Oscar Mayer & Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 8, 1968

172 N.L.R.B. 1471 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

OSCAR MAYER & CO.
Oscar Mayer & Co. and United Brotherhood of Car
penters and Joiners of America , AFL-CIO,' Peti-
tioner and District Local 431 , of the Amalgamated
Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North
America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Cases
3 8-RC-407 and 3 8-RC-415
August 8, 1968
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND ZAGORIA
Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as. amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Office William G.
Stack. Thereafter, the Employer and Petitioner
Meat Cutters filed briefs; Petitioner Carpenters
filed a brief and a supplemental brief; the Employer
filed a brief in reply to the Carpenters supplemental
brief; the Illinois State Building and Construction
Trades Council filed an amicus curiae brief;
and the Company filed a brief in reply to the amicus
brief.
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 these cases to a three-
member panel.
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 af-
firmed.
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
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The Petitioners are labor organizations claim-
ing to represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. Each petition raises a question affecting com-
merce concerning the representation of certain em-
ployees of the Employer within the meaning of Sec-
tion 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Employer opened a new plant in Beard-
stown, Illinois , in May 1967, at which it performs
the function of slaughtering and butchering hogs.
There is no history of representation and bargaining
at the plant, although employees at other plants
operated by the Employer are represented. The
Meat Cutters seeks to represent the employees in a
production and maintenance unit. The Carpenters
The name of the Petitioner in Case 38-RC-407 appears as amended at
the hearing
1471
seeks a unit of "all maintenance mechanics" ex-
cluding "all production employees, including knife
sharpeners, boilerroom employees" and the usual
exclusions. Alternatively, the Carpenters indicates a
willingness to participate in an election in a main-
tenance unit which would include the boilerroom
'employees and the knife sharpeners.
The Beardstown plant is a largely mechanized
operation in which hogs are brought in, stunned,
killed, and dressed, while the carcasses travel
throughout the plant on various conveyor systems.
The Employer has established eight departments in
the plant, and the handling of the live hogs, the car-
casses , and the meat is done by the production em-
ployees in several of these departments. The main-
tenance department, one of the eight departments,
is under the supervision of the plant engineer, and
has two maintenance foremen, one on days, the
other on nights. At the time of the hearing there
were 16 maintenance mechanics, 3 boilerrom em-
ployees, and 3 knife sharpeners in the maintenance
department.
The servicing and repair of the equipment is
done by the maintenance mechanics, who are hired
only after an interview with the plant engineer and
on the basis of their mechanical aptitude and ex-
perience. They perform both electrical main-
tenance and mechanical maintenance work, includ-
ing pipefitting, welding, carpentry, and scale repair.
They have a separate shop which houses some large
tools with which they work; however, approximate-
ly 75 percent of their time is spent in production
areas maintaining and repairing equipment. They
are supervised by maintenance foremen, but may
receive instructions from production supervisors in
case of breakdowns. Those instructions are limited
to requests to discover the cause of the malfunction
and would not include detailed supervision of the
repair, or directions to perform routine or preven-
tive maintenance.
The maintenance mechanics do only main-
tenance work, and the only handling of meat they
do is incidental to unclogging a jammed machine,
or testing a machine which they have repaired.
Other than checking equipment they have repaired,
the maintenance mechanics do not operate any
production equipment, nor do they interchange
with production employees. Production employees
perform no maintenance work other than making
nominal operating adjustments.
There have been no transfers from production
into maintenance jobs up to the time of the hearing,
but such transfers are contemplated eventually.
172 NLRB No. 160
1472 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Such transfers are generally considered promotions
at other plants of the Employer , and a production
employee transferred into maintenance receives ex-
tensive on-the -job training before he is considered a
full-fledged mechanic . The plant engineer testified
that as much as 4 years' experience will be necessa-
ry to train a new maintenance employee to handle
all the maintenance jobs in the plant. At the present
time many extensive repairs are done by the manu-
facturers of the equipment under warranties, but as
the equipment ages and the warranties lapse main-
tenance mechanics will be expected to perform
more extensive repairs than is presently the case.
The boilerroom employees operate and maintain
the heating, cooling , refrigeration , and other utility
equipment in the plant . They spend about half of
their time in the boilerroom, and half in other areas
of the plant , monitoring or repairing the equipment
for which they are responsible.
The mechanics and the boilerroom employees
are the only employees personally interviewed by
the plant engineer before hiring . At the time of
their hiring they were the highest paid hourly em-
ployees, and they have maintained that position.
They are also the only employees of whom a special
ability or prior experience is required. They are
generally more highly skilled than the production
employees , and are required to exercise skills not
required of production employees. They wear dif-
ferently colored uniforms and hats, and have their
own locker room , washroom facilities, and
timeclock.
The knife sharpeners work in a separate room, in
which they sharpen one set of hand knives, while
production employees use another set on the cut-
and-kill floor. Although they are presently con-
sidered a part of the maintenance department, they
are unlike the other maintenance department em-
ployees in several respects. They are hired directly
through the personnel department, and are not in-
terviewed by the plant engineer. They are unskilled,
are paid at the same level as the production wor-
kers, and do not work at night.
The maintenance department employees, with
the exception of the knife sharpeners, are clearly a
functionally distinct group of employees enjoying a
separate community of interest . The maintenance
mechanics and boilerroom employees are solely
responsible for maintaining much of the equipment
in the plant. Unlike production employees, they are
hired after an interview with the plant engineer,
and are required to have either mechanical skills
and experience or at least indicate a mechanical
aptitude through a testing program. Their wage
scale is about 20 percent higher than that of the
production employees , and they are on a separate
seniority list for layoff and recall . They perform a
maintenance function which is separate and distinct
from the production function . They do no produc-
tion work, nor is there any interchange with
production employees . It is clear that the main-
tenance mechanics and the boilerroom employees
share a community of interest and constitute a
functionally distinct employee group.
The placement of the knife sharpeners in the
maintenance department appears to be a matter of
administrative convenience for the Employer rather
than a placement by function. The knife sharpeners
do not perform a true maintenance function, nor do
they share the interests of the maintenance em-
ployees . Rather , like the production employees, the
knife sharpeners are unskilled , hired directly
through the personnel office and not after an inter-
view with the plant engineer concerning their
mechanical aptitude and experience , and receive
identical wages and work a standard day shift like
production employees . We conclude , therefore,
that they have a closer community of interest with
the production employees , and we shall include
them in the production unit.
In accordance with longstanding Board policy
concerning initial organization, and based on the
functional separation and the separate interests of
the maintenance employees , we find that the main-
tenance mechanics and the boilerroom employees
may constitute a separate unit if they so desire.' For
the reasons previously noted the knife sharpeners
are excluded from the maintenance unit, not-
withstanding their administrative placement in the
maintenance department , and they are included in
the production unit.
In view of the above, we shall direct elections in
the following voting groups at the Employer's
Beardstown , Illinois, plant , excluding from each
group all office clerical employees , professional
employees , guards, and supervisors , as defined in
the Act:
Voting Group A: All maintenance mechanics
and boilerroom employees.
Voting Group B: All production employees in-
cluding knife sharpeners.
If a majority of the employees in group A select
the Carpenters , they will be deemed to have in-
dicated their desire to constitute a separate bar-
gaining unit , and a certification of representative
' See American Cvananud Compam. 131 NLRB 909, Crown Simpson
Pulp Compam. 163 NLRB 796
OSCAR MAYER & CO.
will issue to such organization for such group,
which, under these circumstances, is found to be an
appropriate unit for purposes of collective bargain-
ing. If, in those circumstances , a majority of the
employees in group B elect to be represented by
the Meat Cutters, then a certification of representa-
tive will issue for that group as a separate unit,
which is found to be a unit appropriate for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining . However, if a
majority of the employees in group A do not vote
for the Carpenters, the votes of the employees in
3 Pooled votes shall be tallied as follows: Votes for the Carpenters shall
be counted as valid votes , but neither for nor against the Meat Cutters. All
other votes are to be accorded their face value , whether for representation
by the Meat Cutters or no union.
Election eligibility lists, containing the names and addresses of all the
eligibile voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Officer -in-Charge
for Subregion 38 within 7 days after the date of issuance of Notice of Elec-
1473
group A will be pooled with thos of group B in a
production and maintenance unit , which in those
circumstances would also be appropriate for bar-
gaining.' If a majority of the pooled ballots are cast
for the Meat Cutters, a certification of representa-
tive will issue to that organization in the production
and maintenance unit.
[Direction of Elections" omitted from publica-
tion. ]
tions. The Officer- in-Charge shall make the lists available to all parties to
the elections . No extension of time to file these lists shall be granted by the
Office- in-Charge except in extraordinary circumstances . Failure to comply
with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the elections when-
ever proper objections are filed Excelsior Underwear Inc., 156 NLRB
1236