Parrot Packing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 28, 1955

112 N.L.R.B. 1432 (N.L.R.B. 1955)

1432 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
indefinite duration , insofar as contract bar is concerned, now have
precisely the same legal effect, we have here nothing more than the
piling of one indeterminate term on top of another.
I see no basis whatever for the majority's 'conclusion that the as-
sumption of the contract by the purchaser created a new contractual
term. Where a plant is transferred during midterm of a contract of
fixed duration and the new Employer assumes the contract, the
Board has not in the past regarded the transfer as creating a new
contractual term. Instead, it has deemed the contract to be in effect
for the remainder of the initial fixed term.5 If the assumption of a
contract of fixed duration does not create a new term, is there any
sound reason why assumption of a contract of indeterminate dura-
tion should accord the initial contract 2 additional years? Here, at
the time of the transfer of the former employer's passenger facilities
in 1953, the 1949 contract had already been in effect for more than 4
years on a terminable-at-will basis and the new Employer merely as-
sumed it on the basis of continued indefinite duration. It seems to
me that if the 2-year rule is to retain any vitality, it should serve in
all instances to restrict contracts, whether terminable at will or of in-
definite duration, to a 2-year period. Under the majority's interpre-
tation of the rule, we have an indeterminate contract term beginning
in 1949 and still continuing in effect despite the fact that time and
again the Board in discussions of contract-bar policy has emphasized
the significant basic policy of the Act which accords to employees
the right freely to select or change bargaining representatives at
reasonably predictable intervals.
If the 2-year rule is sound-and I have not heard my colleagues
say that it is not-it should not be emasculated by permitting indeter-
minate terms to pile up for a period of more than 6 years in the way
the majority has chosen to do here. As I have pointed out, the Board
has consistently defined "a reasonable time" to be 2 years. Sound
administrative policy dictates that the Board adhere to this defini-
tion and not extend it to 6 years as in the present proceeding.
6 See, for example , International Paper Company, 80 NLRB 751, 752.
Parrot Packing Company and United Packinghouse Workers of
America, CIO, Petitioner . Case No. 13-RC-43929. June 28,1955
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 Raymond A. Jacobson, hear-
ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
112 NLRB No. 185.
PARROT PACKING COMPANY 1433
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:
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 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 unit of production and main-
tenance employees at the Employer's Fort Wayne, Indiana, plant,
comprising butchers and their helpers, sausage department employees,
curing department employees, packaging employees, shipping depart-
ment employees, and maintenance employees. The Employer does not
dispute the foregoing inclusions but, unlike the Petitioner, would in-
clude also its stockyard employees, truckdrivers, and truck mechanics.
There is no history of collective bargaining at the Employer's plant.
The Employer is engaged in the business of packing and selling
meats. At its stockyards, adjacent to the plant, the Employer employs
two buyers who buy livestock and a weigher who weighs the livestock
and, in routine fashion, makes out checks in payment therefor. The
buyers and the weigher are under the separate supervision of the live-
stock procurement manager. After the livestock has been butchered
and processed inside the plant, orders for the final products are as-
sembled in the shipping department. The Employer has 13 full-time
truckdriver salesmen, directly supervised by a route supervisor, who
sell and deliver its products on a commission basis.2 There are five
other truckdrivers, generally operating from the shipping department,
who divide their time between assembling orders and making truck
deliveries of such orders to customers,' and who are hourly paid like
the production and maintenance employees. There are two truck
mechanics and a helper, under the immediate supervision of a mechanic
foreman, who work at the Employer's garage near the plant and are
solely responsible for maintaining the trucks. All drivers, on com-
mission or hourly paid, and the truck mechanics, are under the super-
vision of the Employer's treasurer.'
1 At the outset of the hearing, Local 414, International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, AFL, appeared solely to file a motion to
intervene on the basis of its interest in representing truckdrivers and mechanics, among
the employees involved herein The hearing officer gave Local 414 3 days in which to
submit a showing of interest and referred the motion to the Board As we have determined
administratively that Local 414 has made no showing of interest among any of the employees
involved heieln, we hereby deny the motion to intervene made at the hearing
On rare occasions , about 4 hours per month , these diivcr -salesinen assist in assembling
orders in the plant
i lour of the five spend about half of their time performing each function ; the other
devotes about a third of his time to shipping department duties, another third to truck
deliveries on an hourly basis, and the last third to commission selling as a replacement for
full-time driver-salesmen Also, 2 of the first 4 occasionally fill in for driver-salesmen.
4 The truck mechanic group is also under the supervision of the route supervisor.
1434 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
It is evident from the foregoing that the Employer's truckdrivers
comprise two identifiable groups, the driver-salesmen and the ship-
ping department truckdrivers. As the record establishes that the
driver-salesmen group have a separate community of interests and
have little contact with the production and maintenance employees,
we shall exclude them from the Petitioner's requested unit.' Inas-
much as no labor organization at present seeks to represent sepa-
rately the truckdrivers in the shipping department, and as they have
a substantial community of interests with the plant production em-
ployees, we shall include them in the production and maintenance
unit.6 As for the truck mechanics, including the helper, we con-
clude that they, like the truckdrivers in the shipping department,
have sufficient interests in common with the production and mainte-
nance employees to warrant our including them in the unit.
As it is clear from the record that the buyers in the stockyard per-
form exclusively buying functions, we shall, under established Board
policy, exclude therm from the unit.? We shall, however, include the
disputed weigher in the stockyard, as lie has routine duties which are
closely related to the work of production and maintenance personnel.&
Accordingly, we find that all production and maintenance employees
at the Employer's Maumee Road, Fort Wayne, Indiana, plant, in-
cluding the shipping department truckdrivers, the truck mechanics,
and the stockyard weigher, but excluding the full-time driver-sales-
men, the stockyard buyers, office clerical employees, foremen, guards,
and all other supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit ap-
propriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
5 Wells Dairies Cooperative, 107 NLRB 1445 , McGough Bakeries Corporation, 90 NLRB
2004 The case of S Martinelli & Company, 99 NLRB 43, relied upon by the Employer in
its brief, is distinguishable because there the Board found a sufficient community of inter-
ests between the sales delivery drivers and production and maintenance personnel to
warrant their combination in one unit
6 Thomas Electronics. Jac, 107 NLRB 614
7Beavei s Packing Company, 97 NLRB 233, The Fair Department Store, 107 NLRB 1501
8 See Eastern Ti on C Metal Company, 106 NLRB 1261
The Daily Press, Incorporated and Peninsula Independent Edi-
torial Workers Association , Petitioner . Case No. 5-I?C-1598.
June p28, 1955
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National La-
bor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Henry L. Segal, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and 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.
112 NLRB No. 181.