Consolidated Fibres, Inc.

CONSOLIDATED FIBRES Consolidated Fibres, Inc. and International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Local 6, Petitioner. Case 20-RC-1 1208 August 14, 1973 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY MEMBERS JENKINS , KENNEDY, AND PENELLO Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Enid W. Weber. Fol- lowing the hearing, and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board's Rules and Re- gulations, Series 8, as amended, the Regional Director for Region 20 transferred this case to the National Labor Relations Board for decision. Thereafter, the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Local 6, herein called Petitioner, and Industri- al Iron and Metal Processing Workers, Local Union 1088, affiliated with the Laborers' International Union of North America, AFL-CIO, herein called Intervenor, 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 au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul- ings made at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed. They are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to repre- sent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concern- ing the representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. This proceeding resulted from the planned consoli- dation of the Employer's plants at Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco, California, into the Employer's new facility at Richmond, California. The Petitioner contends that the Richmond facility will constitute an entirely new operation and that therefore any existing collective-bargaining agreements between the Em- ployer and the labor organizations involved herein do not operate as a bar to an election under the General Extrusion principle.' The Intervenor, however, con- tends that the instant petition should be dismissed on the grounds that the Richmond facility at the present time is merely a relocation of the Oakland plant and 1 121 NLRB 1165 557 that its current contract with the Employer covering the Oakland employees constitutes a bar to an elec- tion herein. Alternatively, the Intervenor contends that the Teamsters contracts covering the Employer's Berkeley truckdrivers operates as a bar to an election.' The Employer takes no position. The facts disclose that the Employer is engaged in the packaging, grading, and destruction of paper. Since 1969 the Employer has planned, and in part effectuated, the consolidation of its three Bay Area plants into a larger facility at Richmond. With the exception of the destruction of paper process at Oak- land and the newsprint handling operation at San Francisco, all three plants have basically engaged in the same type of work. Paper of varying grades is picked up and delivered to one of the plants where it is sorted and packaged for immediate sale or stored for eventual sale. The employees at the respective plants, however, have historically been represented by different labor organizations. At Oakland, the six la- borers, including forklift operators and warehouse- men, and the five truckdrivers have been represented by the Intervenor; at Berkeley, the four to six laborers have been represented by the Petitioner and the seven truckdrivers by Teamsters locals; and, at San Francis- co, the four laborers have been represented by the Petitioner. There are no truckdrivers at San Francis- co. Each of the above labor organizations has a collec- tive-bargaining agreement currently in effect with the Employer. As of the time of the hearing, the Employer had begun to implement the consolidation. Thus, the Em- ployer had transferred to Richmond most of its Oak- land operations, including all of its employees previously assigned there. Several days a week, how- ever, the Employer sends two or three Richmond em- ployees to Oakland to maintain the destruction of paper process. Ultimately, when the Richmond facili- ty is capable of absorbing that process, the Oakland plant will be completely closed down. With regard to the Berkeley plant, the Employer had sharply cur- tailed the processing of paper and only a few employ- ees engaged in cleanup work remain at the plant. It is clear that the Employer intends to transfer all of its Berkeley employees to Richmond pending our deci- sion herein. Although the Employer had intended to completely close its San Francisco facility, a recent increase in the demand for newsprint has caused it to reconsider such action. Thus, while it has closed down all its other operations at San Francisco, it still main- tains full production with respect to the newsprint handling operation. However, only a few of its em- ployees are required to handle the newsprint, and, as in the case of the Berkeley plant, the remaining em- 2 Despite adequate notice of the hearing Local 70 and Local 85, the Team- sters Locals involved herein, declined to intervene 205 NLRB No. 86 558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD ployees will be transferred to Richmond pending our decision herein. Most of the equipment previously used at the three plants has been either transferred to Richmond or has been scheduled to be stored there in the near future. It is thus clear that the entire comple- ment of the Employer's employees and all its opera- tions in the Bay Area, with the possible exception of the San Francisco plant newsprint operation, will eventually be transferred to the Richmond facility. For the reasons set forth below, we find that the Employer's consolidation of these plants into the Richmond facility will constitute an entirely new inte- grated operation and that, therefore, none of the above-mentioned contracts serves as a bar to an elec- tion herein. The combined capacity of the Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco plants during 1971-72 approxi- mated 1,640 tons per month. In contrast, the monthly capacity of the Richmond facility will approach 3,000 tons. This increase will be possible due to the Employer's acquisition of new highly automated equipment which will replace the technologically ob- solete machinery previously used at its other plants. Thus, the Employer has purchased an hydraulic baler and a new packaging device which, in contrast to its outmoded equipment, will require somewhat different skills and, because of the new packaging technique, will permit the Employer to seek new markets for overseas trade which it could not previously accom- modate. Furthermore, the Richmond operation will in the future absorb the Oakland destruction process with which the employees to be transferred from the Berkeley and San Francisco plants are largely unfa- miliar. In these circumstances, it is clear that the Rich- mond facility is not merely a relocation of existing plants but rather an entirely new integrated opera- tion.' 4. The only remaining issue concerns the place- ment of the Employer's truckdrivers. Although the Petitioner originally sought a unit of all the Employer's employees, at the hearing it amended its petition by deleting the truckdrivers from the request- ed unit. The Petitioner however has taken the posi- tion, both at the hearing and in its brief, that it does not oppose the inclusion of the truckdrivers in the unit if the Board deems it appropriate. The Intervenor contends that certain or all of the truckdrivers should properly be included in the unit. The record discloses that the Employer uses two classifications of truckdrivers, the over-the-road and the "bobtail" drivers. The over-the-road drivers, using tractor-trailers, primarily are engaged in the hauling of large quantities of paper on established routes. The J Cf Hudson Berlind Corporation, 203 NLRB No 63 cf General Electric Company, 170 NLRB 1272, 1273, The Kroger Company, 155 NLRB 546, 548-549 "bobtail" drivers, using small vans, haul smaller loads and seldom are assigned regular runs. The five Oak- land drivers, now stationed at Richmond, are all in the latter classification. When at Oakland these driv- ers would, if not engaged in the pickup or delivery of paper, help load and unload trucks with forklifts or otherwise assist the other employees in their functions and, in fact, most of them had been promoted to truckdriver positions from previous positions as la- borers or warehousemen. They further enjoyed com- mon supervision and common fringe benefits with the other employees. The drivers stationed at Berkeley, consisting of five over-the-road and two "bobtail" drivers, however, shared no community of interest with other employees except for common supervision. The Employer's plans for the utilization of its truck- drivers to be stationed at Richmond are presently unclear. However, the Employer's vice president testi- fied that its decision to consolidate its Bay Area plants into one facility was in part motivated by the advan- tages it considered would result from having a central- ized work force under common supervision and under a single seniority list. In these circumstances, and par- ticularly in view of the facts that no party herein seeks a separate unit of truckdrivers and Petitioner does not oppose their inclusion in the unit, we shall include all truckdrivers in the unit. We therefore 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 employed at the Employer's oper- ations at Richmond, California, including labor- ers, forklift operators, warehousemen, and truckdrivers, but excluding all office clerical em- ployees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act. Accordingly, in view of our finding above that no contract bar to an election exists, we shall direct an election herein. As the Employer has not completed all of its intended transfers of employees and opera- tions to its Richmond facility, we shall instruct the Regional Director to direct said election at such time as he deems appropriate. The Intervenor did not re- quest that its name be placed on the ballot. We shall order that it appear thereon, however, in view of its intervention in this proceeding and in view of the substantial number of unit employees which it cur- rently represents.4 [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] ° If the Intervenor does not desire to participate in an election at this time in the unit found appropriate , we shall amend our Direction of Election by deleting its name from the ballot upon its notification to the Regional Direc- tor of such desire within 10 days of the date of issuance of this Decision