Richmond Dry Goods Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 5, 1951

93 N.L.R.B. 663 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

RICHMOND DRY GOODS COMPANY, INC . 663
Having found that the Respondent has refused to bargain, in violation of
Section 8 (a) (5) and 8 (a) (1) of the Act, the undersigned will recommend that
the Respondent cease and desist from engaging in such conduct. The under-
signed will further recommend that the Respondent, upon request, bargain col-
lectively with the Union as the exclusive representative of all the employees
in the unit hereinabove found appropriate.
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and upon the entire record
in the case, the undersigned makes the following :
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. International Association of Machinists, District Lodge No. 727, is a labor
organization, within the meaning of Section 2 (5) of the Act.
2. All the Respondent's mechanics, lube men, parts men, body and fender
men, painters, service mechanics, maintenance men, and working foremen, ex-
cluding guards, professional employees, clerical employees, salesmen, and
supervisors as defined by the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes
of collective bargaining, within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
3. International Association of Machinists, District Lodge No. 727 was on
April 11, 1950, and at all times relevant thereafter has been, the exclusive repre-
sentative of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargain-
ing, within the meaning of Section 9 (a) of the Act.
4. By refusing on April 14, 1950, and thereafter to bargain collectively with
International Association of Machinists, District Lodge No. 727, as the exclusive
representative of all the employees in the appropriate unit, the Respondent has
engaged in, and is engaging in, unfair labor practices, within the meaning of
Section 8 (a) (5) of the Act.
5. By the said refusal the Respondent interfered with, restrained, and coerced
his employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act,
and thereby engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices within the
meaning of Section 8 (a) (1) of the Act.
6. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting
commerce, within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
[Recommended Order omitted from publication in this volume.]
RICHMOND DRY GOODS COMPANY, INC. and RETAIL CLERKS INTER-
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 157, AFL, PETITIONER
RICHMOND DRY GOODS COMPANY, INC. and WAREHOUSE EMPLOYEES
UNION LOCAL. No. 322, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS,
CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, AFL,
PETITIONER. Cases Nos. 5-RC-730 and 5-RC-789. March 5, 1951
Decision and Order
Upon petitions duly filed, a consolidated hearing was held before
Dudley S. Knox, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made
93 NLRB No. 87.
664 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.'
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Houston and Reynolds].
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 Petitioner in Case No. 5-RC-730, herein called the Clerks,
and the Petitioner in Case No. 5-RC-789, herein called the Ware-
housemen, are labor organizations claiming to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No 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 for the following
reasons:
The Clerks requests generally a unit of employees engaged in selling
and related activities. The Warehousemen requests a unit of em-
ployees engaged in warehousing and related activities. The proposed
units correspond approximately to the two divisions, merchandising
and operations, through which the Employer conducts its business.
The Employer's position is that only a single unit of all nonsuper-
visory employees, including office clericals, would be appropriate.
All parties agree that the outside salesmen, all of whom spend most
of their time on the road, should be excluded.
The Employer operates a whoesale dry goods establishment in
Richmond, Virginia, selling to retail stores and institutions in the
southeastern States. Its sole place of business is in Richmond, where
it occupies two buildings across the street from each other. One build-
ing is used exclusively for receiving, storing, and shipping goods,
while the other has both sales departments and storage space. About
180 employees are employed. All the employees requested by the
Clerks work in the main building which contains the sales depart-
ments, and those sought by the Warehousemen work out of both
buildings. Working conditions, privileges, and wage rates3 are com-
' Both Petitioners moved at the hearing to sever the consolidated cases on the ground
that each was seeking a unit of employees within its own jurisdiction, and had no interest
in the other's requested unit. The hearing officer denied the motions, because both
Petitioners would have full opportunity to develop their contentions as well in a con-
solidated hearing as in separate hearings. The Board is satisfied that the Petitioners'
presentation of their cases was in no way prejudiced by the consolidation.
2 Federal Dairy Co , Inc, 91 NLRB 638; Stanislaus Implement and Hardware Company,
Limited, 91 NLRB 618
2 Employees in the operating division were on a weekly pay-period basis until just before
the hearing when they were changed to a semimonthly basis to conform with that used
in the merchandising division. The change-over, however, had no effect on wage rates
as those have always been based on hourly rates which were not changed.
RICHMOND, DRY GOODS COMPANY, INC. 665
parable for both groups. The merchandising division consists of 11
departments, of which 10 each handle a related class of goods, such
as notions, floor coverings, shoes, bedding, etc. The 11th, or fixtures,
department appears to be concerned with the display of merchandise
in the Employer's establishment. The operating division, with 14
departments, comprises all the Employer's nonselling activities, such
as receiving, marking, building maintenance, credit, and bookkeeping.
Each department is separately supervised, under a director in charge
of each division.
Although the Employer's operations resemble those of a depart-
ment store, in that merchandise is displayed and sold by clerks who
meet customers face to face, it also has many of the characteristics of
a mail-order warehouse, because a substantial part of its business is
derived from orders taken by its outside salesmen and mailed in to
the home office. The procedures in effect revolve largely around
written orders and other business forms by which the flow of mer-
chandise, the issuance of credit, pricing, billing, routing, and shipping
are regulated. An order received by mail goes first to the credit de-
partment, and then to the merchandise department handling the
goods which are being ordered. In each of ,the merchandise depart-
ments stock clerks fill out house order forms, and fill the order by
physically removing merchandise from shelves or ordering it from
the storage space reserved for that commodity. The merchandise is
then placed in bins located on the selling floors from where it is
picked up by package collectors, who move it to the packing depart-
ment. The customer's order is then checked against the merchandise
which has been collected. The complete order is sent to the shipping
department where it is prepared for shipment. Routing instructions
are entered on the house order form which then goes to the billing
department where the selling price is posted. The house order form
is then sent to the credit department which mails the original to the
customer. Some employees participating in this typical transaction
are claimed by the Clerks, others by the Warehousemen, and still others
are excluded from either unit.
A customer who orders merchandise in person is waited on by a
sales clerk. The method of filling the order depends on whether the
customer takes the merchandise, with him or has it sent, and upon
whether the sale is for cash or on credit. In any case, however, the
house order form and the merchandise pass from and are handled
by employees in both proposed units, and by employees whom both
Petitioners would exclude. Goods which are returned for refund or
credit are handled through a procedure in which various departments
in both the merchandising and operations divisions are required to
work in close cooperation.
666 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Clerks' unit.-The job classifications in the Clerks' proposed
unit are house sales clerks, invoice clerks, stock clerks, order fillers,
and sample clerks. Many of these employees do no direct selling
work, being employed in the various steps described above,' through
which customers' orders are filled, packed, shipped, and billed. The
Board has heretofore held that a unit of department store sales people
alone is not appropriate, because of the integration and mutuality of
interest which exist among all department store employees, and fur-
thermore, that such a unit does not exhibit the homogeneity of a
group performing distinctive functions. This is so without regard to
whether or not another labor organization seeks to represent the non-
selling employees 4 The Board believes that the unit requested by the
Clerks is in every respect as fully integrated into the Employer's op-
erations and as heterogeneous as the unit-found to be inappropriate
in the Grossman Department Store case. It is true that the unit in-
cludes some job classifications not directly engaged in selling, but func-
tionally necessary to that activity. That fact, however, does not help
to establish this as an appropriate unit, because it excludes such non-
selling job categories as package collectors, markers, billing clerks,
and receiving clerks who are as much a part of the total sales activity
as are the stock and order clerks whom the Clerks seeks to include.
The Warehousemen's unit.-The employees in this proposed unit
are package collectors, packers, porters, markers, shipping clerks, re-
ceiving clerks, a seamstress, maid, parking lot attendant, drivers, re-
turn goods clerks, billing clerks, verifiers, and order fillers. The unit
consists, in effect, of nonselling employees, but excludes business
machine operators, accounts payable clerks, file clerks, credit clerks,
and other office clericals. What has been said above as to the integra-
tion and interrelationship of the employees in the Clerks' unit with
the Employer's total operations is equally applicable to the Ware-
housemen's unit. The Warehousemen, however, contends that the
appropriateness of its unit is proven by the Employer's organization
into two administrative divisions which are separately supervised,
and by the fact that its unit seeks to include only employees in the
operations division. The operations division includes office clerical,
building maintenance, and warehousing employees; the Warehouse-
men's unit would exclude certain office clericals but include others such
as billing clerks and verifiers. Neither the more inclusive unit of all
employees in the operations division, nor the narrower unit of the
Warehousemen constitutes an appropriate departmental unit of a
craft group.5 Nor can such a unit be found appropriate as a residual
4 Grossman Department Store, Inc, 90 NLRB No. 275.
a Walker & Scott Corporation, 89 NLRB 1339 ; Montgomery Ward & Co., Incorporated,
90 NLRB 609.
McCOY TRUCK TIRE RECAP COMPANY 667
group inasmuch as the Clerks' unit is not itself an appropriate one.
Neither Petitioner has any interest in representing employees other
than those petitioned for, nor has either evinced any interest in seek-
ing to represent all employees of the Employer in a single unit..Ac-
cordingly, we find that the units requested by the Petitioners are in-
appropriate for collective bargaining purposes, and shall, therefore,
dismiss the petitions.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petitions herein be, and they hereby
are, dismissed.
MONROE BROWNE AND LEONARD RURUP, D/B/A McCoy TRUCK TIRE
RECAP COMPANY 1 and INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS,
CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS UNION, LOCAL No. 87,
AFL, Case No. 21-RM-170. March 5, 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 Eugene M. Purver,
hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are
free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed .2
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-mem-
ber panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Reynolds and Mur-
dock].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is a limited partnership, with its place of busi-
ness in Bakersfield, California. The Employer is engaged in the busi-
ness of recapping and repairing used tires and selling and servicing
new tires. -
The Employer's total annual sales are approximately $450,000, all
of which are sold to customers located within the State of California.
However, during 1950, the Employer made sales of approximately
$104,000,3 to local customers who, according to the uncontradicted
evidence submitted by the Employer, are engaged in interstate com-
merce. Of that amount, sales totaling approximately $73,000 were
made to trucking firms engaged in transporting materials, agricul-
tural commodities, and cattle in interstate commerce. In view of the
1 The petition and other formal papers were amended at the hearing to show the correct
name of the Employer.
2 The hearing officer referred to the Board the Union 's motion to dismiss this proceeding.
The motion is denied , for the reasons stated in paragraphs numbered 1 and 4.
3 Including Federal and State taxes of approximately 81/2 percent
93 NLR$ No. 92.