Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Wisconsin

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 26, 1993

310 N.L.R.B. 844 (N.L.R.B. 1993)

844
310 NLRB No. 141
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
1 ITT World Communications, 201 NLRB 1 (1973) (petition for
unit clarification was dismissed because all persons in the classifica-
tion sought to be added were statutory supervisors).
2 Melbet Jewelry Co., 180 NLRB 107 (1969).
3 Campbell Soup Co., 111 NLRB 234 (1955); a similar standard
is used when an employer petitions for an election to test a union’s
representative status. K. Van Bourgondien & Sons, 294 NLRB 268
(1989).
Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Wisconsin and Teamsters
Local 344, affiliated with International Broth-
erhood of Teamsters, AFL–CIO, Petitioner.
Case 30–UC–321
March 26, 1993
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN STEPHENS AND MEMBERS
DEVANEY AND OVIATT
On December 17, 1992, the Regional Director for
Region 30 issued a Decision and Order in which he
granted the instant unit clarification petition to include
certain production employees in the existing collective-
bargaining unit. In accordance with Section 102.67 of
the National Labor Relations Board’s Rules and Regu-
lations, the Employer filed a timely request for review.
The Petitioner filed a brief in opposition.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated
its authority in this proceeding to a three-member
panel.
The Employer’s request for review of the Regional
Director’s Decision and Order Granting Unit Clarifica-
tion is granted as it raises substantial issues warranting
review.
The Petitioner filed the instant UC petition to clarify
the existing unit of warehouse distribution, sales, driv-
ers, mechanics, and vending machine repair employees
to include production (bottling) employees, who were
hired in 1992. The Regional Director found first that
the production employees were properly included in
the bargaining unit because they had been included in
the unit when it was certified in 1961 and because the
successive bargaining agreements thereafter included
the production classification in their recognition
clauses. The Regional Director alternatively found that
the production employees should be included because
of their close community of interest with existing unit
employees. Based on the undisputed facts set forth by
the Regional Director, we find for the following rea-
sons that the Employer’s production employees do not
constitute an accretion to the existing bargaining unit.
First, in the circumstances of this case, it is immate-
rial whether production employees were included in
the successive contractual recognition clauses. The
Employer ceased production operations in 1980 and
from 1980 to 1992 had no production operations and
employed no production employees. The Board finds
that this 12-year hiatus, when the Employer in fact had
no production employees, is controlling. In representa-
tion cases in general and unit clarification proceedings
in particular, the Board looks to the actual, existing
composition of units and to employees actually work-
ing to determine the composition of units, not to ab-
stract grants of recognition. For example, the Board
has dismissed unit clarification petitions when there
were no employees in the classification sought to be
added,1 does not automatically accrete employees at a
new store solely because the unit description includes
all the employer’s stores, present and future, in a geo-
graphic area,2 and has found in cases involving decer-
tification elections that the appropriate unit must be the
actual, current unit.3 Accordingly, we shall reverse the
Regional Director’s principal finding.
Second, we find that the Employer’s production em-
ployees have a community of interest separate and dis-
tinct from the current bargaining unit employees. Bar-
gaining unit employees are engaged in warehouse dis-
tribution, sales, and delivery of the product, repair of
vending equipment, and in related maintenance. Pro-
duction employees are engaged in operating the bot-
tling equipment and in related maintenance. Although
there is some overlap of functions, as in the operation
of forklifts and in the maintenance of production
equipment, it is undisputed that the production employ-
ees work in a separate walled off area of the facility,
are engaged in different work, for the most part use
different skills, have not in fact interchanged with unit
employees, and have separate day-to-day supervision.
In a number of other cases, the Board has found units
like the existing warehouse and distribution unit here
to be, themselves, separately appropriate. See Esco
Corp., 298 NLRB 837 (1990); Brescome Distributors
Corp., 197 NLRB 642 (1972); hence, production em-
ployees are not a necessary part of, or an accretion to,
such a unit. In addition, the 12-year hiatus when the
Employer had no production employees renders the
earlier inclusion of production employees in the unit
insignificant.
Based on the above factors, we find that the produc-
tion employees can be a separate appropriate unit.
Thus, contrary to the Regional Director’s conclusions,
the production employees do not constitute an accre-
tion to the existing unit. Safeway Stores, 256 NLRB
918 (1981). Accordingly, we reverse the Regional Di-
rector’s Decision and Order Granting Unit Clarification
and dismiss the petition.
ORDER
The petition is dismissed.