U-Wana-Wash Frocks, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 25, 1973

203 N.L.R.B. 174 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

174 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
U-Wana-Wash Frocks , Inc. and International Ladies'
Garment Workers' Union, Local 108, Petitioner
Case 4-RC-9973
April 25, 1973
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
On November 21, 1972, the Regional Director for
Region 4 issued a Decision and Direction of Election
in the above-entitled proceeding, wherein he found
appropriate the single-location unit requested by the
Petitioner. Thereafter, in accordance with Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules
and Regulations, Series 8 , as amended, the Employer
filed a timely request for review of the Regional
Director's Decision and Direction of Election on the
ground, inter alia, that in making his unit finding he
departed from officially reported precedent. The Peti-
tioner filed an opposition thereto.
By telegraphic order dated December 13, 1972, the
National Labor Relations Board granted the
Employer's request for review and stayed the election
pending decision on review. Thereafter, the parties
filed briefs on review. The Employer requested oral
argument before the Board.
The Board has considered the entire record in this
case with respect to the issues under review, I including
the briefs on review, and makes the following find-
ings:
As indicated above, the Regional Director found
appropriate the Petitioner's requested unit of produc-
tion and maintenance employees at the Employer's
Newville, Pennsylvania, facility. On review, the Em-
ployer contends that the only appropriate unit herein
must encompass production and maintenance em-
ployees at all its facilities which are located in New-
ville, Carlisle, Shippensburg, and Fort Loudon,
Pennsylvania. It also argues that, in the absence of a
showing of substantial change of circumstances, the
Regional Director erred in not following a prior
Board finding that a unit of production and mainte-
nance employees at all three of its then existing plants
at Newville, Shippensburg, and Fort Loudon was
alone appropriate.2
The Employer, whose principal offices are in New
York City, is engaged in the manufacture of ladies'
cotton dresses at the aforementioned facilities. The
Carlisle and Shippensburg facilities are located ap-
1 The Employer's request for oral argument is hereby denied , as the record
and briefs adequately present the issues and the positions of the parties.
2 Decision dated February 8, 1961, in Cases 4-RC-4378 and 4-RC-4382
(not printed in published volumes of Board Decisions .) In those consolidated
cases the Petitioner made an amended request for a two-plant unit comprised
of employees at Newville and Shippensburg.
proximately 11 miles from Newville, and the Fort
Loudon facility is approximately 39 miles from New-
ville. The facility in Newville receives a cutting ticket
and sample garment from New York. Patternmaking,
marking, spreading, and cutting of the piece goods are
then done in Newville. The cut goods, depending on
the type of order and production schedules, are then
sewn either in a sewing room at the Newville plant or
at one of the other three facilities , each of which is a
sewing room operation. The goods are then returned
to Newville for finishing operations, such as button-
holing, application of buttons, turning, pressing, and
sorting as to size and color. The goods are shipped to
customers from a shipping area located in a separate
building one or two blocks from the Newville plant.
The administrative offices of the Employer are lo-
cated in Newville, where all production and payroll
records are kept. Wage, hours, and fringe benefits are
determined in Newville and are uniform for all em-
ployees. Production scheduling and pricing are done
in Newville. Although the plant managers at the vari-
ous facilities 3 take part in hiring and firing, all such
actions must be approved by officials in Newville.
Employee grievances may be directed initially to the
plant manager. However, all but minor grievances are
resolved by officials in Newville. The production
manager located in Newville maintains daily tele-
phone contact with the plant managers at the various
facilities and visits the various facilities 3 to 4 days a
week. The production manager's decision to send cut
goods for any given design to a particular sewing
room is based on the workloads at the various loca-
tions and the location of special machinery. There is
some interchange of personnel. Also, machinery is
frequently transferred from one facility to another,
and is maintained and repaired by three mechanics
employed by the Employer who make regularly
scheduled visits every week to each of the facilities. A
central telephone switchboard located in Newville
serves all facilities.
As noted above, in our previous decision we found
that only an Employerwide unit was appropriate for
its production and maintenance employees at three
locations. No substantial changes have occurred in
the Employer's operations since the decision to war-
rant a different finding herein. The high degree of
functional integration of the Employer' s business, as
evidenced by the virtually complete dependence of
the outlying sewing rooms on the Newville plant for
production and administration, remains as before, de-
spite the addition of another sewing facility at Car-
3 It appears that the plant managers at the Shippensburg , Carlisle , and Fort
Loudon sewing rooms are the sole supervisors of the employees employed
there
203 NLRB No. 30
U-WANNA-WASH, FROCKS, INC.
lisle. The significance of the geographic separation of
the Employer's sewing rooms also wanes in light of
the Employer's practice of frequently transferring ma-
chinery between them, its use of a central mainte-
nance crew for machinery repairs at all facilities, the
frequent and regular visitations of the production
manager at all the facilities, and the use of Newville
based drivers to transport work and machinery
among the various locations on a daily basis.
Accordingly, we find that the requested unit con-
fined in scope to the Newville facility is inappropriate
as an arbitrary segment of employees in the Employ-
erwide unit, which in the circumstances of this case,
we find to be the smallest appropriate unit. As the
Petitioner has not indicated a desire to proceed to an
election in a broader unit, we shall dismiss its peti-
tion.4
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed here be,
and it hereby is dismissed.
MEMBER FANNING. dissenting:
The Regional Director found that the record sup-
ported the presumptive appropriateness of a single-
plant unit sought by the Petitioner at Newville, Penn-
sylvania, despite a substantial degree of production
integration with three "factories," one located 11
miles to the northeast of Newville and two located 11
and 39 miles to the southwest of Newville.5 Though
the record amply sustains that conclusion, my col-
leagues now reverse that finding and dismiss the peti-
tion, finding only a four-plant unit appropriate.
There is no bargaining history.' Newville is the ad-
ministrative center of the Employer's dress manufac-
turing operation. The plant at Newville makes dress
patterns from sample dresses, marks, cuts, sews, fin-
ishes, and packs. However, it sews only part of what
it cuts, the remainder going to an unspecified number
of contract sewing plants as well as to its own three
factories, or sewing rooms, at Carlisle, Shippensburg,
and Fort Loudon. As to some styles, Newville, which
employs 15 percent of the Employer's sewing employ-
ees, produces the end product completely. Styles re-
quiring specialized sewing machines are sent to the
factory sewing room which has such machines. The
production manager in charge of sewing, one of the
two witnesses at the hearing, testified that sewing ma-
4 See National Connector, Division of Fabri-Tek Incorporated, 191 NLRB
675; and Tungsten Contact Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, 189 NLRB
22,
3 In his testimony the production manager referred frequently to the other
three locations as "factories."
6 There is a 1961 unpublished case in which the Board found a three-plant
unit (there were then only three and Petitioner sought only two) appropriate
There is no indication in this record that bargaining resulted
175
chine operators are not transferred at all, the practice
being to transfer work rather than operators, and that
equipment is also transferred. According to him, em-
ployees at any "factory" are free to go home at lunch,
implying that all live in the immediate area of their
work location.
Concerning the day-to-day autonomy of Carlisle,
Shippensburg, and Fort Loudon,' it appears that each
plant manager has employment application forms
and interviews applicants, checking with Newville
only to see whether it approves hiring additional em-
ployees at the time and whether only experienced em-
ployees should be considered. According to the pro-
duction manager, the recommendation of plant man-
agers, including those with respect to pay increases, is
normally taken. The example he gave of overruling a
recommendation is rather revealing. If a plant manag-
er recommended keeping a new girl on for a longer
trial period, he would overrule if the girl's work were
poor, like "2 bucks ($2) a day." (Emphasis supplied.)
The other witness was the plant manager at Ship-
pensburg. He testified to approval of his recommen-
dation to promote a specific employee to a floorlady,
to approval of recommendations to correct piece
rates , and approval with respect to utilization of
overtime. It was also his testimony that it would be
"very rare" for Newville to say that overtime was not
needed when recommended. He also adjusts some
grievances himself and trains the people who work
under him, which is the entire sewing force at that
location. According to him, the other plants operate
in the same manner, testimony which is consistent
with that of the production manager. Concerning hire
and discharge the Shippensburg plant manager stat-
ed:
Yes. I usually-when I hire or fire-either way,
I call Mr. Holbreich [vice president and general
manager at Newville] and ask him if it's all right
if I hire a few girls at this time . I'll tell him that
right now I believe I could handle a few more
sewing machine operators . . . and the same way
with firing.
A considerable portion of the record is devoted to
r My colleagues at In . 3 admit that the plant managers at the three sewing
plants are "the sole supervisors" of the employees at these plants . As these
same supervisors have extensive responsibility with respect to, and impact
upon , hiring employees for the sewing plants , as well as supervising them, a
decision such as this , which emphasizes the visits of a "production" manager
and repair mechanics to sewing plants, the transfer of machinery between
plants instead of the sewing employees themselves , and a central switch-
board , relies unrealistically on centralized administration of product and
equipment at the expense of employee bargaining rights . It seems to me the
majority defeats the purposes of the Act by ignoring geography and autono-
my The separate community of interest of three groups of sewing employees,
who in all probability could not be recruited for work at the main Newville
plant because of the distance involved , is ignored , as well as the autonomous
treatment from a labor relations standpoint which each group receives. With
this approach the mere existence of these groups is used to turn the main
plant here sought into an "arbitrary segment" of an appropriate unit.
176 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
testimony on the authority of plant managers , as out-
lined above. Thus, I could not say, as my colleagues
do, that plant managers merely "take part" in hiring
and firing, and that "all such actions" must be ap-
proved by officials in Newville, or that all but minor
grievances are resolved in Newville. I would be com-
pelled to characterize the record as showing consider-
able autonomy in the day-to-day operation of the
geographically separated sewing rooms located at
Carlisle, Shippensburg, and Fort Loudon. And, I
would agree with the Regional Director that inter-
change is "modest" or insignificant inasmuch as the
same production manager who said that temporary
transfers of personnel occurred "so often I wouldn't
begin to guess," apparently meant only finishing em-
ployees, for he also said that sewing machine opera-
tors "are not transferred at all . . . I testified before
we have transferred work rather than the operator."
It is also noteworthy that he could name only two
occasions-23 months apart-of temporary inter-
change.
The majority's conclusion that there is "close ge-
ographic proximity of all of the plants" is one as to
which reasonable men may well differ. But with two
of the sewing factories 11 miles away from Newville-
in opposite directions-and the third 39 miles away,
and with employees at each living in the immediate
vicinity, it is highly unrealistic to conclude that these
groups lack separate communities of interest. As each
group is also hired locally and has separate supervi-
sion by plant managers who assign work, take up
grievances , hire and discharge, and effectively recom-
mend with respect to the full gamut of conditions of
employment, each of these three is a separate appro-
priate unit. I would affirm the Regional Director and
grant an election to the Newville employees alone.8 A
four-plant unit is also appropriate as an employerwide
unit, but in the absence of bargaining history on that
basis or some other combination, there is no cogent
reason, on this record, to find a Newville plant unit
inappropriate .9
81 would include the shipping employees at Newville , located several
blocks from the Newville plant It is not clear from the Regional Director's
decision whether he did so
9 My colleagues cite two cases in which I participated Both are distinguish-
able National Connector, Division of Fabri-Tek Incorporated, 191 NLRB 675,
where there was an "absence of local autonomy in supervision ." Tungsten
Contact Mfg Co, 189 NLRB 22, where the duties of the manager of the plant
sought separately were not revealed in the record, only his day-to-day con-
duct of the plant , he did not supervise 25 percent of the employees at his
plant , and recruitment was centrally organized Neither case involves a gar-
ment plant such as the plants here It is well known that in this industry many
sewing factories operate autonomously and-as here , in unspecified plants
utilized by this Employer-contract to do sewing alone Separately located
and separately supervised, they are presumptively appropriate separate units