Uptown Cleaners & Hatters, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 24, 1969

174 N.L.R.B. 721 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

UPTOWN CLEANERS & HATTERS, INC. 721
Uptown Cleaners & Hatters, Inc. and Amalgamated
Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO,
Petitioner. Case 7-RC-8546
February 24, 1969
DECISION ON REVIEW
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND JENKINS
On May 7, 1968, the Regional Director for
Region 7 issued a Decision and Direction of
Election in the above-entitled proceeding in which he
found appropriate the unit hereinafter described.
Thereafter, in accordance with the National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations, the
Employer filed a timely request for review of the
Regional Director's Decision on the grounds that, in
reaching his unit determination, he departed from
officially reported Board precedent and made
conclusionary findings which were inconsistent with
factual findings which he had made and which were
clearly erroneous.
On September 9, 1968, the National Labor
Relations Board by telegraphic order granted the
request for review, stayed the election pending
decision on review, and requested the parties to file
briefs on review. Thereafter, all parties filed briefs
on review and the Employer filed a reply brief after
its receipt of Petitioner's brief on review, in which
the Petitioner urged that its initial unit request was
appropriate, but contended that the unit found by
the Regional Director was also appropriate.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel.
Upon the entire record in the case, including the
Employer's Request for Review, the briefs on
review, and the Employer's reply brief, the Board
makes the following findings:
The Petitioner originally sought a unit of all
production and maintenance employees at the
Employer's main plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
excluding all counter girls located at that plant as
well as at its nine other substations and the
production employees at its Town and Country
installation. As an alternative, it agrees to include in
the unit the presser at Town and Country. The unit
found appropriate by the Regional Director included
the production and maintenance employees at the
main plant, the counter girls there employed, and
the presser at Town and Country but excluded all
counter girls working at locations away from the
main plant. He included the main plant counter girls
and the presser at Town and Country on the ground
that they have a close community of interest with
the main plant production and maintenance
employees.
The Employer objects to the exclusion of the
counter girls at the substations, contending that the
unit should be citywide in scope under our holdings
in Independent Linen Service of Mississippi, '122
NLRB 1002 and Bugle Coat, Apron & Linen
Service, Inc., 132 NLRB 1098. We agree.
The Employer is engaged in the dry cleaning and
shirt laundry business in the Grand Rapids,
Michigan, metropolitan area. It operates two
facilities for processing garments: the main plant
where substantially all of the dry cleaning is done
and where all the laundry work is done and a
substation, Town and Country, where a small dry
cleaning operation is performed. It also operates in
this area 10 counters for retail sales: one at the
main plant, one at Town and Country, and eight at
substations. There is no history of collective
bargaining.
At the main plant, the Employer employs
approximately 45 individuals who are engaged in the
following "production" functions: sorting (1),
spotting (2), dry cleaning (1), silk finishing
(pressing) (3), wool finishing (4), alterations (4),
"inspection (1), marking (3), assembling (1), bagging
(1), shirt laundering (17). In addition, the Employer
employs seven counter girls at the main plant, who
spend 30 percent of their time at the counter and the
remainder in such other functions as bagging,
packaging, assembling, and retrieving garments for
customers when they return for processed garments.
At Town and Country, the Employer employs a
total of eight employees: one dry cleaner who is also
the manager of that substation, a wool-and-silk
presser (finisher), and five or six counter clerks who
spend approximately 20 percent of their time at the
counter serving customers and 80 percent in such
other work as marking and tagging clothes when
they are received, brushing cuffs and emptying
pockets, bagging, inspecting, minor repair,
assembly, and other work on those garments
processed on the premises.
At the other eight substations, the Employer
employs approximately 29 counter clerks, who also
spend 20 percent of their time at the counter and the
remainder in such other work as marking, brushing
cuffs, and emptying pockets, bagging, inspecting,
assembly, and bagging. At all substations, the
counter clerks perform functions which at the main
plant are performed by 12 full-time "production
employees," i.e., sorting, inspection, marking,
assembling, and bagging. Although the main plant
counter clerks do not generally perform all these
functions, they do frequently "fill in" on such work
as bagging, assembly, inspection, minor repairs, and
some isolated marking.
The Employer's secretary treasurer, Nick
Salhaney, is the overall general manager of the
entire operation. James Salhaney supervises
production workers at the main plant with the
assistance of three other supervisors. Robert
Simmons supervises the "branch operations,"
174 NLRB No. 119
722 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
although Town and Country has a manager, Jerry
Green, who is immediately supervised by Simmons.
The other substations are directly supervised by
Robert Simmons who visits each store at least once
a week. The record does not affirmatively show who
is the immediate supervisor of the main plant
counter clerks or whether they are supervised by
production supervisors when engaged in production
functions. There is no supervisor other than Robert
Simmons for the counter clerks at the substations
which are operated with full and part-time
employees trained by Robert Simmons and assisted
by the operations manual.
We agree with the Regional Director that in the
circumstances of this case the main plant counter
girls and the Town and Country presser belong in
the unit with the other production and maintenance
employees at the main plant. However, we see no
warrant for the exclusion of the substation counter
girls. As found by the Regional Director both
groups of counter girls perform the same functions
which include for the most part certain production
work which is also performed by full-time
production employees working in the production
area of the main plant. While the substation counter
girls are located away from the main plant, such
geographical separation within the metropolitan area
is not under the circumstances of this case sufficient
to give them a separate community of interest.
Indeed, the Regional Director by including the
Town and Country presser in the unit minimized the
factor of geographical separation with respect to the
Employer's overall operations.
The record here discloses that the operations at
the main plant and the substations are parts of a
single integrated business within a metropolitan
area. Virtually all garments taken in by the several
receiving sources used by the Employer - main
'Independent Linen Service and Bugle Coat , Apron & Linen Service,
Inc., etc, supra Haag Drug Company , 169 NLRB No 111, relied upon
by the Regional Director , is inapposite
'Cf. Laundry Owners Association of Greater Cincinnati , 123 NLRB 543,
in which all clerks were excluded from a plant production unit because
"even those clerks who do some clothes marking spend only a very small
part of their working time in this operation ," making their "duties and
interests" similar to those "of other retail clerks rather than those of
production employees."
plant counters,- substations, route drivers, and
wholesale accounts - are funnelled through for
service at the main plant. None of the substations,
except for Town and Country, has a local manager
and none has any meaningful identity as a self
contained economic unit which would constitute a
separate appropriate unit. Under all the
circumstances we find that the outlets or substations
here involved are merely adjuncts to the main plant'
and that the counter girls at such locations, because
they spend a major part of their time performing
functions which are integrated with the production
processes at the main plant, must be included in the
unit.'
For the reasons stated above, we find that the
appropriate unit in this case is:
All production and maintenance employees of the
Employer, including counter clerks, employed in
the metropolitan area of Grand Rapids,
Michigan, but excluding office clerical employees,
relay and route drivers, guards and supervisors as
defined in the Act.
Although the unit we thus find appropriate is
broader than that sought by the Petitioner, we shall
not dismiss the petition inasmuch as the Petitioner
has not specifically disclaimed interest in such unit.
We shall therefore remand the case to the Regional
Director for the purpose of conducting an election
pursuant to his Decision and Direction of Election
as modified herein,' subject to his ascertaining that
the Petitioner has made an adequate showing of
interest among the employees in the appropriate
unit, and with the further exception that the
eligibility date shall be that immediately preceding
this date.4
'A corrected election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses
of all the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional
Director for Region 7 within 7 days after the date of this Decision on
Review. The list may initially be used by the Regional Director to assist in
determining an adequate showing of interest . The Regional Director shall
make the list available to all parties to the election when he shall have
determined that an adequate showing of interest among the employees in
the unit found appropriate has been established . No extension of tune to
file this list shall be granted by the Regional Director except in
extraordinary circumstances Failure to comply with this requirement shall
be grounds for setting aside the election whenever proper objections are
filed. Excelsior Underwear Inc., 156 NLRB 1236
'If the Petitioner does not now desire to participate in an election in the
unit we find appropriate herein, we shall permit it to withdraw its petition
without prejudice upon written notice to the Regional Director within 10
days from the date of this Decision.