General Foods Corp.

GENERAL FOODS CORPORATION 265 GENERAL FOODS CORPORATION, MAXWELL HousE DIVISION and INTER- NATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, STATIONARY LOCAL No_ 39, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 2O-RC-556. October 6, 1954 Decision and Direction of Election Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Albert Schneider, 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 this case, the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa- tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9, (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The appropriate unit : The Petitioner seeks a unit of all boiler operators, excluding office clerical employees, production and maintenance employees, guards, and all supervisors. The Employer and the Intervenor, Warehouse Union, Local No. 12, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauf- feurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, AFL, contend that the only appropriate unit is one of all hourly paid production, mainte- nance, shipping, and receiving employees, excluding office clerical employees, professional employees, guards, and all supervisors.' Both the Employer and the Intervenor urge that the unit proposed by the Petitioner is inappropriate (1) because of the high degree of integra- tion between the boilerroom operations and the production process, particularly that of the soluble coffee process division, and (2) because the employees sought are allegedly not engineers of the type tradition- ally represented by Petitioner. The Employer operates a coffee processing plant at San Leandro, California, consisting of a main building and warehouse, an auxiliary warehouse, a soluble process building, and a boilerroom building. The purpose of the boilerroom operation is to produce steam used in the processing operations of the plant and to burn and dispose of the spent or waste coffee grounds from the soluble process. The boilerroom building houses the boilers, a specially equipped furnace, the cooler tower, food water pumps, deaerators, and other auxiliary boilerroom equipment, and the coffee grounds disposal equipment including vibrating screens, screw conveyors, waste press, and the feeder to the furnace which uses the waste grounds as fuel. ' This is substantially the unit covered by the bargaining agreement currently being rene- gotiated by the Employer and Intervenor. 110 NLRB No. 31. 266 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The four boiler operators, under the supervision of the assistant plant engineer, operate and maintain all of the boilerroom equipment ,on 3 shifts of 8 hours, 7 days a week. In connection with their work they are required to keep a log of temperatures, pressures, and events which take place while on duty, and to perform general maintenance keeping piping connections tight, packing pumps, and lubricating pumps and conveyors. Major repairs are performed by maintenance department employees. The Employer has no apprentice training program for boiler operators. The boiler operators were hired some 18 months ago on the basis of their prior boilerroom experience. Their job titles and wage rates were incorporated into the Intervenor's 1951 bargaining agreement by a supplemental agreement effective June 12, 1953. Although certain employees in the soluble coffee process opera- tion use steam pressure equipment, there is no interchange or transfer of employees between the boilerroom and other departments. In view of the foregoing, we find that the boiler operators in the boilerroom constitute a distinct, homogeneous, and functionally coher- ent departmental group such as the Board has held may constitute a separate appropriate unit.' Moreover, they are requested by a union which historically and traditionally represents such powerhouse units. Under these circumstances, we find that the following employees may constitute a separate unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act, if they -so desire : All boilerroom employees at the San Leandro, California, plant ,of the Employer, excluding office clerical employees, production, maintenance, shipping and receiving employees, guards, and all super- visors as defined in the Act. If a majority vote for the Petitioner, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be represented in a separate unit, and the Regional Director conducting the election directed herein is in- structed, in that event, to issue a certification of representatives to the Petitioner for such unit, which the Board, under the circumstances, finds to be appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining. If, how- ever, a majority vote for the Intervenor, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to remain part of the existing production and -maintenance unit, and the Regional Director is instructed to issue a ,certificate of results of election to such effect. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] 2 We find no merit in the contention that, because the steam produced by the boilers is used in the processing of the product rather than to produce power to drive production machinery , boiler operators are removed from the category of employees usually found in powerhouse units, nor do we agree that this factor of integration militates against the propriety of a separate unit. See American Potash & Chemical Corp., 107 NLRB 1418. Also see New England Confectionery Company, 108 NLRB 728; Stauffer Chemical Com- ,pany, 108 NLRB 1037