General Shoe Corp.

GENERAL SHOE CORPORATION 905 General Shoe Corporation and Boot & Shoe Workers' Union, AFL, Petitioner. Case No. 10=RC-2998. August 22,1955 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Edwin Hancock, 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 Act. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em- ployees of the Employer. 9. 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. A motion was made by the Employer at the hearing to dismiss the petition on the following grounds that : (1) The Petitioner is not a labor organization within the meaning of the Act; (2) the Petitioner failed to answer, or incorrectly answered, item 12 in the original peti- ti6fi; (9) the Petitioner does not have a sufficient showing of interest; (4) the SIOC, of which the Petitioner is an affiliate, is a labor organi- zation within the meaning of the Act and is not in compliance with Section 9 (f), (g), and (h) of the Act; and (5) the petition for a single-plant unit is based solely upon the Petitioner's extent of organi- zation. The hearing officer referred this motion to the- Board for a i'ulihg. As to (1), the Petitioner admits employees to membership and exists for the purpose of representing employees in collective-bar- gaining negotiations with employers concerning terms and condi- tions of employment. We find that the Petitioner is a labor organiza- 1 The Employer contends in its brief to the Board that the hearing officer erroneously refused to admit in evidence its exhibits marked 5C and 10 through 14. The Employer contends that its exhibit 5C, which was a leaflet distributed to employees at the Employer's Southern Sole plant at Nashville,, Tennessee, slioiild have been ad- mitted to show the function of The Shoe Industry Organizing Committee , AFL, herein called SIOC. The leaflet merely shows that the SIOC Is engaged in organizing activities at the Southern Sole plant of the Employer. As record testimony reveals that the SIOC was formed by the Petitioner and three other labor organizations to aid in organizing employees at the plants of the Employer, we find that the Employer was riot prejudiced by the ruling of the hearing officer refusing to admit this exhibit in evidence and big rul- ing is hereby sustained. The hearing officei rejected the Employer's exhibits marked 10 through 14, which are newspapers published in Nashville and Tullahoma, Tennessee , and photostatic copies of certain articles appearing in those newspapers, on the grounds that the Employer had failed to lay a proper foundation for their admittance . As it was not established that the persons allegedly quoted in the newspaper articles were members or officials of the Petitioner or that they had any personal knowledge of the contents of the newspaper articles or the photostatic copies thereof, we sustain the ruling of the hearing officer. 113 NLRB No. 99. 906 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD tion within the meaning of Section 2 (5) of the Act. As to (2), item 12 was not answered in the first petition served upon the Employer. The vice president of the Petitioner testified at the hearing, however, that item 12 was answered in the petition it filed with the Board, and that the word "none" was the correct answer. In any event, a second copy of the petition, with item 12 being answered, was served upon the Employer prior to the hearing in this case. As the Employer has not shown that it has been prejudiced nor its position impaired in.any manner as a result of the, technical defect in the first petition served upon it, we find no merit in this contention. As to (3), the Employer asserts that the authorization cards used for the Petitioner's showing of interest were made out to SIOC and did not authorize the Peti- tioner to bargain for the signers. The cards authorized the "Ameri- can Federation of Labor and all affiliated organizations " to bargain for the signers. We have previously held a designation of a parent organization to be a valid designation of an affiliate.' As to (4), four labor organizations, namely, the Petitioner, the Teamsters Interna- tional Union, AFL, the Office Workers International Union, AFL,, and the International association of Machinists, AFL, have, formed the"SIOC to aid in their organizing campaign at the plants of the Employer. The SIOC does not have any elected officers but has a director who is an employee of the American Federation of Labor. Conferences have been held among the members of the SIOC in,which their organizing affairs were discussed. There was no evidence that the SIOC engages in bargaining, collects dues, or has any of the other attributes of a labor organization. In these circumstances, we find that the SIOC is not a labor organization within the meaning of Sec- tion-2 (5) of the Act.and-.need, not comply with Section 9• (f), (g), and (h) of the Act 3 - As- to (5), in determining the appropriate unit in this case, the extent of the Petitioner's organization among the Employer's employees has not been the controlling consideration in our finding that the single-plant unit is appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining. See paragraph numbered 4, infra..' Ac- cordingly, the motion to dismiss the.petition is denied. 4. The appropriate unit : The Petitioner seeks a unit of all the Employer's production and maintenance employees at its Cowan, Tennessee, plant. The Employer contends that, because its operations are highly integrated, the ap- propriate bargaining unit should consist of all shoe manufacturing plants, including processing, and supply terminals, of its Southern Shoe Manufacturing Division, which is comprised of about 30 in- Wm. P. McDonald Corporation, 83 NLRB 427, at p. 427, footnote 2; Norfolk Southern Bus Corporation, 76 NLRB 488, at pp 489-490. 8 United Tanners, Inc., 103 NLRB 760, at p 761, footnote 3. • Waldensian Hosiery Mills, Inc., 83 NLRB 742, at p. 743-744; Harris Langenberg Hat Company, 106 NLRB 19, at p 20. GENERAL SHOE. CORPORATION 907 stallations in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. ^ The Employer contends further that its operations at the Cowan'plant, McMinnville plant, and Fayetteville processing and sup- ply terminal, all of which are located in Tennessee, are so interrelated and interdependent that any appropriate unit including the employees of the Cowan plant must also include at least the employees at its Mc- Minnville and Fayetteville operations. There is no history of bargain- ing in the Southern Division either on a single 5 or multiplant basis. All plants in the Employer's Southern Shoe Manufacturing Divi= sion are centrally controlled from its central executive offices at Nash- ville, Tennessee. The ultimate control is in the central administrative committee which promulgates the overall policies on production re- quirements, allocation of raw materials to each plant, industrial rela- tions, etc. These overall policies are then implemented by various subordinate committees and departments at the central offices. The central production planning and central operating committees determine, among other things, the base production rate for each plant, the number of employees to be employed or laid off, and the number of days per week each plant is to be operated. The central purchasing office buys the raw materials for all plants in the Division. The Em- ployer's Southern Sole plant at Nashville manufactures shoe soles which are used by all plants in the Division. The central industrial re- lations staff maintains uniform labor relations policies throughout the Division. The central accounting office maintains all accounting records for each plant and the central payroll department prepares the payroll checks for all plants in the Division. All employees of the Division receive the same employee benefits. These facts indicate the appropriateness of a divisionwide unit. The Cowan and McMinnville plants and the Fayetteville processing and supply terminal are all located in Tennessee.6 One of the three plant coordinators, who works under the superintendent of the Circle Division and has an office in Nashville, is the lowest level of common supervision for the operations at Cowan, McMinnville, and Fayette- ville, and is responsible for the implementation of their styling, speci- fications, costs, production scheduling, patterns and equipment, ma- chinery control, and quality control. The Fayetteville terminal re- ceives, sorts, grades and stores new materials, performs preprocessing 6In a prior decision , dated February 18, 1952, Case No. 9-RC-1471 (not reported in printed volumes of Board Decisions and Orders ), and in 109 NLRB 618, the Board found that the production and maintenance employees at the Employer's Danville, Kentucky, plant constituted an appropriate unit. However, both elections were lost by the Union and no collective bargaining resulted therefrom. 6 The Southern Shoe Manufacturing Division of the Employer is divided into three divisions designated as the Circle , Triangle, and Pyramid Divisions . The Cowan and McMinnville plants are in the Circle Division and are under its superintendent. The Fayetteville operations are not in the Circle Division but are directly responsible to the assistant vice president and director of purchasing for the Southern Division. 908 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD operations on some of the raw materials, and transports them' to the Cowan and McMinnville plants each work day according to a schedule received from the central offices in Nashville.' The completed shoes are transported at the end of each day from the Cowan and McMinnville plants to Fayetteville by the latter's truckdrivers. The shoes are spot checked for quality and stored for shipment to customers. The Cowan and McMinnville plants both manufacture women's slip lasted shoes, employ about the same number of employees, and primarily manufac- ture identical shoes employing similar employee skills. On occasions, one of these plants will perform a specific manufacturing process for the other for a short period of time, Manufacturing equipment is transferred between the Cowan and McMinnville plants as necessary.8 These facts show considerable interdependence in the operations of the Cowan and McMinnville plants and Fayetteville processing and supply terminal, thus indicating their appropriateness as a multiplant unit. On the other hand, there are many factors to support the appropri- ateness of a unit confined solely to the production and maintenance employees of the Cowan plant. The Cowan plant is about 50 miles from McMinnville and about 37 miles from Fayetteville, and the latter is about 60 miles from McMinnville. The Cowan plant, as well as the McMinnville plant and the Fayetteville terminal, has a separate local plant superintendent, who has the power to hire new employees, to lay off employees for limited periods of time, to recommend the discharge of employees, to make individual purchases of equipment not exceeding $100 in value, and to grant up to 30 days' leave of absence to employees.- The Cowan plant employees have separate plantwicle seniority for certain purposes. The Cowan employees do not, enjoy the privileges of a sick benefit plan, while such a plan is in effect at the McMinnville plant and Fayetteville terminal. Grievances may be settled at a local level at the Cowan plant. About 20 percent of the production at Cowan is concerned with cement construction shoes, while this type work is not performed at the McMinnville plant. Except for the preprocessing work performed at the Fayetteville terminal, and occasionally some processing work at the McMinnville plant, completed shoes are normally manufactured at the Cowan plant. There is very little interchange or transfer of production and main- tenance employees between the Cowan and McMinnville plants. In view of the foregoing circumstances, more especially the substantial autonomy and geographical separation of the Cowan plant, and the T The Fayetteville terminal does not store , process, and deliver raw materials to any other manufacturing plants in the Circle Division . It does, however, perform these serv- ices in varying percentages for about seven plants in the Pyramid and Triangle Divisions; s Machinery is also transferred from these two plants to other plants in the Southern Division as needed. GENERAL SHOE CORPORATION 909 facts that there has been no prior history of collective bargaining and that no union is seeking a unit of larger geographical scope, we find that a single plant unit confined to the employees of the Cowan plant is appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.,, The parties are also in disagreement concerning the composition of the unit at the Cowan plant. The Petitioner would exclude the stand- ards clerks and the watchmen, while the Employer would include them. The standards clerks are under the supervision of the industrial -engineer and work in a section of the main office where, by the use of adding machines, they compute the earnings for piece-rate employees from coupons and the earnings of hourly paid employees from time- carps which they collect at the time clocks. They do not check with piece-rate employees concerning any errors made by the latter in handling their coupons. We believe that the standards clerks have a greater community of interest with the office clericals than with the production and maintenance employees and shall exclude them from the unit.10 The watchmen are not armed or deputized and have no authority to discipline or report employees for violations of company rules. They stoke boilers, clean designated departments, and carry out excess waste for approximately 45 minutes out of each hour. They spend the re- maining 15 minutes making rounds of the plant and punching a clock with keys at designated locations. A watchman is on duty 24 hours per day, including Sundays and holidays, and is the only employee on duty at night. It is the duty of the watchmen to protect the Em- ployer's property within the plant and to call the proper authorities if they discover anyone breaking into the plant. In these circum- stances we find that the watchmen are guards within the meaning of Section 9 (b) (3) of the Act and we shall exclude them from the unit.11 We find that all production and maintenance employees of the Employer at its Cowan, Tennessee, plant, excluding the standards clerks, watchmen, office clerical employees, professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act constitute a unit appro- priate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] CHAIRMAN FARMER took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Direction of Election. 9 See General Shoe Corporation, 109 NLRB 618, at pp. 620-621 ; Gulf Oil Corporation, 100 NLRB 1007, at p. 1009; Harris Langenberg Hat Company , supra, at p. 20; The Dia- mond Match Company/, 108 NLRB 183 , at p. 185; Shorelarut Freezers , Inc, 108 NLRB 723, at p 728; Liggett Drug Company, Inc., 110 NLRB 949. General Shoe Corporation, supra, at p 621 n American Lawn Mower Co, 108 NLRB 1589, at pp . 1592-1593