Arkley Lumber Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 28, 1968

169 N.L.R.B. 1098 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

1098 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Arkley Lumber Co. and Teamsters , Warehouse-
men and Auto Truck Drivers , Local No.
684, International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffeurs , Warehousemen and Helpers of
America ' and Lumber and Sawmill Workers,
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of
America , AFL-CIO 2 Cases 20-RC-7510 and
20-RC-7529
February 28, 1968
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTIONS
BY MEMBERS BROWN, JENKINS, AND ZAGORIA
Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
consolidated hearing was held3 in these cases be-
fore Hearing Officer Donald E. Twohey. The
Teamsters Union and the Employer have filed
briefs in support of their 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
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Oficer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af-
firmed.
Upon the entire record in these cases, including
the briefs, the National Labor Relations 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
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. Questions affecting commerce exist concern-
ing the representation of certain employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Teamsters in its petition seeks an election
in a unit comprised of truckdrivers. The Lumber
and Sawmill Workers' petition is for a production
and maintenance unit, excluding the truckdrivers.
The Employer contends that a single overall unit,
including the truckdrivers, is appropriate. Also at
issue is whether three employees, alleged to be
guards, are to be included in any unit or units found
appropriate.
The Employer operates a sawmill in Arcata,
California. Although the Employer has been in
operation for approximately 20 years, it has only a
limited history of collective bargaining. A 1-year
contract was entered into in 1961 at which time
there were only 34 employees and no truckdrivers.
It was not until 1966 that the Employer began to
lease trucks and employ truckdrivers. Prior to that
time, the Employer's finished products were hauled
by railroad or common carrier trucks.
The Employer's truck operation was initiated in
1966 when it began the sale of byproducts. The Em-
ployer now employs approximately 128 employees,
including 7 truckdrivers. Of the seven truckdrivers,
two drive "over the road," hauling finished lumber
to San Jose and Sacremento. These seven have no
fixed schedule. The two over-the-road drivers are
dispatched by Powell, who is sales coordinator. The
over-the-road trucks are loaded by forklifts and
loading crews. As is traditional, the truckdrivers
strap and mark their loads. Four drivers haul
byproducts, sawdust, and chips to local customers.
The round trip distance involved in these hauls is
less than 15 miles. These four drivers work two on
the day shift, and two on the night shift. The
byproduct trucks are loaded by "gravity feed" from
bins and the drivers do not participate in loading un-
less there is an emergency. The remaining driver is
engaged in local haulage to the Eureka docks to ran-
dom customers, and to the Eureka Cross Arm
Company. The round trip to Eureka is about 35
miles. All of the trucks involved are leased by the
Employer. Heavy maintenance on the trucks is
done by the lessor and not the Employer. The
truckdrivers are required to have a Department of
Motor Vehicle Class I liscense. The truck lessor in-
sists that the truckdriver applicants be given a test
run on the leased equipment before they are hired
and the lessor reserved the right to reject the drivers
hired by the employer.
There is no interchange between the truckdrivers
and the other mill employees. In emergency situa-
tions, truckdrivers will work with mill employees to
clean up spilled byproducts which may occur from
faulty operation of the bins, which are used to load
the byproduct on the trucks. The trucks are
equipped with "tachographs" which record the
driver's driving time and speed, to see that he con-
forms to State Department of Motor Vehicles and
Public Utility requirements with respect to speed,
lunch periods, and rest periods. There appears to
have been separate supervision of the truckdrivers
from the beginning of the trucking operation. Lau-
ren Pettit, who is still a driver for the Employer,
was the first "truck boss." He was replaced by
Peter Howley, who came to the Employer from the
lessor of the trucks, and only a few days before the
hearing in this case, Howley was replaced by Du-
baldi, the general superintendent. Dubaldi directly
supervises and dispatches the four byproducts
I Herein called Teamsters
2 Herein called Lumber and Sawmill Workers
3 The captioned cases were consolidated for hearing by order of the
Acting Regional Director dated April 18, 1967.
169 NLRB No. 159
By letter dated November 27, 1967, counsel for the Employer has in-
formed us that the Employer's name has been changed to Molalla-Arcata
The change is duly noted and any notice of election will be modified ac-
cordingly
ARKLEY LUMBER CO.
drivers, and the driver who hauls to the Eureka
dock, and exercises ultimate control over the other
two drivers. Although there has been some turn-
over in drivers, no replacements have come from
the mill.
Other employees of the Employer are grouped
into categories performing four major functions in
and around the sawmill. These functions include the
intial sawing of lumber, trimming and resawing, the
green chain, the planer mill and byproducts, and a
miscellaneous category.4 As to these employees,
they work exclusively in and around the mill
premises. They do not interchange with those em-
ployees driving trucks, and they have separate im-
mediate supervision. All employees, including
truckdrivers, have the same health and welfare plan
and profit-sharing plan. They all have the same
holidays and the same vacation plan.
Contentions of the Parties
The Employer contends that a production and
maintenance unit should include truckdrivers,
because they are part of an integrated process in
that they deliver the Employer's end products to
their final destination and, therefore, that only an
overall production and maintenance unit including
truckdrivers is appropriate.
In support of their respective petitions the
Unions contend that the groups of employees in
question have a separate community of interest and
are more appropriately designated as separate bar-
gaining units.
The Appropriate Unit or Units
We are not here concerned with severance of a
truckdriver group from an overall production and
maintenance unit, but rather with the initial
establishment of bargaining units. In making unit
determinations the Board considers whether the
employees in the units petitioned for constitute
functionally distinct and homogeneous groups so as
' Some of the mill classifications and duties include the barker operator
processes the logs by removing the bark and cutting the logs into the
desired lengths ; the sawyer reduces the logs to specific sizes and dimen-
sions, the off-bearer distributes the pieces coming off the head rig to either
the edger or the pony saw; the edger operates four saws and does selective
cutting to get desired widths; the pony sawyer reduces the material that
comes to him for further manufacture , for cutting specific sizes and
grades ; the trimmer spotter positions the pieces of lumber on link chains
so they are carried through the saws, the trimmer cuts out the bad portions
of the pieces of lumber; the grader grades the lumber into different catego-
nes according to the rule book, the resawyer further reduces and remanu-
factures the pieces of lumber that do not measure up to certain specifica-
tions, the filer files and sharpens saws ; a planer man maintains the
machines and sharpens the knives , the breakdown man receives the
lumber in unit size and puts them through the machine one piece at a time;
the yard expediter tallies the lumber in the yard and keeps the yard in
order; the trim sawyer will retrim for continually upgrading the piece of
lumber ; the trim puller pulls any piece of lumber marked for trim; planer
chain crew and short chain crew remove lumber from the chain and put it
into different lengths and grades , millwrights and helpers are responsible
for the maintenence and construction in the sawmill or on the premises; a
1099
to warrant the establishment of separate bargaining
units.
In view of the absence of any overlapping work
functions, the lack of interchange, and the fact that
truckdrivers have little contact with plant em-
ployees because they spend a substantial part of
their working time away from the plant and are sub-
ject to regulations affecting their hours and working
conditions that plant employees are not, we con-
clude that the truckdrivers comprise a functionally
distinct group of employees whose interests and
conditions of employment differ from those of the
production and maintenance employees.' Contrary
to the Employer, we do not find that the fact that
truckdrivers haul away the Employer's products
makes them such an integral part of the production
process as to foreclose their separate representation
in view of the other factors mentioned.6 In addition,
there is no bargaining history with respect to
truckdrivers and a union now only seeks to
represent the truckdrivers separately. Accordingly,
we conclude that the truckdrivers constitute a
separate appropriate unit.
As to the plant employees, they all perform work
in and around the plant premises, and are engaged
in some aspect of processing logs into lumber. As
previously noted, they do not interchange with
truckdrivers, and they have separate immediate su-
pervision. They have been previously represented
in collective bargaining as a group. It is clear, there-
fore, and we find, that the production and main-
tenance employees, excluding the truckdrivers, also
comprise an appropriate unit for bargaining.
Unit Placement Issue
The Employer has three employees who divide
their time between cleanup work and making the
rounds of the building with a time clock, which they
punch during the rounds. The purpose of making
the rounds is to reduce fire hazards and satisfy a
requirement of the insurance carrier. These em-
ployees have no authority over any other em-
Wagner operator removes the logs from the trucks and designates them to
certain areas of the yard ; the log scaler scales logs coming in for grade and
content; the chipper operator tends the chipper which is a machine that
reduces the waste to a usable size; the carloader and assistant carloader
load railroad cars, and they have loaded trucks, the carrier operators
operate straddle trucks, the cat operator operates a caterpillar tractor; the
lift truck operators stack lumber in the yard and carry it back and forth,
two yard men take care of speciality items-stamping and strapping, an
oiler oils the machines and keeps the drip feed oil filled; the cleanup men
keep the area clean
5 Cf. Claridge Logging Co., 164 NLRB 1068, Boyden Logging, Inc,
164 NLRB 1069.
6 As set forth in Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, Uranium Division, 162
NLRB 387, the Board now considers the integrated aspects of an em-
ployer's operations as but one relevant factor in determining the ap-
propriateness or inappropriateness of a proposed unit While Mallinckrodt
primarily concerned severance of unit of units from an existing unit, it did
remove a long-standing bar against finding more than a single overall unit
appropriate in the lumber industry.
1100 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ployees. They are not armed nor are they depu-
tized. It takes approximately 20 to 25 minutes for
each individual to make his round. The remainder
of the time is spent doing cleanup work in the mill.
The Employer contends that these employees
should be included in the unit. The Petitioner, in
20-RC-7529, contends these employees are guards
and should be excluded from the unit. On the
foregoing facts, we find, contrary to the Petitioner,
that these cleanup employees essentially perform
janitorial-like maintenance service and are not
guards . We shall, therefore, include them in the
production and maintenance unit.7
Accordingly , we shall direct separate elections,
as sought by the Petitioners , in the following units
at the Employer 's Arcata , California , operation,
which we find to be appropriate.
A. All truckdrivers, excluding all other em-
ployees , guards , and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
B. All production and maintenance employees,
including the cleanup employees , but excluding all
truckdrivers , office clerical employees , guards, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Elections" omitted from publica-
tion.]
See Bear River Lumber Co., Inc., 150 NLRB 1295, 1297.
e Election eligibility lists, containing the names and addresses of all the
eligible voters , must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director
for Region 20 within 7 days of this Decision and Direction of Elections.
The Regional Director shall make the lists available to all parties to the
elections . No extension of time to file these lists shall be granted by the
Regional Director except in extraordinary. circumstances . Failure to
comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the elec-
tions whenever proper objections are filed. Excelsior Underwear Inc., 156
NLRB 1236.