The Wickes Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 5, 1973

201 N.L.R.B. 608 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

608 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Wickes Furniture, a Division of The Wickes Corpora-
tion and Retail Store Employees Union , Local 655,
affiliated with Retail Clerks International Associa-
tion, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 14-RC-6915
February 5, 1973
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Leo D.
Dollard of the National Labor Relations Board.
Following the close of the hearing the Regional
Director for Region 14 transferred this case to the
Board for decision. The Petitioner filed a brief.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They 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, and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation of certain employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks a unit of all retail selling
employees at the Employer's St. Louis, Missouri,
retail furniture store. The Employer contends that
the Petitioner's unit is inappropriate and that the
only appropriate unit is a storewide unit which
includes both selling and nonselling employees.
The Employer's retail store is housed in a one-story
building, of which the front two-thirds is a warehouse
and the rear one-third is a showroom separated from
the warehouse by a firewall. The store is so arranged
that customers enter the warehouse in the front of
the building and proceed for some 200 feet through
the warehouse, which contains packaged furniture
items and includes warehouse clerical offices; will-
call, service, and receiving desks; a customers'
lounge; a service refinishing and touchup area; and
receiving, shipping, and storage areas. Arriving at the
showroom, the customers find furniture displays,
including room settings, in front of them; the front
offices, including clerical offices for receiving cash
and handling purchases and tickets; the bookkeeping
office, the mailroom, and the EDP, or electronic data
processing room, to their right; and the accessory
room, for the display of small items such as lamps, a
so-called cut and dent room, which is part of the
1 201 NLRB No. 60.
showroom area, and an employees' lounge, to their
left. The showroom, unlike the warehouse, is carpet-
ed and air conditioned.
Of the 71 employees who work in the store, there
are 24 salesmen. The other job classifications include
warehousemen, warehouse clericals, service men,
maintenance personnel, truckdrivers, various front-
office clerical classifications, and a display staff.
The primary duties of the salesmen are to show,
explain, and sell the furniture in the showroom, write
up sales tickets, and assist in maintaining orderliness
in the showroom. Each sale involves several individu-
al steps, such as checking with the front-office
merchandise control unit as to the availability of the
purchased item, steering the customer to the proper
front-office clericals for cash or credit payment
arrangements, and securing touch-ups or minor
repairs of purchased items.
The salesmen wear distinctive blazers; work in the
showroom area; do not transfer to or from other
departments or interchange with other employees;
are the only commissioned employees at the store;
have 2 weeks of training, as compared to 1 week for
the other employees; attend their own sales meet-
ings ; and are required to conform to certain
employee rules applicable only to themselves.
On the other hand, the sales employees regularly
contact certain other employees in, or adjacent to,
the showroom, including front-office clerical employ-
ees, merchandise control employees, and display
employees. They participate with other employees in
monthly warehouse sales and in taking inventory,
work the same number of hours, punch the same
timeclock, use the same employee lounge, have the
same employee benefits, and are under the supervi-
sion of the sales manager, who also supervises the
three display staff employees and two clerical
employees engaged in updating and retagging opera-
tions in the showroom. There is no collective-
bargaining history covering the employees at the
facility.
As we stated in Wickes Furniture, a Division of The
Wickes Corporation,' issued this date, we believe that,
in view of the integration of operations and overlap-
ping of functions among selling and nonselling
employees in this type of store, the fragmentation of
selling and nonselling employees into separate
bargaining units is not justified. On this record, the
community of interest of the selling and nonselling
employees outweighs any separate interest that the
selling employees may have. For the reasons stated in
the companion Wickes case, supra, we find that a
storewide unit is the only appropriate unit.
Accordingly, and as no labor organization seeks to
201 NLRB No. 61
WICKES FURNITURE 609
represent the Employer's employees in a storewide MEMBERS FANNING and JENKINS, dissenting:
unit, we shall dismiss the instant petition. For reasons set forth in Wickes Furniture, a
Division of The Wickes Corporation, 201 NLRB No.
ORDER 60, issued this date, we would find appropriate, and
direct an election in, the requested unit of the
It is hereby ordered that the instant petition be, Employer's salesmen.
and the same hereby is, dismissed.