Chin Industries, Inc.

DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Chin Industries, Inc.1 and Local 218, Laundry, Dry Cleaning and Dye House Workers Union a/w the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauf- feurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America,2 Petitioner. Case 15-RC-5975 September 20, 1977 DECISION ON REVIEW BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND MURPHY On October 14, 1976, the Acting Regional Director for Region 15 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in the above-entitled proceeding, in which he directed an election to be held in a unit of the Employer's production and maintenance employees including branch employees, branc. drivers, and rental drivers. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, Petitioner filed a timely request for review on the ground that the Acting Regional Director erred in requiring that branch employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers be included in the unit of production and mainte- nance employees which Petitioner sought to repre- sent. The National Labor Relations Board, by telegraph- ic order dated November 17, 1976, granted the request for review and stayed the election pending decision on review. Thereafter, the Petitioner and the Employer filed briefs on review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this case with respect to the issues under review, including the briefs of the parties, and makes the following findings: The Employer is engaged in retail and commercial laundry cleaning and fabric care services and the rental of garments to commercial accounts in Mobile, Alabama. The Employer's main place of business, located on St. Louis street, includes its laundry and drycleaning processing plant and a branch store. In addition to the main plant, the Employer maintains a nearby storage facility on Conception Street, 2 warehouses, and 11 other branch stores in the city limits of Mobile within 10 miles of the main plant. The employees engaged in the operation of the laundry and drycleaning processing plant include I Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing. 2 Petitioner's name appears as amended at the hearing. I This relates to work left at the I I retail branch offices in Mobile which 232 NLRB No. 22 feeders, folders, finishers, checkers, inspectors, seam- stresses, embroiderers, pressers, flat workers, sorters, assemblers, stock persons, and maintenance person- nel. Employees at the Conception Street facility, in which new garments are stored, make uniforms ready for new and existing commercial accounts. The laundry and drycleaning work reaches the main plant for processing through the operation of Employer's 12 branch stores and the services of retail route salesmen, salesmen, branch drivers, and rental drivers. Customers bring work directly to, and pick up finished work from, the retail branch stores. Some rental merchandise is also picked up at the branch stores and returned to them. The work handled at the branch stores is delivered to and returned from the main processing plant by branch drivers.3 The branch drivers also service various establishments on regularly assigned commercial routes. The rental drivers deliver uniforms and other rented items to and from business customers and also service commercial accounts in the same manner as the branch drivers. Petitioner requested certification in a unit limited to the production and maintenance employees at the St. Louis Street plant. The parties stipulated that the unit should include these employees and those at the Conception Street location. They also stipulated the exclusion of salesmen and retail route salesmen from the unit. They disagreed with respect to branch employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers whom the Employer, contrary to Petitioner, would include in the unit. The Acting Regional Director found that the branch employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers possessed a sufficient community of interest to warrant their inclusion in the unit of production and maintenance employees sought by Petitioner and included them in the unit. We need not consider whether the Acting Regional Director's finding of an appropriate unit was erroneous. Even if the enlarged unit found by the Acting Regional Director is appropriate, this does not preclude a finding that the unit sought by Petitioner is also an appropriate unit. Ballentine Packing Company, Inc., 132 NLRB 923 (1961). The Acting Regional Director did not find that a unit of production and maintenance employees was not appropriate but this is perhaps implied in his decision. In any event, it is well settled that more than one unit may be appropriate among the employees of a particular enterprise, and our choice in a particular case "involves of necessity a large measure of informed discretion." Packard Motor Car Company v. N.L.R.B., 330 U.S. 485, 491 (1947). are geographically separated from the processing plant. Work left at the retail branch office in the front of the main plant is picked up for processing by plant employees. 176 CHIN INDUSTRIES, INC. Absent a bargaining history in a more comprehen- sive unit or functional integration of a degree sufficient to obliterate separate identity, a production and maintenance unit normally constitutes an appropriate unit for collective-bargaining purposes. Ballentine Packing Company, supra. Thus, since it is not our policy to require a labor organization to represent the most appropriate or comprehensive unit but only an appropriate unit, and in light of the Petitioner's interest in representing only the produc- tion and maintenance employees to the exclusion of branch store workers, branch drivers, and rental drivers, we find the Acting Regional Director erroneously rejected the unit sought by Petitioner in favor of the larger unit. Sav-On Drugs, Inc., 138 NLRB 1032 (1962); E. H. Koester Bakery Co., Inc., 136 NLRB 1006 (1962); Mc-Mor-Han Trucking Co., Inc., 166 NLRB 700 (1967). The Acting Regional Director, in support of his conclusion that the unit should include branch employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers, as well as production and maintenance workers, relied on a number of factors which are clearly relevant to the determination of an appropriate unit. He noted that all the employees are under a centralized labor policy, are paid from a central payroll, and enjoy the same fringe benefits. The work of the branch store employees, which involves marking, separating, counting, listing, and inspecting garments received at the stores for laundering and drycleaning, overlaps to a slight extent work done by production employees at the main plant on items received from other sources. There has been, at most, a sporadic interchange of employees between the plant and the branch stores. Plant employees may occasionally substitute for branch drivers. But a number of distinguishing factors support the conclusion that the production and maintenance workers alone constitute an appropriate unit. They all work together in a single plant performing tasks functionally related to the laundering and dryclean- ing of garments and other items. Morey La Rue Supply Services, Inc., 165 NLRB 148 (1967). They are geographically separated from the branch employees, the branch drivers,4 and the rental drivers. Cf. Haag Drug Company, Incorporated, 169 NLRB 877 (1968); Purity Food Stores, Inc., Sav-More Food Stores, 160 NLRB 651 (1966). The production and maintenance employees are under different supervision from the branch employees and rental drivers, and the branch employees and rental drivers are under different supervision from each other. The branch employees 4 One branch driver spends all his time away from the plant except while loading or unloading. The other two branch dnvers spend more than 50 percent of their time away from the plant. I Two of the branch drivers assist in maintenance work when not are engaged in the receipt and distribution of goods to be processed and related functions. They perform no processing or production work. The branch drivers and rental drivers are occupied principally with transportation and the related functions of gathering, loading, and unloading. They, too, engage in no processing or production activities.5 The production and maintenance employees are paid on an hourly basis, as are the branch employees and two of the branch drivers. The third branch driver is paid a salary and the rental drivers, like the retail route salesmen who were excluded from the unit by stipulation, work on a commission basis. In these circumstances, we find that the commonality of interest of the various categories of employees is not such as to require the inclusion of branch employees, branch drivers, and rental drivers in the same bargaining unit as the production and maintenance employees. Gerald G. Gogin d/b/a Gogin Trucking, 229 NLRB 529 (1977); Giordano Lumber Co., Inc., 133 NLRB 205 (1961). Based on the foregoing, we find that the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appro- priate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All full-time and regular part-time production and maintenance employees employed by the Employer at its St. Louis Street plant and 105 North Conception Street facility in Mobile, Alabama; excluding branch employees, branch drivers, rental drivers and all other employees, office clerical employees, retail route salesmen, salesmen, professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. Accordingly, we shall remand this case to the Regional Director for the purpose of conducting an election pursuant to the Acting Regional Director's Decision and Direction of Election, as modified herein, except that the payroll period for determining eligibility shall be that ending immediately before the date of issuance of this Decision on Review. [Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] MEMBER MURPHY, concurring in part: I agree with my colleagues insofar as they conclude that the Acting Regional Director incorrectly includ- ed the Employer's branch employees and rental drivers in the unit of production and maintenance employees. However, I would adopt the Acting Regional Director's holding that the branch drivers share a community of interest with the production engaged in transportation, gathering, loading, and unloading. The third branch driver spends the balance of his time on a pickup and delivery retail route. 177 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD and maintenance employees and should be included in the same appropriate unit. The Employer provides laundry and dry cleaning services and rents garments to company accounts; it has a main plant (which consists of its processing plant and a branch store) and 11 branch stores within a 10-mile radius. Branch employees work in the retail outlets where customers bring and pick up items for washing and cleaning, and the rental drivers deliver rental garments to commercial cus- tomers. Branch drivers, however, deliver and return the cleaning and laundry work between the branch stores and the main processing plant, and they do some servicing of various establishments on regularly assigned commercial routes. The branch drivers, unlike the excluded branch employees and rental drivers, spend approximately 50 percent of their time performing maintenance work in the main plant; they have daily contact with production and mainte- nance employees; and they share common supervi- sion with unit employees in that the drivers, too, are under the supervision of the assistant production manager. Furthermore, production and maintenance employees perform the work of the branch drivers whenever one of the latter is absent. The above factors, together with the centralized labor policy and common fringe benefits, clearly warrant inclusion of the branch drivers in the production and maintenance unit. I would so find and, therefore, must dissent from my colleagues' holding to the contrary. 178