Sanford-Day Iron Works, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 13, 1951

94 N.L.R.B. 1186 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

1186 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
We have carefully examined the,evidence introduced in support of
this assertion and find it inadequate to establish that the driver-
salesmen in question have been generally instructed or authorized
to hire and discharge their helpers, or that they have in fact hired and
discharged helpers as a general practice. True, the record does show
that, on occasion, when a driver-salesman has requested the Employer
to supply a helper and the Employer has been unable to do so it has
authorized the driver-salesman to obtain one himself. Similarly, on
occasion when a helper has quit in the middle of the working day the
driver-salesman has procured another helper while out on his route.
Both of these situations, however, appear to be deviations from the
general practice in which a driver-salesman in need of a helper re-
quests and obtains one from the Employer. So far as discharging
helpers is concerned, the record indicates that the Employer retains
general control over such personnel action, although driver-salesmen
have dismissed helpers while on their routes when the latter have
proved to be utterly undesirable.
In two recent cases 4 the Board had occasion to examine in some
detail the authority and responsibilities of driver-salesmen very
similar to those involved in the instant case. In the present case, as
in those cases, we are satisfied on the record as a whole that the driver-
salesmen do not in fact possess supervisory authority within the mean-
ing of the Act, and we shall include them in the unit.
We find that the following employees of the Employer constitute
a unit appropriate fol the purposes of collective bargaining within the
meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: All driver-salesmen and their
helpers, and beer warehouse helpers,5 excluding office and clerical
employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
4 General Beverages Company, supra; Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company, supra.
5 Including the employee classified as truck driver and warehouse helper.
SANFORD-DAY IRON WORKS, INC. and SHOPMEN'S LOCAL UNION No.
715 OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BRIDGE, STRUCTURAL
AND ORNAMENTAL IRON WORKERS, A. F. OF L., PETITIONER
SANFORD-DAY IRON WORKS, INC. and INTERNATIONAL MOLDERS AND
FOUNDRY WORKERS UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, LOCAL UNION No.
226, PETITIONER. Cases Nos. 10-RC-1324 and 10-RC-1333. June
13, 1951
Decision and Direction of Elections
Upon separate petitions duly filed, a consolidated hearing was held
before Paul L. Harper, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings
94 NLRB No. 186.
SANFORD-DAY IRON WORKS, INC. 1187
made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby
affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
-Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
these cases to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Houston and Reynolds].
Upon the entire record in these cases, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer. ,
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion 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 appropriate units; the determination of representatives:
The Petitioner in Case No. 10-RC-1324, herein called the Iron Work-
ers, requests a unit of all production and maintenance employees at
the Employer's Knoxville, Tennessee, plant, excluding the foundry
department employees and certain other specific categories as to which
there is no dispute. The Petitioner in Case No. 10-RC-1333, herein
called the Molders, seeks a unit composed of the foundry department
employees only. The Employer contends that, because of its inte-
grated operations and collective bargaining history, only a single
plant-wide unit is appropriate.
At Knoxville, the Employer is engaged in the manufacture of min-
ing cars for coal mines. Since about 1943, the Employer and Federal
Labor Union No. 22813, AFL,' have bargained for all the production
and maintenance employees, including those in the foundry depart-
ment, on a single plant-wide unit basis.
As part of its over-all production facilities, the Employer operates
a, foundry which is located across the street from the rest of the plant,
and has separate supervision. The foundry is used almost exclusively
to make castings for the mining' car production. Its employees are
molders, wheel molders, machine molders, coremakers, a cupola tender,
patternmakers, and semiskilled and unskilled workers doing tasks
related to the foundry operations. The work performed and the skills
required in the foundry are not duplicated in any other department
of the plant, and foundry employees are seldom interchanged with
employees elsewhere.
As the Board has repeatedly held, foundry department employees,
such as'those here involved, may constitute a separate appropriate
'Although served with notice of hearing, this Union did not appear at the hearing.
There is also some indication in the record that the Union is no longer interested in the
employees involved.
1188 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
bargaining unit 2 and may be represented apart from the remaining
employees in the plant.3
We find that the following employees at the Eull)loyer's Knoxville,
Tennessee, plant, constitute separate units appropriate for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of
the Act :
(1) All foundry department employees, excluding office and clerical
employees, guards, all other employees, and all supervisors as defined
in the Act.
(2) All production and maintenance employees, excluding all foun-
dry department employees, all office, clerical, technical, and profes-
sional employees, executives, and all supervisors as defined in the
Act.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this
volume.]
2National Farm Machinery Cooperative , Inc. (08 io Cultivator Division ), 88 NLRB 125;.
W. A. Jones Foundry c( Machinery Go., 83 NLRB 211 ; The Failncott Corporation, 78
NLRB 1256.
'As no labor organization now seeks to represent all the plant employees In a single
unit, we will make no alternative unit finding.
D. B. THORNTON AND Lvcv TtIOItN'rON D/II/A 1). B. philoRNvoN Co., Pa-
TITIONER and INTERNATIONAL HOD CARRIauS', 13UILDEN(I & COMMON
LABORERS' UNION OF AMERICA, CONSTRUCTION & GENERAL LABORERS?
LOCAL No. 438, AFL
D. B. THORNTON AND Lucy TIORNTON D/B/A D. B. 'I'IIORNTON CO.,.
PETITIONER and INTER NATIONA 1, BROTii11:R000D Or 'I'EA1ts'rERS,
CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELPEIIS or Ani P:1IICA, SALES DRIVI:I1s.
BUILDING CONSTRUCTION DRivi:us & Hiti,i'r:Rs LooAi, No. 859, AFL.
Cases Nos. 10-RM-71 and 1O-RM-73. June 14,1951
Decision, Direction of Election , and Order
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9. (c) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before
Paul L. Harper, 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.
' This Union's name appears as amended at the hearing.
94 NLRB No. 201.