Plankinton Packing Co.

In the Matter of PLANKINTON PACKING COMPANY and UNITED PACKINGHOUSE WORKERS OF AMERICA, C. I. O. Case Vo. 13-R-3,352.-Decided July 25, 1946 Mr. Arthur C. O'Meara, of Chicago, Ill., for the Company. Mr. A. W. Richter, of Milwaukee, Wis., for the C. 1. 0. Mr. F. 'G. Dunn, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION STATEMENT OF THE CASE Upon an amended petition duly filed by United Packinghouse Work- ers of America, C. I. 0., herein called the CIO, alleging that a ques- tion affecting commerce had arisen concerning the representation of employees of Plankinton Packing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, herein called the Company, the National Labor Relations Board pro- vided for an appropriate hearing upon due notice before Herman J. DeKoven, Trial Examiner. The hearing was held at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 10, 1946. The Company and the CIO 1 appeared and participated. All parties were afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce evi- dence bearing on the issues. The Trial Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. All parties were afforded opportunity to file briefs with the Board. Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY The Company is a Wisconsin corporation, having its principal office and place of business at 230 S.Muskego Avenue, Milwaukee, Wiscon- sin, where it is engaged in the meat packing business. The Company in its afore-mentioned operations during the year 1945, used materials I The Foreman's Association of America was served with Notice of Hearing but did not appear. 69 N. L. R. B., No. 110. 920 PLANKINTON PACKING COMPANY 921 valued in excess of $30,000,000, of which more than 10 percent was shipped from points outside the State of Wisconsin, and processed goods valued in excess of $37,000,000, of which more than 60 percent was shipped to points outside the State of Wisconsin. The Company admits that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. II. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED United Packinghouse Workers of America is a labor organization, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations , admitting to membership employees of the Company. III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION The Company has refused to grant recognition to the CIO as the exclusive bargaining representative of the Company's office employees until the CIO 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 Company, within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT The CIO seeks a unit comprised generally of all office and clerical employees of the Company, excluding confidential secretaries and all supervisory employees.2 The Company contends that since the CIO is presently representing production and maintenance employees of the Company, it should not be permitted to represent office and clerical workers.3 Although there is general agreement on the composition of the unit, as more particularly hereinafter set forth, the following employees are in dispute, the CIO desiring to include them and the Company contending that they should be excluded : Department heads of voucher, departmental, cost figuring, invoice, bookkeeping, order writing, and sales distribution departments. The evidence shows that these department heads possess authority to hire, discharge, or otherwise effect the status of employees under their super- vision. Accordingly, we shall exclude them from the unit. Assistant head of the invoice department and the general utility man in the auditing department. It is contended that these employees should be excluded because they assume supervisory authority in the 2 There are approximately 60 employees in the appropriate unit. 3 The Board has frequently held that clerical workers, although generally excluded from units of production and maintenance employees , may constitute separate appropriate units and may be represented therein by whatever bargaining agency they choose. Matter of Walter Kid to S Compafly ., Inc., 64 N . L. R. B. 1050. 922 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD absence of the department head. However, it is noted that the invoice- department only includes nine employees, and that the assistant head has only had occasion to assume the responsibility of a department head on 2 days during the past year. The general utility man assumes supervisory authority only when the auditor and office manager, and the assistant auditor and office manager are absent. This rarely hap- pens as these men stagger their vacations and one of them plans to be present at all times. Since these employees are not regular supervisors but act in that capacity only infrequently and sporadically, we shall include them in the Unit .4 The "Beef, lamb, and veal man," and the "smoked meat man." ' The duties of these men include determining, on the basis of the market and other factors, whether to sell meat in the form purchased or to have it processed further by the Company. They also allocate the finished products, determining again on the basis of the, market, the quota of meat that shall be sold locally and that which will be shipped to the surrounding territory. Their duties also include fixing prices on com- pany products and negotiating for Government contracts. In all of these matters, they make their decisions independently and rarely con- sult higher authority in making a determination. It is apparent that these men have authority to make decisions that effectively mold man- agement policy in regard to processing, distribution, sales, and price of the Company's product. Under these circumstances, we shall exclude them from the unit, The general cashier and the paymaster. The general cashier has custody of all monies received and paid out by the Company, monies deposited in local banks, and is responsible for the balance maintained in these banks. The paymaster compares wages shown to be due each employee on the production and maintenance foremen's time books with the wages due each employee on the pay roll prepared by the gen- eral office each week, and pays the employees in cash, the wages due them each pay day. Both of these employees are on the office pay roll, perform their duties in the general office, and are under the supervision of the auditor and office manager. In view of the common supervi- sion, interests, and working conditions of the general cashier and the paymaster with that of the other clerical employees, and the fact that the Board has consistently held that access to pay-roll information, in itself, was not sufficient to bring an employee within its definition of a confidential employee,' we shall include these employees in the unit. Secretaries to the department head in the plant sales and in the city sales departments.' The secretaries perform the usual duties of a con- 4Matter of Aluminum Company of America, 61 N. L. R. B. 1066. ' Warren Ludy and Frank J. Lorenz, respectively. 6Matter of Aluminum Company of America, supra. ' Lois Leister, and Dorothy Cook. Leister is soon to leave the Company and will be replaced by Ida M. Serflek. PLANKINTON PACKING COMPANY 923 fidential secretary to a department head. The heads of the sales de- partments each have supervision of approximately 40 salesmen and clerical workers. They have the authority to hire, discharge, promote, demote, discipline, and otherwise effect changes in the status of em- ployees under them. They fix sales policies for their departments, determining the hours a salesman shall spend in calling on trade and what district he shall cover ; they set the policy on collections ; they have the independent authority to grant sick leave and to permit sales- men to lay off work for a few days for other reasons; they fix poli- cies regarding the promotions and working conditions of their em- ployees; they fix the salaries of the salesmen and the general manager of the Company testified that these sales department heads would han- dle collective bargaining negotiations in the event the salesmen be- came organized. They presently dispose of grievances in their de- ployees; they fix the salaries of the salesmen, and the general manager In view of all these circumstances, we are of the opinion that the con- fidential secretaries to these 2 department heads come within the Board's customary definition of confidential employees and we shall exclude them from the unit." Teletype operators, clerks in the departmental department, the gen- eral ledger clerk, and the cost clerks in the cost figuring department. The Company would exclude these employees on the grounds that they are confidential. However, the evidence does not support this conten- tion, and we shall include them in the unit. The time and employment clerks are on the plant pay roll and under the supervision of the plant superintendent. They also have offices separate from that of the general office employees, and their hours con- form with that of the production and maintenance workers. The Company contends that they should be excluded because of the confi- dential nature of their work,9 and also because their interests lie with the plant employees. However, their duties are strictly clerical in nature and their terms and conditions of employment are the same as those of the office clericals. In view of these factors, as well as the fact that they are excluded from the unit of production and mainte- nance employees,", we shall include them in the clerical unit. Secretary and assistant treasurer of the credit union. This employee spends from 75 to 80 percent of her time on credit union work and the remainder performing company functions, consisting of distributing War Savings Bonds, making payments to employees for unclaimed wages, and also making payment to workers who terminate their em- ployment prior to the regular pay day. She is paid a company Matter of Midland National Bank of Minneapolis. 68 N. L. R. B. 580. We find no merit in this contention as the Board has consistently included time and employment clerks in clerical units. Matter of Swift and Company, 61 N, L. R. B. 1624; Matter of St. Louis Independent Packing Company, 67 N. L. R. B. 543. zu Yawman and Erbe Manufacturing Company, 65 N. L. R. B. 898. 924 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD check, but the credit union reimburses the Company for time spent on credit union work. She conforms to the hours and working conditions of the other employees of the Company. The Company concedes that she is an employee of the Company for the purpose of this proceeding. In view of these factors, indicating a close community of interests between her and the other office and clerical workers, we shall include the credit union secretary in the unit. Load dispatcher. This employee has an office on the dock and deter- mines from invoices furnished by the general office how the packages shall be loaded on the trucks for distribution. He authorizes invoice shortages and discrepancies. He also keeps a record of invoices fur- nished him and the manner in which the meat represented by the in- voices has been loaded and dispatched. He is on the plant pay roll and under the supervision of the plant superintendent. However, the rec- ord reveals that his duties are mainly clerical, and that in view of the fact that he has been excluded from the unit of production and main- tenance employees," we shall include him in the clerical unit. We find that all office and clerical employees, including the office jani- tor, the load dispatcher, the clerks in the time and employment office, the credit union employee, the teletype operators, the general cashier, the paymaster, the departmental clerks in the departmental depart- ment, the general ledger clerk, the general utility office man in the auditing department, and the cost clerks in the cost figuring depart- ment, but excluding all plant clerical employees other than the clerks in the time and employment office and the load dispatcher, the stenog- raphers in the purchasing department and superintendents office, the confidential clerk and confidential secretary in the superintendent's office, the secretary to the plant employment manager and head time- keeper, the confidential secretary to the plant manager, the confidential secretaries to the auditor and office manager and to the department heads of the plant sales and city sales departments, the confidential secretary in the, industrial relations department, switchboard opera- tors, salesmen, nurses, the discrepancy investigator, the department heads and assistant department heads of beef, provision, by-products, plant sales, purchasing, credit, transportation, industrial relations, city sales, voucher, departmental, cost figuring, bookkeeping, order writing, and sales distribution departments, the head of the invoice department, the director of country beef sales, the director of soap and canned goods sales and distribution, the plant superintendent and as- sistant plant superintendent, the buyers, graders, weight takers and sorters in the livestock buyer's office, the auditor and office manager, the assistant auditor, the casualty and liability insurance manager, the "beef, lamb and veal man," the "smoked meat man," the plant 11 Yawman and Erbe Manufacturing Company, supra. PLANKINTON PACKING COMPANY 925 employment manager and head timekeeper, the assistant plant em- ployment manager and assistant head timekeeper, and all other super- visory employees with authority to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of employees, or effectively recommend such action, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. V. THE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES We shall direct that the question concerning representation which has arisen be resolved by an election by secret ballot among employees in the appropriate unit who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately preceding the date of the Direction of Election herein, subject to the limitations and additions set forth in the Direction. DIRECTION OF ELECTION By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National Labor Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Rela- tions Act, and pursuant to Article III, Section 9, of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations-Series 3, as amended, it is hereby DIRECTED that, as part of the investigation to ascertain representa- tives for the purposes of collective bargaining with Plankinton Pack- ing Company, Wilwaukee, Wisconsin, 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 Thirteenth Region, acting in this matter as agent for the National Labor Relations Board, and subject to Article III, Sections 10 and 11, of said Rules and Regulations, among employees in the unit found appropriate in Section IV, above, who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately 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, and including employees in the armed forces of the United States who present themselves in person at the polls, 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 United Packinghouse Workers of America, affiliated with the Con- gress of Industrial Organizations, for the purposes of collective bargaining. CHAIRMAN HERZOG took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Direction of Election.