Home Furniture Co., Inc.

14 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Home Furniture Co , Inc and Local 3, Allied Woodwork- ers Union of America, Inc Local 467, Upholsterers' International Union of North America, AFL-CIO and Local 3, Allied Woodworkers Union of America, Inc Cases 4-CA-4532 and 4-CB-1474 April 17, 1970 SUPPLEMENTAL DECISION BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING AND BROWN On February 26, 1969, the National Labor Relations Board issued its Decision and Order in the above-entitled proceeding,' finding that Respondent Home had engaged in and was engaging in unfair labor practices in violation of Section 8(a)(1), (2), and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, and that Respondent Uphol- sterers had engaged in and was engaging in unfair labor practices in violation of Section 8(b)(1)(A) and (2) of the Act Each Respondent was ordered to cease and desist from such violations and to take certain affirmative action to remedy its unfair labor practices Thereafter, on December 15, 1969, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit remanded the proceeding to the Board for additional factual findings and articula- tion of the reasoning behind the bargaining unit determi- nation Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its powers in con- nection with this remand proceeding to a three-member panel The Board found in its original Decision that the production and maintenance employees at Home's newly acquired plant in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, constituted an appropriate bargaining unit, and concluded that the Respondents violated the Act when Home revoked its prior recognition of Allied as the bargaining representa- tive for these employees and entered into a contract with the Upholsterers covering these same employees Upon reexamination of the record in light of the court's remand, we continue to believe, for the reasons herein- after set forth, that our unit finding was a proper one Home had been in contractual relations with the Upholsterers covering a bargaining unit of about 300 employees at its two York, Pennsylvania, plants, where it is engaged in the manufacture of wooden institutional furniture In September 1967, Home entered into an agreement with Bethlehem Furniture Manufacturing Cor- poration to purchase the latter's operations at Red Lion, located about 10 miles from York The sale, consisting of Bethlehem's land, buildings, and approximately two- thirds of the machinery, was consummated on December 15, 1967 On this date, Home assumed full management of the Red Lion plant, retained all of the approximately ' 174 NLRB No 113 40 former Bethlehem employees, and notified Allied, which was party to a collective-bargaining contract with Bethlehem covering the Red Lion employees,2 that Home "adopts the contract in its present form and fully intends to honor it and you may assure your members that we plan to retain the bargaining unit personnel "3 Home continued to recognize Allied and honor the contract covering the Red Lion employees until January 25, 1968, when Home wrote Allied that its prior recognition as bargaining representative for these employees was revoked Home's rejection of Allied was prompted by the Upholsterers demand, during its negotiations with Home for a new contract concerning Home's two-plant unit of employees in York, for the inclusion of the Red Lion employees in its bargaining unit The Upholsterers engaged in a strike to enforce this demand Shortly thereafter, Home and the Upholsterers entered into a new contract, effective February 26, by which Home recognized the Upholsterers as the exclusive bargaining representative of all Home employees, including those at the Red Lion plant Home's and the Upholsterers defense to the complaint herein is that the Red Lion employees were an accretion to the bargaining unit of York employees As indicated above, our original Decision rejected this contention In determining whether a newly acquired plant of an employer constitutes a separate unit or is an accretion to an existing unit of other employees of the same employer, all the relevant facts must be taken into account, including such matters as the geographical prox- imity of the plants, the extent of functional integration and the job skills involved, the extent of control relating to the plant management and labor relations policies, the extent of employee interchange, and the history of collective bargaining " In this case, apart from the presumptive appropriate- ness of the Red Lion plant by reason of its status as a separate, single plant,5 additional support for holding the employees of this plant to be an appropriate bargain- ing unit is found in the relevant bargaining history, which supports only a separate unit of Red Lion employ- ees If, at any critical time herein, Red Lion ceased to exist as a separate bargaining unit, it would have to be because, as urged by Respondents, the Red Lion employees, by operation of law, and without any voice 2 On April 9 1956 while the Red Lion plant was operated by a predecessor to Bethlehem Allied was certified as the exclusive bargaining representative of the production and maintenance employees at that plant following a Board conducted election Ebert Furniture Company Case 4-RC-2968 (unpublished in NLRB volumes) 3 During October 1967 officials of Home addressed all of Bethlehem s employees advising them of the impending purchase and assuring them that there would be no layoffs The employees were also told that the Red Lion plant would be operated as a separate plant possibly manufacturing library furniture which the York plants did not make and that Home would recognize Allied and would abide by the bargaining agreement Allied had with Bethlehem , The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co 150 NLRB 1010 1011 1021 Spartan Atlantic Dept Stores Spartan s Industries Inc 169 NLRB 309 enfd 406 F 2d 1002 1005 (C A 5) Western and Southern Life Insurance Company 163 NLRB 138 139 enfd 391 F 2d 119 123 (C A 3) cert denied 393 U S 978 182 NLRB No 8 HOME FURNITURE CO , INC in the matter, lost their separate identity, and representa- tion by Allied, and were merged into or accreted to the existing unit of Home's other employees, represented by the Upholsterers There are some factors which favor the Respondents' accretion argument Thus, the job skills required in the manufacture of wooden furniture are generally simi- lar And there are centralized shipping operations and common administrative and labor relations policies for all of Home's plants However, the Red Lion plant is 10 miles distant from the York operations It has its own superintendent, who is directly responsible for production at that plant Management has not abandoned its initial plan for the production of library furniture at Red Lion, the equipment required for such production has been retained, and Home expects to expand its sales of library furniture, the manufacture of which is presently subcontracted by Home A separate product line of its own, known as the "211" line, is also produced at Red Lion There has been no significant interchange of employees between the Red Lion and York plants e 15 In these circumstances, we find that the positive accre- tion factors fall far short of outweighing the negative factors and justifying a finding that the separate integrity of the Red Lion unit was ever destroyed The employees at Red Lion accordingly continued to constitute a sepa- rate bargaining unit who were entitled to continued representation by Allied, upon its recognition by Home When, therefore, the Respondents later acted to impose the Upholsterers upon the Red Lion employees as their bargaining agent and as part of a broader unit, they violated the Act as we have heretofore found Accordingly, we reaffirm the unfair labor practice findings made in the Decision and Order of February 26, 1969 8 Of the approximately 40 employees at Red Lion when Home acquired the plant in December 1967 a nucleus of 24 was still employed there as of June 1968 the week before the hearing herein 14 had quit and 2 had been transferred to York The complement of 61 employees at Red Lion in June 1968 included in addition to the 24 employees retained 12 permanent transfers from York and 25 newly hired employ ees