Ore-Ida Foods

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 31, 1994

313 N.L.R.B. 1016 (N.L.R.B. 1994)

1016
313 NLRB No. 178
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
1 The Employer has stipulated to the Petitioner’s status as a labor
organization.
Ore-Ida Foods, Inc. and United Food & Commer-
cial Workers Union, Local 73A, AFL–CIO–
CLC, Petitioner. Case 30–RC–5484
March 31, 1994
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY MEMBERS STEPHENS, DEVANEY, AND
BROWNING
Upon a petition filed under Section 9(c) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held on var-
ious dates in June and July 1993 before a duly des-
ignated hearing officer of the National Labor Relations
Board. On August 6, 1993, pursuant to Section
102.67(h) of the Board’s Rules and Regulations, this
case was transferred to the National Labor Relations
Board for decision.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated
its authority in this proceeding to a three-member
panel.
Having carefully reviewed the entire record in this
proceeding including the posthearing briefs filed by the
Employer and the Petitioner in support of their respec-
tive positions, the Board makes the following findings.
1. The Board has reviewed the rulings of the hearing
officer made at the hearing and finds that they are free
from prejudicial error. They are affirmed.
2. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the purposes
of the Act to assert jurisdiction.
3. The labor organization involved claims to rep-
resent certain employees of the Employer.1
4. A question affecting commerce exists concerning
the representation of certain employees of the Em-
ployer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Sec-
tion 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
5. Ore-Ida Foods, Inc. (the Employer) is a Delaware
corporation engaged in the processing and sale of po-
tato products. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit
of all regularly scheduled full-time and part-time main-
tenance employees at the Employer’s Plover, Wiscon-
sin factory, excluding all production, professional and
office clerical employees, fieldmen, guards, and super-
visors as defined in the Act. The Employer takes the
position that a maintenance only unit is inappropriate
and that an appropriate unit must include both produc-
tion and maintenance employees.
Organizational Structure and Operations
The Employer’s Plover factory is part of the Ore-Ida
Vegetable Group, one of several food production
groups owned by the Employer, which also includes
two other potato processing factories located in Oregon
and Idaho. The Plover factory processes raw potatoes
into over 60 different kinds of packaged food products
for sale both to the general public and to restaurants
and institutional food providers. The Employer em-
ploys approximately 838 employees at the Plover fac-
tory of whom about 751 are hourly production employ-
ees and approximately 69 are maintenance employees.
The Plover factory has three processing areas, or
production lines: the ‘‘P-I’’ and ‘‘P-II’’ lines which
produce a variety of frozen fried potatoes and the ‘‘P-
III/Celestial’’ line, which produces packaged frozen
baked potatoes.
The P-I and P-II production lines begin operation
when the Employer’s field operations deliver potatoes
to the initial processing area in the south end of the
factory. The potatoes are then sorted and sized for
processing and conveyed by water through tubes to the
main factory area, where they are once again sorted
and then trimmed. At this point, they are moved to
cutting operations where a cutter machine cuts the po-
tato to the size specifications of the particular Ore-Ida
product in production that day. The P-I and P-II pro-
duction lines switch from product to product depend-
ing on the Employer’s needs. After cutting, the pota-
toes are blanched and then fried. The final processing
step is freezing the potatoes by conveying them
through freezer tunnels. The product then moves to a
packaging line to be packaged and then stored in a
warehouse. The warehouse is operated by a separate
employer.
The Employer’s third production line, the P-
III/Celestial, operates in a similar fashion except that
the production process bakes potatoes instead of cut-
ting and frying them. This operation essentially re-
moves the interior ‘‘meat’’ for seasoning and then
stuffs the seasoned potato back into the potato skin.
The potato is then frozen, packaged, and stored as in
the P-I and P-II production lines.
Production employees work in three 8-hour shifts,
day, swing, and graveyard. The employees operating
the processing machinery start at 7 a.m., 3 p.m., and
11 p.m.; the shifts for employees operating the packag-
ing machinery begin 1 hour later.
The technology support department is composed of
various functions which support the production lines:
quality assurance, maintenance, field, sanitation, dry
storage, and stockroom/MRO. The maintenance em-
ployees are divided into four groups. Three of these
groups have work hours which correspond to the three
production shifts for processing employees. The fourth
group, the utility group, maintains the factory structure
and its nonproduction equipment.
Each maintenance worker in all four groups special-
izes in a specific skill area: electronics technicians,
electricians, mechanics, boiler and refrigeration opera-
tors, mobile equipment mechanics, service mechanics,
1017ORE-IDA FOODS
and machinists. Boiler and refrigeration employees op-
erate boilers, refrigeration compressors, freezer tunnels,
air compressors, air compressor filters and dryers, and
condensers. They also maintain this equipment.
The maintenance employees assigned to one of the
three shift groups (as opposed to the utility group)
spend their time, according to their positions, respond-
ing to requests for assistance on the factory floor, per-
forming preventive maintenance checklists, and com-
pleting repairs and documentation in their assigned
bench areas or shops. The bench areas are located in
the factory building, but apart from the production
lines. Maintenance employees are on call during their
shift to exercise their skills in their area of specialty
throughout the factory.
Dennis Swearingen, the manager of the technical
support department, estimated that, in all, the mainte-
nance department workload in the three shift groups
consists of 25–35 percent responding to work orders,
which are requests for repairs by production employ-
ees; 15–20 percent on preventive maintenance (such as
replacing machine parts or lubricating machines ac-
cording to a computerized timetable); and the (approxi-
mately) remaining 50 percent on ‘‘line walking,’’ (re-
sponding to machinery breakdowns and other imme-
diate problems or simply making visual inspections of
the production machinery in order to spot developing
problems).
Later in his testimony, Swearingen gave specific
time breakdowns for the various skills. He estimated
that electronics technicians spend 50–70 percent work-
ing in production areas, responding to work orders, and
performing preventive maintenance. The remainder of
their time is spent on repair and documentation in their
assigned bench area. Electricians spend 60–70 percent
of the workday in the plant, making electrical repairs
to the production machinery or to the electrical circuits
controlling the factory’s lighting and machinery. Their
bench work consists of repairing electric motors and
gear boxes. Packaging mechanics perform 50–70 per-
cent of their work in the packaging areas, responding
to work orders and following preventive maintenance
schedules. Processing mechanics spend a similar
amount of time in the processing area. The boiler and
refrigeration operators spend 75 percent of their time
operating the controls (located in a separate area on the
main floor) for the boilers and the freezer tunnels. The
rest of their time is spent performing maintenance re-
pairs on the equipment during ‘‘defrost’’ periods, or
downtime.
The fourth maintenance group, the utility group, has
a more varied set of functions than the other three
groups. A utility machinist spends almost all of his
worktime in the machine shop performing lathe work
and milling. The utility electrician performs all elec-
trical maintenance work not related to production lines.
Although he works out of a separate service building
(located to the south of the main building), he spends
75 percent of his time away from that building, per-
forming work in the production facility and other out-
lying buildings. Three mobile equipment mechanics
service all factory mobile equipment, such as forklifts,
trucks, and harvesting equipment. The mobile equip-
ment mechanics spend half of their time in the truck
shop (located in the water-treatment building, which is
south of the main building) and the rest in other areas
of the factory, including the potato loading dock. Eight
service mechanics repair the heavy equipment that
moves and stores the raw potatoes, and they also per-
form building maintenance (with some overlap with
the mobile equipment mechanics). They also divide
their time between the truck shop and the factory
areas.
Wages, Benefits, and Work Rules
All hourly employees at the Plover factory have
common fringe benefits (health and life insurance,
retirement/savings plan, stock purchase plan, and tui-
tion aid) and uniform wage rates and grades and are
subject to the same work rules. Among the hourly fac-
tory employees, however, maintenance workers earn
the highest hourly wage. The Employer’s pay system
is based on a grade system ranging from grade 1,
$8.89 per hour, to grade 10, $14.77 per hour. Edward
Guzik, the Employer’s manager of human resources,
testified that most manufacturing jobs fall within
grades 1–8 and most maintenance jobs in grades 9–10
(the entry grade for a maintenance position is grade 8).
There are only two maintenance jobs below the grade
8 entry level and only one nonmaintenance position in
grade 9.
Various common conditions of employment apply to
all hourly production and support employees: continu-
ous service requirements; hours of work; rest and relief
periods; scheduling of overtime and plant cleanup du-
ties; compensation (including premium pay situations);
holidays; vacation eligibility and pay; attendance
bonus; leaves of absence; attendance and tardiness; re-
calls and layoffs; shift preference; job displacement;
general work rules; safety regulations; sanitation; per-
formance improvement process; and employee griev-
ance procedure. Applicants for all jobs complete the
same application forms and, once hired, use the same
personnel forms for drug and alcohol screening and re-
quests for leave. Maintenance and production employ-
ees also serve together on several committees and
training programs.
Supervision/Discipline
Maintenance employees are separately supervised
from production employees. Each of the four groups of
maintenance employees has a supervisor, who reports
1018 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
2 Certain situations, however, are even beyond the skill of the
maintenance employees, such as tasks involving high voltage or
welding of high pressure containers. In these circumstances, the Em-
ployer hires outside contractors to perform the work.
to the maintenance superintendent, who in turn reports
to the technology support manager. Maintenance super-
visors work from offices located in production work
areas. Production workers are supervised directly by
production ‘‘lead workers’’ or foremen who, in turn,
report to a production supervisor.
Production supervisors, however, give directions to
maintenance employees by requesting them to correct
a malfunction or perform a needed repair on the pro-
duction machinery. For example, production super-
visors inform maintenance employees when to perform
a ‘‘changeover’’ on the production machinery (i.e.,
changing the settings on the machinery in order to
produce another potato product). In addition, produc-
tion supervisors prioritize maintenance work in order
to minimize the effect on production.
The Employer’s employment manual provides for a
system of progressive discipline involving initial warn-
ings, written warnings, suspension, and discharge.
Lead workers initiate discipline for production employ-
ees; supervisors do so for maintenance. A maintenance
supervisor, however, testified that he reported poor
work performance by production employees to produc-
tion supervisors, and on one occasion he received from
a production supervisor a report of infractions by
maintenance employees. In both cases, however, the
maintenance and production supervisors possessed
independent knowledge regarding their employees’ im-
proper work performance.
Skills and Contact
Production workers perform a variety of tasks which
are also performed by maintenance workers. These
tasks include adjustment of chains and belts on the
conveying system and the timing and control of certain
packaging machines; unjamming the automatic case
packers and the air pumps which push the product; and
changing certain parts such as the potato cutter heads,
and springs on the sealing jaws on the polyurethane
machine. Production operators also change electronic
circuit boards, in order to resolve problems quickly, al-
though this task is usually performed by electronic
maintenance employees.
Production employees often assist maintenance em-
ployees in various tasks, mostly by lending an ‘‘extra
hand’’ in lifting equipment. For example, during prod-
uct ‘‘changeovers’’ (when production lines are being
modified), production employees assist maintenance
employees by handing equipment to the maintenance
employees and helping them in lifting parts of the ma-
chinery. Production employees also assist maintenance
employees in adjusting belt tension or in changing
belts.
However, one production worker testified that the
production workers generally do not help maintenance
workers, because they are not supposed to get dirty. A
processing worker testified that she never attempted to
correct machine problems on her own. A processing
maintenance employee testified that ‘‘[it’s] our job to
get greasy and do the hard stuff’’ and that the produc-
tion people mainly assist the maintenance worker by
moving parts out of his way or handing him tools as
he works.
Despite the above-described common tasks and as-
sistance, maintenance employees normally perform
highly skilled tasks which the production operators do
not and cannot perform.2 This skill level differential is
reflected in the fact that maintenance employees are
now required to participate in an apprenticeship pro-
gram. Three years ago, the Employer instituted an ap-
prenticeship program for maintenance employees. In
conjunction with the State of Wisconsin Department of
Labor, Industry and Human Relations, Department of
Apprenticeship Standards, the Employer devised a pro-
gram in which maintenance employees could take
training classes at a local technical college in certain
areas. Newly hired employees are now required to
enter an apprenticeship program. Current maintenance
employees have to enter the program in order to move
from one classification to another. At this time, 23
maintenance employees are currently training as ap-
prentices in the program. Five maintenance employees
have completed the apprenticeship requirements and
are qualified as journeymen. The remaining 41 em-
ployees are not currently in the program, although
Swearingen notes that some of these individuals may
be waiting for a slot in the program.
Interchange and Transfer
Approximately 23 of the current complement of
maintenance employees originally started as production
employees. There is no evidence concerning transfers
from maintenance positions to the lower-paying pro-
duction positions. Although there is a single plant se-
niority list, in practice, current maintenance job open-
ings are posted first within the maintenance depart-
ment. Openings are posted on a plantwide basis only
after all maintenance workers have declined the oppor-
tunity. There is no parallel posting system for produc-
tion employees.
The Employer has a designated number of training
hours for all employees, in both production and sup-
port. This training includes both training to enhance
the employee’s skill in his own job area and ‘‘cross-
training,’’ i.e., training to qualify persons for other job
openings. However, a nonmaintenance employee can
cross-train for a maintenance position only if there is
1019ORE-IDA FOODS
3 The maintenance employees as a group, however, are not craft
employees as that term is normally used by the Board, nor does any
party assert that they possess craft status. There are a number of
Board cases which have emphasized the possession of craft status in
finding a maintenance only unit to be appropriate. See Proctor &
Gamble, 251 NLRB 492, 494 fn. 11 (1980), and cases cited therein.
As indicated above, however, skill level is only one factor to be con-
sidered in determining the appropriateness of a separate maintenance
unit. Moreover, the Board has more recently found unskilled mainte-
nance employees to constitute a separate appropriate unit in service
industries where the employees were separately supervised, pos-
sessed skills unique to their classification, earned the highest hourly
wage, were assigned work under a unique work order system, and
where transfers were infrequent. See, e.g., Maxim’s de Paris Suite
Hotel, 285 NLRB 377 (1987); Omni International Hotel, 283 NLRB
475 (1987). In these cases, a separate unit was found appropriate de-
spite some degree of functional integration.
an opening in the appropriate apprenticeship program
for the maintenance position.
In addition, during shutdown periods when the
maintenance employees perform maintenance work, the
Employer assigns a few production employees to work
temporarily as maintenance assistants, thereby allowing
them to avoid being laid off for the duration of the
shutdown.
Miscellaneous
A few production workers in the packaging areas
wear brown uniforms and some of the processing oper-
ators wear white smocks. All maintenance employees
wear blue uniform shirts. The Employer provides most
employees, both in production and support, with hard
hats as well as any appropriate protective equipment
needed by an employee to perform specialized tasks.
Maintenance employees, because of their repair func-
tion, are more likely to wear safety equipment. For ex-
ample, a processing maintenance employee testified
that he wears steel-toed boots, safety glasses, welding
gloves, and a welding jacket.
Both production and maintenance employees have
the use of common facilities such as plant entrances,
parking lots, lunchrooms, locker rooms, timeclocks,
and restrooms. Furthermore, both line operators and
other production employees obtain items from a stock-
room staffed by stockroom/MRO attendants. In addi-
tion, the Employer issued Plover Employment Manual
applies to all hourly employees.
Analysis
The Employer asserts that a maintenance unit is not
appropriate because the maintenance employees are not
a distinct and homogeneous group of employees with
interests separate from those of production employees.
Furthermore, the maintenance employees share a close
community of interest with the production employees
so as to make a combined production and maintenance
unit the only appropriate unit.
It is Board policy, as set forth in American Cyana-
mid Co., 131 NLRB 909 (1961), to find separate main-
tenance department units appropriate in the absence of
a more comprehensive bargaining history, where the
facts of the case demonstrate that the maintenance em-
ployees involved have the requisite community of in-
terest. In determining whether a sufficient separate
community of interest exists, the Board examines such
factors as mutuality of interests in wages, hours, and
other working conditions; commonality of supervision;
degree of skill and common functions; frequency of
contact and interchange with other employees; and
functional integration. Franklin Mint Corp., 254 NLRB
714, 716 (1981). Contrary to the Employer’s asser-
tions, we find that the manufacturing operations de-
scribed here are not so highly integrated as to destroy
the maintenance employees’ identity as a separate and
distinct function.
The Employer’s maintenance employees are in a
separate departmental section with their own super-
visors. Although production supervisors have ‘‘or-
dered’’ maintenance workers to fix a problem with the
machines, these incidents do not establish common su-
pervision. Instead, they are better characterized merely
as an identification by production personnel of what
repairs are needed to be done by maintenance person-
nel. Although there have been incidents in which pro-
duction supervisors have reported infractions by main-
tenance employees and vice versa, there is no evidence
that production or maintenance supervisors have the
authority to discipline or to effectively recommend dis-
cipline of employees outside their own departments.
The maintenance employees are also highly skilled.
Many classifications are traditional craft positions.3
Moreover, in contrast to production employees, the
Employer requires that new maintenance hires/transfers
or current maintenance employees desirous of pro-
motion enter and complete an appropriate craft appren-
ticeship program. In addition, the maintenance employ-
ees perform most of the Employer’s maintenance
work—both work involving the production machinery
and work on the plant infrastructure. The greater skill
of the maintenance employees is also reflected in the
fact that their wages are clustered at the two highest
wage rates paid by the Employer. In Phillips Products
Co., 234 NLRB 323 (1978), although the maintenance
positions shared wage rates, fringe benefits, and condi-
tions of employment with the production employees,
the Board found a separate maintenance unit to be ap-
propriate because, inter alia, the maintenance positions
commanded the highest wages among the hourly em-
ployee positions.
Although many of the Employer’s maintenance em-
ployees come into contact with production employees
on the production floor, some maintenance employees
have more limited contact. For example, there is very
little contact between the maintenance utility group
1020 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
4 In any event, it is well established that permanent transfers weigh
less heavily than temporary interchange in assessing the community
of interest shared by maintenance and production employees. Frank-
lin Mint Corp., supra, 254 NLRB at 716.
and the production employees, because the utility em-
ployees work out of separate shops and do not perform
repairs on production equipment. Other maintenance
employees, such as boiler and refrigeration operators,
also work in separate areas and thus do not have much
contact with production employees. In fact, all mainte-
nance employees when working in their assigned
bench areas work separate and apart from production
employees. In addition, although production workers
often assist maintenance workers in repairing the ma-
chinery, they do so mainly by ‘‘lending a hand’’ to the
maintenance employees, i.e., handing equipment, lift-
ing machinery, or performing minor tasks. Such work
is unskilled and peripheral to the actual repair work
performed by the maintenance workers. See American
Cyanamid Co., supra at 910. In Phillips Products Co.,
supra at 323, the Board found a unit of maintenance
and repair employees appropriate despite assistance of
this kind and the performance of minor machine main-
tenance by the operators, noting that ‘‘basically the
production employees do not perform skilled mainte-
nance work and the maintenance employees do not en-
gage in production.’’
Finally, while the maintenance employees’ ‘‘line-
walking’’ involves substantial interaction with produc-
tion employees, the Board has found separate mainte-
nance units appropriate despite the presence of such
interaction. Mobay Chemical Corp., 225 NLRB 1159
(1976); Crown Simpson Pulp Co., 163 NLRB 796
(1967). In particular, the Board has noted that sporadic
assistance between the two sets of employees of this
kind reflects ‘‘‘a spirit of cooperation or civility’ rather
than an overlap of job functions.’’ Maxim’s de Paris
Hotel, supra at 378, quoting Omni International Hotel,
283 NLRB 475 (1987).
The differences in jobs and skills are also reflected
in the limited nature of the interchange between pro-
duction and maintenance employees. While 23 of the
maintenance employees originally worked as produc-
tion employees, the Employer’s current apprenticeship
requirement for maintenance positions (especially in
combination with the job posting system for mainte-
nance positions) acts as a strong barrier against perma-
nent transfers from production to maintenance, essen-
tially requiring production employees like new hires to
wait for a slot or to upgrade their skills before allow-
ing them to transfer to maintenance.4 The Employer’s
practice of hiring a few production employees to serve
as maintenance assistants during plant shutdowns is
also insufficient to establish any meaningful temporary
interchange. Not only is this practice unpredictable and
sporadic, but the production employees’ role in the
maintenance process when filling these positions is
merely to perform menial tasks and not to perform any
of the regular maintenance work. Thus, in effect, there
is no temporary interchange between production and
maintenance.
Based on our application of the factors discussed
above to the record evidence in this case, we find that
the Employer’s maintenance employees comprise a
distinct, separate, and cohesive grouping of employees
appropriate for collective-bargaining purposes. The
maintenance work performed by these employees re-
quires a high level of skill in contrast to production
work, which is relatively routine. While this work re-
quires that some maintenance employees have exten-
sive contact with, and, at times the assistance of, the
production employees, this assistance is incidental to
the work regularly performed by the maintenance em-
ployees. See Phillips Products Co., supra, 234 NLRB
at 324, quoting American Cyanamid Co., supra, 131
NLRB at 910. In addition, reflective of the mainte-
nance employees’ greater skill is the fact that there is
virtually no temporary interchange.
Cases relied on by the Employer in which a separate
maintenance unit was found inappropriate are distin-
guishable. For example, in Peterson/Puritan, Inc., 240
NLRB 1051 (1979), the Board found inappropriate a
unit of line mechanics where the mechanics shared
common benefits with the production employees and
worked, exclusively, at their assigned production line
positions. More significantly, the line mechanics were
not highly skilled. They were not required to possess
any previous experience or formal training and their
work consisted of adjusting machines and performing
minor production line repairs. Even more critical was
the fact that the line mechanics constituted only part
of the employer’s maintenance employees; there were
eight additional engineering/maintenance employees
who performed major repairs, installed machinery, and
restructured production lines.
Similarly, in Chromalloy Photographic, 234 NLRB
1046 (1978), the Board found inappropriate a separate
unit of camera repair and maintenance department em-
ployees in the employer’s photography plant. In that
case, the Board relied not only on the high degree of
functional integration in the employer’s operations, but
also on the fact that the skill level of these employees
did not differ greatly from that of other employees—
there was no formal training or apprenticeship pro-
gram—and the functions they performed were also per-
formed to a substantial degree by the employer’s qual-
ity control employees and machine shop employees.
F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Co., 198 NLRB 323
(1972), and U.S. Plywood-Champion Papers, Inc., 174
NLRB 292 (1969), are also distinguishable. In F. & M.
Schaefer, maintenance employees were assigned to lo-
cations throughout the production areas; they possessed
1021ORE-IDA FOODS
little skill and consequently production and mainte-
nance employees performed similar maintenance func-
tions; and when maintenance employees were on the
production floor, they were supervised by production
foremen who not only directed their work but also pos-
sessed disciplinary authority. In U.S. Plywood-Cham-
pion, production and maintenance employees also
worked together performing similar maintenance func-
tions and, in addition, maintenance employees fre-
quently filled in for production employees.
Appropriate Unit
Accordingly, based on the foregoing, we find the
following employees constitute an appropriate unit for
collective bargaining within the meaning of Section
9(b) of the Act:
All regular scheduled full-time and part-time
maintenance employees at Ore-Ida Foods, Inc. at
1701 Highway 54 West, Plover, Wisconsin 54467
excluding all production, professional and office
clerical employees, fieldmen, and seasonal em-
ployees, guards and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
[Direction of Election omitted from publication.]