Safeway Stores, Inc.

998 DECISIONS.OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD nal of Commerce branch, including the full-time electrician,3 but excluding circulation salesmen,4 employees in the mechanical depart- ments, and all supervisors. We shall at this time make no final determination of the appropriate unit or units. Such determination will depend in part upon the de- sires of the employees involved as expressed in the elections. If a majority of employees in the news and editorial department select the Intervenor as their bargaining representative, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate appropriate unit. [Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this volume.] 8 We find no merit in the Employer's contention that the full-time electrician should be excluded from the proposed unit. As a full-time employee, he is entitled to union repre- sentation , and no other organization seeks to represent him in a separate unit. ' We find no merit in the contention urged in the Intervenor 's brief that the exclusion of the 15 circulation salesmen would cause the Petitioner 's requested unit to become inappro- priate. There was no issue raised at the hearing with respect to the exclusion of circula- tion salesmen and apparently the parties were then agreed with respect to their exclusion. SAFEWAY STORES, INCORPORATED 1 and AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA, LOCAL 202, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 16-RC-710. October 19, 1951 Decision and Direction of Election Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, hearings were held before Lewis A. Ward and Willis C. Darby, Jr., hearing officers. The hearing officers' rulings made at the hearings are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-mem- ber panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Murdock]. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em- ployees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen- tation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Petitioner seeks a unit consisting of all meat department em- ployees of the Employer's stores that are within the Employer's ad- 'Employer's and Petitioner's names appear as amended at the hearing. 96 NLRB No. 140. SAFEWAY STORES, INCORPORATED 999 ministrative area known as the Waco District. In the alternative, it has indicated its willingness to accept a unit composed of all the Employer's meat department employees in the Waco District, with the exception of the employees employed in the stores situated in Austin and Waco, Texas 2 The Employer urges that neither of the requested units is appropriate, because of geographical separation of the several stores within the district, infrequent interchange of em- ployees among the various locations, and the large amount of local autonomy exercised by the store-level supervision. It contends that the only appropriate bargaining units would be those it describes as "city-wide" units, each limited to employees who perform their work in the Employer's stores situated in a single municipality. The Employer, which operates a Nation-wide chain of retail food stores, administratively functions on two levels in the Dallas, Texas, area: the Dallas Division and the six districts which it embraces 3 The Waco District, one of these and the only one here involved, is made up of 22 Employer stores including 6 in the city of Waco, 4 in Austin, 2 in Corsicana, and 1 each in the towns of Waxahachie, Ennis, Bryan, Hillsboro, Marlin, Cameron, Taylor, Mexia, Cleburne, and Temple, all of which are in the State of Texas. These localities lie in an area which may be roughly described as a rectangle approxi- mately 200 miles from north to south and 45 miles from east to west. The average distance from each of these towns to the nearest neigh- boring town within the district having one of the Employer's stores is approximately 30 miles, while the average distance from each of them to Waco, the administrative hub of the district, is 61 miles. The Employer's operating system combines centralized control with a limited amount of local autonomy. The division manager, with offices in Dallas, Texas, directs, and to a degree enunciates, broad com- pany policy, while the six district managers within the division are responsible for "profitable operation" of the stores under their respec- tive jurisdictions. Testimony establishes that the Waco district man- ager visits each store within the district every 15 to 18 days and main- tains general knowledge of procedure, methods, and practices em- ployed by the location managers, and that it is within his discretion to effectuate any change in personnel or policy which he deems advisable. 2 The unit request appears as amended at the reopened hearing, the alternative request being the one set forth in the petition. The motion to amend was allowed over the objec- tion of the Employer, whereupon it moved to dismiss on the ground of prejudice occasioned by surprise. As the hearing officer made the Employer an offer of an extension of time in which to prepare to meet any new issues which might have been introduced by the amended unit request-which offer the Employer refused to accept-and as it appears that all the pertinent facts of the disputes were adequately explored and litigated at the hear- ings, it is clear that no prejudice to the Employer's position has resulted from the hearing officer's action of allowing the amendment. The motion is hereby denied. 8 There are 113 of the Employer's stores within its Dallas Division, and there are, on an average, 19 stores per district. '1000 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD On the other hand, the location managers .possess authority -to hire and 'discharge personnel at their respective locations, to requisition: food stock requirements from the Employer's Dallas warehouse, to make local produce purchases, to adjust item prices (up to an established maximum ) to meet local competitor levels, and to exercise such other managerial control as may be compatible with effective store opera- tion. The head meat cutters, as their title imputes, are responsible, for operations concerning the display and sales of meat and stand accountable for these functions to the respective location managers. While, as the Employer suggests, interurban interchange among meat department employees has not been frequent, there has never- theless been a certain amount of such interchange 4 Although local payrolls are kept by the location managers, and wages are paid out of local weekly receipts, duplicate personnel lists are maintained at the district office. Weekly sales reports are made by the several location managers to the Waco district manager and all local purchase invoices. are forwarded by them to the Dallas office. It also appears from the record that the Employer has in its employment a head meat cutter whose sole present function is to report to specified stores within the district to help in the installation and initial operation of new "self- service" meat markets and to instruct local employees in their proper use. The Board has frequently indicated that, absent unusual circum- stances, the appropriate collective bargaining unit in the retail grocery trade should embrace all employees within the categories sought who perform their work within the Employer's administrative division or area.5 There are no "unusual circumstances" which would justify a contrary finding here. Although there is a substantial geographical separation of the Employer's retail outlets within its Waco District, it is clear that that factor does not present a barrier either to the successful functioning of the Employer's administrative organization or to an expression of the employees' unity of interests e We believe, 4 Of five such instances recited in the record as having occurred during the past 15 months, one involved an employee who, at his own request, was transferred from Fort Wortls to a store within the Waco District while the other four were Intradistrict transfers Involv- ing raises ' ln status and pay. There is also testimony tending to show temporary intra- district interchange of employees on an emergency basis. Kroger Company, 88 NLRB 194; Pappas Company, Inc., 80 NLRB 1272. Thus the record shows the existence of an organization known as "Safeway Employees Association" with membership limited to Employer's employees of the Waco District; once each year these employees meet in Waco for a picnic and at that time elect officers for the following year. It is also shown that "once or twice a year" the location managers ands head meat cutters of the district congregate in Waco at a dinner meeting where they- discuss common problems, such as processing of meat. Although there is a slight wage differential between the employees of the Austin and, Waco stores and the employees of the stores situated in the smaller towns of the district, it is shown that the same general personnel policies pertain to all the employees of the district and are administered by the higher echelons of the Employer 's supervisory staff- SAFEWAY STORES, INCORPORATED 1001 therefore, that a unit comprising all meat department employees within the Employer's Waco District might well be appropriate.' However, as there presently exists a contract between the Employer and another local union covering the employees of the meat depart- anents in the Austin, Texas, stores,8 we are precluded from establish- ing a unit coextensive with the Waco District. In view of this, and as the remaining 18 stores within the district constitute the residue -of an appropriate district-wide unit, we find that the meat depart- ment employees of all the Employer's stores lying within its Waco -District, excluding the Austin stores, constitute an appropriate unit for purposes of collective bargaining. There remains for consideration a dispute concerning the super- visory status of the head meat cutters. As it conclusively appears in the record that these persons have, and on occasion exercise, the authority to recommend hiring, discharging, or action otherwise affecting the status of the employees who work in their -respective 'meat departments, we fund that they are supervisors within the mean- ing of the Act, and shall therefore exclude-them from the unit.9 Accordingly, we find that all meat department employees in the Employer's stores in Waxahachie, Ennis, Bryan, Corsicana, Hills- boro, Marlin, Cameron, Taylor, Temple, Mexia, Cleburne, and Waco, all in the State of Texas, excluding the meat department employees in the Employer's Austin stores, all office and clerical employees, pro- fessional employees, guards and watchmen, and all supervisors as de- -fined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of col- _iective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this volume.] : The Employer urges that the Waco District is not a "pure administrative district" and therefore cannot properly be used as a basis for a unit finding. In support of this argu- ment, it states that it has present plans to transfer one of the stores now in this district to another district-though there is no disclosure as to when this contemplated change is -to take place. The Employer nevertheless testified, in effect , that the factors given pri- mary consideration in establishing its divisional and district lines were economy of opera- tion and convenience of administration . It also appears that the composition of the Waco District has remained intact during the past 10 years, and that within the past 20 years changes affecting only two stores have been made. 8 Bargaining relations between the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, Local 147, and the Employer concerning meat department employees in the Employer's Austin stores date from April 21, 1947. The present contract apparently is due to expire December 31, 1951. There is also an existing contract between the Em - ployer and the Petitioner covering the meat department employees of the Employer's six Waco stores, which contract is not now being urged as a bar. 9 Although the head meat cutters in the Employer's Waxahachie, Hillsboro, Marlin, Cameron, and Taylor stores have no regular employees under their supervision, it is shown that they do, nevertheless, frequently engage the help of employees whom the Employer characterizes as "irregular , part-time workers," usually on the weekends.