Pickering & Co., Inc.

772 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Pickering & Company, Inc. and Local 810, Interna- tional Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Peti- tioner. Case 29-RC-4469 March 28, 1980 DECISION ON REVIEW BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND PENELLO On April 11, 1979, the Regional Director for Region 29 issued a Decision and Direction of Elec- tion in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found appropriate the requested unit of production, maintenance, and warehouse employees employed at the Employer's facility located in Freeport, New York. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer filed at timely request for review of the Regional Director's decision on the grounds, inter alia, that in finding the Freeport, New York, facili- ty an appropriate unit for purposes of collective bargaining, he made erroneous findings as to sub- stantial factual issues and departed from officially reported precedent. By telegraphic order dated May 9, 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 with respect to the issues under review and finds that the appropriate unit here must in- clude the Employer's production, maintenance, and warehouse employees of both the Freeport and Plainview facilities for the following reasons: The Employer is a New York corporation which is engaged in the design, manufacture, and sale of audio components, turntables, headsets, measure- ment, and control devices and related products at two locations in the State of New York and one lo- cation in Florida. Its main facility is located at 101 Sunnyside Boulevard, Plainview, Long Island. Ad- ditional Plainview facilities, including unstaffed storage facilities, are located within I mile of the main facility. There are approximately 191 employ- ees employed at the Plainview facilities. The Em- ployer also operates a second facility at 137 East Merrick Road, Freeport, Long Island, where ap- proximately 80 employees are employed.' The Freeport facility is approximately 11 miles from the main facility at Plainview. l The Employer's facility in Florida is not involved in this case. 248 NLRB No. 99 The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit com- posed of the production, maintenance, and ware- house employees at the Freeport facility. The Em- ployer contends that the only appropriate unit would consist of all its production, maintenance, and warehouse employees at its Plainview and Freeport locations. In his report, the Regional Director found that the record reveals some functional integration, common supervision, centralized purchasing and support operations, and common fringe benefits. He nevertheless found the petitioned-for unit of employees at Freeport to be appropriate in view of record evidence that day-to-day labor relations rest with the respective personnel managers at each lo- cation, as well as little employee interchange on a day-to-day basis, a lack of geographic proximity, and no history of collective bargaining among the employees on any basis. The Employer's production operations are under the control of the vice president in charge of oper- ations. Production is carried out in five depart- ments: audio and turntable assembly, audio, mea- surement and control (M&C), quality control, and packaging and shipping. Each department is headed by a manager or supervisor located in Plainview. The audio department located at Free- port is under the immediate direction of an acting supervisor who is also the Freeport personnel man- ager. Within the departments are seven basic job classifications: assembler, inspector, coil winder, machinist, moulder, packer, and shipping clerk. The audio and turntable department produces several styli cartridge combinations for use in phonographic sound reproduction units. Raw mate- rials are purchased in Plainview and production of the various combinations requires work by several subdepartments at both Plainview and Freeport. 2 Final assembly, testing, and packaging take place at Freeport and the packaged product is shipped back to Plainview for storage. The M&C department produces approximately 150 different linear and notary measurement and control products. As with audio production, M&C production also is highly integrated between the Plainview and Freeport facilities. Richard Cole, the M&C manager, is based at Plainview but maintains an office at Freeport. The M&C production con- trol office at Plainview performs all M&C produc- tion planning. Cole, who establishes the production schedule for both facilities, testified: T2 ransportation of materials and products between the two facilities is handled by the transportation department which is based in Plainview. The drivers make two scheduled trips daily as well as special trips as needed The Freeport facility neither initiates the manufacture of audio prod- ucts nor produces such products in its entirety. PICKERING & COMPANY, INC. 773 . . .the type of work that I keep up here [Plainview] are the ones that need more atten- tion, constant attention, and more sophisticated type of work. What I send down to Freeport are the ones that I can take care of by my daily visits to Freeport. Upon completion of Freeport's part of the process, the items are shipped back to Plainview where they undergo electronic testing and/or further molding or machining operations. Cole spends about 2 hours a day at Freeport. During these visits, Cole discusses with the group leader the daily work assignment and the employee complement. Cole also testified that he relies on Mary Williams, the Freeport personnel manager, to initially screen job applicants and to make recom- mendations on discipline and promotions for the M&C employees at Freeport, but that he makes the final decision in each case. With regard to wage in- creases, Cole testified that he makes such decisions based on records he maintains on the employees without consulting Williams. The testing and inspection of the Employer's products is performed by inspectors in the quality control department under the overall direction of the quality control manager and quality control en- gineer, both located at Plainview. Immediately under the quality control engineer is the product test supervisor and 13 inspectors at Plainview and a group leader and 8 inspectors at Freeport. Al- though the day-to-day work assignments in the in- spection department at Freeport are made by the group leader, the assignments are in accord with the production schedules by the production depart- ment at Plainview. In addition, the quality control manager at Plainview telephones the group leader at Freeport daily and spends approximately half a day each week at Freeport. The quality control en- gineer at Plainview reviews, and his concurrence is necessary for approval of, requests for overtime at both facilities. Wage increases and vacation change requests are submitted by the respective managers at each facility to managers at Plainview who usu- ally routinely approve them. Terminations at both facilities must be approved by the quality control engineer and the quality control manager at Plain- view. Equipment installation and maintenance is per- formed by maintenance employees stationed at Plainview. These employees maintain the electrical, heating, cooling, and water supply lines, and all machinery and equipment for the Employer's oper- ations at both the Plainview and Freeport loca- tions. The toolroom supervisor is in charge of all tool including dies, fixtures, molds, and assembly tools used in the Plainview and Freeport oper- ations. Much of the maintenance work on tools is performed at the Plainview facility with the porta- ble Freeport tools needing service being transport- ed by the shuttle drivers from Freeport to Plain- view. However, the Plainview toolroom employees regularly go to the Freeport facility to perform ser- vice on heavy machinery and equipment. The packing and shipping manager stationed at Plainview is in charge of all packaging and ship- ping. There is a group leader at Freeport. The equipment used at both locations is similar. On sev- eral occasions, one of the Freeport packers has moved to Plainview to assist in handling increased shipping orders. All shipments to customers are from the Plainview facility. All administrative functions for the two locations are performed at Plainview. Both facilities operate on similar schedules and shut down for vacations at the same time. All employees receive the same fringe benefits, and eligibility requirements for cal- culating benefits is determined by total service at both locations. The wage review committee at Plainview makes the final decision on all wage in- creases. All hiring requisitions are submitted to and approved by Plainview management and the final approval for discharges is by the director of per- sonnel in Plainview. In sum, it is clear that the Employer's Plainview and Freeport facilities operate with a high degree of functional integration and that the Freeport fa- cility is largely dependent on the management in Plainview for both administrative and production matters. The authority of the first-line supervisors at Freeport does not dilute this dependence in view of the direct involvement of Plainview managers in the day-to-day operation of the Freeport facility. Similarly, the impact of the geographical separation of the two locations is minimized here by the Em- ployer's shuttle system of cars, vans, and trucks which operates daily. Furthermore, employees of one facility, have been transferred to the other fa- cility to satisfy overtime requirements. In addition, there is frequent transfer of machinery-not only equipment, but also whole production lines as space was needed and became available-and a centralized maintenance crew located at Plainview performs machinery repairs and other maintenance at both locations. In these circumstances, we find that the pre- sumptive appropriateness of a single-plant unit has been rebutted, that the requested unit limited to the Freeport facility is an arbitrary segment of employ- ees in the Employer's Long Island, New York, op- erations, and that the appropriate unit must include the employees at both Plainview and Freeport, PICKERING & COMPANY, INC. 773 774 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Long Island, New York.3 Accordingly, we find that the following employees of the Employer con- stitute a unit appropriate for the purpose of collec- tive bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All production, maintenance, and warehouse employees employed by the Employer at its Plainview and Freeport, New York, facilities excluding all office clericals, guards, nightwatchmen, group leaders and supervisors, as defined in the Act. Accordingly, the case is remanded to, the Re- ginal Director for the purpose of conducting an election pursuant to his Decision and Direction of Election, as modified herein, except that the eligi- bility payroll period therefor shall be for that ending immediately before the date of this, Decision on Review, and a revised eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Direc- tor for Region 29 within 7 days of the date of this Decision on Review. 4 3 U-Wanna-Wash Frocks, Inc., 203 NLRB 174 (1973). Our dissenting colleague seeks to isolate the high degree of production integration between the Plainview and Freeport facilities by pointing out that it is unaccompained by any day-to-day interchange oF employees at those facilies. We have found the Employer's integrated production pro- cess to be significant, however, because the Freeport facility is largely dependent on the management in Plainview for both administrative and production matters. Thus, this case differs from Wescore, Inc., 230 NLRB 1159, 1160 (1977), relied on by our dissenting colleague, where there was a substantial degree of autonomy over day-to-day supervision of the Gardner plant employees by the Gardner plant manager Furthermore, we rely here on the considerable contact between the employees of the two plants as a result of the centralized maintenance function, the small geographical separation minimized by the daily operatior of th eshuttle system between facilities, and the transfer of employees from one facility to the other to satisfy overtime requirements. In these circumstances, the limited authority of the Freeport personell manager over day-to-day labor relations at Freeport is insufficient to grant a separate unit at Free- port. Nor is this case like Hamburg Knitting Mills Compcny, 239 NLRB No. 178 (1979), also relied on by our dissenting colleague. There, the sep- arate immediate supervision was supported by a "total lack of inter- change and near absence of integration between employees at the plants" as well as a "difference in training, pay, and number of shifts to be worked at each plant." No such comparable differences between the two plants exist here. 4The unit found appropriate is larger than that sought by the Petition- er. Accordingly, the Regional Director shall not proceed with the elec- CHAIRMAN FANNING, dissenting: For the reasons stated by the Regional Director, I would find that the Petitioner's requested unit of employees at the Employer's Freeport, New York, facility is appropriate for collective bargaining. The Freeport facility is geographically separate, there is no bargaining history, and the day-to-day supervi- sion of the Freeport employees, including work as- signments, rests with Freeport supervisors. While there exists a high degree of product integration between the Freeport and Plainview facilities, it is unaccompanied by any day-to-day interchange of employees. Further, while the majority makes much of the fact that the final decisions regarding hires, fires, promotions, wage increases, and vaca- tions for Freeport employees rests with managers at Plainview, it does not dispute the Regional Di- rector's findings that approval of wage increases and vacations is routine. Nor does it disturb the Regional Director's findings that the Freeport per- sonnel manager has the authority to screen job ap- plicants, make wage recommendations, handle grievances, issue warning slips, grant sick leave, and recommend terminations. Thus, it can hardly be said that the Freeport facility lacks autonomy in regard to day-to-day labor relations or that the day-to-day concerns of the Freeport employees are not separate from those at Plainview. Under such facts, the Regional Director correctly concluded that the common administrative control and prod- uct integration between the Plainview and Free- port facilities were insufficient to rebut the pre- sumptive appropriateness of a single-plant unit at Freeport.5 tion herein until he has determined that the Petitioner has an adequate showing of interest among the employees in the appropriate unit. In the event the Petitioner does not wish to proceed with the election in the broader unit, the Petitioner will be permitted to withdraw its petition without prejudice upon written notice to the Regional Director within 10 days from the date of this Decision on Review. ' Hamburg Knitting Mills Company, 239 NLRB No 78 (1979); Wescom, Inc., 230 NLRB 1159 (1977). __ .