Alma Plastics Company

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 24, 1982

265 N.L.R.B. 479 (N.L.R.B. 1982)

ALMA PLASTICS COMPANY
Alma Plastics Company and Oil, Chemical and
Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-
CIO, Petitioner. Case 25-RC-7860
November 24, 1982
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN VAN DE WATER AND
MEMBERS JENKINS AND HUNTER
On October 9, 1981, the Regional Director for
Region 25 issued a Decision and Direction of Elec-
tion in the above-entitled proceeding' in which he
found appropriate the Petitioner's requested unit of
approximately 47 employees employed at the Em-
ployer's Rotocast plant, in Edinburgh, Indiana, re-
jecting the Employer's contention that the unit
must be broadened to include employees at its
nearby Amos plant and related warehouse and as-
sembly facilities. 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 Regional Director's decision on the grounds,
inter alia, that in reaching his unit determination
hemade erroneous findings of fact and departed
from officially reported precedent. By telegraphic
order dated November 5, 1981, the National Labor
Relations Board granted the request for review.
Pursuant to the Board's Rules and Regulations,
the election was held on November 6 in the unit
found appropriate by the Regional Director and
the ballots were impounded pending decision on
review.
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 considered the entire record in
this case with respect to the issues under review
and makes the following findings:
The Employer is engaged in the manufacture,
sale, and distribution of plastic products and oper-
ates 10 plants in various States, including the 2
Edinburgh plants. There is no collective-bargaining
history at the plants here involved.
The Amos plant facilities comprise a main pro-
duction building (which houses the administrative
offices), a warehouse building located across the
street therefrom, and an assembly building located
about eight blocks distant. A total of 472 employ-
ees work at these three facilities, 5 at the ware-
house, 24 at the assembly building, and the rest at
the main plant facility. The Rotocast plant employs
47 employees in a building located about 800 feet
'United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers of America is
the Intervenor in this proceeding.
265 NLRB No. 65
from the Amos plant. Prior to January 1978, the
Rotocast operation was considered a department of
the Alma Plastics Company at the Amos plant and
for purposes of job bidding the Rotocast plant is
still treated as a department.
The two plants are engaged in the molding and
finishing of plastic compounds, utilizing different
processes. The Amos plant uses the injection mold-
ing process, and the Rotocast plant a rotational
molding process. The two plants obtain some of
their raw materials from the same intracorporate
sources and make some sales to common custom-
ers. However, each also purchases raw materials
and supplies independently. All sales are made
through the Employer's sales department. While
each plant is physically separate and headed by its
own plant manager, who reports directly to a cor-
porate vice president at the Employer's Alma,
Michigan, headquarters, there is a common person-
nel policy for the two plants which is determined
jointly, on a "consensus" basis, by a three-member
committee consisting of the two plant managers
and the personnel manager at the Amos plant.
These personnel policies are set forth in an employ-
ee handbook, issued to and applied to the employ-
ees of both plants. No deviations from these poli-
cies are permitted and any changes in policy are
the result of action taken by this three-member
committee. Hiring for both plants is accomplished
exclusively by the personnel manager at the Amos
plant. The plant managers, subject to the Employ-
er's internal grievance procedures, have independ-
ent authority to decide day-to-day personnel mat-
ters, including discipline, discharge, layoff, the
granting of leaves of absence, and the scheduling of
overtime and vacations. In case of layoff, the plant
manager makes the decision as to the number and
identity of the classifications to be eliminated but,
because of the Employer's multiplant seniority
policy, the identity of specific employees to be laid
off is the function of the personnel department at
the Amos plant.
In addition to centralized administration and
common personnel policy, there is some functional
integration of operations. For example, employees
from the Amos plant perform carpentry work for
the Rotocast plant; skilled Amos employees oper-
ate and perform maintenance work on complex Ro-
tocast machinery; other Amos employees produce
component parts and repair and alter molds and
occasionally build prototype molds for the Roto-
cast plant. The Amos plant also performs the data
processing, administers the affirmative action plans,
and maintains records for retirement benefits and
apprentice programs for both plants. Many of the
job classifications at the two plants are the same or
479
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
similar, with similarly classified employees receiv-
ing uniform wages, and all employees receive the
same fringe benefits, according to seniority. Work-
ing conditions are generally the same and a
common safety and apprentice program applies at
both plants. Layoffs, bumping, and recalls are
based on citywide seniority. In job bidding, em-
ployees in the affected department are given first
priority in bidding in their own department or
plant for a 24-hour period, after which period bid-
ding rights are available to employees of both
plants.
The record specifically sets forth 25 instances of
employee transfers during the period from March
1, 1980, to March 31, 1981, 17 of which resulted
from job bidding and 8 from layoffs, bumping, and
recall situations. While the record does not indicate
the number of temporary transfers, it is evident
from the above-noted facts that Amos plant em-
ployees operate or perform maintenance work on
complex Rotocast machinery, make repairs and al-
terations on Rotocast molds, and perform the car-
pentry work at the Rotocast plant, and that there
are temporary interchange and frequent contact
among employees at both plants.
Although the Rotocast facility is treated as a
separate plant because it utilizes a distinct produc-
tion process and has its own plant manager, and
while the Petitioner herein has requested a unit
limited to the Rotocast employees, we conclude,
contrary to the Regional Director, that the facts
herein rebut the presumption that such requested
single-plant unit is appropriate. First, as noted, the
two plants are but 800 feet apart, both are engaged
in the molding and finishing of plastic com-
pounds-albeit by different processes, and both uti-
lize production employees having similar skills. In
addition, there is centralized personnel administra-
tion for both plants; the supply of certain repair,
maintenance, and other services to the Rotocast
plant by Amos plant employees; and applications of
citywide seniority in the case of layoffs. Thus, not-
withstanding the fact that the Rotocast plant man-
ager implements the centralized labor relations
policy on a day-to-day basis with respect to many
matters and while the interchange of production
employees appears to result primarily from the
citywide layoff and recall system, we nonetheless
view the Rotocast plant as a specialized production
department of the Amos plant, and conclude that
its employee complement does not enjoy a commu-
nity of interest sufficiently distinct from the Amos
plant production and maintenance employees to
warrant our finding appropriate the petitioned-for
unit.
Accordingly, and based on the above and the
record as a whole, we find the requested unit of
Rotocast employees to be inappropriate. 2 As the
citywide production and maintenance employee
complement is approximately 10 times larger than
the petitioned-for unit and the Petitioner has not in-
dicated a desire to proceed to an election in a
broader unit, we shall dismiss the petition herein.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
MEMBER JENKINS, dissenting:
Section 9(b) of the Act directs the Board to
"decide in each case whether, in order to assure to
employees the fullest freedom in exercising the
rights guaranteed by this Act," the unit appropriate
for collective bargaining shall be the employer
unit, craft unit, plant unit, or a subdivision thereof.
The majority takes a long step backward from the
goal of assuring employees that freedom.
I had thought one of the basic principles of unit
determination was that "the party seeking to over-
come the presumptive appropriateness of a single-
plant unit must be able to show that the day-to-day
interests of the employees at the location sought
have merged with those of the employees at the
other locations." Penn Color, Inc., 249 NLRB 1117,
1119 (1980). This principle and its corollary that
substantial authority vested in the manager of the
sought single plant to handle the day-to-day super-
vision of the employees is "more significant in de-
termining the appropriateness of the unit sought
than centralized recordkeeping or product integra-
tion" (Penn Color, Inc., supra) are totally obscured
by the majority's decision. Thus, the majority does
not dispute the Regional Director's finding that the
plant manager of the sought Rotocast plant exer-
cises final authority over virtually all decisions af-
fecting the employees once they are hired. In lieu
of the factors that would have been decisive until
today, the majority relies on such factors as the
· See The Kendall Company, 184 NLRB 847 (1970); Kent Plastics Corp,
183 NLRB 612 (1970); and The Kendall Company, 181 NLRB 1130
(1970). See Caron International Inc., 222 NLRB 508 (1976).
Contrary to our disenting colleague, the facts of the case herein show
more than just centralized administration. Thus, as noted above, person-
nel policy is formulated by a triumvirate of the two plant managers--
who carry out this same policy on a day-to-day basis-and the personnel
manager-who is exclusively responsible for hiring employees at both
plants. Finally, seniority for purposes of layoff and recall are Employer-
wide, and employees laid off from one plant may be recalled to the other.
We have not, therefore, reached conclusions without basis in fact, nor
have we "ignored a long [line] of contrary precedent." We have merely
reviewed the facts herein and found, based on those facts, that the pre-
sumption favoring a· ingle-plant unit has been rebutted.
480
ALMA PLASTICS COMPANY
similarity of products manufactured,3 centralized
personnel administration, common seniority, and
possession of similar skills by some employees at
both plants. To the extent that such factors are
made decisive, the presumptive appropriateness of
a single-plant unit is rendered meaningless. The ma-
jority relies also on the relatively short distance be-
tween the plants. But relative distance can be only
a secondary indication with respect to separate
community of interest, and has no significance
unless it reflects the primary factors, such as the
degree of autonomy possessed by the plant man-
ager. The other set of factors on which the major-
ity purports to rely is the employee interplant
transfers and the so-called "temporary interchange
and frequent contact among employees at both
plants." What all this amounts to, however, is that
some employees have transferred permanently from
one plant to the other at their own request and that
certain skilled employees from the Amos plant per-
form their specialized work, such as carpentry and
the operation, maintenance, and repair of complex
I Similarity of the products manufactured has never been, in itself, a
relevant factor in unit determinations. Products integration, a factor of
secondary importance (Penn Color. Inc.. supra The Black and Decker
Manufacturing Company, 147 NLRB 825, 828 (1964)), is not present here.
Its absence is only one of the facts that distinguish this case from those
cited by the majority.
machinery, at the Rotocast plant. This does not
amount to significant interchange. The transfer of
employees for their own convenience or benefit is
not entitled to much weight. Penn Color, Inc.,
supra. The temporary assignment of skilled Amos
plant employees to perform work at the Rotocast
plant does nothing to affect the separate communi-
ty of interest of the Rotocast plant employees, who
spend all of their time in their own plant and have
minimal contact with the vast majority of the
Amos plant employees.
The majority relies, ultimately and by way of ra-
tionale, on its finding that the Rotocast plant is a
"specialized production department of the Amos
plant," this characterization expressly overriding all
the factors favoring the separate appropriateness of
the single-plant unit. However, the characterization
is merely conclusory and is emblematic of the ma-
jority's willingness, ignoring a long history of con-
trary precedent, to make centralized administration
the keystone to rebutting the presumption of sepa-
rate appropriateness. Cf. Haag Drug Company, In-
corporated, 169 NLRB 877, 878 (1968). Since that is
the only factor of any importance that argues for a
merger of the Rotocast plant employees' day-to-
day interests, the Regional Director was correct in
finding that the presumption has not been rebutted.
481