Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc.

In the Matter Of MONTGOMERY WARD & CO., INCORPORATED, EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, LOCAL 116, AFL, PETITIONER Cases Nos. 16-RC-408 and 16-IBC-409.Decided November 29, 19.19 DECISION DIRECTION OF ELECTION AND ORDER Upon petitions duly filed and consolidated, a hearing was held be- fore Joseph A. Butler, hearing officer. 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 the case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Reynolds and Gray]. Upon the entire record in the case, the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em- ployees of the Employer. 3. We find that a question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of employees of the Employer in Case No. 16-RC-408, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. However, for the reasons stated below, we find that no such question exists in Case No. 16-RC-409 4. The Petitioner seeks two separate units of the Employer's mail- order employees at the Fort Worth house. In Case No. 16-RC-408, it seeks a one-department unit of building operation and maintenance employees; in Case No. 16-RC-409, it proposes a one-department unit composed primarily of mechanical and electrical appliance repairmen. The Employer opposes both units, contending that the functions of the employees concerned are an essential and integral part of its mail- 1 For the same reasons the Employer 's motion to dismiss, which was made after the hearing, is denied as to Case No. 16-RC-408 and is granted as to Case No. 16-RC-409. 87 NLRB No. 35. 254 MONTGOMERY WARD & CO., INCORPORATED 255 order business and that only a single unit composed of all of its mail- order employees is appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.2 The Employer is engaged at Fort Worth, Texas, in the operation of a mail-order house and retail store, both of which are housed in a single 8-story building.' The approximately 1,500 employees of the mail-order house work in about 32 separately supervised adminis- trative departments, under the general supervision of the Employer's house manager. The Petitioner seeks to represent in separate units all of the nonsupervisory employees in two of these departments- maintenance and repair service. Case No. 16-RC-408 The maintenance department, composed of approximately 51 em- ployees, services and repairs the mail-order house and grounds, oper- ates elevators, and repairs the mechanical equipment of the building, including elevators, conveyors, and office equipment. The work of these employees, although of necessity integrated to some extent with that of the other employees in the mail-order house, is not a direct part of the Employer's merchandising operation. Moreover, there is little interchange between the employees of the maintenance depart- ment and those of the other departments. In these circumstances, and because we have previously found such groups of maintenance employees to be sufficiently homogeneous and identifiable to warrant establishing them in separate units ,4 we find that the employees in the Employer's mail-order maintenance department at its Fort Worth, Texas, nail-order house, excluding guards, watchmen, professional employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the mean- ing of Section 9 (b) of the Act. Case No. 16-RC-409 The repair service department, which the Petitioner seeks as a separate departmental unit, is composed of approximately 50 em- 2 In support of its position, the Employer relies in part upon our prior determination, 4 years ago , that all of the mail-order employees at Fort Worth, with certain minor excep. tions, constituted a single appropriate bargaining unit (Montgomery Ward & Co., Incorpo- rated, 64 NLRB 674). Although that determination is entitled to weight in this proceeding, it is not controlling, in view of additional evidence in this case concerning the smaller units now sought. In the earlier case neither the Employer nor the union sought separate bargaining units consisting of the employees here involved , and there was no evidence to show the appropriateness of such units . Moreover, the union in the earlier case, although certified by the Board on December 5, 1945, maintained contractual relations with the Employer for only 1 year, and did not intervene in this proceeding. 3 This proceeding does not concern the employees in the retail store. 4 See Thalhimer Brothers, Incorporated, 83 NLRB 664 , and cases cited therein. . 256 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS- BOARD ployees. They are engaged primarily in making minor repairs on mechanical and electrical appliances which have been damaged in shipment or which require such repairs after they have been sold to customers. However, the employees concerned are admittedly not craftsmen. In addition, it appears that some of the employees in other departments not only possess job classifications which are iden- tical with those of employees in the proposed unit, but also perform. the same sort of repairs . For these reasons, and because approxi- mately 15 percent of the work of the repair -service department consists of regular merchandising work in handling replacement parts ordered by customers, we conclude that the repair service department is inap- propriate for the purposes of collective bargaining, either as a craft group or as a department with duties clearly distinct from those of the other departments in the mail-order house. We shall, therefore, dismiss the petition in Case No. 16-RC-409. DIRECTION OF ELECTION As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the pur- poses of collective bargaining with the Employer , an election by secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than 30 days from the date of this Direction , under the direction and super- vision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this case was heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees in the unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately preceding the date of this Direction of Election , 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 rein- stated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement , to determine whether or not they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bar- gaining, by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 116, AFL. ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition in Case No. 16-RC-409 be, and it hereby is, dismissed.