Famous-Barr Co.

FAMOUS-BARR COMPANY 393 Famous-Barr Company and Warehouse& Distribu- tion Workers Union , Local 688 , affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauf- feurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Petitioner. Case 14-RC-5661 November 24, 1967 DECISION AND ORDER By MEMBERS FANNING,JENKINS , AND ZAGORIA Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Herbert S. Dawidoff, Hearing Officer. Following the hearing and pur- suant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Rela- tions Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, and by direction of the Regional Director for Region 14, this case was transferred to the National Labor Relations Board for decision. Both the Employer and the Petitioner have filed briefs. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three- member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af- firmed. Upon the entire record in this case, including the briefs filed herein, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the pol- icies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organizations involved, claim to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce, exists con- cerning the representation of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Employer operates six major retail stores and maintains a separate warehouse or service building for hard goods (the Spring Avenue facility), all in St. Louis, Missouri. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit limited to the carpet workroom em- ployees at this warehouse and service center, in- cluding carpet cutters and helpers, wrappers and packers, pad cutters, clericals, checkers, stockmen, binders and helpers, and measuremen, excluding all office clerical and professional employees, guards, supervisors as defined in the Act, and all other em- ployees. The Intervenor agrees to the appropriate- ness of the unit sought by the Petitioner, and desires participation in any election directed in such unit, but argues an alternative unit to be even more ap- propriate, namely that composed of the carpet workroom employees sought by Petitioner plus the Employer's carpet installers. The Employer's carpet installers are members of and represented by the Intervenor and have been for several years. They are currently covered by an existing 3-year contract which expires April 30, 1969, between the Intervenor and the Associated Retailers of St. Louis, a multiemployer bargaining association, of which the Employer is a member. The Employer and the Petitioner indicated that the existing current contract covering the Em- ployer's carpet installers precludes or bars the alter- native unit sought by the Intervenor. However, Petitioner desires to participate in any election directed. The Employer maintains that both the unit sought by the Petitioner and the alternative unit sought by the Intervenor are inappropriate. The Employer also contends that Petitioner's desire for a carpet workroom unit is too restrictive in scope and is based solely upon the extent of organization which, as a controlling factor in the Board's deter- mination, is prohibited by the Act. There appears to be no bargaining history for the employees in the unit proposed by the Petitioner. Moreover, in view of our ultimate disposition of the petition, we do not pass on the contract-bar issue. In 1961 the Board dismissed a petition filed by the Intervenor seeking a similar unit of carpet work- room employees at the Spring Avenue facility. Famous-Barr Company, Case 14-RC-3852 (not published in NLRB volumes). In 1965 the Board directed an election in a warehouse unit sought by the present Petitioner consisting of certain classifi- cations of employees at the Spring Avenue facility, but excluding therefrom other employees among whom were those employed in the carpet workroom as well as in the workrooms for furniture, radio and television, appliances, and fur storage. Famous- Barr Company, 153 NLRB 341. The official records, including the transcripts and exhibits, and also the Board decisions, in both the above-men- tioned cases, were received into evidence for con- sideration herein. While the Board has regarded a single com- prehensive unit in retail establishments as "basi- cally appropriate" or the "optimum" unit, it has held that this is not necessarily the only appropriate unit in such establishment.2 In addition to recogniz- ing the separate interests of warehouse employees in a mercantile operation,3 the Board has made it clear that other units of less than all of the em- ' Carpet , Linoleum and Resilient Tile Layers Union , Local 1310, af- filiated with Carpenters District Council of St Louis , United Brother- hood of Carpenters and Joiners of America , AFL-CIO, was allowed to intervene on the basis of a showing of interest ' Stern 's Paramus , 150 NLRB 799, 803 -'See, e g , Wigwam Stores, 166 NLRB 1034, John's Bargain Stores Corp, 160 NLRB 1519, J W Robinson Co, 153 NLRB 989, Famous- Barr Company, 152 NLRB 341, Sears, Roebuck and Co, 151 NLRB 1356, A Harris & Co , 1 16 N LRB 1628 168 NLRB No. 63 394 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD ployees in such an establishment may be appro- priate.' Recently , for example , the Board has found that service repairmen for radio and televi- sion sets, appliances , sewing machines , plumbing and heating items together with parts employees and service and parts clericals constituted an ap- propriate unit in an employer 's warehouse or ser- vice building operated for the benefit of six major retail stores.5 Such cases have applied the long- established principles that the appropriate unit for self-organization among the employees of a given employer is generally based upon a community of interest in their occupation as manifested , inter alia, by their common experiences , duties, organization, supervision , and conditions of employment. Con- versely, of course , where the separation of the com- munity of interest is less distinct , appropriateness has not been found.6 In the present instance , the record reveals that the Employer's workrooms are functionally separate from the other departments at its hard goods warehouse or service building. The Em- ployer operates a downtown department store and five branch stores in the St . Louis area. A soft goods warehouse , the St. Charles Street facility, is located within a block from the downtown store and is connected thereto by a tunnel . Workrooms for al- ternations , monogramming , busheling , and drap- eries are located on the 12th floor of the downtown store , and there is a candy kitchen and bakery located within the St. Charles Street facility. The Spring Avenue warehouse and service building han- dles hard goods and is located some 2 miles from the downtown store . It services all of the Em- ployer's retail outlets in the area. Excluded by the Board from the warehouse unit it earlier found ap- propriate at the Spring Avenue facility are some 84 employees employed in workrooms for carpets, fur- niture, applicances, radio and television , and fur storage.' Although all regular nonexecutive employees of the Employer, including selling and nonselling per- sonnel , are paid on a biweekly basis for a 40-hour week , share similar wage scales (except for the commissions given to selling personnel) as well as vacation , holiday , insurance , and retirement benefits , there are significant differences in the or- ganization, supervision, duties, and conditions of employment between employees in the various workrooms and others in the Spring Avenue build- ing. For example , the record reveals that the effort of each workroom is confined solely to the prepara- tion of its particular product in support of the selling operation of the corresponding salesroom of the Employer . More specifically , the principal function of each workroom is to perform some physical work upon , or to repair or service some particular line of merchandise . Such duties are, of course , distin- guishable from those of nonworkroom employees at Spring Avenue engaged in the warehousing of merchandise but who do not work on the actual products themselves . In addition , the workrooms, each of which has separate immediate supervision, are all under the general supervision of one man who in turn reports directly to the superintendent of the Spring Avenue facility . Generally , each such workroom operates from a confined area on the floor. Each has clericals who coordinate the product and service of their workroom with the selling effort , each has service or operational em- ployees who work both inside and/or outside the plant (carpet measuremen and carpet layers, furni- ture finishers and polishers , appliance and radio and television servicemen or repairmen), and each has stockmen or other handlers of materials and help- ers, all of whom work with the type of product handled by their particular workroom . Admittedly, there is one difference in the actual kind of work performed in the various workrooms as well as in the training and skills requisite for the performance of such work. For example , carpet workroom em- ployees who measure, cut, trim , sew, or bind car- pets and related material require different training and skills than do employees in the radio and televi- sion workroom who engage in the service or repair of complex electronic instruments . Nevertheless, the organization as well as the function of preparing a particular product for selling is the same in all of the workrooms . In addition , contact with other than selling personnel is minimal. There is contact between departmental buyers and selling personnel with workroom personnel, but the evidence is not sufficient to reveal a degree of integration that might require a rejection of a request for an identifiably distinct unit made up of these work- rooms. Moreover , such contact concerns the or- dering of material and products as well as the specifications for the work or service to be per- formed thereon, and is distinguishable from the sales contact with sales personnel of other warehouse departments which merely store merchandise and fill orders for goods sold. The record , including the transcripts of the earlier hearing, discloses that the requested unit of carpet workroom employees is not appropriate on a craft basis. Moreover , it discloses that the carpet work- 4 Arnold Constable Corporation , 150 NLRB 788, Lord & Taylor, A Division of Associated Dry Goods Corporation , 150 N LRB 812 Sears , Roebuck and Co , 160 NLRB 1435 The Wm H Block Company , 152 NLRB 594, Sears , Roebuck & Co, 149 NLRB 1525, Montgomery Ward & Co, incorporated, 124 NLRB 1090 7 The employees excluded in Famous-Barr Company, 153 N LRB 341 were the following all employees working in the radio and television, ap- pliance , furniture , and floor covering workrooms, and fur storage vaults, invoice clerks and other office clerical employees , cafeteria employees, nurse-photocopier, vehicle mechanics and their helpers , drivers and help- ers, electricians and carpenters and their helpers, watchmen, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act FAMOUS- BARR COMPANY 395 room employees share a community of interest with other workroom employees at the Spring Avenue facility : they share supervision , similar operational procedures , and a similar relationship with buyers and selling personnel as well as customers ' and, of course, they perform work upon or service a distinct category of products or merchandise . Accordingly , we find that the carpet workroom employees lack the cohesiveness and homogeneity to constitute an appropriate unit apart from other workroom employees at the Spring Avenue facility.8 These same considerations are pertinent and apply to the alternate unit proposed by the Interven ir. Thus, upon the foregoing and the entire record in this case , we find that the units sought by the Pe itioner and the Intervenor are not appropriate for 1-arposes of collective bargaining, and we shall disnass the instant petition. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition in Case 14-RC-5661 be , and it hereby is, dismissed. " Famous-Barr Company, Case 14-RC-3852, supra Accord Sears, Roebuck and Company, 160 NLRB 1435