Weber's I.G.A.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 23, 1979

244 N.L.R.B. 594 (N.L.R.B. 1979)

DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Weber's Food Services. Inc. d/b/a Weber's I.G.A. and
Retail Store Employees Union, Local 40, United
Food and Commercial Workers International
Union, AFI-CIO,' Petitioner. Case 7-RC- 15278
August 23, 1979
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN FANNING ANI) MEMBIERS JNKINS
AND PNI A!IA D
On March 26, 1979, the Acting Regional Director
for Region 7 issued a decision and direction of elec-
tion in the above-entitled proceeding in which he
found appropriate a unit of grocery employees at the
Employer's two food stores, excluding meat depart-
ment employees, as sought by the Petitioner. There-
after, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations,
Series 8, as amended, the Employer filed a timely re-
quest for review of the Acting Regional Director's
decision on the ground that by failing to also exclude
the bakery and delicatessen employees along with the
meat department employees his decision is clearly er-
roneous on the record and a departure from estab-
lished Board precedent. By telegraphic Order dated
April 24, 1979, the Board granted the Employer's re-
quest for review.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the entire record in this
case and makes the following findings:
The Employer, a Michigan corporation engaged in
the retail sale of food products, operates two stores in
Bridgeport, Michigan, one at 6077 Dixie Highway
and the other, its main store, at 6370 Bridgeport Vil-
lage Square. Each store consists of various depart-
ments such as meat, dairy, and produce and each is
run by a manager and assistant manager. Also lo-
cated at the Village Square store are the Employer's
offices as well as two additional departments, bakery
and delicatessen. As one enters the Village Square
store, the Employer's offices are situated along the
wall to the left, the meat department is at the back of
the store, and the bakery and delicatessen depart-
ments are located next to each other on the right side
of the store in the far corner. In the Employer's ad-
vertising it refers to the bakery and delicatessen as the
I The name of the Petitioner, formerly Retail Store Employees Union.
Local 40, Retail Clerks International Union. AFL-CIO. is amended to re-
flect the change resulting from the merger of Retail lerks International
Union and Amalgamated Meatcutters and Butcher W'orkmen f North
America on June 7. 1979.
Country Kitchen. The Village Square store is open
from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. 6 days a week and from 9 a.m.
to 6 p.m. on Sundays. Dixie Highway is only open 6
days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
There are five employees in the Employer's meat
departments at its two stores. These employees carve
primal cuts of beef into smaller retail cuts, dissever
poultry, fillet fish, and grind and slice meat. They are
also responsible for the weighing, wrapping, and
packaging of meat and stocking the open-shelf meat
counter where customers make their selections.
Wages in the meat department run from approxi-
mately $3 to $7.99 per hour. One meat department
employee has 2-1/2 years' experience in the Employ-
er's meat department, another has I year's experi-
ence: both had experience in meatcutting prior to
their current employment. A third employee, who has
been with the Employer for only about 6 months and
came with limited experience, performs mostly wrap-
ping and stocking duties.2 Most meat department em-
ployees report for work at either 5 a.m. or 7 a.m. and
work an 8-hour shift. One meat department employee
works a late shift beginning about 1 p.m. or 3 p.m.
and leaves around 8 p.m. or 8:30 p.m., except for
Mondays and Tuesdays.
There are four employees in the Employer's delica-
tessen department. Each day these employees cook
and prepare hot foods for display on the steamtable,
as well as salads, desserts, sandwich meats, and
cheeses for the cold and cheese cases. In preparing
such foods delicatessen employees, like meat depart-
ment employees, slice beetf cheese, and bulk lunch
meat, grind liver and bologna, cut spareribs, and oc-
casionally trim fat from meat. When a customer
makes his selection food is then weighed, packaged,
and marked. Delicatessen employees currently earn
between $3.20 and $3.50 per hour. They were hired
without delicatessen experience but were experienced
in cooking and were subsequently trained in the op-
eration of a delicatessen. According to the Employer
it takes 5 to 8 months to train a delicatessen clerk
proficiently. Three of the four delicatessen employees
arrive for work early, one each at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and
9 a.m., with the fourth employee arriving about 3
p.m. for the late shift.
The six employees in the Employer's bakery de-
partment are responsible for baking the products sold
such as homemade breads and rolls, doughnuts,
cakes, and pastries, decorating and icing the baked
goods, and packaging the goods to customer order.
The various bakery items are displayed in cases at the
front of the bakery where there is also a plexiglass
cake decorating cage where customers can watch as
2 However. according to the Employer's president. George E. Weber. one
can learn the job of making retail cuts in 3 or 4 months or less.
244 NLRB No. 98
594
WEBER'S I.G.A.
bakery employees decorate cakes. Wages in the bak-
ery department range from $2.90 to $7 per hour, with
the department head at the top of the scale and full
bakers receiving the next highest wage. However, the
Employer currently does not have any skilled bakers,
only apprentice bakers earning approximately $4.40
per hour, finishers, and a counter worker who is still
learning to finish. A journeyman baker can be trained
in approximately 3 months, but to train an inexperi-
enced person to be a baker would take 6 to 18
months. The bakery department employees who do
the actual baking report for work at 5 a.m., the others
begin at approximately 7 a.m. Except for Friday
when one employee works unitl 9 p.m., all bakery
employees are usually gone by 5:30 p.m.
The Employer's grocery employees including cash-
iers, stock clerks, and baggers earn from $2.90 to
$4.50 per hour. The amount of time needed to train
grocery employees is relatively short: 2 to 3 weeks for
a cashier, I to 2 weeks for a stock clerk, and under I
week for a bagger. Except for some stock clerks who
begin stocking shelves at approximately 5 a.m. the
grocery employees work staggered shifts during the
hours that the Employer's stores are open. All of the
Employer's employees receive the same benefits in-
cluding insurance, workmen's compensation, holi-
days, and vacation and are subject to the same work
rules.
The delicatessen and bakery employees regularly
help out in each other's departments during breaks
and the lunch hour. In particular, the delicatessen
employees work the bakery counter at night after
5:30 when no bakery employees are scheduled to
work. Delicatessen employees also work in the meat
department as wrappers and slicers when the amount
of work or employee absence so require, averaging
once or twice a month. Meat department employees
also help the employees in the delicatessen. Until
about October 1978 this occurred twice a week but
now occurs approximately twice a month. On rare
occasions the head checker also helps wrap in the
meat department, and on extremely rare occasions a
delicatessen employee will help bag. As for perma-
nent transfers, two meat department employees were
transferred at their request to the delicatessen depart-
ment, and one delicatessen employee formerly
worked in the bakery. One grocery employee, a cash-
ier, also transferred to the delicatessen.
The Employer's president has primary responsibil-
ity for the meat, bakery, and delicatessen depart-
ments including interviewing, hiring, and discipline:
he also prepares the departmental sales and labor re-
ports for each of these departments. The store man-
ager is in charge of the other departments, although
on two occasions the Employer's president hired de-
partment heads for a grocery department who is re-
sponsible for the grocery labor reports.
Meat, bakery, and delicatessen employees all wear
white uniforms, and, in accordance with state law re-
quirements, they also wear aprons and headgear.
Stock employees usually wear dress pants with a
white shirt and tie, and cashiers wear gold and brown
smocks with the store name printed thereon. Fort\
percent of the grocery employees are part-time em-
ployees, whereas only 10 to 15 percent of the meat,
delicatessen, and bakery employees work less than
full time due to training and skill involved. Meat and
delicatessen employees wrap and package their prod-
ucts in similar fashion, have their own separate sup-
ply storage area in the meat department, and use
identical wrap stands and interchangeable slicing
equipment. Also, 50 percent of the products sold in
the delicatessen (the meats and cheeses), are also sold
in the meat department. Further, the delicatessen de-
partment obtains most of its daily meat needs from
the meat department, and although delicatessen em-
ployees also obtain items from the grocery depart-
ment too, the delicatessen department's needs in this
area are greatly limited in comparison to its meat re-
quirements. For some meat products, the meat and
delicatessen departments have common suppliers.
These products, like all of the Employer's meat items.
are delivered to the store at a separate door from the
grocery products. In addition, meat, delicatessen, and
bakery employees, unlike grocery employees, have
considerable customer contact in dealing with cus-
tomers over the counter and filling special orders.
There is no history of collective bargaining between
the parties.3
In the retail grocery industry the Board has long
recognized the traditional differences between meat
and grocery employees, particularly in such areas as
wages, skill, and training and, therefore, generally ex-
cludes meat department employees from an overall
unit of grocery employees. Quality Markets, Inc., 129
NLRB 904 (1960); Mock Road Super Duper, Inc., 156
NLRB 983 (1966): Allied Super Market, Inc., 167
NLRB 361, 363 (1967): C & E Stores, Inc., 229
NLRB 1259 (1977). Here, as the Petitioner does not
seek to represent the meat employees, in view of the
insubstantial interchange, the differences in skill,
training, and job functions, and the fact that there is
no contrary bargaining history we see no reason to
depart from the general rule and, therefore, find the
Acting Regional Director properly excluded the meat
department employees from the grocery unit.
Given the exclusion of the meat department from
The Petitioner's agent testified, however. that in the nine-count, geo-
graphical area it serves the Petitioner represents grocery emplo)ees at 10 to
12 other locations in units which exclude meat department employees
595
DI9(ECISIONS O(): NATIONAl. IABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the storewide unit as requested by the Petitioner we
find, contrary to the Acting Regional D[irector, that
the bakery and delicatessen employees may not he
included in the overall unit, for their community of
interest is more closely identified with the meat de-
partment employees than with the grocery employees,
the principal group in the storewide unit. Thus, unlike
the grocery employees, bakery. delicatessen, and
meat department employees are skilled. require sub-
stanlial training, primarily work different hours, are
separately supervised, wear unitforms required by
state health regulations, and have substantial cus-
tomer contact. Moreover, the delicatessen and meat
departments are operationally integrated: the bakery
and meat employees receive substantially higher
wages: and there is considerable temporary inter-
change between the three departments.
Consequently, based on the foregoing facts, we find
that the community of interest of the bakery and deli-
catessen employees is so clearly identified with meat
department employees as to require their exclusion
from the overall unit. Prinmrose Super Market of Mal-
den, 178 NLRB 566 (1969). 4 Accordingly, the unit
found appropriate by the Acting Regional Director is
4 Priced-laes Disount Foods. Inc, dh/b/a Pavle. 157 NLRB 1143 (1966):
Seaqv Food Town, Inc., 171 NI.RB 729 (1968): and Ideal Super Markets, et
amended so as to exclude delicatessen and bakery de-
partment employees.5
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that this case be remanded to
the Regional Director for Region 7 and that said Re-
gional Director open and count the ballots of employ-
ees in the unit and issue the appropriate certification.
The allots of the delicatessen and bakery employees
shall remain unopened.
a/. 171 NI.RB I (1968). where he Board lbund that delicalessen employees
hase a greater community of interest with grocers than with meat depart-
ment emploees., are factually distinguishable. In Ples, delicatessen and
grocer' employees had the same supersisor. like working conditions, and
were functionally integrated: in Seawav, the delicatessen department was
geographically separate from the meat department. delicatessen employees
possessed no journeyman skills, had common supervision with grocery em-
ployees. and did not interchange with meat employees: in Ideal, delicatessen
and grocery employees had similar skills, hours, and supervision. Also, un-
like the instant case, although the employers in Ideal and Seaway also em-
ployed bakery employees, no issue was raised as to their community of inter-
est with other employees.
The unit, as amended herein, is described as:
All full-time and regular part-time employees employed by the Em-
ployer at its stores located at 6077 Dixie Highway and 6370 Bridgeport
Village Square Drive, Bridgeport. Michigan: but excluding meat de-
partment employees, bakery employees. delicatessen employees. guards
and supervisors as defined in the Act.
596