Hudson Hosiery Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 17, 1951

95 N.L.R.B. 250 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

250 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
for an election among the employees whom it now represents, we shall
dismiss the petition without prejudice to the filing of a new petition at
such time as the required showing of interest can be made.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby
is, dismissed without prejudice.
HUDSON HOSIERY COMPANY and AMERICAN FEDERATION OF HOSIERY
WORKERS, PETITIONER . Case No. 34-RC-289. July 17, 1951.
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 John H. Garver, 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 [Members Houston, Murdock, and Styles].
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 organization involved claims to represent certain em-
ployees 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 appropriate unit :
The Employer, who is engaged in the manufacture of women's full-
fashioned hosiery, owns and operates two plants in Charlotte, North
Carolina, a griege goods plant at Monroe Road and a finishing plant
at Brevard Street, located 4 miles from each other. In addition, the
Employer operates another griege goods plant in Shelby, North Caro-
lina, some 50 miles distant from Charlotte. Raw materials are
shipped by the Employer to both griege plants, where the preliminary
process of throwing is carried on, followed by the knitting, looping,
sewing, inspecting, mending, and preboarding operations. Upon com-
pletion of these processes at each griege plant, the materials are trans-
ferred to the Brevard Street establishment, where the dyeing, final
boarding, inspecting, pairing, mending, transferring, folding, boxing,
and shipping operations acre conducted.
The Petitioner contends that a unit of all production and mainte-
nance employees at the Monroe Road plant alone, excluding fixers,
95 NLRB No. 34.
HUDSON HOSIERY COMPANY 251
cafeteria employees, nurses, truck drivers, painters, painters' helpers,
carpenters, carpenters' helpers, clerical employees, executives, superin-
tendents, foremen, foreladies, and all other supervisors as defined in
the Act," is appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining. The
Employer urges that the appropriate unit should include both Char-
lotte plants or, in the alternative, all three plants in North Carolina.
No other labor organization seeks to represent employees of the
Employer.
In two earlier cases involving the same parties,2 the Petitioner
sought; `and the Board directed, an election among employees at the
Monroe Road plant in a unit substantially similar to the one peti-
tioned for herein, despite the Employer's contention for a unit of the
two Charlotte plants. In finding the single-plant unit appropriate,
the Board stated that "each of the various departments housed in the
two plants conducts an independent operation in the over-all manu-
facturing process; . . . there is a marked difference between the.
function and skills of the employees working in the Monroe Road
plant and those employed in the Brevard Street plant; and there is
no interchange of employees between the two plants other than an
occasional shifting of production workers which is actually a transfer
of surplus labor on a permanent basis." The Employer argues that
as there is now a greater interchange of employees between the two
plants, these prior determinations are no longer applicable.
During the .past 5 years, the Employer transferred 169 employees
between the Brevard Street and Monroe Road plants. Of this total,
however,-128 transfers represent the permanent relocation of an entire
knitting department from the former to the latter plant. Most of the
remaining transfers have been made for the purpose of training em-
ployees to perform new duties, as the skills which the employees acquire
in performing their respective duties cannot be. readily utilized in
other departments. Under all the circumstances, we find that these
employee interchanges do not alter the functional separateness of the
operations at the Monroe Road and Brevard Street plants which the
Board has previously recognized. Accordingly, we conclude that
employees at the Monroe Road plant may constitute an appropriate
unit.3
There remains for consideration the specific composition of the
appropriate unit. The Petitioner desires to exclude, and the Employer
to include, the fixers, some of whom have supervisory functions while
others keep machinery in repair but perform no supervisory duties,
In Its petition , the Petitioner also sought the exclusion of firemen from the requested
unit. At the hearing , however, it agreed with the Employer to include these employees.
7 Hudson Hosiery Company, 64 NLRB 1520 ; Hudson Knitting Mills, Inc., et al., 56 NLRB
1250. The Petitioner failed to obtain a majority of the votes in the elections directed
in both of these cases.
3 Harms Hosiery Co., Inc ., 91 NLRB 330.
252 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
cafeteria employees, nurses, carpenters, carpenters' helpers, painters,
painters' helpers, clerical employees, and truck drivers who transport
materials between the two plants.' In the instant case, the Petitioner
takes the same position it advanced in the prior cases referred to
above with respect to the exclusions of these categories of employees."
We are persuaded from the testimony presented in the instant case
that the functions and duties of these employees are substantially
the same as they were at the time of the previous cases. We shall
therefore exclude them from the unit.
The parties have agreed, and we find, that executives, superin-
tendents, foremen, and foreladies are supervisors. We shall accord-
ingly exclude them from the unit.
Accordingly, wefind that all production and maintenance employees
'at the Employer's Monroe Road plant, including firemen, air-condi-
tioning men, and cone inspectors, but excluding fixers, cafeteria em-
ployees, nurses, truck drivers, painters, painters' helpers, carpenters,
carpenters' helpers, clerical employees, executives, superintendents,
foremen, foreladies, and all other 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.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
' The Petitioner and Employer have agreed to include in the unit the air-conditioning
men and the cone inspectors , in addition to the firenren referred to above. .
In the first of the earlier cases (56 NLRB 1250), the Petitioner requested that fixers
be included in the unit . As the Employer did not oppose the Petitioner's position, the
Board included the fixers . However, in the later proceeding ( 64 NLRB 1420), the
Petitioner requested that the fixers be excluded . We granted that request on the basis
•ofiour holdings in other 'cases that there exists a well-established pattern of. collective
bargaining in the full -fashioned hosiery industry whereby fixers are excluded from units
of production and maintenance employees. Mock, Jud8on, Voehringer Company ,of North
Carolina, Inc., 63 NLRB 96.
THOMAS W. DANT, ROBERT E . DANT (INDIVIDUALLY AND AS GUARDIAN FOR
DIANA KERR AND DAPHNE KERR ), JOHN R. DANT, ELEANOR'. C.
DANT, MARY B. DANT,. R. J.. DARLING, E. S. GOODELL, MRS..MARY
GOODELL, GLENN W. CHENEY, AND DOROTHY D. MCNARY, CO-
PARTNERS, D/B/A DANT & RUSSELL, LTD., and INTERNATIONAL WOOD-
WORKERS OF AMERICA LOCAL 6-7. Case No. 36-CA-100. July
17, 1951
Order Denying Motion
On November 29, 1950, the Board issued its Decision and Order in
the above-entitled proceeding,' finding that the Respondents had en-
gaged in and1were engaging in certain unfair labor practices, and,
2 92 NLRB 307.
95 NLRB No. 44.