Milliron's

In the Matter of MILLIRON'S, EMPLOYER and GENERAL WARE- HOUSEMAN'S UNION, LOCAL 598, INTERNATIONAL BROTI IERILOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS, A. F. L., PETITIONER Case No. 21-R-3486.-Decided January 14, 1947 Sheppard, Mullin, Richter and Balthis, by Messrs. George R. Richter, Jr., and Roy Littlejohn, of Los Angeles, Calif., for the Em- ployer. Messrs. Gene Blackwell and James A. Walker, of Los Angeles, Calif., for the Petitioner. Mrs. Platonia P. Kaldes, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed, hearing in this case was held at Los Angeles, California, on August 27, 1946, before George H. O'Brien, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. At the hearing, the Employer moved to dismiss the petition on the grounds that it is not engaged in interstate commerce and that the unit petitioned for is inappropriate. - The hearing officer referred this motion to the Board. For the reasons hereinafter set forth, the motion is hereby denied. Upon the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER Milliron's, a California corporation, is engaged in operating a re- tail department store in Los Angeles, California, carrying a general line of merchandise. It leases several of the store's departments to concessionaires for private operation. It employs approximately 700 employees. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1946, the total cost of goods and merchandise purchased by Milliron's and its lessees exceeded 51/2 million dollars; during the same period the total sales exceeded 10 million dollars. More than 31/2 million dollars' worth of the total 72 N. L. R B., No. 15. 69 70 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD merchandise and materials purchased originated from points outside the State of California, and more than $43,000 of all goods sold was shipped to destinations outside the State. We find, contrary to its contention, that the Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act II. THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED The Petitioner is a labor organization affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, claiming to represent employees of the Employer. III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION The Employer refuses to recognize the Petitioner as the exclusive bargaining representative of employees of the Employer until the Petitioner has been certified by the Board in an tppi;opriate unit. We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning the representation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT The Petitioner seeks a unit of all employees at the Employer's 720 North Spring Street warehouse, excluding supervisory employees. The Employer objects to the scope of the unit sought for the reason that it does not embrace all its warehouse employees; 2 it contests the propriety of grouping all employees in its warehouses in one unit because the work performed by some of them, namely, the cabinet maker, the finishers, and the furniture claims adjuster, requires special skill and training not required for the work performed by other ware- house employees; and in any event, it opposes inclusion within the unit of the furniture claims adjuster and the porter at the Spring Street warehouse, the elevator operator at the Maxine warehouse, and temporary warehousemen who may be employed at either warehouse. The unit sought by the Petitioner is one. confined to employees en- gaged essentially in warehousing operations in a building geograph- ically separated from other operations of the Employer, and supervised immediately by a warehouse manager whose authority extends only to the employees whose representation the Petitioner seeks. While it is true that some of the employees so engaged do have duties requiring I Matter of Desneond's, Inc., 68 N L R B 379 , Matter of M. E Blatt Company, 38 N L R B 1210, 47 N L R 13 1055, Board's orders enforced, N L R B. v M. E Blatt Company, 143 P ( 2d) 268 (C C A 39). 2 The Employer also has another warehouse known as the Maxime warehouse. The Spring Street warehouse is housed in a separate building about 14 blocks from the Em- ployer's retail store, whereas the Maxime warehouse is housed in the upper floors of the same building in which the retail store is housed Theie are approximately 24 employees at the Spring Street warehouse and 2 or 3 at the liaxime warehouse. MILLIRON'S 71 special skills and training, the unit sought is, in the main, a clearly identifiable administrative unit of warehouse employees such as we have heretofore found appropriate in other cases.3 No reason here ap- pears to warrant departure from our prior decisions. With respect to the contention as to the inclusion of Maxime ware- house employees, it appears from the record that, despite the geo- graphical separation of the Employer's two warehouses, all the Employer's warehousing operations are operated as an integrated unit under the over-all supervision of the superintendent of warehouse and delivery and that employees of the Maxime warehouse are frequently interchanged with employees at the Spring Street warehouse perform- ing similar duties. Under the circumstances, we find, contrary to the Petitioner's contention, that the unit should embrace employees of both the Employer's warehouses. As hereinabove indicated, the parties are in dispute as to the inclu- sion or exclusion of the furniture claims adjuster and the porter at the Spring Street warehouse, the elevator operator at the Maxime warehouse, and temporary warehousemen who may be employed at either warehouse. The furniture claims adjuster operates out of the Spring Street warehouse under the supervision of the warehouse manager and has duties relating to the adjustment of claims made by customers with respect to damaged or defective furniture. He inspects the furniture at customer's homes whenever a claim is made and, whenever possible, makes minor repairs. In the event he finds the damage to be irrepa- rable, he makes recommendations to the clauns department relative to the amount of monetary compensation which the customer should receive, which recommendations are usually followed. Like other employees engaged at the warehouse in repairing and finishing fur- niture, his duties require that he be skilled in furniture repairing. Inasmuch as he repairs furniture and is within the same administra- tive division , we are of the opinion that his interests are sufficiently allied to those of the other warehouse employees to warrant his In- clusion in the unit. Accordingly, we shall include him. The porter is assigned to a department other than the warehouse department. He spends only about 3 hours a day at the Spring Street warehouse and the remainder of his time at the Employer's retail store. Inasmuch as he is not assigned to the warehouse and spends only a small proportion of his time in working that department, we shall exclude him from the unit. The elevator operator spends all his time_in carrying passengers to and from the various floors of the Maxime warehouse. However, he a Matter of Marshall Fiend Company, 35 N L R B 1200 , Matter of John Deere Plow Company, 58 N L R B 972 72 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD works under the supervision of another department and does no warehousing work. We shall exclude him from the unit. Tennpbrary wa-rehousem,en are employees hired by the Employer during the summer months, during exceptionally busy periods, during the Christmas season or during sales conducted by the Employer at its retail store. Many of those hired are high school or college stu- dents working during vacation periods, and none have any expecta- tion either of permanent tenure of or regular seasonal employment. We shall, accordingly, exclude them from the unit.4 We find that all employees of the Employer ' at its Spring Street and Maxime warehouses, including the furniture claims adjuster, but excluding the porter, the elevator operator, the warehouse manager at the Spring Street warehouse, and any or all other supervisory em- ployees 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. DIRECTION OF ELECTION As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining with Milliron's, Los Angeles, Cali- fornia, 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 Di- rector for the Twenty-first Region, acting in this matter as agent for the National Labor Relations Board, and subject to Sections 203.55 and 203.56, of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula- tions-Series 4, among the 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 per- son 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 General Warehousemen's Union, Local 598, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehouse- men and Helpers, A. F. L., for the purposes of collective bargaining. a Matter of Sclwnieg Industries , 62 N L R B 1474 , Matter of Ame,ican Cyanamid J Chemical Corporation, 62 N. L R B 925 , Matter of Jasper Cabinet Company, 61 N L R B 961. s The parties agree that employees hired by the Employer 's lessees to perform , warehous- ing operations and carried on the lessees ' pa3 rolls are not to be considered as being within the unit.