Connecticut Packing Co., Inc.

150 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Connecticut Packing Co ., Inc. and Local 371, Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 1-RC-5118. March 19, 1958 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 Ernest Modern, hear- ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing 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-member panel [Chairman Leedom and Members Bean and Fanning]. 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 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 Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all employees at the Employer's operations in Bloomfield, Connecticut, including the production and maintenance employees in the slaughtering and meat- packing plant, and the employees in the adjacent retail meat and grocery stores. The Employer contends that the petition should be dismissed on the ground that the unit sought is too limited in scope and that the only appropriate unit must include, in addition to the foregoing, its combination retail meat and grocery stores in Hartford and New Britain, Connecticut. There is no history of collective bargaining among the Employer's employees. At its Bloomfield packing plant, the Employer is engaged in the processing and sale at wholesale of meat, hides, and animal byproducts. The adjacent retail meat store receives its supplies from the plant. Supplies are purchased for the grocery store. Hartford is about 5 miles from Bloomfield and New Britain about 12 miles distant. The retail stores there receive their supplies from Bloomfield. The Hart- ford and New Britain stores each have about five employees and are under a store manager who has the authority to hire and discharge employees. However, the officers of the Employer immediately super- vise the Bloomfield operation and have the ultimate responsibility for the conduct of all the Employer's operations. The employees. at. all three locations have the same wage scales and receive the same employment benefits. Payroll and personnel records 120 NLRB No. 22. CONNECTICUT PACKING CO., INC . 151 for all three locations are kept at Bloomfield. There is considerable interchange of employees among the three locations. An officer of the Employer testified that such interchanges occurred more than 10 times during the 11-month period preceding the hearing, with em- ployees being sent from Bloomfield to Hartford or New Britain and vice versa for periods as long as 3 weeks. In view of the foregoing, including the geographical proximity and functional integration of all the operations involved, the frequent interchange of employees among the three locations, and the uniform- ity of wages and working conditions of the employees at the locations, we find that only the overall unit is appropriate here.' As the Peti- tioner has made a sufficient showing of interest in the larger unit, we shall direct an election therein. ' There remains for disposition the unit placement of the part-time employees, whom the 'Petitioner would include and the Employer exclude.2 The record shows that the Employer hires part-time employees to work in various departments at Bloomfield, usually on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Some of them work all 3 days, some 2 days, and others just 1 day a week, depending on their personal preference and their other com- mitments. Even after they have been scheduled to work, they are free to reject employment. Also, the number of hours of employment .on each day varies for an individual worker. An officer of the Employer testified that during a 13-week period preceding the hear- ing the Employer employed a total of 79 part-time employees to fill approximately 10 jobs. On the average, each received some pay in 4 of the 13 weeks, with some working for varying periods during 1 or 2 weeks and about 17 working parts of 7 to 11 weeks. It is clear from the foregoing that the part-time employees do not have sufficient interests in common with the other employees to warrant their inclu- sion in the unit, but are merely "casual" employees such as the Board uniformly excludes.' We shall therefore exclude them. We find that the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act : All employees at the Employer's retail stores in Bloomfield, Hart- ford, and New Britain, Connecticut, and all production and main- ,1 Wilner Wood Products Co, 117 NLRB 1895; Standard Furniture Co , 118 NLRB 35. 2 At the hearing, the Employer contended that three individuals-Max Bercowetz, Israel Rosenthal, and Morris Rosenthal-should be included in the unit, while the Peti- tioner asserted that they should be excluded as relatives of management As Bercowetz buys livestock, we shall exclude him as a managerial employee, and we shall also exclude as' managerial Israel Rosenthal, who is an officer of the Employer. ' The record shows, however, that Morris Rosenthal, the brother of Israel, is an hourly paid employee woi k- ing in the cutting department, and that he has no supervisory or managerial functions Accordingly, we shall include him in the unit. International Aluminum Corporation, 117 NLRB 1221, footnote 6. 3 Rollo Transit Corporation, et al, 110 NLRB 1623. 152 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD tenance employees in the slaughtering and meatpacking plant at Bloomfield, excluding the part-time employees, the office clerical, managerial and professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. - [Text of Direction of Election 4 omitted from publication.] I The Petitioner called a strike among its adherents for recognition as bargaining rep- resentative at the Bloomfield operations , about a month before the hearing. Of the 30 full-time jobs at Bloomfield before the strike, only 25 were filled at the time of the hear- ing. The record shows that about 10 ' permanent replacements have been hired since the strike The parties took no position at the hearing on the eligibility of the replaced strikers We find that the foregoing replacements are eligible to-vote if employed on the election date. These strikers who have been permanently replaced are not entitled to reinstatement and may not vote in the election herein. Dura Steel Products Com- pany, 111 NLRB 590. However, as their identity was not litigated at the hearing, we shall permit all the strikers to vote subject to challenge . Cuttingham Buick Inc., 112 NLRB 386. Waldo Rohnert Company and Freight, Construction, General Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers Local Union No. 287, Inter- national Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehouse- men & Helpers of America,' Petitioner. Case No. 20-RC-3388. March 19, 1958 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 Albert Schneider, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing 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- member panel [Chairman Leedom and Members Bean and Jenkins]. 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. The Employer seeks dismissal of the petition on the ground that the employees sought are agricultural laborers because they are en- gaged in a process which the Employer contends is performed as an incident to, or in conjunction with, its farming operations. We do not agree. The Employer is a family corporation which grows various seed crops 2 on land leased from members of the family as well as from 1 The Board having been notified by the AFL--CIO that it deems the Teamsters ' certifi- cate of affiliation revoked by convention action, the identification of this union is hereby amended The Employer also grows such row crops as may seem economically feasible. 120 NLRB No. 23.