Rainbo Baking Co. of Albuquerque

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 12, 1971

187 N.L.R.B. 808 (N.L.R.B. 1971)

808 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Rainbo Baking Company of Albuquerque and Interna-
tional Association of Machinists and Aerospace
Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case 28-RC-2067
January 12, 1971
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
By CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before William T. George, Jr., Hearing
Officer of the National Labor Relations Board.
Thereafter, the Regional Director for Region 28,
having duly considered the matter, concluded that the
record as presented to him precluded the possibility of
his making an informed decision. The Regional
Director ordered that the record herein be reopened
to adduce additional evidence bearing on certain
issues enumerated in his order reopening record and
remanding proceeding for further hearing. Accord-
ingly, a further hearing was held before Peter N.
Maydanis, Hearing Officer of the Board. Following
the hearing, pursuant to Section 102.67 of the
National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula-
tions and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as
amended, this case was transferred to the Board for
decision. Thereafter, the Employer filed a brief with
the Board.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection
with this case to a three-member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officers'
rulings made at the hearings and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They 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
purposes 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 concern-
ing the representation of certain 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 the
Employer's unrepresented truck fleet mechanics and
maintenance engineers.I The Employer contends that
i The unit requested by the Petitioner also allegedly encompasses
"painters, bodymen, their helpers and/or apprentices" in the truck service
department However, the record herein fails to reveal that such job
classifications exist at the Employer's establishment and, in fact, indicates
that fleet mechanics paint and repair truck bodies Accordingly, we shall
consider the proposed unit limited to fleet mechanics and maintenance
engineers The Petitioner indicated at the second hearing herein that it
the petition should be dismissed because a separate
unit of its mechanics and engineers would be
inappropriate inasmuch as its production employees
are currently represented by the American Bakery &
Confectionery Workers in a certified multiemployer
unit.2
The Employer is a wholesale manufacturer and
distributor of baked goods in the Albuquerque area.
The bakery production process is a continuous
operation primarily utilizing automated, precision
machines. To insure that the flow of finished products
is not interrupted, maintenance engineers are em-
ployed to constantly monitor the equipment and
make any necessary adjustments or repairs. While
production workers can make minor adjustments to
the machines on which they are working, any task
requiring special skills, tools, or know-how is per-
formed by engineers. Maintenance engineers repair
electronic circuits, adjust valves and settings, set the
blades on slicing machines, and perform similar
functions. The engineers also perform preventive
plant and equipment maintenance.
Fleet mechanics service and repair the Employer's
approximately 65 trucks. They do not adjust or repair
any production machinery unless there is an emergen-
cy, in which case all employees are required to assist
in getting the production process flowing again. When
an engineer is on vacation, a mechanic performs his
job; neither mechanics nor engineers perform prod-
uction, truck loading, or delivery work. Mechanics
repair the racks on which bread is stored during
shipment and once a week one mechanic's entire day
is occupied in sorting returned merchandise. The
truck service department in which the mechanics
work is not physically separated from the plant.
The Employer's bakery production process employ-
ees are currently represented by the American Bakery
& Confectionery Workers. All collective-bargaining
agreements between Albuquerque's large, mecha-
nized wholesale bakeries, including the Employer,
and the union representing their production employ-
ees have been negotiated on the employers' behalf by
an employer association, the Baking Establishments
of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Small bakeries which
prepare bread by hand and have few employees are
not association members.
The Employer's holiday, vacation, and sick leave
policies are uniform for all employees, and the
unrepresented employees' health care, life insurance,
and welfare payment plans are comparable to those
would participate in an election to represent the Employer's maintenance
engineers and/or fleet mechanics in separate units if the Board found such
units appropriate
2 The American Bakery & Confectionery Workers was notified by
ordinary mail of the hearings herein but did not participate in the
proceedings
187 NLRB No. 58
RAINBO BAKING CO. 809
for the represented production workers. The prod-
uction employees' supervision is separate from that of
the engineers and mechanics; the two groups of three
engineers and three mechanics each have separate
supervision.
An established bargaining history on a multiem-
ployer basis will determine the scope required for a
unit of previously unrepresented employees if those
employees are in excluded fringe classifications which
otherwise lack homogeneity, cohesiveness, or separate
identity, and are merely residual to the main body of
employees in the established unit.3 While a prod-
uction and maintenance unit is inherently appropri-
ate, a unit of previously unrepresented maintenance
employees may also be appropriate where, as here, the
maintenance employees have more skill than the
organized production workers, do not interchange
3 Pacific Drive-In Theaters Corp, 167 NLRB 661 But such a history will
not preclude the establishment of a single-employer unit of employees if
that unit has internal homogeneity and cohesiveness Joseph E Seagram &
Sons, Inc, 101 NLRB 101, Piggly Wiggly California Company, 144 NLRB
708
Myers Drum Company, 165 NLRB 1060 We do not deem it significant
that the maintenance employees in Myers had a separate shop whereas here
the engineers perform their maintenance function throughout the plant and
the mechanics work in a part of the plant reserved for trucks
5 In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity to
be informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right to vote, all
parties to the election should have access to a list of voters and their
with them, receive higher rates of pay than production
workers, and are supervised apart from the prod-
uction employees.4 Since the maintenance employees
herein have a separate identity, they do not constitute
a residual group and the scope of the unit requested
need not be multiemployer.
Accordingly, we find that the following employees
of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All truck fleet mechanics and maintenance engi-
neers employed at the Employer's Albuquerque,
New Mexico, baking plant, excluding production
employees, drivers, office clerical employees,
professional employees, guards, and supervisors as
defined in the Act.
[Direction of election 5 omitted from publication.]
addresses which may be used to communicate with them Excelsior
Underwear Inc, 156 NLRB 1236. N L R B v Wyman-Gordon Co., 394 U S
759 Accordingly. it is hereby directed that 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 28 within 7 days of
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