Philco Corp.

PHILCO CORPORATION 867 office clerical staff, which is located in a separate area and is under the supervision of Manager William R. Giles. Although Bryan is guaranteed a 40-hour week, he is, like the shop employees, paid by the hour; he punches a timeclock, which is located in the shop area; and he works the same hours as shop employees and, like them, is paid time and a half for overtime. Bryan also re- ceives the same fringe benefits, such as vacations, hospitalization, and the like. In the light of the foregoing, particularly the facts that Bryan works in close 'proximity to the shop employees, and in association with them, receives similar fringe benefits, and has no administrative or functional connection with, and is under supervision separate from that of, the office clerical employees, we find that he is a plant clerical employee? . We shall, therefore, clarify,the certification and include him in the unit 3 [The Board clarified the certification heretofore issued in the above- captioned' proceeding to include within the unit, as a plant clerical employee, the employee discussed herein, namely, the shipping and receiving clerk.] n Ponce Electric Company, Inc., 120 NLRB 975, 976; Waterous Company, 92 NLRB 76, 77. The record contains no evidence that Bryan is in training for a management position. Contrary to the contention of the Employer, we find no reason to exclude him from the unit on the ground that his interests are allied with those of management. See Newark ,Stove Co., 143 NLRB 583, footnote 6. 'This Decision and'Order is not to be construed as a new certification. Philco Corporation and Freight, Construction, General Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers Union , Local No. 287, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of. America, Petitioner. Case No. 20-RC-5665. April 14, 19641 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) (1) (A) of the Na- tional Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Hearing Of- ficer John H. Arbuckle. 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 McCulloch and Members Fanning 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. 146 NLRB No. 103. 868 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2. The Union is a labor organization within the meaning of the Act. 3. No questions affecting commerce exist concerning the representa- tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Sections 9(c) (1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act, for the following reasons: Petitioner requests a separate unit at the Employer's Palo Alto, California, plant, of all truckdrivers, excluding guards, supervisors, and professional, clerical, and other employees. The Employer takes no position as to what would constitute an appropriate unit but con- tends that a truckdrivers' unit is inappropriate. The Employer is engaged in research and development of ground and space communications and space vehicles at its Palo Alto complex of plants involved herein. This is a highly integrated plant employ- ing 2,450 employees. All the employees including those Petitioner seeks to include in the unit are salaried. Each position in the plant is classified, and each classification is assigned u salary range. Salary changes within these ranges and promotions to other positions are sub- ject to uniformly applied company policies. All employees receive identical fringe benefits, are subject to the same job transfer policy, and are subject to the same company rules, policies, and general work- ing conditions. There is no prior history of collective bargaining at the plant. The material department is divided into two groups, one of which, the material distribution group, is divided into four sections, the packaging section, traffic control section, warehousing section, and the material handling section. The unit sought by the Petitioner consists of 15 employees, includ- ing all the employees in the material handling section and one em- ployee in the warehousing section. Two of these employees are work leaders, one for the day shift and one for the night shift. Another is a full-time mechanic, while yet another spends a large portion of his time performing clerical work for the materials handling section. The warehousing section employee spends about half of his time deliv- ering goods by truck directly from the warehouse to plant buildings within the complex and the remainder of his time doing warehouse work. The remaining employees of this group spend a large major- ity of their time transporting materials by truck from building to building within the plant complex. The plant buildings are about 20 in number and are spaced anywhere from a few feet to u third of a mile apart. These employees' duties include obtaining materials from their original location within one building and delivering them to their final location within the destination building. They use hand PHILCO CORPORATION 869'$ carts and dollys which are carried on the trucks to move larger loads, into and out of position within the buildings. The remainder of their time, constituting about 10 percent -thereof, is equally divided between moving materials from one room to another within a single building using hand carts, dollys, or fork-lifts as neces- sary, and driving outside the plant complex making deliveries and picking up materials. The outside driving constitutes only a small percentage''of their work for two reasons. First, Palo Alto •is exclu- sively -a research and development plant, not engaged in the production of any standard products. Accordingly, for the size of the plant there is very little in the way of materials to be shipped from the plant. Secondly, commercial carriers are hired for all standard outside driving chores. Plant employees are only called upon to drive out- side the plant under special circumstances for the purpose of expedit- ing deliveries or pickups. Traditionally, driving outside the plant is done during the morning hours, intraplant driving transporting materials' and supplies is done during the remaining morning hours and throughout the afternoon', and intraplant driving transporting office furniture and equipment to accomplish personnel moves is done after day-shift working hours by the night-shift employees. The day and night shifts overlap 4 hours in the afternoon. ' On the night shift, in addition to the material handling employees, there are traffic control section employees whose primary function is to complete the clerical work related to shipping and receiving that was not completed during the day shift. This work usually consumes less than, their entire' time, so, for the remainder of the time, they assist the material handling employees in performing their duties of moving materials and driving trucks. Also, on infrequent occasions when large material handling operations need to be accomplished it 'has been the Employer's practice to select a team of employees from the entire distribution group to perform the task. Additionally, some of the traffic control employees work in the receiving building with the material handling employees preparing distribution orders and checking incoming packages against receiving slips. As the work of unloading commercial carrier trucks and vendor trucks is not formally assigned to any section of employees, either material handling em- ployees, or traffic control employees, or a combination of these work- ing together, do this work. Thus employees outside of the requested unit often work very closely with the employees in the requested unit, frequently doing the same work. 870 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Our decision in this case must be governed by a determination of whether the separate community of interest of the employees in the requested unit is significant enough to justify their being represented -as ,a unit separate from all the other employees in the plant.' These employees spend substantially all of their time driving, loading, and unloading trucks. However, it appears that most of the time is spent in loading and unloading rather than in driving the trucks. Only 5 percent of their time is spent off plant property. Accordingly, their daily association is primarily with other plant personnel. They work the same hours, are entitled to the same fringe benefits, and are subject to the same plant policies regarding salaries and promotions as the other plant employees. They are afforded an opportunity to transfer into other positions within the plant and other employees are per- mitted to transfer into their positions. The record reveals that 15 such transfers have occurred within the materials handling section in the last 2 years, 2 of which occurred in the last 6 months. Their job classifications are the same as those of the warehousing and traffic control employees, and their pay is governed by the same salary ranges as these employees. They work very closely with these employees and most of their duties, except for the minor part of actually driving trucks, are similar to those of these employees. In view of these facts we find that the community of interest of the employees requested by the Petitioner to be included in the unit is with, rather than separate from, the other employees of the plant and accordingly that the requested unit is inappropriate? Petitioner contends the requested unit is appropriate because of an area practice of separate representation for truckdrivers in the Palo Alto area. Petitioner's witness could only point to two plants in that area where intraplant truckdrivers were represented separately from other plant employees. This evidence, relating to plants having tradi- tional production and maintenance employees, is hardly sufficient to support a finding of a controlling areawide practice of separate rep- resentation for units such as the one requested by the Petitioner. Ac- cordingly we find this contention to be without merit. The question of what other unit may be appropriate is not before us, and we therefore will dismiss the petition 3 [The Board dismissed the petition.]' 1 E. H. Koester Bakery Co., Inc ., 136 NLRB 1006. s Endicott-Johnson Corporation, 116 NLRB 446 ; Sylvania Electric Products, Inc., 135 NLRB 768. Though Member Fanning dissented in Sylvania Electric Products, Inc., he re- gards this case as clearly distinguishable on the facts. s As we have found the requested unit to be inappropriate it becomes unnecessary to de- cide the other issue raised at the hearing, that is, whether the work leaders of the requested unit are supervisors within the meaning of the Act.