Caron International, Inc.

508 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Caron International, Inc. and Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, CLC, Petitioner. Case 38-RC-1756 January 21, 1976 DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING AND PENELLO On August 26, 1975, the Acting Regional Director for Region 13 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found appropriate the Petitioner's requested unit consisting of one of the Employer's three Illinois plants, rejecting the Employer's contention that the appropriate unit should include all three of the plants. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer filed a timely request for review of the Acting Re- gional Director's decision together with a supporting brief, alleging that the Acting Regional Director made erroneous findings of facts and departed from precedent in finding a one-plant unit appropriate. On September 24, 1975, the National Labor Rela- tions Board by telegraphic order granted the request for review and stayed the election pending decision on review. Thereafter, Petitioner filed a brief in sup- port of the Acting Regional Director's Decision and Direction of Election. 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 entire record in this case and makes the following findings: The Employer is a Delaware corporation engaged in the processing of wool and synthetic fiber and maintains plants and warehouses in various States throughout the United States. The Petitioner filed a petition for an election in a unit of production and maintenance employees at the Employer's Rochelle plant.' The Employer, however, contended that the Rochelle plant was integrated to such an extent with its two other Illinois plants that the petitioned-for unit did not constitute an appropriate unit. The other two Illinois plants requested by the Employer for inclusion in the unit are its Mendota facility, which is located 25 miles from Rochelle, and the Or- egon facility, which is located 22 miles from Roc- helle.2 i The Rochelle plant is comprised of five facilities within a half -mile ra- dius and employs approximately 900 employees In finding that the employees in the Rochelle plant had a community of interest separate and apart from the employees at the Mendota and Oregon plants, the Acting Regional Director relied primarily on the geographical separation between the plants, and on his findings that there was a lack of common supervi- sion and a lack of employee interchange. The record, however, does not support the Acting Regional Director's findings and we do not agree with his unit determination. The record establishes that all three of the Employer's Illinois plants have a functional integra- tion of plant operations and a centralized manage- ment of labor matters, and the 25-mile radius sepa- rating the plants does not interfere with this integration. The facilities in Rochelle comprise the Employer's main Illinois plant and house the bulk of its production operations. Rochelle also provides the administrative services for all three plants. All of the accounting, purchasing, billing, accounts receivable, telephone switchboard, data processing, sales, pay- roll, mail, and personnel operations are located at the Rochelle plant.' The Mendota and Oregon facilities are winding and packaging plants that process material received from the Rochelle plant and then return those mate- rials to Rochelle for further processing and distribu- tlon.4 In fact, the Mendota and Oregon plants were created as extensions of the Rochelle plant only be- cause of a shortage of space at Rochelle, and all of the operations performed at Mendota and Oregon are still performed at Rochelle using the same job skills and identical machines.' The record also establishes a central control of la- bor relations emanating from corporate headquarters in Rochelle. The personnel department at Rochelle administers a personnel policy for all Illinois facili- ties. The wage schedule for employee classifications is the same for all three plants as are fringe benefits, and seniority is on a companywide basis. Job open- ings above the introductory level are posted at all of the plants, and all employees regardless of their plant have equal bidding rights on those jobs.' 2 The Mendota plant employs approximately 15 people and the Oregon plant employs approximately 130 people. 3 The Acting Regional Director found that Rochelle provided many of the same management services for other employee facilities located outside of Illinois and yet the Employer did not claim the only appropriate unit must include those additional plants The record , however, establishes that all of the management services provided to the Illinois plants are not provid- ed to plants outside of the State, and the services that are provided are provided to a lesser degree In addition the Illinois plants have far more operation and production integration than the plants outside of Illinois 4 The Oregon plant does distribute some products directly to customers, however, all warehousing and shipping work is performed by distribution employees (unit employees) at Rochelle. 5 With the exception of the classification of kit-assembler at Oregon, all classifications at Mendota and Oregon are also utilized at Rochelle 6 In the 5 years since the opening of the Oregon plant and the 3 years since the opening of the Mendota plant, there have been 13 interplant trans- fers 222 NLRB No. 89 CARON INTERNATIONAL, INC. 509 In addition, employees from Mendota and Oregon are in daily contact with employees from Rochelle. Rochelle maintenance employees (unit employees) frequently repair and install machinery and build parts at the Mendota and Oregon plants, and mainte- nance employees from Mendota and Oregon are trained by Rochelle personnel both at their own plants and at Rochelle. Truckdrivers from Rochelle are in daily contact with Mendota and Oregon em- ployees during deliveries and pickups, and job in- structors from Rochelle go to Mendota and Oregon to train employees. Inspectors at Oregon, who are under the supervision of the quality assurance man- ager at Rochelle, frequently go to Rochelle for meet- ings. Industrial engineers from Rochelle also work at Mendota and Oregon, and the safety supervisor at Rochelle makes the safety inspections at Mendota and Oregon. There is also a commonality of supervision at the three plants. Although the line managers at the vari- ous plants administer day-to-day problems, the per- sonnel department at Rochelle closely reviews all of these decisions and establishes and administers any change in personnel policy or procedure at the three plants. The personnel department also determines and administers a hiring procedure common to the three plants. Personnel department employees at Rochelle do the hiring for all the plants.' The Oregon plant manager, however, does do some hiring for en- try-level unskilled positions. Contrary to the assertions made by our dissenting colleague, the record does not support the Acting Re- gional Director's findings that the three plants lack common supervision and meaningful employee inter- change. As noted above, with the exception of some hiring at entry-level unskilled positions by the plant manager at Oregon, personnel department employ- ees at Rochelle do all of the hiring. They also review all day-to-day decisions made by the line managers at the three plants 8 and establish and administer per- sonnel policy and procedure for the plants. Further- more, as detailed above, the centralized control of labor relations and the extensive operation and prod- uct integration creates a substantial degree of em- ployee interchange at the three plants .9 7 Contrary to the Acting Regional Director's finding that the Employer is training additional personnel to conduct employee interviews at Mendota and Oregon exclusive of Rochelle , the record establishes that the employees in the personnel department are being trained to continue to hire for all three plants. 8 The Mendota plant only employs I leadperson, whose eligibility to vote has been stipulated subject to challenge , and 14 backwmdmg machine oper- ators Absent further evidence, there is a rebuttable presumption that the leadperson is a rank-and-file employee and not part of the supervisory structure and that therefore the supervision at Mendota clearly emanates from Rochelle Member Fanning would also have us rely on a 1972 Regional Director's decision which found the Rochelle plant alone to be an appropriate unit. We note that the Petitioner lost that election and no bar- gaining relationship was established, the Mendota plant has been acquired since that election, and dif- ferences in terms and conditions that existed between the plants in 1972 no longer exist today. Moreover, a request for review was not sought in the 1972 deci- sion, and we do not consider ourselves bound by that previous determination by the Regional Director. On the record as a whole and particularly the facts that the Illinois plants are within a 25-mile radius, have extensive operation and product integration, have a centralized control of labor relations, have a commonality of supervision, have an interchange of employees, share administrative services, and have a similarity of employee skills and conditions of em- ployment, we find that employees at the Rochelle plant do not have a community of interest sufficient- ly distinct and separate from that of the employees at the Mendota and Oregon plants so as to warrant the establishment of a separate unit as found by the Act- ing Regional Director. We therefore find the follow- ing employees of the Employer constitute a unit ap- propriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act;10 All production and maintenance employees, in- cluding shipping and receiving clerks, drug room employees, laboratory employees, job in- structors, and plant clericals employed at the Employer's Mendota, Oregon, and Rochelle, Il- linois, facilities; but excluding all office clerical employees, professional employees, dyers, mill outlet clerks, guards and supervisors, as defined in the Act. Accordingly, we shall remand the case to the Re- gional Director in order that he may conduct an elec- tion pursuant to his Decision and Direction of Elec- tion, as modified herein, except that the eligibility payroll period therefore shall be that immediately preceding the date of this Decision." 9 Member Penello acknowledges the instant case involves a close question and that Bourns Inc, 217 NLRB No 3 (1975), cited in Member Fanning's dissent, involved a similar issue However, he is of the opinion that mechan- istic formulas should be avoided and the facts of every case should be independently scrutinized. In this vein, Member Penello is of the view that the case at hand, as distinguished from Bourns Inc, supra, involves a higher degree of centralized control, a higher degree of plant and product integra- tion, a higher degree of control over hiring and administration of personnel policy, and a true areawide seniority plan 10 In the event Petitioner does not wish to proceed to an election in the unit found appropriate herein, it shall so notify the Regional Director by written notice within 7 days of the date of issuance of this Decision More- over, as the unit found appropriate is broader than that originally requested by the Petitioner, the Regional Director shall determine whether its showing of interest is sufficient before proceeding with the election 11 [Excelsior footnote omitted from publication 510 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition be and it hereby is, remanded to the Regional Director. MEMBER FANNING, dissenting: The issue here involves the election granted by the Acting Regional Director to 900 employees at a sepa- rately located plant at ' Rochelle, Illinois, the Employer's corporate headquarters. As my col- leagues see it, a three-plant unit including facilities 22 and 25 miles away, in opposite directions, is alone appropriate. Thus, they would add an additional 145 employees (130 at Oregon and 15 at Mendota, Illi- nois) despite the geographical separation, the lack of common supervision on a day-to-day basis,12 and the lack of any meaningful employee interchange. This case bears considerable similarity to U- Wana- Wash Frocks, Inc., 203 NLRB 174, 175 (1973), where I dissented from the failure to grant a separate unit to a plant which was the administrative center of the employer's dress manufacturing business. Movement of machinery and visits from a production manager dictated a majority view that two plants 11 miles 12 1 am not prepared to presume that the sole leadperson at a separately located facility is a rank-and-file employee , as my colleagues do with respect to the leadperson at Mendota. away in different directions, and another 39 miles away, were "part of the fold" so that only a four- plant unit was appropriate. In achieving this result, the significance of area recruiting and supervision by local plant managers suffered. In my view, my col- leagues are again unrealistically relying on central- ized administration at the expense of employee bar- gaining rights. I would note also that this very unit was found appropriate in 1972 and no bargaining resulted. In- creasing the size of the unit from one to three plants is hardly calculated to carry out the Act's purpose to foster collective bargaining among employees as to whom there is no history of bargaining. In no way do I suggest that the Board is bound by this earlier deci- sion. However, I would point out that a plant unit is one of those named as appropriate in Section 9(b) of the statute. I would also ask my colleagues whether increasing by one-sixth a clearly appropriate plant unit of 900 employees that is "geographically sepa- rate"-if those words have any meaning at all- serves the basic purpose of the Act. I would affirm the Acting Regional Director and go to election in the production and maintenance unit at Rochelle, Illinois.13 13 1 note that Member Penello recently joined me in reaffirming the sepa- rate appropriateness of a single-plant unit, in fact a division of the employ- er, one of four separate facilities each with a Riverside, California, address. Separate location and "particularly the absence of bargaining history" were among the factors emphasized Bourns Inc, 217 NLRB No 3 (1975)