Anheuser-Busch, Inc.

496 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD production requirements. The production progress clerk spends the major part of his time on the production floor and is de- scribed as "the eyes of the general foreman." The material control clerk keeps accurate records of materials received into the plant. He is responsible to the production control supervisor and works in the same general plant area. The chief stores and receiving clerk acts as a leadman for other employees. In this capacity, he directs the employees who issue materials required for the manufacture of Employer's products. It is also his responsibility to see that adequate inventory con- trol is maintained . He reports to the general foreman. In view of the foregoing, it is apparent that the production control assistant , production progress clerk , material control clerk, and the chief stores and receiving clerk perform func- tions generally performed by plant clerical employees whom the Board customarily includes in production and maintenance units. 5 Accordingly, we shall include them in the unit. Purchasing assistant; expediter--purchasing; clerk--order department: The record does not contain adequate evidence to enable us to determine whether these employees are primarily office clerical, plant clerical, or managerial employees. Under these circumstances, we will permit them to vote subject to challenge. We find that the following employees of the Employer con- stitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bar- gaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: All pro- duction, maintenance, and repair employees at the Employer's Norwalk, California, plant, including electricians, working leadmen; plant clerical employees; layout and fitup--A, B, C; machinist; boxer and crater; welder; steel straightener; electrician - -maintenance ; general maintenance ; drill press and machine operator "A"; painter--spray and hand; crane oper- ator; storekeeper; shipping and receiving clerk; production progress clerk ; chief stores and receiving clerk ; assembler and experienced helper; helper; janitor; production control assistant ; and the material control clerk, but excluding office clerical employees, professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act'. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] 5 Cf. Clarostat Mfg. Co , Inc., 105 NLRB 20; East Texas Steel Castings Company, 95 NLRB 1135; Gluck Bros., Inc., 83 NLRB 683; General Electric Company, 81 NLRB 654; Orleans Materials & Equipment Co., Inc., 76 NLRB 351. 6 The record does not indicate that the production control assistant or the chief stores and receiving clerk possess any supervisory authority. ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., FALSTAFF BREWING CORPORA- TION, GRIESEDIECK BROTHERS BREWERY COMPANY, GRIESEDIECK -WESTERN BREWERY COMPANY (HYDE PARK PLANT), and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF UNITED BREWERY, FLOUR, CEREAL, SOFT DRINK AND DIS- 107 NLRB No. 113. ANHEUSER-BUSH, INC 497 TILLERY WORKERS OF AMERICA, C. I. 0., AND ITS LOCAL UNION NO. 187, Petitioner ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC. and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF UNITED BREWERY FLOUR, CEREAL, SOFT-DRINK AND DISTILLERY WORKERS OF AMERICA, C. I. 0., AND ITS BREWERY ENGINEERS, LOCAL 246, Petitioner ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC. and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF UNITED BREWERY, FLOUR, CEREAL SOFT DRINK AND DISTILLERY WORKERS OF AMERICA, C. I. 0., AND ITS LOCAL UNION NO. 187, Petitioner ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., FALSTAFF BREWING CORPORA- TION, GRIESEDIECK BROTHERS BREWERY COMPANY, GRIESEDIECK - WESTERN BREWERY COMPANY (HYDE PARK PLANT) and BREWERY FIREMEN, OILERS AND MAINTENANCE MEN, LOCAL UNION NO. 367, affiliated with INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, A. F. L., Petitioner ANHEUSER -BUSCH, INC. and BREWING, MALTING AND GEN- ERAL LABOR DEPARTMENT, LOCAL NO. 6, affiliated with INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS , WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, A. F. L., Petitioner ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., FALSTAFF BREWING CORPORA- TION, GRIESEDIECK BROTHERS BREWERY COMPANY, GRIESEDIECK - WESTERN BREWERY COMPANY (HYDE PARK PLANT) and BREWING, MALTING AND GENERAL LABOR DEPARTMENTS, LOCAL UNION NO. 6, affiliated with INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, A . F. L., Petitioner . Cases Nos. 14 -RC-1952, 14-RC-1955 , 14-RC - 1988, 14-RC -2034 , 14-RC-2035 , and 14- RC-2036. December 22, 1953 SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION On March 27 , 1953, the Board issued a Decision , Order, and Direction of Elections' in the above -entitled cases , establish- ing, inter ali a, a multiemployer unit of bottle - shop employees at the St. Louis , Missouri , breweries of the several Employers herein, including Anheuser . On June 24 , 1953, following a secret election conducted among employees on the bottle - shop unit, the Board certified Brewery Workers , C.I.O., and its Local 1103 NLRB 1205. 498 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 187,2 as the exclusive bargaining representative of all employees in this unit. On July 10 , 1953 , Anheuser filed a motion to clarify the bottle-shop unit, so far as it pertained to its employees, to determine specifically whether a group of 5 employees who regularly work in the basement of the Bevo building at Anheuser, but are assigned from time to time to similar work on the first floor of the Bevo building , are included in, or excluded from, the bottle - shop unit during such assignments . On July 10, 1953, the Board remanded the cases to the Regional Director for further hearing on this issue. Pursuant to notice , further hearing was held before Harry G. Carlson , hearing officer . The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in these cases , including the record made at the further hearing , the Board makes the following supplemental findings of fact: That portion of the multiemployer bottle-shop unit which applies to Anheuser employees and to the issue now before the Board reads as follows: All hourly rated production and maintenance employees engaged in production, shipping , storage, receiving, and noncraft maintenance operations in bottling departments and bottling department areas , including . . . employees in the basement and on the first and second floors of . . . the Bevo building at Anheuser -Busch , Inc.; but excluding . . . employees in the draught beer washing and packaging oper- ations in the Bevo building at Anheuser -Busch , Inc.,; and in government cellars; brewing department employees; . . . employees in areas other than bottling department areas; . . ." ( Emphasis supplied.) Brewery Workers , C.I.O., and its Local 187, alleges that the Bevo basement employees assigned from time to time to work on the first floor of the Bevo building are essentially Bevo basement employees and are therefore properly included in the certified bottle - shop unit , previously found appropriate by the Board. Local 6 of the Teamsters , AFL, 3 however, contends that these employees , so and as assigned, become , by virtue of this assignment to brewing department areas , brewing de- partment employees and that they are, as such , excluded from representation in the bottle - shop unit . The Employer, urging the operating economy of assigning material handlers where they are needed , takes no specific position respecting the representation dispute. 2 International Union of United Brewery, Flour , Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers of America, C I. 0., and its Local Union No. 187. 3Brewing, Malting and General Labor Departments, Local Union No. 6 , affiliated with International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs , Warehousemen and Helpers of America, AFL. ANHEUSER-BUSH, INC. 499 The bottling operations occupy the upper 5 floors and the brewing department operations occupy the first and third floors of the 7-story Bevo building. The basement in that building is used primarily as freight yard, with all incoming shipments arriving by rail handled there. Shipments arrivingbytruck are handled on the first floor. Shipments of empty cooperage, re- gardless of how they arrive, are lifted by means of elevators to the brewing department area on the third floor for washing and later lowered to the first floor brewing department for racking and filling. The handling of such empty cooperage on the first floor gives rise to the current dispute. Although normally a brewing department employee unloads empty cooperage in the "kick-off" area4 on the first floor, when the accumulation of such empty cooperage becomes ex- cessive a group of 5 basement employees is assigned to that area to move it to the elevators . These are usually the same 5 employees . At the further hearing , it appeared that during 1 year these employees received 168 such group assignments, involving about 3,000 man-hours. Each, nevertheless, spends the major portion of his time doing similar freight work in the basement , where he is regularly stationed , and the work he performs on the first floor is indistinguishable from the work of moving empty cooperage in the basement.5 Under these circumstances, we conclude that in view of the major work interest in common between the Bevo basement freight-handling employees who are from time to time assigned to first floor work and the other Bevo basement freight-handling employees who are not so assigned , and the similar work per- formed in the two locations, all such freight -handling employees are properly in the bottle-shop unit, for which International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Dis- tillery Workers of America, CIO, and its Local 187, was certi- fied as exclusive bargaining representative.6 4The "kick-off " area is a temporary storage area adjacent to the first floor brewing oper- ations, within the brewery area enclosure prescribed by tax regulations 5 In accordance with settlement of earlier jurisdictional disputes, freight-handling employees from the Bevo basement assigned for first floor empty-cooperage handling were given brewing department job classifications while they were performing this work and received 81/2 to 131/2 cents more per hour than when they were doing the same type of work in the Bevo basement. This differential was accorded to them by the Employer at a time when Local 6 of the Teamsters, AFL, claimed jurisdiction over them as part of its brewing department unit As noted in the original decision, the Board declined to base its unit determination in the instant case upon factors which would "continue indefinitely the very jurisdiction disputes the parties so earnestly sought to avoid." 6Cf. The Curtis Bay Towing Company, 105 NLRB 524, and cases cited therein.