Broadway Department Stores, Inc.

In the Matter of BROADWAY DEPARTMENT STORES, INC., EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL No. 63, A. F. OF L., PETITIONER Case No. 91-RC-588.-Decided March 16, 1949 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before a hearing officer of the National Labor Relations Board. The hearing officer's rulings made 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-man panel consisting of the undersigned Board Members.* Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. 2. The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent employees of the Employer. 3. The alleged appropriate unit : The Petitioner seeks a unit, composed of chief operating engineers, operating engineers, maintenance engineers, and junior or apprentice engineers, employed at the Employer's four department stores, located at Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pasadena, and Crenshaw, California, re- spectively.) The Employer contends that the unit sought is in- appropriate. Under the Employer's form of organization, there is a maintenance division which includes the engine room department, the electrical department, the carpenter department, the painting department, the elevator operating department, and the housekeeping department. Reynolds, Murdock, and Gray. 1 At the hearing, the Petitioner amended its petition to exclude chief engineers and plant superintendents. 82 N. L. R. B., No. 15. 176 BROADWAY DEPARTMENT STORES , INC. 177 Employees who are members of these departments work at all 4 of the Employer's stores. The engine room department, which includes the employees sought herein, has a total of 20 employees, of whom 10 work in the Los Angeles store, 3 in the Hollywood store, 2 in the Pasadena store, and 5 in the Crenshaw store.2 Each of the stores involved herein has boiler and engine rooms containing steam boilers and the usual motor driven pumps and other equipment. Only in the Los Angeles store are there high pressure boilers which require the constant attendance of a licensed steam engineer. The engine room department is the only mechanical de- partment in the Employer's organization. The employees in this department, in addition to operating and maintaining boilers and engine room equipment, maintain and repair, among other things, elevators, escalators, cash registers, the vacuum tube system, the air conditioning system, merchandise handling equipment, plumbing, electrical equipment, and store building equipment. The record discloses that only 2 of the 15 employees claimed by the Petitioner spend the greater part of their time in operating and maintaining engine and boiler room equipment; that 9 of such em- ployees spend varying portions of their time, ranging from 5 percent to 40 percent thereof, on engine and boiler room equipment; 3 and that the remaining 4 of such employees spend no time on engine and boiler room equipment, but are employed in various types of craft maintenance work 4 The Employer has no history of collective bargaining. The record is not clear as to whether the Petitioner is seeking a unit of powerhouse employees on a craft or functional basis, or whether it is requesting a unit of mechanical maintenance employees ,coextensive with the engine room department. Although the Board has frequently found appropriate a unit of boiler room and power- house employees,5 it has required as a condition for finding such unit appropriate that the employees therein devote the major part of their working time to powerhouse duties.6 As noted above, only 2 of the 15 employees claimed herein devote the major portion of their work- 2 Inasmuch as the parties stipulated that the chief engineer and the plant superin- tendent of each store are supervisors within the meaning of the Act, there remains a total of 15 non-supervisory employees in the engine room department. ' Of the employees whose work is in varying degrees connected with operating and maintaining engine and boiler room equipment , only eight are licensed as steam engineers. 4 No member of the engine room department, other than those who operate the high pressure boilers at the Los Angeles store, are required to serve any apprenticeship or to participate in a training program. s Matter of Curtiss-Wright Corporation, 77 N. L. R. B 803 ; Matter of Kimberly-Clark Corporation, 77 N. L. R. B 124; Matter of Smith Paper, Incorporated , 76 N. L. R. B. 1222; Matter of American Sugar Refining Company, 76 N. L. R. B. 1009. 6 Matter of Worthy Paper Company Association, 80 N. L. R. B. 19. 178 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD time to powerhouse duties. The remaining claimed employees are engaged, for the greater part of their working time, in activities of a heterogeneous craft nature. Under the circumstances, we find that the unit sought is neither pure craft in character ,7 nor such a func- tionally coherent group as would be required for an appropriate unit of powerhouse employees. The further question remains as to whether the unit sought may be found appropriate on a departmental basis. Considered on such basis, the unit requested constitutes but one part of the Employer's maintenance division. While the Board has found appropriate units comprising all the maintenance employees of an Employer ," it has refused to establish as a departmental unit a portion of a group of maintenance employees .9 Accordingly, we do not believe that the group sought satisfies the conditions necessary for a departmental unit. In view of the foregoing, we find that the unit claimed is inappro- priate for the purposes of collective bargaining , and we shall dismiss the petition. ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition for investigation and certifi- cation of representatives of employees of the four stores of Broadway Department Stores, Inc., located at Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pasa- dena, and Crenshaw, California, respectively, filed herein by Inter- national Union of Operating Engineers, Local No. 63, A. F. of L., be, and it hereby is, dismissed. 7 The Board has held that a grouping of employees in several crafts does not constitute a craft unit. Matter of Inland Empire Paper Company, 80 N. L it. B. 749, and cases cited therein . See also, Matter of L. It. Clark and Wslliam Ellis d/b/a Columbia Packing Company, 80 N. L. R B. 211. 8 Matter of Armstrong Cork Company, 80 N. L. it. B. 859; Matter of Weston Biscuit Company, 81 N. L. it. B. 407. 9 Matter of George S. Mepham Corporation, 78 N. L. it. B. 1081.