Seaboard Packing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 21, 1950

91 N.L.R.B. 361 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of SEABOARD PACKING COMPANY, EMPLOYER and AMER-
ICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, PETITIONER
Case No. 1-RC-1651.Decided Septemzber 21, 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 Joseph Lepie, hearing officer.
The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from preju-
dicial 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 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 a unit of production and maintenance em-
ployees at the Employer's Lubec, Maine, sardine cannery. The Em-
ployer contends that the only appropriate unit for employees at the
Lubec plant includes employees at its sardine cannery at Robbinston,
Maine. There is no history of collective bargaining for employees at
either plant.
The Employer's Lubec and Robbinston canneries, with 250 and 260
employees, respectively, are situated 40 miles apart by land and 11
miles apart by water. They operate during the same canning season,
and operations at the plants are similar. Although subject to over-all
supervision, each plant is under the separate immediate supervision of
an assistant manager. There is no interchange of production employ-
ees between the plants, and all production hirings are on a local basis.
Warehouse and machine shop facilities maintained at the Lubec plant
serve both plants, and Lubec employees perform maintenance work at
91 NLRB No. 73.
361
362 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
both plants. Fish is supplied to the canneries by the Employer's
boatmen, who operate the carrier boats, 4 of which are attached to the
Lubec plant and 1, to the Robbinston plant. Although he canneries
operate in a similar way, processing sardines under similar conditions,
the Lubec plant, under separate immediate supervision, has sufficient
autonomy of operations to enable its employees to constitute a separate
bargaining unit apart from employees at the Robbinston plant.'
The Employer would include, and the Petitioner would exclude,
boatmen.
As noted above, the Employer owns four carrier boats which are at-
tached to the Lubec plant. Each boat has a crew of two men, one of
whom is the captain, a licensed and experienced boatman, and the
other, an engineer with no specially required skills. Boatmen pur-
chase fish from off-shore seine fishermen in amounts and at prices fixed
by the Employer, and-transport the fish to the plant. The Employer
reimburses the fishermen directly for the purchases made by the boat-
men and compensates the boatmen on the basis of a fixed amount, per
hogshead of fish, the exact amount depending on the distance travelled
by the boatmen. From this amount, the Employer deducts the social
security, unemployment compensation, and workmen's compensation
for the boatmen; makes an allowance for use of the boat; and pays
over the remainder to the captain who shares with the engineer a
proportion of the sum. The Employer alone has the authority to hire
and discharge boatmen. The captain has no authority to deviate from
the Employer's orders. We find that the boatmen are employees of
the Employer and that their operations form an integral part of the
Employer's production processes.' We shall include boatmen in the
unit.
We find that all production and maintenance employees at the
Employer's Lubec, Maine, sardine cannery, including boatmen, but
excluding office and clerical employees, professional employees,
guards,3 and supervisors, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes
of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
'Darling & Company, 87 NLRB 45; Burruss Timber Products, Inc., 87 NLRB 1561.
2 Cf. North Lubec Manufacturing & Canning Company, Case No. 1-RC-1650 ; Haskins Can-
ning Corp., 1-RC-1649 ; and Booth Fisheries Corporation, 91 NLRB No. 72, decided this
day.
3In accordance with the stipulation of the parties, we include in the unit Wesley Davis
,and Mike McCulloch, who we find are not guards, and we exclude from the unit Albert Lund
and Burley Stanley, who we find are guards , within the meaning of the Act.