Palace Laundry Dry Cleaning Corp.

In the Matter Of PALACE LAUNDRY DRY CLEANING CORPORATION, EM- PLOYER and RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, A. F. OF L., PETITIONER Case No. 5-R-2986.-Decided November 06, 1947 Mr. Louis A. Spiess, of Washington, D. C., for the Employer. Mr. P. M. Clifford, of Washington, D. C., for the Petitioner. I DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition 1 duly filed, hearing in this case was held at Wash- ington, D. C., on June 25, 1947, before Earle K. Shawe, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudi- cial error and are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER Palace Laundry Dry Cleaning Corporation is engaged in the laundry and dry cleaning business in the District of Columbia. In the District, the Employer operates a processing plant and 19 outlet stores for the pick-up and delivery of laundry and dry cleaning. During the calendar year 1946, the Employer's gross sales of services exceeded $500,000. The Employer annually purchases, from points outside the District of Columbia, supplies and other materials, valued at more than $50,000. The Employer admits and we find that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. IT. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED The Petitioner is a labor organization affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, claiming to represent employees of the Employer. 1 The petition and other formal papers were amended at the hearing to show the correct name of the Employer. 75 N. L R. B., No. 40. 320 PALACE LAUNDRY DRY CLEANING CORPORATION 321 III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION The Employer refuses to recognize the Petitioner as the exclusive bargaining representative of employees of the Employer until the Petitioner has been certified by the Board in an appropriate unit. We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning the representation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT The Petitioner contends that employees at the Employer's outlet stores constitute an appropriate bargaining unit. The Employer con- cedes that, if any unit is appropriate for employees in its outlet stores, such unit would properly exclude employees at its processing plant. The Employer and the Petitioner agree that assistant managers and regular relief employees should be included in the unit for store em- ployees and that temporary employees 2 should be excluded therefrom. The Petitioner would include, and the Employer would exclude, store managers. As noted in Section I, above, the Employer operates a laundry and dry cleaning plant in the District of Columbia. To receive and dis- pense articles for laundry and dry cleaning, the Employer maintains 19 outlet stores, conveniently located at various points in the District. Employees working in these stores include managers, assistant man- agers, and regular relief employees. These employees receive wearing apparel and other articles from customers, separate laundry from dry cleaning work, mark the articles for identification, and set them aside to be picked up for processing at the Employer's plant. After the cleaned articles are returned to the stores, these employees check, in- spect, assemble, and package them for delivery to customers upon demand. They receive moneys from customers when they deliver packages of cleaned merchandise, and maintain counter books. All the stores are in over-all charge of a sales manager and a personnel super- visor. Supervisors, working out of the Employer's central office at its processing plant, make daily calls at each store, check and audit the accounts, and generally supervise the work of the store. The Employer's stores are open from 8 to 6 daily, 6 days per week. At most of the stores, the full time personnel consists of a manager and an assistant manager. In at least 5 of the 19 stores, the manager is the only full time employee. 2 Temporary employees include part-time employees, school girls who work for shoit periods during vacations , and are not desirous of permanent employment at the Employei's stores 322 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Managers and assistant managers are relieved during the course of the day by regular relief employees who work in the several stores for relief purposes. The manager and assistant manager perform the same type of functions in a store; both handle the cash register and both keep records; one usually opens the store and the other closes it. They work 8 out of 10 hours a day and arrange their working time for their mutual convenience. There is apparently no difference in the amount of work the manager and assistant manager perform. A customer entering the store would not be able to distinguish between employees in these categories. Both manager and assistant manager are paid on a salary basis, plus commission. The average salary of the manager is approximately $31 per week, plus a 3 percent commission on all service sales. The average salary of an assistant manager is approximately $28 per week, plus a 1 percent commission on all service sales. The take-home pay of a manager is about $8 per week more than that of an assistant manager. The regular relief employees, who are the only other employees in the stores, and whose unit placement is not in issue, are paid a straight salary. All hiring and discharge action emanates from the Employer's cen- tral office. Testimony was offered by the Employer that a manager can recommend, and has recommended, dismissal of other store em- ployees. The only example of such recommendation given in the record indicates that the recommendation was based on the failure of an assistant manager to comply with the rules set by the Employer to open and close the store at fixed hours. All applicants seeking em- ployment at a store are referred to the central office. A manager may suggest personnel for hiring to the central office. All requests for salary increases are directly referred to the central office. A manager may be asked as to the industry of an employee seeking a salary increase. The Employer takes the position that, at stores where there are managers and assistant managers, the managers are supervisors and should be excluded as such from the unit, and that, in stores where managers are the only employees, such managers are "managerial" employees and should be therefore excluded from the bargaining unit. The Petitioner, on the other hand, urges that there is no difference between the duties of managers and assistant managers; that the recommendations by managers respecting the hiring and dismissal of other store employees are of a routine or clerical nature and are not deemed binding on the Employer, and that all real supervision over the stores and store personnel comes from the supervisors who, operating out of the central office, visit the stores each day and keep in close personal touch with the store employees. PALACE LAUNDRY DRY CLEANING CORPORATION 323 The record, in our opinion, does not disclose that the duties and responsibilities of managers make them supervisors within the mean- ing of the Act, as amended,3 nor does it disclose any material difference between the status of managers who serve in stores with assistant managers and the status of those who serve only with relief employees. We are not persuaded that any of the store managers herein concerned are "managerial" employees in the sense that their interests are iden- tified with management rather than with employees, as such, or that their inclusion in the bargaining unit is inconsistent with the purposes of its establishment.' While the stores are geographically located at various points in the District, close communication with the central office and authority is maintained both by ready telephone communi- cation and by the daily personal visits of supervisors from the central offices. On the basis of the foregoing and the entire record herein, we find that the store managers are not supervisors or managerial employees, and we shall include them in the bargaining unit. We find that employees at the outlet stores of the Employer, includ- ing managers, assistant managers, and regular relief employees, but excluding temporary employees and supervisors, constitute an appro- priate bargaining unit within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. DIRECTION OF ELECTION As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining with Palace Laundry Dry Cleaning Corporation, Washington, D. C., an election by secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than thirty (30) days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director for the Fifth Region, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations- Series 5, among the employees in the unit found appropriate in Sec- tion IV, above, who were employed during the pay-roll period im- Section 2 ( 11) defines supervisors as follows : The term "supervisor ' means any individual having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire , transfer , suspend, lay off, recall , promote, discharge , assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment . ( Italics supplied I 4 The determination of "manageiial ," like the determination of "supervisory," Is to some extent necessarily a matter of the degree of authority exercised We have in the past, and before the passage of the recent amendments to the Act, recognized and defined as "nianagei ial ' employees , executives w ho formulate and effectuate management policies by expressing and making operative the decisions of their employer, and have excluded such managerial employees from bargaining units Matter of Ford Motor Company, Chicago Branch, 66 N L R B 1317 , Matter of Continental Can Company , Inc, Mono Container Division, 74 N L R B. 351 We believe that the Act, as amended , contemplates the continuance of this practice. 324 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD mediately preceding the date of this Direction, including employees who did not work during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation or temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have since quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated prior to the date of the election, to determine whether or not they desire to be represented by Retail Clerks International Asso- ciation, A. F. of L., for the purposes of collective bargaining.