B. T. C. W. & H. A.), PETITIONER
Case No. 18-RC-95.Decided August 18, 1948
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before a hearing of-
ficer of the National Labor Relations Board. 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-man panel consisting of the undersigned Board
Members. *
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in interstate commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No question concerning representation exists concerning the rep-
resentation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning of
Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the follow-
ing reasons :
The Petitioner has requested a unit composed of all filling station
attendants, drivers, greasers, and tire men employed by the Employer
at its filling station and tire store in St. Paul, Minnesota, excluding
.office employees, sales clerks, outside salesmen, and supervisors within
the meaning of the Act. The Employer objects to the unit on the
ground that the employees sought by the Petitioner are an integral
part of its St. Paul retail store, and that an appropriate unit should
include all the employees at the store.
1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing.
* Houston, Murdock , and Gray.
78 N. L. R. B., No. 149.
1070
MONTGOMERY WARD & COMPANY 1071
The Employer, in conjunction with its retail store, operates a service
station store and service station, which are both located in a building
situated approximately 50 feet from the main retail store. All the
employees sought by the Petitioner work at the service station, where
the majority of them are engaged in selling gasoline and oil, greasing
trucks and cars, and changing and repairing tires. The other service
station employees sought by the Petitioner are the tire adjuster, who
inspects tires claimed to be defective, and the two service station truck
drivers, who haul new batteries, tires, and automobile accessories from
the Employer's warehouse to the service station, and, after sale, deliver
them to and install them for the Employer's commercial accounts.
All these employees work under the supervision of the service station
manager, except the tire adjuster, who works under the supervision of
the service station sales manager. The service station sales manager
also has supervision of the sales clerks who work at the service station
store, including the inside sales clerks, who sell accessories, tires, and
batteries to customers at the station, and the outside sales clerks, who
sell to commercial customers away from the station. All the em-
ployees sought by the Petitioner wear overalls at work, whereas the
sales clerks wear street clothes.
While it is not the primary function of the service station employees
sought by the Petitioner to sell accessories, tires, and batteries, they
may do so if, as an incident to servicing a customer's car, they are
asked to make a sale. The cashier who handles the cash for sales made
by both the service station attendants and the inside salesmen works
under the joint supervision of both managers. Although the func-
tions of the service station attendants and the inside salesmen some-
what overlap, the employees are not interchangeable and no transfers
are made from one classification to the other.2
The employees sought by the Petitioner are not craftsmen or highly
skilled employees. While some experience is desirable, it is not re-
.quired, nor is any training provided for prospective service station
attendants.
There is no history of collective bargaining among the employees
involved in this petition 3
2 Although the Employer has cited two examples of transfers of employees from the
service station to the main retail store , these transfers took place several years ago and it is
clear that such transfers occur very infrequently.
2In Matter of Montgomery Ward and Co, Incorporated , 44 N L. R. B. 694, the Board
established, at the Employer 's St Paul retail and mail -order stores , a unit of shipping and
warehouse employees primarily on the basis of the extent of organization ; and a unit of
maintenance employees on the basis that they constituted a distinct craft group. Under
.Section 9 ( c) '(5) of the Act , as amended , extent of organization may no longer be consid-
ered as a controlling factor in unit determinations . As the employees involved in the
instant case are not craftsmen , the above decision has no bearing on the issues in this case.
1072 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The employees of the service station receive the same over-time
vacation and insurance benefits, and work under the same conditions
as do most of the other employees of the retail store .4 All employees
are paid the same basic wage rates according to a store-wide rate
classification schedule, and they are hired by a central personnel de-
partment, which has established uniform seniority and leave-of-
absence regulations. A uniform grievance procedure for the entire
store has been established.
We find that the employees sought by the Petitioner are not a skilled
craft group. Because of the close relationship of their work to that
of the sales clerks at the service station, and the similarity of the wages,
hours, and working conditions of all the Employer's retail store em-
ployees, we find further that the employees sought by the Petitioner
do not constitute a separate appropriate bargaining unit on any other
basis.5 We shall, therefore, dismiss the Petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
4 Both the warehouse and shipping employees and the maintenance employees , repre-
sented by unions in the units established in Matter of Montgomery Ward and Co., Incorpo-
rated, supra , work a 40 -hour week while all the remaining employees work a 42 -hour week.
c See Matter of Pomeroy's Inc, 76 N L R B . 633 ; Matter of Sears Roebuck & Co., 76
N L R. B 167; Matter of Sears Roebuck & Co , 66 N L. R B 285.