Safeway Stores, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 28, 1950

92 N.L.R.B. 275 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of SAFEWAY STORES, INCORPORATED, EMPLOYER and
AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH
AMERICA, LOCAL UNION No. 606, AFL, PETITIONER
Can No. 33-RC-217.-Decided November 08, 1950
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 Charles Y. Latimer, hearing
officer.'. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
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 [Members Houston, Reynolds, and Styles].
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. 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 parties disagree with respect to the unit placement of four
wholesale meat processing employees recently placed in the Employer's
meat warehouse in El Paso, Texas.
The Employer operates retail food stores in 23 States of the United
States and in the District of Columbia. For its 34 retail stores in and
about El Paso, Texas, it maintains 3 warehouses in El Paso, one of
which is a meat warehouse. For a number of years the Petitioner has
been the recognized bargaining representative of the Employer's local
retail store employees, including sales clerks and meat market em-
ployees; and the Intervenor 2 has been the recognized bargaining rep-
resentative of the Employer's truck drivers and warehousemen, in-
cluding employees at the meat warehouse.
i The petition and other formal papers were amended at the hearing to show the correct
name of the Employer.
2 Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers , AFL, Local Union No. 941.
92 NLRB No. 59.
275
276 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
At its meat warehouse the Employer has approximately 10 em-
ployees whose duty it is to load, unload, and store meats. Before
April 1950 the Employer purchased its meat from meat packers in
wholesale cuts for the retail trade. Packers vary in the preparation
of wholesale cuts. This lack of uniformity required the Employer's
retail meat men to do some preliminary work to prepare meat for
retailing. All meat, stored in the warehouse, was delivered on order
to meat department employees in its retail stores for necessary prep-
aration, cutting, processing, and sale to customers.
In and after April 1950, to secure greater uniformity in cuts of
meat to be sold in its retail markets, the Employer discontinued buying
meat from packers in wholesale cuts, and bought its meat in fore and
hind quarters, and installed in the meat warehouse a group of four
employees to break and wrap the quarters in uniform wholesale cuts
for retail processing to its store customers. The work is not highly
skilled work; the learning period is estimated as 30 to 60 days; and
it is the kind of work that a butcher apprentice does in his initial train-
ing period. To some limited extent, because of the variance among
packers, as noted above, similar work has been done by the meat em-
ployees in the Employer's several retail stores. The wholesale cutting,
done according to rule measure and diagram, does not require the
exercise of judgment nor the skill necessary for cuts in the retail
trade. In an emergency it has been done by the warehouse employees.
The Intervenor represents meat processing employees doing similar
work in other warehouses of the Employer at Dallas, Texas, and in
the District of Columbia.
The Petitioner contends that the newly installed meat processing
employees in the meat warehouse are not a part of any existing bar-
gaining unit and therefore constitute a separate residual bargaining
unit apart from the Employer's other warehouse and retail store em-
ployees. The Employer contends that these employees are, by loca-
tion and expansion, "warehouse" employees, and properly come within
the coverage of its existing warehouse unit, which includes meat ware-
house employees, for which the Intervenor is the recognized bargain-
ing representative. The Intervenor contends that, although these em-
ployees are not "warehouse" employees within the usual sense of that
term, and are therefore not within the coverage of its present ware-
house contract with the Employer, it may appropriately bargain for
these employees as warehouse employees, should they desire repre-
sentation by the Intervenor.
We reject the Petitioner's contention that, under these circum-
stances, the meat processing employees in the meat warehouse whom
it seeks to represent should be set apart in a separate residual bargain-
SAFEWAY STORES, INCORPORATED 277
ing unit. The Petitioner's existing retail store unit includes retail
meat processing employees who, to some extent and as occasion re-
quired, did meat processing of a wholesale nature in the Employer's
several retail stores before the Employer withdrew that work by
establishing meat processing employees in the meat warehouse. This
existing bargaining unit may thus appropriately include the ware-
house meat processing employees. On the other hand, the routine
nature of their meat processing, together with their placement and
daily immediate contacts with other meat handling employees in the
meat warehouse who on occasion do this work, makes their inclusion
in the existing warehouse unit equally reasonable. As noted above,
the Intervenor represents similar meat processing employees in other
warehouses of the Employer. Under these circumstances, because
these employees may appropriately fall within either unit, we shall
direct an election among .them.3 Employees in the voting group shall
be meat processing employees in the Employer's El Paso meat ware-
house who break .and wrap meat for delivery to the Employer's local
retail stores, excluding other warehouse employees, retail store em-
ployees, and supervisors. We shall place the names of the Petitioner
and the Intervenor on the ballot. If a majority of employees in the
voting group cast ballots for the Petitioner, they will be taken to
have signified their desire to constitute a part of the retail store unit
presently represented by the Petitioner. If, however, a majority select
the. Intervenor, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to
constitute a part of the existing warehouse unit presently represented
by the Intervenor.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
MEMBER HousTON, dissenting :
On the facts of this case, I see no basis for directing an election
among these four employees. This small group neither constitutes
an appropriate unit, nor does it properly belong in the same unit with
the warehouse employees; it is really nothing more than an enlarge-
ment of the existing unit of store employees currently represented by
the Petitioner.
As my colleagues of the majority point out, the work of these
employees, which consists of breaking up and wrapping wholesale
cuts of meat uniformly, was previously done by skilled employees in
the Employer's several retail stores and is the kind of work that a
butcher apprentice does in his initial training period. It is, there-
B International Harvester Company, 73 NLRB 971, 976.
278 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
fore, clear that the requested employees are performing work hitherto-
performed by both skilled employees and butcher apprentices at the
Employer's stores and that such skills are encompassed by the exist-
ing unit covering these stores. While it is true that these four em-
ployees are located at the Employer's warehouse, that fact is of no
controlling significance. It is obvious that their location at the ware-
house was governed by the economics of the situation, for the Employer
was thereby able to accomplish with four employees what would have
required the attention of a skilled employee or butcher apprentice at
each of the stores. Indeed, the Intervenor, which currently represents
the warehouse employees, frankly concedes that these employees are
not warehouse employees within the usual sense of the term and are
therefore not within the coverage of its present contract. Signifi-
cantly, too, the Petitioner is the only union actively seeking to repre-
sent these employees.
Accordingly, as these employees perform functions which are recog-
=nized as apprentice butcher functions, and as their work location does
:not, under the circumstances, impair their community of interest with
the store employees, I see no basis for sanctioning the division of the
-Employer's retail store employees into two separate bargaining units,
or for including them in the warehouse unit. These employees are,
by reason of function and duties, no more than an addition to an
existing unit, of a category of similar employees. They are, therefore,
automatically included in the store employees unit already repre-
sented by the Petitioner.4 Consequently, as there is no question con-
cerning representation, I would dismiss the petition.
'4 Cf. Albert H. Weinbrenner Company, 90 NLRB No. 160. -