National Caterers of New York, Inc.

NATIONAL CATERERS OF NEW YORK, INC. 699 3. Automobile Mechanics Lodge No. 701, International Association of Machinists, AFL-CIO, was on July 30, 1959, and at all times thereafter has been , and now is, the exclusive representative of all the employees in the above-described unit for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(a) of the Act. 4. By failing and refusing on July 30, 1959, and at all times thereafter, to bargain with the Union as the exclusive representative of all the employees in the appro- priate unit, Respondent has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8(a)(5) of the Act. 5. By discharging Alvin Carter, Roy Baker, Eugene Godwin, Jack Rowen, James R. Smith, and Emil Stemple on July 30, 1959 , thereby discouraging membership in the Union, Respondent has engaged in and is engaging in unfair labor practices proscribed by Section 8 (a) (3) of the Act. 6. By interfering with, restraining , and coercing its employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act, Respondent has violated, and is continuing to violate, Section 8 ( a)( I) thereof. 7. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting com- merce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. [Recommendations omitted from publication.] National Caterers of New York , Inc. and Local 295, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Petitioner National Caterers of New York, Inc. and Local 71, Transporta tion Terminal, Interplant and Commissary Food Employees Union, AFL-CIO, Petitioner Idlewild Hot Shoppes, Inc., of New York 1 and Local 71, Trans- portation Terminal, Interplant and Commissary Food Em- ployees Union, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Cases Nos. 2-RC-10870, 2-RC-10871, and 2-RC-10872. November 17, 1960 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the Na- tional Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before A. G. Niro, 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 Fanning and Kimball]. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds : 1. The Employers, National Caterers of New York, Inc., and Idle- wild Hot Shoppes, Inc., of New York, hereinafter referred to as Caterers and Idlewild, respectively, are engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organizations named below claim to represent certain employees of the Employers. 1 The petition in Case No. 2-RC-10872 lists the Employer's name as Hot Shoppes, Inc., but was amended at the hearing to Idlewild Hot Shoppes , Inc., of New York. 129 NLRB No. 85. 700 DECISIONS QF NATIONAL LADOR RELATIONS BOARD 8. Questions affecting commerce exist concerning the representation of certain employees of the Employers within the meaning of Sections 9(c) (1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. In Case No. 2-RC-10870, the Petitioner, Local 295, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, hereinafter referred to as the Teamsters, seeks a unit confined to chauffeurs and chauffeurs' helpers, known as flight equipment handlers and flight equipment handlers' helpers, em- ployed by Caterers. In Case No. 2-RC-10871, the Petitioner, Local 71, Transportation Terminal, Interplant and Commissary Food Em- ployees Union, AFL-CIO, hereinafter referred to as the Food Em- ployees Union, seeks a unit composed of all production employees of Caterers, excluding flight equipment handlers and their helpers. In Case No. 2-RC-10872, the Petitioner, the Food Employees Union, seeks a unit composed of all production employees employed in the kitchen and dining room of Idlewild? The Employers contend that the units sought are inappropriate and that the only appropriate unit is one composed of all employees, including flight-equipment handlers and their helpers, employed by both Employers. The Employers are wholly owned subsidiaries of Hot Shoppes, Inc. The parent corporation, with executive offices in Washington, D.C., operating through 60 wholly owned subsidiaries, is engaged primarily in the retail sale of food in a chain of restaurants and in the operation of food commissaries for airlines. All three above-named corpor- ations have substantially common officers with centralized offices at the headquarters of the parent organization for personnel, labor policy, procurement and supply, finance, engineering and design, advertising, and printing. A district manager of Hot Shoppes, Inc., supervises both Caterers and Idlewild, but he also has other subsidiaries under his supervision. Caterers operates a food catering service in Jamaica, New York, which prepares and supplies hot and cold meals and beverages to air- lines for consumption in flight. It occupies a two-story building where all its production employees work in a common open area within the following job classifications: cooks, dishwashers, sandwich and salad makers, beverage makers, packers, porters, and cold food and hot food preparers. There are also employed at Caterers dispatchers, flight equipment handlers, and flight equipment handlers' helpers. All of Caterers' employees work under the direction of one manager. There are no other supervisors for these employees.3 Except as to the 2 More specifically, this embraces all restaurant, coffee shop, cocktail lounge, employees' cafeteria, and kitchen employees employed by Idlewild. 3 There are two dispatchers who check food carriers as to "the amount ordered" and as, to "the proper flight assignment." They see that the trucks, driven by the flight-equip- ment handlers, leave on time to meet the flight for which the food is scheduled, and they check the trucks for cleanliness. They assist the flight-equipment handlers and their helpers in loading and unloading the trucks at the Caterers' building and drive trucks in times of emergency. The two dispatchers cannot hire, discharge, or effectively recommend NATIONAL CATERERS OF NEW YORK, INC. 701 flight equipment handlers and their helpers, all Caterers' employees are interchanged. Idlewild operates a public restaurant, coffee shop, cocktail lounge, and an employees' cafeteria at the Eastern Airlines Terminal Building of the New York International Airport, approximately 2 miles' dis- tance from the Caterers' building. Each of these operations of Idle- wild has its own immediate supervisor, with the exception of the restaurant and coffee shop which are under common supervision. All of the operations, except the employees' cafeteria, are adjacent to one another and have connecting doors. The employee complement of Idlewild consists of the following job classification in each operation: waitresses, porters, busboys, cooks, and broiler men in the restaurant; bartenders and waitresses in the cocktail lounge; waitresses, busboys, beverage makers, sandwich makers, and dishwashers in the coffee shop; dishwashers, pot washers, busboys, porters, production cooks, and food preparers in the employees' cafeteria; cooks, sandwich makers, dishwashers, and pot washers in the preparation kitchen which services the restaurant, cocktail lounge, and coffee shop. Em- ployees are interchanged between all operations at Idlewild. Each Employer does its own hiring and discharging and does its own purchasing of supplies from purveyors approved by the parent or- ganization. There is no interchange of employees between the two Employers 4 and none of the supervisors at Idlewild have any super- vision over employees of Caterers, nor does the manager of Caterers have any supervisory authority over any employees of Idlewild. Many Idlewild employees depend on gratuities arising out of customer service, whereas all Caterers' employees are paid on an hourly basis. There is no collective-bargaining history for any of the employees involved. The Board has frequently held, where there is no history of col- lective bargaining on a wider basis, that separate units of employer operations may be appropriate by reason of the existence of day-to- day operating autonomy in each unit, geographical separation of the operations, and the absence of employee interchange, notwithstanding centralized labor relations and personnel policies.' The cases cited by the Employers in their brief in support of the broader unit concern chain retail operations having a substantial amount of employee inter- change between individual outlets, a considerable degree of inte- such action. They cannot discipline employees or grant privileges to them. Neither do they give other than routine orders or directions. We find that the dispatchers employed by Caterers are not supervisors within the meaning of the Act. Louisiana Creamery, Inc., 120 NLRB 170, 173. In view of these duties and close working relationship with the flight handlers and helpers, for unit purposes, we regard the dispatchers as falling within the same unit groupings. 4 Since Idlewild began operations in November 1959, there have been two transfers of employees between Idlewild and Caterers 5Whittaker Controls Division of Telecomputing Corporation, 122 NLRB 624, and cases cited therein. 702 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD gration of operations, and essentially similar types of operation at each outlet, or where the broader unit conformed to a distinct admini- stration or geographical division of the employer's organization.' In view of the foregoing, and particularly as a single unit of both sub- sidiaries does not correspond to any functional, administrative, or geographical grouping of operations within the employing organi- zation, the absence of functional integration of operations, the absence of employee interchange, the difference in employee classifications, the geographical separation of the operations, and the fact that no union seeks to represent the employees in a two-subsidiary unit, we reject the contention that the employees of Caterers and Idlewild together con- stitute the sole appropriate unit? We further find that the unit sought by the Food Employees Union in Case No. 2-RC-10872 of all Idlewild employees iii its kitchen and dining room, being an employer- wide and a plantwide production unit, is appropriate.1 We next determine whether a separate unit of flight-equipment han- dlers and their helpers at Caterers is appropriate. The duties of the flight-equipment handlers and their helpers are to deliver food and beverages by trucks to airlines. They work a 9-hour day and every other week are required to work on Saturday; the food production employees at Caterers work an 8-hour day, 5-day week. Except as to the cooks, the handlers are the highest-paid employees at Caterers, being paid a substantially higher hourly rate than the production workers other than the cooks. Each handler, accompanied by a helper, -makes two trips a day to the New York International Airport. Ap- proximately 1 hour of each working day is spent in driving to and from the Caterers' building to the airport, 4 hours in loading and un- loading the trucks, and 3 hours working inside the Caterers' building. The work performed inside the Caterers' building involves packing ice cream in bulk containers, preparing ice, olive, and cherry kits, pack- ing glassware, and placing packaged food items on carrying trays. Although the flight equipment handlers and their helpers do, on occa- sion, perform certain kitchen functions at Caterers,' the kitchen func- tions are ordinarily performed by the food production employees, who are interchanged between the various categories of kitchenwork. The 6 The Employers rely particularly on Interstate Co , Glass House Restaurants, Indiana Toll Road, 125 NLRB 101, where the Board found appropriate a single divisionwide unit of chain restaurant employees, including a commissary for the preparation of food for the use of the restaurants . However, there, unlike here, the parties were in essential agree- ment that a divisionwide unit would be appropriate, and the overall unit corresponded to an administrative segment of the employer 's operations. Also, inapposite is The Inter- state Company, 118 NLRB 746, because in that case, unlike here, all the employees in- volved worked in establishments engaged in the retail sale of food to the public, in a highly integrated operation with common supervision and frequent interchange of .employees. 7 Swift h Company, 124 NLRB 50, 53-54. 8 Thalhsmer Brothers, Incorporated , 93 NLRB 726 ; Allied Stores of Ohio, d/b/a A. Polsky Company, 90 NLRB 1868. 6 Only in the case of emergencies ,, such as the unexpected switching of the type of aircraft by an airline, do the handlers and their helpers assist in production work. NATIONAL CATERERS OF NEW YORK, INC. 703 handlers and their helpers spend a majority of their working time in performing driving functions and loading and unloading functions incidental to driving. The time they spend in kitchenwork does not detract from the fact that the primary occupation of the handlers and their helpers is that of driving and work incidental thereto.1° The Board has frequently found a separate unit of drivers and helpers appropriate where, as here, they constitute a homogeneous, identifiable group engaged in the transportation of merchandise.'1 In view of the foregoing, and the fact that no union is seeking a broader unit, we find that the unit sought by the Teamsters in Case No. 2-RC-10870, namely; chauffeurs and chauffeurs' helpers, known as flight-equipment handlers and flight-equipment handlers' helpers, employed by Caterers is appropriate. We further find that the unit sought by the Food Employees Union in Case No. 2-RC-10871, namely, all production employees employed by Caterers, excluding flight-equipment handlers and their helpers, is appropriate.12 In accord with the above findings, in Case No. 2-RC-10870, we find that the following employees of Caterers constitute a unit appropriate for the purpose of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act : All chauffeurs and chauffeurs' helpers, in the employment classi- fication of flight equipment handlers and flight equipment han- dlers' helpers, and dispatchers, but excluding all executives, pro- duction employees, office employees, clerical employees, watchmen and guards, and all supervisors as defined in the Act. In Case No. 2-RC-10871, we find that the following employees of Caterers constitute a unit appropriate for the purpose of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act : All production employees, but excluding all chauffeurs and chauf- feurs' helpers, office employees, clerical employees, watchmen and guards, executives, and all supervisors as defined in the Act. In Case No. 2-RC-10872, we find that the following employees of Idlewild constitute a unit appropriate for the purpose of collective bargaining within the meaning of the Act : All kitchen and dining room employees, embracing employees in its restaurant, coffee shop, cocktail lounge, and employees' cafe- teria and including regular part-time employees, but excluding office employees, clerical employees, watchmen and guards, execu- tives, and all supervisors as defined in the Act. [Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication.] 10 Sears, Roebuck and Company, 123 NLRB 942, 943. "Maas Brothers, Inc., 119 NLRB 568, 572 22 See cases cited in footnote 8, supra.