Coastal Sunbelt Produce

National Labor Relations Board - Unpublished Board Decisions

Dec 15, 2010

05-RC-016605 (N.L.R.B. Dec. 15, 2010)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
COASTAL SUNBELT PRODUCE, INC.
Employer
and Case 5-RC-16605
DRIVERS, CHAUFFEURS AND HELPERS
LOCAL UNION NO. 639 a/w INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
Petitioner
ORDER
Employer’s Request for Review of the Regional Director’s Decision and
Direction of Election is denied as it raises no substantial issues warranting review.1
WILMA B. LIEBMAN, CHAIRMAN
CRAIG BECKER, MEMBER
MARK GASTON PEARCE, MEMBER
Dated, Washington, D.C., December 15, 2010.

1 In denying review, we decline to disturb the Regional Director’s finding that the
Employer’s operations personnel need not be included in the unit. The Employer had
argued that the operations personnel are like dispatchers, whom the Board has included in
drivers’ units when supported by community-of-interest factors. See Browning Ferris,
Inc., 275 NLRB 292 (1985). Here, the manager-on-duty is the only classification among
the operations personnel arguably akin to a dispatcher. Nevertheless, in this case, the
managers-on-duty and the petitioned-for drivers are separately supervised, have little on-
the-job interchange, and perform distinct functions. Compare Browning Ferris, supra,
275 NLRB at 293 (some drivers performed dispatching functions); Norfolk Baltimore
and Carolina Lines, 175 NLRB 209 (1969) (dispatchers shared common supervision with
drivers). Moreover, we find that the managers-on-duty share a strong community of
interest with the other excluded operations personnel – the operations clerks, routers,
driver check-in coordinators, Route Net operator, and MobileCast coordinator – based on
their sharing of several similar functions, common supervision, work situs, and level of
contact. The proposed unit of drivers therefore need not include the managers-on-duty in
order to be an appropriate unit.