Great Day, Inc.

GREAT DAY, INC. 527 Great Day, Inc. and Retail Store Employees Union, Local No. 20, United Food And Commerical Workers International Union, AFL-CIO,' Peti- tioner. Case 7-RC-15332 March 17, 1980 DECISION ON REVIEW BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND PENELLO On April 24, 1979, the Regional Director for Region 7 issued a Decision and Direction of Elec- tion in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found appropriate a storewide unit at the Employ- er's retail grocery store, but excluding the meat de- partment employees. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer timely filed a request for review of the Regional Director's decision with respect to his exclusion of full-time 2 meat department employees. By tele- graphic order dated May 22, 1979, the Board granted the Employer's request for review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this case, including the Employer's brief on review, and makes the following findings: The Employer is a Michigan corporation en- gaged in the operation of two retail food markets, including the market in the summer resort commu- nity of Cedar Springs, Michigan, which is involved in this proceeding. There is no bargaining history. As found by the Regional Director, the subject store employs approximately 70 employees in 6 de- partments. He found the individuals designated as "department heads" to be employees and eligible voters, inasmuch as the Employer's president and its store manager together oversee the operations of the entire store and retain full supervisory au- thority to hire, fire, grant increases, and schedule work hours and vacations over all store employees. All of the hourly rated employees occupy one of five job and wage classifications, have identical benefits, are subject to the same work rules, and I On June 7, 1979, the Retail Clerks International Union and the Amal- gamated Meatcutters and Butcher Workmen of North America merged to form the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, AFL-CIO The name of the Petitioner hereint formerly Retail Store Em- ployees Union. Local No. 20. Retail Clerks International Union, AFL CIO, has been amended to reflect this change 2 The Regional Director included in the unit two dual-function em- ployees who work approximately 25 percent of their hours in the meat department. 248 NLRB No. 79 share common lunch and break periods and facili- ties. The meat department is physically situated in the center of the rear wall of the store between the produce and dairy departments and adjacent to a portion of the grocery department. It is staffed with a department head, a lead journeyman clerk, two journeyman clerks, and the dual-function em- ployees, classified as journeyman clerk and general store clerk, respectively. Only the department head has had any prior meat department experience; at least three others were transferred into the depart- ment from cashier or store cleanup type jobs. All inexperienced department employees receive ap- proximately I month of on-the-job training in their meat department duties. To a large extent, such duties consist of weigh- ing, cutting, and packaging meat, some of which arrives as "boxed beef' which is already in primal cuts and needs only to be sawed into smaller cuts for individual sales.3 Meat department employees give assistance to, and receive the same from, employees in other de- partments during especially busy periods. 4 The grocery department lead journeyman clerk regular- ly fills the meat cases and cuts meat for customers during certain store hours when no meat depart- ment employees are scheduled to work. Additional- ly, meat department and dairy department employ- ees work together in unloading freezer truck de- liveries one or more times a week. Further, the job descriptions of general store clerk, journeyman clerk, and lead journeyman clerk require a degree of familiarity with all departments and those em- ployees are in fact rotated into every department in accordance with the job description requirements. On these facts, the Regional Director concluded that the meat department employees have a suffi- ciently separate community of interest from gro- cery employees to warrant their separate represen- tation, relying essentially on his findings that meat department employees work in a separate area per- forming tasks relating to preparation and sale of I Although not set forth in the Regional Director's decision, the record evidence reveals that about 75 percent of meat department duties do not involve traditional meatcutting skills, and consist of unloading trucks and unpacking cases of meat products; stocking display cases with prepackaged and prepriced chickens and coldcuts; traying, weighing, pricing, and wrapping of such items as bologna and sausage which arrive in bulk form, and feeding meat into the patty-making machine hich grinds and stamps out meat patties. 4 The Regional Director failed to note the record testimony indicating that, during the busy summer tourist season, the two dual-function em- ployees worked expanded hours in the meat department, and that a third individual named Mary divided her summer work hours between the meat and produce departments Similarly, the record contains references to other regular and recurring personnel shortages, including acations and sick days, in the meat and other departments and to the specific individuals who were regularly called upon to fill in during such times GREAT DAY, NC. 527 528 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD meat under the separate direction of the meat de- partment head, and they do not interchange with other employees except in emergencies. According- ly, he found this case to be like those in which the Board has excluded meat departments from gro- cery store units where only grocery employees are sought. 5 We disagree. Contrary to the Regional Director, the evidence with respect to meat department employee duties does not show them to possess or exercise tradi- tional meatcutting skills which would distinguish them from grocery employees, as was the case in R-N Market, Inc., where the employer's meat de- partment was on a "cut-to-order basis" rather than using prepackaged meats.Likewise, the Regional Director's conclusion that employee interchange occurred primarily during emergencies is not sup- ported by the record which, as previously noted, describes numerous incidents of regular and recur- ring interchange, particularly during the busy summer season, in addition to the Employer's normal rotational training program built in to three different job classification descriptions. Such inter- change as shown on this record appears to be quite substantial, unlike the small degree of interchange relied upon by the Board in Big Y Supermarkets and R-N Market, supra. Unlike the Regional Director, we do not deem it significant that meat department employees receive direction from their department head, in view of his finding that department heads lack any supervi- 5 R-N Market. Inc., 190 NLRB 292 (1971); Mock Road Super Duper. Inc., 156 NLRB 983 (1966); Big Y Supermarkets, 161 NLRB 1263 (1966); Klapp's Packinghouse Market, 226 NLRB 363 (1976). sory authority and the fact that each of the other five department heads or lead persons similarly give separate directions to their department person- nel. In view of the foregoing and the evidence that the meat department employees enjoy the same uniform job and wage classifications as are applica- ble in all departments, as well as all other benefits and working conditions, we find that the meat de- partment employees do not have a separate com- munity of interest.6 Therefore, on the facts of this case, we conclude that a storewide unit, including the meat department employees, as contended by the Employer, is appropriate herein.7 We hereby remand this proceeding to the Re- gional Director for the purpose of opening and counting the ballots s in the election held herein and for further appropriate action. 6 See Ashcrafts' Markets, Inc., 246 NLRB No. 68 (1979). In view of our disposition herein, we find it unnecessary to pass on the Employer's contention that the merger of the Retail Clerks International Union with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen sup- ports its position for inclusion of the meat department in a storewide unit. 7The unit, as amended herein, is described as follows: All full-time and regular part-time employees, including meat depart- ment employees, department heads and lead journeyman clerks em- ployed by the Employer at its store located at 4175 17-Mile Road, Cedar Springs, Michigan, but excluding the store manager, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. s The Petitioner shall be permitted to withdraw its petition without prejudice upon written notice to the Regional Director for Region 7 within 10 days from the date of this Decision on Review. Independent Linen Service Company of Mississippi, 122 NLRB 1002 (1959). Further, in- asmuch as the unit found appropriate herein is larger than the unit sought by the Petitioner, the opening and counting of the ballots will be condi- tioned upon a demonstration by the Petitionler, within 10 days from the date hereof, that it has an adequate showing of interest in the broader unit found appropriate