Walgreen Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 17, 1950

89 N.L.R.B. 1397 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In .the Matter Of AVALGREEN COMPANY, EMPLOYER and MISCELLANEOUS
WAREHOUSEMEN'S UNION, LOCAL 781, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD
OF TEAMSTERS, AFL, PETITIONER
Case No. 13-RC-1135.-Decided May 17, 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 Morris Slavney, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial 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 [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Murdock].
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 organizations involved claimed to represent certain
employees 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 contends that the appropriate unit consists of all
employees in the Employer's Chicago, Illinois,. warehouse, excluding
watchmen, truck. drivers and their helpers, employees of the personnel
department, and supervisors as defined in the Act. The Intervenor
would also exclude office clericals employed in the warehouse and the
employees of the syrup department. The Employer took no position
on this questi 011.2
1 Warehouse and Distribution Workers Union, Local 208, ILWU-CIO, hereinafter called
the Intervenor , was permitted to intervene at the hearing on the basis of a current showing
of interest among the employees.
2 Although the Employer did not appear at the hearing it did file a statement of facts with
the hearing officer regarding its operations and the organizational structure of some of the
departments in the warehouse.
89 NLRB No. 193.
197
1398 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Employer, an Illinois corporation with its principal office in
Chicago, Illinois, operates a chain of 216 retail drug stores in 9 States.
It operates 3 warehouses to service its stores. One of the three ware-
houses, the only one involved in this proceeding, is located in Chicago;
the other two are situated outside the State.
The o/flee clericals whom the Intervenor would exclude perform
the various duties incident to receiving and filling orders for supplies
sent in by the retail stores. Upon arrival in the warehouse office, these
orders are broken down into whole and part lots, based upon the num-
her ordered as related to the number in a case, are then retyped into
separate orders and sent to the order pickers. The order pickers, who
work on the main floor ,of the warehouse, locate the various items
ordered and assemble them into bins for delivery to the stores. The
order. picker checks off the order as filled and returns it to the office,
where each item is priced to obtain an order cost. The office clericals
in the warehouse perform a considerable amount of typing, tabulat-
ing, and filing in the processing of these orders.
The office clericals are located on the second floor of the warehouse,
with a partition separating them from the remainder of the building.
They are, however, in frequent contact with the other warehouse em-
ployees, such as the order pickers, who make four or five trips per
day to the office to secure new orders. On occasion, an office employee
will deliver orders to the order pickers in the main part of the ware-
house.
The office clericals are under the. same supervision as other ware-
house employees, work the same hours, for comparable pay, are paid
on the same basis, and use the same facilities as do the other employees.
They also receive similar benefits, such as vacation and holiday pay,
sick leave, and seniority privileges.
Substantially the same unit of this Employer's warehouse employees,
including the office clericals, was found appropriate by the Board in
37 NLRB 764, and the predecessor of the Intervenor was subsequently
certified as the bargaining representative.' Since 1941, the Inter-
venor has collectively bargained for all those warehouse employees
in a single unit. The last contract the Intervenor had with the Em-
ployer expired on March 11, 1948. None of the parties to this pro-
ceeding asserts, and the record does not show, that there has been
any substantial change in the duties of the office clericals or in the
operations of the Employer since the previous finding was made.
Accordingly, in view of our previous unit finding, the history of col-
lective bargaining, and the fact that these employees appear to have
8 Walgreen Company, 39 NLRB 920.
WALGREEN COMPANY 1399
working conditions and interests similar to the other warehouse em-
ployees, we shall include the office clerical employees in the unit here-
inafter found appropriate.4
The syrup department employees, whom the Intervenor would ex-
elude, work on the first floor of the warehouse, where they are engaged
in the manufacture of syrup used in the fountains of the Employer's
retail stores. Although they are under separate supervision from the
rest of the warehouse, employees, there is no partition between this
department and the remainder of the warehouse, and the syrup de-
partment employees have occasional contact with the others.
This syrup department constitutes the remnants of the candy depart-
ment, which ceased operating as a department in 1941. The candy
department had been included in the Board's earlier finding of the
appropriate unit,5 and has been bargained for by the Intervenor
since 1941, as part of the general warehouse unit. No evidence having
been presented to demonstrate that the unit previously found appro-
priate should now be changed to exclude the syrup department em-
ployees, we shall include them with the other warehouse employees
in the appropriate unit.6
Accordingly, we find that all employees of the Employer's Chicago,
Illinois, warehouse, including the office clericals and syrup department
employees, but excluding watchmen, truck drivers and their helpers,
personnel department employees, and supervisors as defined in the
Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION 7
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by
secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later
than 30 clays from the date of this Direction, under the direction and
supervision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this
case was heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National
Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees
in the unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who
were employed during the payroll period immediately preceding the
date of this Direction of Election, including employees who did not
work during said payroll period because they were ill or on vaca-
4 Worth Hardware Co., Inc ., 71 NLRB 684 ; S. S. Pierce Co., 82 NLRB 1260.
5 Supra, footnote 3.
Central Bus Lines, Inc., 88 NLRB.
Either participant in the election directed herein may , upon its prompt request to, and
approval thereof by , the Regional Director, have its name removed from the ballot.
1400 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tion or temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have
since quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or
reinstated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding em-
ployees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine
whether they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bar-
gaining, by Miscellaneous Warehousemen's Union Local 781, Inter-
national Brotherhood of Teamsters, AFL, by Warehouse and Distri-
bution Workers Union, Local 208, ILWU-CIO, or by neither.