Sol Baum and Julie Baum

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 6, 1950

91 N.L.R.B. 708 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter Of SOL BAUM AND JULIE BAUM, A CO-PARTNERSHIP,)
EMPLOYER and Los ANGELES CLOAK JOINT BOARD, INTERNATIONAL
LADIES GARMENT WORKERS UNION, AFL, PETITIONER
Case No. 21-RC-1059.-Decided October 6, 1950
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National La-
bor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Platonia Kaldes, hear-
ing 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 organization involved claims to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the following
reasons:
The Employer is a women's garment manufacturer, engaged at Los
Angeles, California, in producing dresses,2 and unlined jackets with
accompanying skirts, which it sells under the trade names of Twen-
tieth Century Frocks, Miss Hollywood, Jr., and Dorothy Lamour
Fashions. The employees engaged in producing these garments, of
whom there are approximately 100, are carried on a payroll in the
name of Twentieth Century Frocks and are paid from a bank ac-
count in that name. Since May or June 1949, the Employer has also
manufactured, on the same premises, lined jackets with accompanying
skirts which it sells under the trade name of Monroe Lloyd.' Em-
ployees engaged in the production of these garments, of whom there are
approximately 30, are carried on a payroll in the name of Twentieth
'The petition originally stated the name of the Employer as Twentieth Century Frocks,
Inc.-Monroe Lloyd Division . It was amended at the hearing to conform with the record
showing as to the Employer' s operation.
2 Some with accompanying unlined jackets.
2 These two phases of the Employer 's operations are hereinafter referred to respectively
as Monroe Lloyd and Twentieth Century.
91 NLRB No. 125.
708
SOL BAUM AND JULIE BAUM 709
Century Frocks-Monroe Lloyd Division, and are paid from a bank
account in the name of Monroe Lloyd.'
The Petitioner, whose charter limits its jurisdiction to workers en-
gaged in the production of women's suits, seeks a unit limited to em-
ployees engaged in making Monroe Lloyd garments, which it asserts
are the only suits produced by the Employer.' It asserts that produc-
tion of suits is a branch of the women's apparel industry separate from
the production of dresses, that different skills are involved, and that
such workers have traditionally been represented separately.
The Employer asserts that its operation is a single integrated one,
and that all its production employees, whether on the Twentieth Cen-
tury or Monroe Lloyd payroll, are engaged in producing related types
of garments calling for the same skills. It contends that only a single
unit comprising all its production workers can be appropriate to its
type of operation. There is no previous history of collective bargain-
ing in the Employer's establishment.
The unit sought comprises employees classified as sewing machine
operators, lining operators, lining setters, finishers, special machine
•operators, hand pressers, machine pressers, floor girls, and such cut-
ters as may be employed exclusively in cutting Monroe Lloyd gar-
ments. There are employees in all these classifications, with the
exception of lining makers and lining setters, on the Twentieth Cen-
tury payrolls The evidence shows that there are no cutters engaged
exclusively in cutting garments sold under the Monroe Lloyd name.
.All cutters cut both Monroe Lloyd and Twentieth Century garments
and their names appear only on the Twentieth Century payroll.
Employees engaged in making Monroe Lloyd garments work in the
same building and on the same floor as the Employer's other em-
ployees, in an area separated only by partitions and a hall on either
.side. They share the same lunchroom and other facilities, but punch
a separate time clock. They are under the general supervision of
a. foreman hired at the inception of the Monroe Lloyd operation, who
is carried on the Monroe Lloyd payroll as a patternmaker. Em-
ployes on the Twentieth Century payroll are under the supervision of
a forelady who has been with the Employer for many years.
4 The Employer asserts that these separate payrolls and bank accounts are maintained
merely for cost accounting purposes. After various expenses are paid, the money remaining
in the accounts is commingled with other partnership money in a single account. The
-same office help keeps all records of the Employer 's operations.
' The Petitioner would classify all garments made by employees on the so-called Twentieth
Century payroll as either 1- or 2-piece dresses. . It cites the definition of a suit, found in the
maximum price regulations of the Office of Price Administration , as a lined jacket with
accompanying skirt.
6 There are likewise only two classifications on the Twentieth Century payroll peculiar
to dressmaking which do not exist in the Monroe Lloyd operation.
710 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
All materials are stored in the Twentieth Century area and all
cutting was done there until October 1949, when one cutting table was
moved into the Monroe Lloyd area.7 All sorting, bundling, and tick-
eting for both branches of the Employer's business are done exclusively
by Twentieth Century employees in the Twentieth Century floor area.
Single showrooms are maintained, and all clerical services and ship-
ping are handled by Twentieth Century employees. Both lines of
garments are sold by the same salesmen. Thus the Monroe Lloyd
branch of the Employer's business is dependent upon the Twentieth
Century branch for a number of essential services.
Almost all garments manufactured by the Employer, whether by
Twentieth Century or by Monroe Lloyd employees, are of rayon or
similar light materials and all are sold in the same price range. The
record establishes conclusively that for many years before the incep-
tion of the Monroe Lloyd operation, employees were frequently
shifted from the production of dresses to production of two-piece
"dressmaker suits" as marked demands veered from dresses to suits
or vice versa. Although the Petitioner contends that it requires
many months of retraining for an operator experienced only in dresses
to shift to the production of suits, it did not successfully controvert
the Employer's testimony that, over a long period of years, shifts
had been made among workers on the differing types of garments
produced by the Employer.s A number of employees, principally
engaged as dressmakers, testified that they had been able to make
such shifts with no greater difficulty than in shifting from the pro-
duction of one style of dress to another.9 There has been little or
no interchange of workers between Twentieth Century and Monroe
Lloyd in the short period under consideration, and a minimum inter-
change in the assignment of garments to one side or the other. How-
ever, the Employer testified that in setting up the Monroe Lloyd
operation it did not intend to abandon its established practice of
adjusting the ratio of production of the two types of garments to
7 For the purposes of determining the character of Monroe Lloyd operations the period
from June 1949 , when Monroe Lloyd began actual production , until November 1949, is
regarded as the representative period. Asa strike began in November 1949 and was still
in progress at the time of the hearing in this case , operations after November 1949 cannot
be regarded as typical.
8 The Monroe Lloyd suits that the Employer is now engaged in making, and which it
likewise characterizes as "dressmaker suits, " are not precision tailored garments. Many
of them for example, do not have inset sleeves or interfacings such as are commonly found
in more elaborately tailored suits.
9 The Petitioner emphasizes the fact that Monroe Lloyd suits have linings and that such
two-piece garments as are now produced by Twentieth Century do not . However, among
the dressmaker employees testifying , there were several who had shifted from dresses to
suits with lined jackets at a time when Twentieth Century was producing in very con-
siderable volume several lines of suits with such jackets.
SOL BAUM ,AND JULIE BAUM 711
meet varying market demand. In fact the Employer contends that
this is vital to the successful operation of his entire business.
The Employer does not dispute the Petitioner's contention that
employees engaged in producing suits have traditionally been repre-
sented separately from those engaged in producing dresses. It asserts,
however, that the historic demarcation between the two groups of
workers is due to the fact that, in the past, employers universally have
specialized in the production of one type of garment or another. This
specialization arose at a time when there were great technological
differences in the production of the two types of garments. Little
difference now exists in operations such as the Employer's where the
same materials are used for both types of garments, there is little or
no difference in the machines used, and no precision tailored suits
are made.
In view of the integration of the Employer's operations, the funda-
mental similarity in kind and degree of employee skills in the two
branches of the Employer's business, and in the absence of any clear
showing of an established pattern of separate bargaining among firms
making similar products in the Los Angeles area , we find that a
separate unit of employees in the Employer's Monroe Lloyd division
is not appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining. We shall
therefore dismiss the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be and it hereby is,
dismissed. °
CHAIRMAN HERZOG and MEMBER STYLES, dissenting :
The unit sought by the Petitioner conforms to the established indus-
try pattern. Factors that we have held prerequisite to a separate de-
partmental unit are also present. The employees of the Employer's
Monroe Lloyd division constitute a homogeneous and readily identi-
fiable group. They are separately supervised, have different working
hours and rates of pay, there is little or no interchange with other
employees, and a substantial degree of physical separation exists.
There is scant evidence in the record to support the Employer's con-
tention that, because of the high incidence of manufacturers employ-
ing a single group of operators in the production of both suits and
dresses, there is absent in Los Angeles any established pattern of
separate representation of employees engaged in making women's
suits 11 On the other hand, it is clear that in setting up its Monroe
11 The only evidence to this effect consists of the testimony of a single manufacturer, who
testified that in his own establishment he produced suits and dresses , using the same
712 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Lloyd operation, the Employer itself has followed the traditional
Nation-wide pattern of manufacturing in the women's coat and suit
industry. The Employer placed its Monroe Lloyd operations in a
separate division, in charge of a man whose experience had been almost
exclusively with coat and suit establishments. In hiring employees
for the Monroe Lloyd operation, employees were sought who had
coat and suit experience, and no dressmaker employees were trans-
ferred to the new operation. Piece-rates on Monroe Lloyd garments
were set at a higher rate than on Twentieth Century garments, thus
conforming to a differential that has always existed between these two
trades.
In these circumstances, we would find appropriate the unit sought,
thus recognizing the separate character of the operation and following
the historic demarcation between the two trades 12
operators for both. The Petitioner , on the other hand presented testimony that it repre-
sents the suit workers in at lease three Los Angeles establihhments where dresses are also
produced on the same premises, and that the dress operators are either unrepresented or
separately represented , a practice which the Employer concedes is always followed in New
York City when an employer 's operation is a mixed one. At least one of these establish-
ments manufactures suits and dresses selling in a lower price line than the Employer's.
12 The May Department Stores, Inc., 50 NLRB 669; Desmond's, Inc., 68 NLRB 379.