The Salvation Army, Inc.

406 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The Salvation Army, Inc. and Teamsters Local 814, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Help- ers of America, Petitioner. Case 2-RC-17235 June 30, 1976 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY MEMBERS FANNING, JENKINS, AND WALTHER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, by Teamsters Local 814, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehouse- men and Helpers of America,' a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Peter E. Gillespie.2 Following the hearing, and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula- tions, Series 8, as amended, and by direction of the Regional Director for Region 2, this proceeding was transferred to the Board for decision. Thereafter, the Employer and the Petitioner filed briefs in support of their respective positions.' 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 they are free from prejudicial error. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds as follows: 1. The Salvation Army is a nonprofit religious and charitable organization incorporated by a Special Act of the New York State Legislature. Its purpose is to preach the Gospel, disseminate Christian beliefs, and undertake the spiritual, moral, and physical re- habilitation of needy people. As part of its program, it has established in the United States approximately i The names of the Petitioner and the Employer appear as amended at the hearing 2 At the hearing , Amalgamated Services and Allied Industries Joint Board, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO, was per- mitted to intervene on the basis of its submission of a sufficient number of authorization cards to warrant intervention As the Intervenor's request, however, is for a unit different from that which the Petitioner seeks to represent, it was incumbent upon the Intervenor to support its motion to intervene with a petitioner's showing of interest The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc, 130 NLRB 226 (1961), Dierks Paper Company, 120 NLRB 290 (1958) Since the number of authorization cards which the In- tervenor submitted was less than 30 percent of the employees in the unit it seeks, the Hearing Officer's ruling permitting intervention is overruled and the Intervenor's motion to intervene in this proceeding is denied , without prejudice to its right to file a petition supported by an adequate showing of interest for the unit which it seeks 3 The Employer filed a request for oral argument which is hereby denied, as the record and briefs adequately present the issues and the positions of the parties 130 Men's Social Service Centers which provide homeless men, mainly alcoholics, with food, shelter, clothing, meaningful work, medical and psychiatric treatment, and spiritual guidance. To support this charitable endeavor, each Social Service Center operates a warehouse and a number of thrift stores which process and sell used clothing, furniture, and other items donated to the Salvation Army by private individuals and businesses." Benefi- ciaries entering into residence at a Social Service Center participate in this work, in varying degrees, as part of their "Work Therapy Program." Work assign- ments are made on the basis of their adaptability to particular jobs and they receive a weekly gratuity which is based, not on the value of their labor, but on their progress in overcoming their handicaps. Additionally, each of the Social Service Centers has a full-time staff of supervisors, store managers, truckdrivers, sorting room workers, and clerical em- ployees. These individuals are acknowledged em- ployees who work for wages and are subject to disci- pline and discharge for unsatisfactory performances or infraction of rules. Unlike the beneficiaries, they are hired, as needed, for specific jobs and are expect- ed to keep regular hours and meet minimum produc- tion standards. Deductions are made from their pay- checks for income and social security taxes, and payments are made by the Employer for unemploy- ment compensation insurance. The work of each paid employee enables a Social Service Center to ac- cept two beneficiaries for treatment. In the past year, the Social Service Centers in the Employer's eastern territory derived approximately $19 million in revenue from the operation of ware- houses and thrift stores and purchased trucks, tires, parts, and other goods valued in excess of $50,000 from firms outside of their respective States. The Em- ployer provided an additional $3.5 million towards the operation of the Social Service Centers from other funds. The Employer contends that the Board, in the ex- ercise of its discretion, should decline to assert juris- diction over its warehouses and thrift stores because they are not conducted to maximize profits or effi- ciency and are intimately related to its rehabilitative efforts. We find no merit to this contention. The Board has traditionally asserted jurisdiction over those operations of religious and charitable organiza- tions which are, in the generally accepted sense, com- mercial in nature.5 Moreover, even where the opera- 4 A portion of the contributions , rags and some bric-a-brac, are sold at wholesale to dealers 5 See, for example, American National Red Cross, District of Columbia Chapter, 211 NLRB 587 (1974), The First Church of Christ Scientist in Bos- ton, Massachusetts, 194 NLRB 1006 (1972), Disabled American Veterans, 225 NLRB No. 48 THE SALVATION ARMY tions are essentially noncommercial, the Board does not now distinguish between profit and nonprofit or- ganizations for jurisdictional purposes.' Here, the Employer concedes that it is engaged in collecting, processing, and renovating waste materi- als and disposing of them for monetary return. Its operations have grown from small scale solicitations of clothing to be used by its beneficiaries to a nation- al endeavor which engages in direct sales to the pub- lic and utilizes and is dependent upon the services of large numbers of paid employees. Moreover, its an- nual gross income from these operations alone far exceeds any of the dollar volume standards set by the Board for deciding whether to assert jurisdiction. In these circumstances, it cannot reasonably be said that the Employer's wholesale and retail activities are simply ancillary to its charitable purpose and have no appreciable impact upon commerce. Since the Employer has a gross annual volume of business of more than $500,000 and has annual out- of-state purchases of more than $50,000, we find that it satisfies our jurisdictional standards for retail and wholesale enterprises' and that under either of the foregoing rules it would effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction. 2. The Petitioner and the Intervenor are labor or- ganizations claiming to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concern- ing representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Sections 2(6) and (7) and 9(c)(1) of the Act. 4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of ap- proximately 15 truckdrivers employed at the Men's Social Service Center at 536 East 46th Street, New York, New York, excluding dispatchers, any other employees, guards, and supervisors within the mean- ing of the Act. The Employer contends that such a unit is inappropriate for bargaining and that the ap- propriate unit would consist of approximately 480 drivers employed at Social Service Centers through- out its eastern territory. The Employer further con- tends that any appropriate bargaining unit should in- clude employee dispatchers. The record shows that the Employer's eastern ter- ritory is responsible for overseeing the operations of 40 Men's Social Service Centers located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and four of the New England States. Each of the centers has a separate budget and payroll, keeps its own rec- Inc (Idento Tag Operations), 112 NLRB 864 (1955), The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 92 NLRB 801 (1950) 6 The Rhode Island Catholic Orphan Asylum a/k/a St Aloysius Home, 224 NLRB No 70 (1976). 7 Carolina Supplies and Cement Co, 122 NLRB 88 (1958), Siemons Mail- ing Service, 122 NLRB 81 (1958) 407 ords, and operates within its own geographical area. Each is headed by a director who has the authority to direct day-to-day operations, to appoint supervisors, and to hire, fire, and discipline employees. Wage rates and commissions are determined through con- sultations between the individual centers and the ter- ritorial office and vary from location to location. Pol- icies with respect to fringe benefits, such as pensions, hospitalization insurance, vacations, and holidays, are formulated on a national level and are applied, with minor variations, throughout the territory. There are few, if any, transfers between centers on either a temporary or permanent basis. The Social Service Center in Manhattan, New York, has a paid staff of approximately 4 supervisors and 52 employees, including the 15 truckdrivers whom the Petitioner seeks to represent. Ten of the drivers are engaged in collecting merchandise from contributors and delivering it to the warehouse. Others pick up merchandise from collection boxes in their areas, transport merchandise from the ware- house to store, dump unsalable goods, or run a shut- tle service between the Center's various facilities. All drivers work out of the garage and unloading areas which occupy the first floor of the warehouse, under the direct supervision of a truck supervisor who de- termines their routes, assigns them to jobs, checks punctuality and attendance, grants time off, recom- mends wage increases, and metes out discipline. All have beneficiary helpers and play some part in their rehabilitation. None is engaged in work for other de- partments or in the stores. From the foregoing, it is clear that each Social Ser- vice Center functions as an essentially autonomous segment of a "Federation of Local, Regional and National Social Service [Agencies]" and that the Em- ployer has failed to present sufficient countervailing factors to overcome the presumptive appropriateness of a single-location bargaining unit.' It is equally clear that the truckdrivers at the Manhattan center constitute a homogeneous and readily identifiable group, having a separate community of interest from other employees by virtue of differences in their jobs and functions, their separate supervision, and their lack of interchange with other departments .9 Accord- ingly, absent any collective-bargaining history and since no union seeks to represent the employees in any broader unit, we find that a unit of truckdrivers employed at the Employer's Men's Social Service Center in Manhattan, New York, is an appropriate unit for bargaining. 8 Haag Drug Company, Incorporated, 169 NLRB 877 (1968), Sav-On Drugs, Inc, 138 NLRB 1032 (1962) 9 G Fox & Co, Incorporated, 155 NLRB 1080 (1965); J L Brandies & Sons, Inc, 142 NLRB 825 (1963) 408 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The remaining point at issue is whether the dis- patcher has a sufficient community of interest with the truckdrivers to warrant his inclusion in the unit. As to this, the record shows that there are only three dispatchers in all of the eastern territory, that the positions are usually reserved for beneficiaries and that the present Manhattan dispatcher, who works under the supervision of the truck supervisor, was "graduated" from beneficiary to employee status on the day of the hearing. The record is unclear as to the precise nature of his duties. However, he apparently takes telephone calls from individuals who have mer- chandise to contribute, or receives messages of such calls from the Employer's telephone operators, and fills out slips containing the appropriate information and gives them to the truck supervisor. There is no evidence with respect to his location in the ware- house, the frequency of his contacts with the truck- drivers, or his relationship to other clerical employ- ees. We are therefore unable to determine his unit placement. Accordingly, we shall not include him in the unit at this time but shall permit him to vote subject to challenge.10 Accordingly, for all of these reasons, we find the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bar- gaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All truckdrivers employed by the Employer at its Manhattan, New York, Men's Social Service Center, excluding any other employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit- ted from publication.] 10 Cf St John's Associates, Inc, 166 NLRB 287 (1967), enfd 392 F 2d 182 (C A 2, 1968), Allied Stores of New York Inc d/b/a Stern's, Paramus, 150 NLRB 799, 808, fn 49 (1965)