Chin Industries, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 20, 1977

232 N.L.R.B. 176 (N.L.R.B. 1977)

DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Chin Industries, Inc.1 and Local 218, Laundry, Dry
Cleaning and Dye House Workers Union a/w the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauf-
feurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America,2
Petitioner. Case 15-RC-5975
September 20, 1977
DECISION ON REVIEW
BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS
JENKINS AND MURPHY
On October 14, 1976, the Acting Regional Director
for Region 15 issued a Decision and Direction of
Election in the above-entitled proceeding, in which
he directed an election to be held in a unit of the
Employer's production and maintenance employees
including branch employees, branc. drivers, and
rental drivers. Thereafter, in accordance with Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules
and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, Petitioner
filed a timely request for review on the ground that
the Acting Regional Director erred in requiring that
branch employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers
be included in the unit of production and mainte-
nance employees which Petitioner sought to repre-
sent.
The National Labor Relations Board, by telegraph-
ic order dated November 17, 1976, granted the
request for review and stayed the election pending
decision on review. Thereafter, the Petitioner and the
Employer filed briefs on review.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the entire record in this
case with respect to the issues under review,
including the briefs of the parties, and makes the
following findings:
The Employer is engaged in retail and commercial
laundry cleaning and fabric care services and the
rental of garments to commercial accounts in
Mobile, Alabama. The Employer's main place of
business, located on St. Louis street, includes its
laundry and drycleaning processing plant and a
branch store. In addition to the main plant, the
Employer maintains a nearby storage facility on
Conception Street, 2 warehouses, and 11 other
branch stores in the city limits of Mobile within 10
miles of the main plant.
The employees engaged in the operation of the
laundry and drycleaning processing plant include
I Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing.
2 Petitioner's name appears as amended at the hearing.
I This relates to work left at the I I retail branch offices in Mobile which
232 NLRB No. 22
feeders, folders, finishers, checkers, inspectors, seam-
stresses, embroiderers, pressers, flat workers, sorters,
assemblers, stock persons, and maintenance person-
nel. Employees at the Conception Street facility, in
which new garments are stored, make uniforms ready
for new and existing commercial accounts. The
laundry and drycleaning work reaches the main
plant for processing through the operation of
Employer's 12 branch stores and the services of retail
route salesmen, salesmen, branch drivers, and rental
drivers. Customers bring work directly to, and pick
up finished work from, the retail branch stores. Some
rental merchandise is also picked up at the branch
stores and returned to them. The work handled at the
branch stores is delivered to and returned from the
main processing plant by branch drivers.3 The
branch drivers also service various establishments on
regularly assigned commercial routes. The rental
drivers deliver uniforms and other rented items to
and from business customers and also service
commercial accounts in the same manner as the
branch drivers.
Petitioner requested certification in a unit limited
to the production and maintenance employees at the
St. Louis Street plant. The parties stipulated that the
unit should include these employees and those at the
Conception Street location. They also stipulated the
exclusion of salesmen and retail route salesmen from
the unit. They disagreed with respect to branch
employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers whom
the Employer, contrary to Petitioner, would include
in the unit. The Acting Regional Director found that
the branch employees, branch drivers, and rental
drivers possessed a sufficient community of interest
to warrant their inclusion in the unit of production
and maintenance employees sought by Petitioner
and included them in the unit.
We need not consider whether the Acting Regional
Director's finding of an appropriate unit was
erroneous. Even if the enlarged unit found by the
Acting Regional Director is appropriate, this does
not preclude a finding that the unit sought by
Petitioner is also an appropriate unit. Ballentine
Packing Company, Inc., 132 NLRB 923 (1961). The
Acting Regional Director did not find that a unit of
production and maintenance employees was not
appropriate but this is perhaps implied in his
decision. In any event, it is well settled that more
than one unit may be appropriate among the
employees of a particular enterprise, and our choice
in a particular case "involves of necessity a large
measure of informed discretion." Packard Motor Car
Company v. N.L.R.B., 330 U.S. 485, 491 (1947).
are geographically separated from the processing plant. Work left at the
retail branch office in the front of the main plant is picked up for processing
by plant employees.
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CHIN INDUSTRIES, INC.
Absent a bargaining history in a more comprehen-
sive unit or functional integration of a degree
sufficient to obliterate separate identity, a production
and maintenance unit normally constitutes an
appropriate unit for collective-bargaining purposes.
Ballentine Packing Company, supra. Thus, since it is
not our policy to require a labor organization to
represent the most appropriate or comprehensive
unit but only an appropriate unit, and in light of the
Petitioner's interest in representing only the produc-
tion and maintenance employees to the exclusion of
branch store workers, branch drivers, and rental
drivers, we find the Acting Regional Director
erroneously rejected the unit sought by Petitioner in
favor of the larger unit. Sav-On Drugs, Inc., 138
NLRB 1032 (1962); E. H. Koester Bakery Co., Inc.,
136 NLRB 1006 (1962); Mc-Mor-Han Trucking Co.,
Inc., 166 NLRB 700 (1967).
The Acting Regional Director, in support of his
conclusion that the unit should include branch
employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers, as well
as production and maintenance workers, relied on a
number of factors which are clearly relevant to the
determination of an appropriate unit. He noted that
all the employees are under a centralized labor
policy, are paid from a central payroll, and enjoy the
same fringe benefits. The work of the branch store
employees, which involves marking, separating,
counting, listing, and inspecting garments received at
the stores for laundering and drycleaning, overlaps to
a slight extent work done by production employees
at the main plant on items received from other
sources. There has been, at most, a sporadic
interchange of employees between the plant and the
branch stores. Plant employees may occasionally
substitute for branch drivers.
But a number of distinguishing factors support the
conclusion that the production and maintenance
workers alone constitute an appropriate unit. They
all work together in a single plant performing tasks
functionally related to the laundering and dryclean-
ing of garments and other items. Morey La Rue
Supply Services, Inc., 165 NLRB 148 (1967). They are
geographically separated from the branch employees,
the branch drivers,4 and the rental drivers. Cf. Haag
Drug Company, Incorporated, 169 NLRB 877 (1968);
Purity Food Stores, Inc., Sav-More Food Stores, 160
NLRB 651 (1966). The production and maintenance
employees are under different supervision from the
branch employees and rental drivers, and the branch
employees and rental drivers are under different
supervision from each other. The branch employees
4 One branch driver spends all his time away from the plant except while
loading or unloading. The other two branch dnvers spend more than 50
percent of their time away from the plant.
I Two of the branch drivers assist in maintenance work when not
are engaged in the receipt and distribution of goods
to be processed and related functions. They perform
no processing or production work. The branch
drivers and rental drivers are occupied principally
with transportation and the related functions of
gathering, loading, and unloading. They, too, engage
in no processing or production activities.5 The
production and maintenance employees are paid on
an hourly basis, as are the branch employees and two
of the branch drivers. The third branch driver is paid
a salary and the rental drivers, like the retail route
salesmen who were excluded from the unit by
stipulation, work on a commission basis. In these
circumstances, we find that the commonality of
interest of the various categories of employees is not
such as to require the inclusion of branch employees,
branch drivers, and rental drivers in the same
bargaining unit as the production and maintenance
employees. Gerald G. Gogin d/b/a Gogin Trucking,
229 NLRB 529 (1977); Giordano Lumber Co., Inc.,
133 NLRB 205 (1961).
Based on the foregoing, we find that the following
employees of the Employer constitute a unit appro-
priate for the purposes of collective bargaining within
the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All full-time and regular part-time production
and maintenance employees employed by the
Employer at its St. Louis Street plant and 105
North Conception Street facility in Mobile,
Alabama; excluding branch employees, branch
drivers, rental drivers and all other employees,
office clerical employees, retail route salesmen,
salesmen, professional employees, guards, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
Accordingly, we shall remand this case to the
Regional Director for the purpose of conducting an
election pursuant to the Acting Regional Director's
Decision and Direction of Election, as modified
herein, except that the payroll period for determining
eligibility shall be that ending immediately before the
date of issuance of this Decision on Review.
[Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.]
MEMBER MURPHY, concurring in part:
I agree with my colleagues insofar as they conclude
that the Acting Regional Director incorrectly includ-
ed the Employer's branch employees and rental
drivers in the unit of production and maintenance
employees. However, I would adopt the Acting
Regional Director's holding that the branch drivers
share a community of interest with the production
engaged in transportation, gathering, loading, and unloading. The third
branch driver spends the balance of his time on a pickup and delivery retail
route.
177
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and maintenance employees and should be included
in the same appropriate unit.
The Employer provides laundry and dry cleaning
services and rents garments to company accounts; it
has a main plant (which consists of its processing
plant and a branch store) and 11 branch stores
within a 10-mile radius. Branch employees work in
the retail outlets where customers bring and pick up
items for washing and cleaning, and the rental
drivers deliver rental garments to commercial cus-
tomers. Branch drivers, however, deliver and return
the cleaning and laundry work between the branch
stores and the main processing plant, and they do
some servicing of various establishments on regularly
assigned commercial routes. The branch drivers,
unlike the excluded branch employees and rental
drivers, spend approximately 50 percent of their time
performing maintenance work in the main plant;
they have daily contact with production and mainte-
nance employees; and they share common supervi-
sion with unit employees in that the drivers, too, are
under the supervision of the assistant production
manager. Furthermore, production and maintenance
employees perform the work of the branch drivers
whenever one of the latter is absent.
The above factors, together with the centralized
labor policy and common fringe benefits, clearly
warrant inclusion of the branch drivers in the
production and maintenance unit. I would so find
and, therefore, must dissent from my colleagues'
holding to the contrary.
178