Rockingham Poultry Cooperative Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 28, 1955

113 N.L.R.B. 376 (N.L.R.B. 1955)

376 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
laborers at 12 of the processes to transfer tubes from one operation
to the other. Likewise, after the finished product is sent to the ware-
house, extensive manual operations are necessary to prepare the prod-
uct for delivery . Some of the manual labor required in the production
and packaging operations is performed by employees in categories
sought by the Petitioner , viz, warehousemen and handymen. The
Employer has 28 warehousemen and 27 handymen , of which 12 ware-
housemen are located in the finished tube warehouse and 16 are located
in the manufacturing plant. The handymen are located throughout
all three buildings. Both these categories are supervised by different
foremen depending on the plant location to which they are assigned.
The Employer has two shipping clerks. One of these employees
spends the major part of his time driving a customer service truck
between the Employer 's plant and points in the metropolitan Phila-
delphia area . The rest of his time is spent in clerical duties, which
includes the preparation of bills of lading. The other shipping clerk
and the 4 other employees assigned to driving spend from 1 to 2 hours
a week hauling materials by truck from one to the other of the Em-
ployer's buildings ; the remainder of their time is spent in loading and
unloading their own trucks or the trucks of other drivers.
The employees sought by the Petitioner are dispersed throughout
the Employer 's three buildings, have diverse supervision , and most of
them do unskilled work similar to that of other employees not sought
by the Petitioner.2 In these circumstances , we find that the unit sought
by the Petitioner is neither a departmental nor a craft unit such as the
Board has in the past held to be entitled to separate representation,
and that such unit is therefore inappropriate .' As there is only one
employee who spends the major part of his time driving , we find that
a separate unit of drivers only would also be inappropriate . We shall,
therefore, dismiss the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
2 Employees located in other parts of the plant classified as carton preparation opera-
tors, packing carton sealers , and tested tube cartoner perform the same duties and receive
the same rate of pay as handymen and warehousemen . Likewise , employees classified as
buffers and branders are assigned and perform the duties of warehousemen and handymen
as the needs of the Employer require.
8 See Sears Roebuck & Company, 112 NLRB 559.
Rockingham Poultry Cooperative Inc. and Union Local 27, Re-
tail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, CIO, Petitioner.
Case No. 5-RC'-1705. July 8, 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 Robert W. Knadler, hearing
113 NLRB No. 42.
ROCKINGHAM POULTRY COOPERATIVE INC. 377
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.'
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer a
3. The Petitioner seeks a representation election in a unit composed
of employees at the Employer's newly acquired poultry processing
plant at Richmond, Virginia. The Employer and the Intervenor
contend that this proceeding is barred by their contract which, by its
terms, covers the Employer's other five poultry processing plants, for
which the Intervenor is the certified bargaining representative," as
well as "all other plants which the Company may operate hereafter
during the term of this agreement." This contract was executed on'
March 9, 1954, and was automatically renewable annually absent a
60-day notice. Pursuant to a timely notice, the contract expired on
March 9, 1955. The parties to the contract agreed orally, pending
negotiation of a new agreement, to consider the expired contract as
in effect on a day-to-day basis. On April 21, 1955, they executed an
agreement extending the terms of the contract until September 9, 1955.
The Employer leased, sometime prior to March 9, 1955, a poultry
processing plant in Richmond, Virginia, and began operating this
plant on March 15, 1955. The Employer retained most of the former
employees at this plant, and the former owner remained as plant
manager. There is no evidence as to interchange of employees be-
tween this and other plants of the Employer. A general plant superin-
tendent is in charge of the Employer's entire operation, including the,
Richmond plant.
The-contracting parties agreed that for 90 days after the Employer
began operations at Richmond, the Intervenor would not seek to en-
roll the Richmond employees into membership, and the wages and
other terms of employment specified in the contract would not be'
applied at the Richmond plant.
1As the Employer operates several plants in Virginia and West Virginia, and shipped.
in excess of $250,000 worth of goods out of State, we find, contrary to the Employer, that
it is engaged in commerce and that it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert juris-
diction. The Ransom and Randolph Company, 110 NLRB 2204.
2 The Intervenor, Local 393, Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North
America, AFL, intervened on the basis of its contract interest
The parties refused to stipulate that the Petitioner is a labor organization within the
meaning of the Act. As it is an organization which represents employees for collective-
bargaining purposes, we find that it is a labor organization within the meaning of Section
2 (5) of the Act.
3 The Intervenor had been the bargaining representative of the Employer 's employees in
a companywide unit for a number of years. In June 1954, following a consent election,
the Intervenor was certified by the Board as the representative for such a unit, which at
that time covered the Employer's poultry processing plants at Broadway, Winchester,
Stuarts Draft, and Alma, Virginia, and Moorefield, West Virginia.
378 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
On the basis of the foregoing facts, we are of the opinion that the
Richmond operation, newly acquired by the Employer, is a completely
new operation and not a mere accretion. We therefore find that, as
the collective-bargaining contract between the Employer and 'the
Intervenor had been executed prior to the acquisition of the new
operation on March 15, 1955; as the parties were operating on March
157 1955, on the basis of an oral agreement; and as the extension agree-
ment executed on April 21, 1955, was, during the period in question,
inapplicable to the Richmond plant, there is no contract bar to the
petition filed on April 29,1955'
Accordingly, we find that a question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of the Richmond, Virginia, employees, of
the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2
( 6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Employer and the Intervenor maintain that only a company-
wide unit is appropriate, and that the Richmond plant should be in-
cluded in such a unit. The Petitioner contends that a unit limited to
the employees at the Richmond plant is appropriate.
The record indicates that the work now being performed at the
Richmond plant is essentially the same as that performed at the other
plants of the Employer. However, the Employer has engaged new
employees at the Richmond plant and this plant is separately super-
vised, although there is some centralized control. Furthermore, the
Board normally permits employees at a new plant to decide whether
or not they wish to be separately represented.'
Accordingly, under all the circumstances of this case, we are of the
opinion that, for the purposes of collective bargaining, the employees
at the Richmond plant may constitute a separate appropriate unit or
may appropriately be included in the multiplant unit currently rep-
resented by the Intervenor.' We shall, therefore, make no determina-
tion with respect to the employees at the Richmond plant at this time,
but shall first ascertain the, desire of these employees as expressed in
the election directed herein.
We shall direct an election among the following employees: All pro-
duction and maintenance employees at the Employer's Richmond,
Virginia, plant, including local truckdrivers and shipping and re-
ceiving employees, but excluding office clerical employees, outside
weighmaster, technical employees, and all supervisors as defined in the
Act .7
* Southwestern Greyhound Lines, Inc., 112 NLRB 1014; The Yale and Towne Manufac-
turing Company, 112 NLRB 1268
5 Armstrong Cork Company ( Lancaster Floor Plant ), 106 NLRB 1147 , at 1149.
6 Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc , supra , Scrtvner Stevens Company, 104 NLRB
506, at 507; Armstrong Cork Company (Lancaster Floor Plant), supra.
7 The parties were in substantial agreement as to the composition of the proposed unit,
which the Petitioner amended at the hearing , without objection , to conform with the con-
tractual unit.
HAMILTON WATCH COMPANY 379
If the majority of the employees in the above-described voting
group cast their ballots for the Petitioner, they will be taken to have
indicated their desire to constitute a separate appropriate unit and
the Regional Director is instructed to issue a certification of represen-
tatives to the Petitioner for such unit, which the Board, under the
circumstances, finds to be appropriate for purposes of collective bar-
gaining. If the majority of the employees in the voting group cast
their ballots for the Intervenor, they will be taken to have indicated
their desire to be included in the existing unit currently represented
by the Intervenor, and the Regional Director will issue a certification
of results of election to that effect. If the majority of the employees
in the voting group cast their ballots for neither labor organization,
they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be unrepresented
by any labor organization appearing on the ballot, and the Regional
Director will issue a certification of results of election to that effect.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
Hamilton Watch Company and International Association of
Machinists, District #98, AFL, Petitioner . Case No. 4-RC-2648.
July 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 Julius Topol, hearing officer.
The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from preju-
dicial 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.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer?
3. The Employer contends that its current contract with the Inter-
venor constitutes a bar to the instant proceedings. The Petitioner
contends that the contract contains an illegal union-security provision
and, thus, could not serve as a bar herein. At the hearing and in
its brief the Intervenor, although asserting that the contract does not
1In view of our disposition of the contract-bar issue of this case, it is unnecessary for
us to rule upon the hearing officer's refusal to admit evidence pertaining to the enforce-
ment of the union-security provisions of the contract between the Employer and the
Intervenor.
2 Hamilton Watch Workers Union (affiliated with the American Watch Workers Union),
herein called the Intervenor, was permitted to intervene on the basis of its current con-
tract with the Employer covering the employees here involved.
,113 NLRB No. 46.